Blacksmithing!!!

[archzai]

wait so smithing isn't profitable?

[Syndicate Corp]

Smithing just like all other crafts are profitable, you just have to do your homework on whats sells, and don't sell well. Get use to breaking even alot on buying and selling, most importantly learn to harverst or get your own materials instead of always buying from AH.

Alot of ppl would say its wise to invest alot capitol into a craft, but when I started smithing just over 3 weeks ago (just got the game 4 weeks ago) I started wih just selling some items I got from drops which probably totaled maybe 5k combined. From that point I just got my own materials, crafted, sold etc since then and never had to worry about being broke, at least not for long pending on waiting for a few things to sell.

I'm lvl 30 smith right now, lastly do a second craft to help with the income, I use goldsmith which is 22 right now.

Hope my 2 cents help encourage.

[DrMrLordX]

Lizard gear, selling like wildfire? Depends.

On Midgardsormr, for example, lizard trousers sold best in Bastok(I think) at about 2k each, until the market crashed. They take two lizard skins and leather trousers, which in my situation, would cost me about . . . oh . . . 1650 gil altogether to acquire, less if I farm the skins myself(booooring).

350 gil ain't bad, but it's not going to send you laughing all the way to the bank, and the market has crashed on them so that you can't get more than 1300 gil per trousers anymore. Aww, shucks.

As far as smithing is concerned, if I didn't mention it thoroughly enough in my guide, you can start making some cash blacksmithing at skill 10-11 or so. Scale mail suits sell sorta well, depending on your server, and depending on how smart you are about acquiring the necessary components. Iron ingots sell rather nicely too, so you can start making some gil once you can crank those out, IF you can find ore at the right price. Is it big money? No. But it's money.

Later on you start being able to make other things that sell fairly well, such as iron scale pieces, steel scale pieces, darksteel ingots, etc. Those have been some of my biggest sellers, if you can call them that. Yes, by 50, you can make darksteel ingots, and they will sell for a profit, even on an "economic hell" server like Midgardsormr. Not a huge profit, but a profit. And they sell frequently, in stacks and as individuals. If you do start selling darksteel, please do your part on your server to keep prices as high as possible. Thank you.

There are also 2948543903845 other smiths all trying to sell the same damn thing, in my experience, so if you aren't smart about timing and product placement, you'll just wind up selling at below the current AH value(and threatening to lower the value by doing so) or not selling at all.

I was searching for a "holy grail" item, one I could make and then sell to an NPC for more than the cost of materials, but the closest thus far has been the nodowa, and I'm still working on getting skill from those things. Needless to say, the nodawa is not "it". I can maybe make 100 gil per nodowa selling them to the Tenshodo in Jeuno, and they buy in limited quantities. Yippeee. I dont' even bother taking them there anymore.

The only thing I can tell you is that on my server, once I find something I can sell for good money, all the other smiths find out in about a day's time, and they flood the market. Jerks. They, along with dimwitted dark knights I suspect, brought mythril scythes down from 45k to 25k in about two to three weeks. GRAH.

I now dedicate much of my time either crafting or finding a way to run up the prices on goods when the AH in Jeuno empties out on a particular item, thereby giving me sole control of the market for a short time.

As far as other crafts are concerned, I have 37 woodworking, uh, 12 leathercrafting . . . and that's it. I need to get about 15-20 clothcrafting for the sam armor pieces(other than nodowa) sometime, and I need to raise my leatherworking so I can make jindachi. I need about 36-41 goldsmithing to make my own mythril. And I'll probably need bonecrafting someday. If I ever want to make bast parchment or that stupid katana that uses cermet, I'll need alchemy too . . . oy.

If I were you, I'd look into alchemy, cooking, fishing, and goldsmithing(not necessairly in that order) for money makers. Cooking and Fishing are the easiest to get into, but goldsmithing and alchemy will make you a ton of money if you work at em. Blacksmithing has the fault of producing a lot of stuff that enters the economy and never leaves unless some lazy PC sells stuff to an NPC for a huge loss. This doesn't happen very often. Chances are that armor and weaponry you sell on the AH will circulate through the AH many more times before it settles down somewhere. There may be some server somewhere on which you can sell 90-100% of the fruits of your blacksmithing labors for profit, maybe even a large profit, but I ain't on that server, so who knows?
(note: Midgardsormr is the home of the "8k gil death scythe". Yes, that's right! The price on the level 73 scythe in Jeuno was 8k gil! At least it's up to 11 now, I think. Oh joy of joys. Too bad they take around 23k just to make one.)

edit: oh, one last thing. If you gather your own raw materials, be very very careful about how quickly you transform them into armor, weapons, etc for sale on the open market. Look at prices carefully and see what would make you more money:

1). selling the item you intend to make or

2). selling the raw materials without processing them

You can safely sell raw materials, particularly frequently-used ones like iron ore, without risking market depression, and you can usually sell these faster than you can finished goods(at least in my experience). Sometimes the finished product will sell for more gil than the raw materials, sometimes LESS. Iron sheets are a hot seller on Midgardsormr right now, for example, but Altana help anyone who tries selling, oh, I don't know, baghnaks, iron swords, longswords, scimitars, iron finger gauntlets, etc on Midgardsormr.

I'd be selling iron sheets myself if I weren't busy using them for my own twisted purposes.

[Lerican]

A lil help plz?

I'm currently stuck in raising my blacksmith skill. I'm at 22.0 Blacksmithing and I had been skilling off Iron Sheets and was under the impression that they'd get me to 26 Blacksmithing, but I've just synthed 30 Iron Sheets with no skill up.

