Leveling Cost vs. Profitablilty

[ChaosX]

I'm sorry if this is a done to death noob questions, but I find ppl saying left and right that "Lvl ur craft to 90+ and you make alot of money." And for the longest time I believed that was true, until recently.

I was planning on going into bonecrafting since it sounds pretty nifty >_>, so before I jumped into something prematurely (noticing most guilds were writen a good while ago), I decided to get some in game advice from a lvl 100 bonecrafter. What he told me kinda went along with the craft theory and some of it didnt. He told me that even if I were to get to 100 bonecraft there is a crazy amount of competition and work that has to be done to earn the gil. I assume is easier than farmings because the population of lvl 100 crafters of that type is less than the population of farmers anywhere. But he told me that other than making +1 scorp harnesses and filling out customer orders there isn't that much money in bonecrafting I'm sure he was being modest about it a tad, but that got me into wondering, which crafts generate better amounts of gil? I'm not saying that nearly 10mil profit on making 1 scorp harness +1 isn't enough for me, its just that the claw is worth 5.8mil on my server (which would take me ages to get after spending nearly 10mil on the craft lvling), and to suffer a lose of that would be insane.

I've been told that bonecrafting can cost between 8-12 mil to get to 100 depending on how much u farm for ur own materials, while other crafts can easily break the 20mil mark when lvling.

Anyways, what I'm recommending from you experienced crafters out there (To the best of your knowledge), is a comparison of which craft is best, in comparrision of how much it takes to lvl and how much it generates at 90-100.

I know every craft can make mega gil at lvl 100, but I also know that some crafts have more options in making that mega gil. (I love the idea of bonecraft but using every minute to fill out customer orders or risking near 6mil for +1 harness is a bit restricted ; ; )

I'm only asking this because, again, most money making guilds and such were writen a while ago and with inflattion doing its magic, it makes the decision all the harder. Thanks in advance for any insight ^^.

-Chaos

[Macht]

Well lot of crafts have nice little niches to were you can get a decent start, they are a bit slower since you have to wait for specific days for it to work well however for making money you have synths as well as desynths to do it. So you can sustain yourself in a few crafts by using both effectively and just waiting for the items to sell in AH.

[Icemage]

Assuming that this latest update hasn't changed much, order of profitability for the guilds on Midgardsormr at 100 is something like this:

Goldsmithing > Smithing > Clothcraft > Leathercraft > Woodworking > Bonecraft > Cooking > Fishing

This stands in direct relation to how relatively expensive each craft is to level up (and thus how many crafters are at level 100 to compete).

Of course, the distribution of crafters may be different on other servers, so if you really want an answer to your question, go ask LS mates, friends, and other high level players how many 100+ crafters they know for each guild. That will give you an idea about how much competition there will be for each guild.


Icemage

[ChaosX]

Thanx for the tips =). And about the amount of crafters at 100, it seems that gold does indeed have the fewest, I checked out theorder's website on the lvl 100 crafters of bahamut and even though im sure those numbers have a degree of error there only seems to be 10-20 lvl 100 ppl of each craft, and most of them seem to be JP, so the market doesn't seem too crowded (only about 10-12 GC on their list).

I also heard that gold craft can cost 5mil for 3-4 lvls at some point (kinda insane Oo), but I'm not afraid of the cost or commitment of the craft, so I think I might change my mind and spend the money I've saved into goldcraft.

I'm very noob when it comes to crafting, I just found recently that u can only go 60+ in 1 craft and fishing

I guess since im going into this in the most wallet devistating way possible, that I should lvl up thf xD.

[Jei]

After 60, you have 40 more points you can train in any skill you like. So, you can be 100 in 1 skill and all others 60, or have 2 skills 80 etc it's up to you.

If you want to go all the way to 100 in goldsmith (or any skill at all) you'll be much better off levelling all other crafts to 30 at least too. There are materials that are much cheaper to make with different skills, and some really nice higher-tie recipes that require multiple skills.

Cooking is indeed the eaiest craft to go. While you won't make 10mil gil in 1 synth like smith/gold, people do eat food everyday in every single PT out there. There's a steady income to be made especially if you fish your own fish. Compare to weapon/armor craft, cooking is a lot more relaxing.

[Gman]

Originally posted by Icemage

Goldsmithing > Smithing > Clothcraft > Leathercraft > Woodworking > Bonecraft > Cooking > Fishing

Where does Alchemy fit in here? I assume it's somewhere near the bottom, maybe more profitable than cooking due to Hakutaku clusters? Or is cooking more profitable @100?

[Jei]

I'm not a high level alchemy yet, so far all I know is that lower alchemy items sell like hot cakes (silent oil, prism powder, bee wax for example) but unless you HQ them you'll only break even for material costs and actually losing profit if you calculate crystal price. I have a 97 alchemy friend and he makes money mainly by desynthing for glass fibers, HQ bee wax and ninja tools....

[Macht]

Barely past the 60s in alchemy and so far it seems slightly more profitable then cooking. I make a lot more with other synths then just doing prism powder and ninjitsu items, HQ beeswax and Animal Glue are alright spend about 10k if you buy all the ingredients and make back 20k.

There are other items though were you can spend between 5k - 30k getting the ingredients and make back 60k-86K. I haven't really seen a lot of synths were you can make over 1mil in a single item in Alchemy though.

[biglos]

i tend to not look for big ticket items to synth but things that will sell fast. ive just about given up fishing and taken up crafting items that sell fast over night for bigger profit overall. if u check what is selling fast in the ah and supply it, you will be amazed at how much profit u can make up in volume.