The only other two obvious things I can think of to skill up on are Iron Scales or Iron Chain, but neither the A crafter nor the B crafter give me the recipe anymore. Iron Scales on my server sell at ~8k loss per stack and Iron Chain breaks even, but they sell ~1 stack per every 4-8 days in Bastok =(.

I've been getting recipes for Iron Fng. Gauntlets, lvl 37 def 9 and was wondering if anyone had experience making Iron Scale Amr and whether it was worth it. On my server, very few Iron Scale Amr items have sold in Bastok (haven't managed to get to Jeuno to check prices yet), although I 'do' see people wearing it. I'd try Chainmail except my leatherworking's still stuck at 5 =(.

Any advice would be appreciated ^_^

-Lerican

[Nemes]

Lerican, I'm currently a lvl25 Blacksmith, and I was lvl22 not too long ago.

Yes, Iron Sheet stop raising skills at lvl22. Just Make Iron Scales. I'm lvl25 now, and I don't know yet if I can get to lvl26 with those. I'll try, though if someone has the answer... =)

[Lerican]

I got something ^^

I managed to start skilling up on Iron Chains ^_^. I will try Iron Scales, even though I can't get the recipe from the B Crafter.~~

THANKS!

-Lerican

[Taoist]

this lightning crystal thing is a phenomenon...

is there some GUIDE to the recipes?

i heard of not only gob helms being used but also orc masks, and goblin armors... interesting.

[Nemes]

Lerican, Iron Sheets + Wind Crystal = Iron Scales.

That goes for ANY types.(Bronze Sheet + Wind Crystal = Bronze Scales)


And yes, breaking things up is something a lot of ppl don'T use and it's VERY handy.

I am pretty sure that every piece of equipment is breakable(Lightning+Sclae Greave = 3x Sheep Leather/Bronze Ingot)
The problem with Breaking tihngs is the huge failure ratio...

And also, every Beast-made item is breakable(except the "Fetich" ones).

[Spiritsaint]

Wow! polly one of the most useful forums threads ever! thnx a million!
umm. but i saw something pretty wierd. does it have to do with blacksmithing?
Lightning Crystals -> Leatherbelt + ??? = Steel Ingot?


is there such a recipe?

[DrMrLordX]

Not sure about that synth, spiritsaint. It sounds . . . odd.

Taoist, as far as lightning crystal "breakdown" synths are concerned, I don't know all that much about them, other than the fact that, apparently, the different components of an item are available as results in the form of various HQ results.

For example, using a lightning crystal on a willow fishing rod(I think?) gave me willow lumber on a normal result, and something like linen thread on a HQ. This is all woodworking-based here, mind you. I haven't done much work with lightning crystals on blacksmithing items, though I can tell you the normal result on a kunai is lizard skin, and on a light axe is 2 bronze ingots.

There are other items like quadav helmets, goblin masks, goblin armor, etc that are not related to blacksmithing, and have not been mentioned in this thread as result. Beast-made stuff follows special rules when you break it down, usually allowing multiple different results depending on whether or not you get a HQ, and which HQ you get.

[Taoist]

hmm.. i see

i'll search around for something close to recipes for LIGHTNING formulas.

[Spiritsaint]

woohoo!
this sounds interesting. could u or someone post something on Beastmen items and their like?
oh yea, i didnt really understand what u mean by...

"Beast-made stuff follows special rules when you break it down, usually allowing three different results depending on whether or not you get a HQ, and which HQ you get."

[Lerican]

Beastmen synths

These are the beastmen synths I know of at the moment & use:

Wind+Goblin Mask = Sheep Leatherx1 (Leatherworking)
Lightning+Goblin Helm = Bronze/Iron/Steel Ingotx1 (Blacksmithing)
Wind+Yagudo Necklace = Grass Threadx3 (Clothworking)

Others which I know/have heard of but dont use or know the result (may not be correct):

Lightning+Quadav Backplate = Iron? Darksteel? ingot
Lightning+Goblin Mail = Ingots of some sort
Wind+Goblin Armor = Cotton Thread

So far when I use wind to cut beastmen stuff, I rarely fail and it seems to be a regular synth. However, when I try to break beastmen stuff/crafted items with lightning, the result is erratic and the failure rate seems independent of your skill level. I DO know that breaking a certain item is related to a skill level/range because I have gotten skill increases on some of these synths and was not able to do others until I increased my crafting skill.

Basically, breaking items down in general (including non-Beastmen items) has a higher failure rate than other synths and the result is not static. If you do a Lightning+Goblin Helm synth, if you succeed, you will often get an Iron Ingot, but sometimes you will get a Bronze or Steel Ingot. If you do a Lightning+Scale Mail synth, you may get one or more items used in making Scale Mail. The varying results you get when doing lightning synths (non-thread synth varieties) are the difference between which items you get. A Steel and Iron Ingot are HQ results from Gobbie Helm and well, Bronze Ingots just suck.

A lot of AH prices are based off what you can get from breaking down Beastmen items into raw materials (thus why beastmen items sell quickly, at least on Kujata).

As for breaking down crafted items, it is BEST to break down an item which has few ingredients, best if only one, and costs less than buying the raw material itself. You cannot break down every crafted item, but most equipment you can. I haven't found one for Blacksmithing yet since most of our recipes require a lot of ingredients so breaking them down doesn't always yield a profit =(.

Hope that helped~~
(If someone finds a mistake, please correct ;c))

-Lerican

[Painkiller]

Beast-made stuff...

Alchemy:
Lightning+Goblin Mask = Glass Fiberx2(HQ1=4/HQ2=6/HQ3=8)

[ZeroRadius]

DrMrLordX,

If you could make a cleaner list of everything that you have found for this and other crafts, please do so. I shall make it a sticky for all to see. Great guide and keep it up.

P.S

I shall PM you about this.