Blacksmithing!!!

[Calladen]

I wanted your opinion on a skill-up path...

I'm really not too keen on the idea turning my very expensive Iron Sheets (which I use to make a profit) into not so expensive Iron Scales. I may be mistaken - but I don't think these sell very well.

I want to do Gladius/Gladiator til 28. Iron Ingot x2, Ram Horn x1 - Fire Crystal. The problem is I will barely break even and it will be VERY slow going. I'll have to hunt for my own horns and buy Iron Ore very cheap.

I'm trying to break even here. So do you have any expierience with this - or is there some other path you might reccomend.

The sword sells decently on Lakshimi (5-7k) and I think a few sell every day. I thought about Longswords too...they sell better but they also use more expensive materials.

Anyway - give me some ideas for my 23-30 skill up. ^^

[Nemes]

DrMrLordX, I'm currently diving into the Darksteel business *shrugs* and I intend to do Darksteel Ingots 'till level 52, and then Sheets 'till 55.

I've looked in Bastok, and there has been 3 stacks of Darksteel Sheets that have sold forever.

I have to ask: where did you sell them? Or where can I sell them? (note that I'm also from Midgard too

[DrMrLordX]

Lilchunsanim, I'm not making any remarks about smithing after 73 until I've done it myself. I should be able to start smithing again soon, I hope. Leather 60 first, then . . .

Calladen, I avoided gladii because they require bonecrafting, and I did not have sufficient bonecrafting skill at the time to make them. You can try them if you like. You will flood the market, though, and those sale prices of 5-7k per sword WILL drop.

Iron scales aren't worth much, yes, but you won't take much of a loss if you get all your ingots from cheap ore or goblin gear(or other sources).

26-30 blacksmithing is messy. I "got lucky" by making some iron chains until 29 and then selling them all at a fair price. I mostly broke even. At 29, I switched to steel sheets, and that was great back then, but nowadays, steel sheets are very expensive to make.

Nemes, darksteel sheets are best sold in Jeuno. Sales on them are sporadic, but they do sell.

[tfung]

I got my smithing up to 81 yesterday... I must say there is no cheap way to get from 73 to 81... I've been making a bunch of stuff like darksteel scynths, zweihanders, and random darksteel armors... On Odin, all these items pretty much sell at a loss on AH, and even worse to NPCs... sometimes for items like zweihanders, they sell at break even, which isn't too bad... But basically it's impossible to powerlvl anymore... have to keep everything in balance and not oversaturate the market with too much of 1 item. Darksteel nodowas are alright to lvl up on after 78... If you buy the sheets or ingots from AH, you're looking at about a 6k loss per synth if you sell to tenshodo. But if you get DS from quadav backplates, you can actually make a small profit... Then again, DS from quadav backplates will give you a profit for anything you synth.

So far, it's been costing me roughly 300k per lvl... from just the pure loss selling to AH or npc, as well as synths exploding and losing items... I can see it getting worse from here on...

[Drynavere]

Question....I'm nly 16 right now, but am farming like mad to get my smithing up high enough to do darksteel ingots. when you said on the first page that they sold to an NPC for 12k or so....was that 12k profit, or just 12k in general.

if it was just 12k that they sold for, how much profit did u make?...

[Beowulfe]

Originally posted by DrMrLordX


I severly doubt that higher levels of elemental aura will improve moghancements, but hey, you never know.

FYI, desynth is a pretty worthless moghancement. Lightning moghancement is superior. I didn't believe it at first, but now . . .

hm.. but the Lightning moghancement just says that it will reduce the chances of losing materials if ur synth failed.. IMO desynth moghancement is better XD

[Dragonhope]

Originally posted by Drynavere
Question....I'm nly 16 right now, but am farming like mad to get my smithing up high enough to do darksteel ingots. when you said on the first page that they sold to an NPC for 12k or so....was that 12k profit, or just 12k in general.

if it was just 12k that they sold for, how much profit did u make?...

If you mean about the Darksteel picks, it's 12k in general. Not sure if everyone else has noticed this already or not, but prices can still vary depending on which country you sell in depending on your race. For example, an Elvaan will get the most out of selling things in San d'Oria. A taru, would do so in Windurst.

Either way, most of X's profits I think came from selling the Iron/Steel ingot stacks at first (since he was the only one able to make them other then JP players at the time). So by the time some of us get to the stage to make Darksteel Ingots/sheets, we might not be able to make profit if even half the people that's reading this guide decided to undercut a bit.

[Dragonhope]

Originally posted by Beowulfe



hm.. but the Lightning moghancement just says that it will reduce the chances of losing materials if ur synth failed.. IMO desynth moghancement is better XD

Think about it this way. With the Lightning Moghancement, you have the same chance of a successful desynth as without it. But should you fail (which is still quite common), there's a less chance you lose the item. But with the Desynth moghancement, you have a higher chance for success, but should you fail, you have a high chance of losing the item as well.

What i'm trying to say is, if you don't lose the item on a failure, you have another chance at trying to desynth it again for a success. And since the success rates for desynthing is low already, unless you have 100 in smithing, your success rate even with the Desynth moghancement should be rather low.

That's how I understand it, but i'll let X decide if that's right or not.

[KuroiOokami]

Hey X.. nice guide, but Im having the same problem with going from 30-50 as tfung had. In other words, steel ingots are 50k a stack on my server, however steel sheets are 43k a stack and steel scales (which would be the final product after I finish synthing them) sell for only 30k a stack, and not very often in jeuno. Im guessing Ill need at least 7-8 stacks to go from 30-36, and then maybe 5-6 for 36-40.

That`s quite a huge loss, and although I would love to farm gobs for mails/helms, it seems that evil SE has dramatically lowered the drop rate of these items. I killed over 50 gobs today in kazham with thf sub, and not a single drop. They sell for 1k each minimum in all the ah`s, and I could easily buy 4-5 of them before i successfully get a steel ingot from them. Any tips for this kind of a situation?

[DrMrLordX]

Kuroi, the steel situation is rather nasty, but it was inevitable. You can farm goblin gear as you mentioned. I think the best place to do that is Zi'Tah, though I don't have a job high enough to farm Zi'Tah goblins yet.

Buying goblin helms/mail from the AH is no longer viable on most servers. I don't touch the stuff anymore.

My only other suggestions/comment is to tell you what most experienced goldsmiths tell newbie goldsmiths(if they tell them anything, that is): Bite the bullet and take the loss. If you can actually sell your steel scales at 30k per stack, sell em. It sure beats having to vendor the darn things. Alternatively, save a stack or three for steel greaves that you'll be doing from skill 55-56.

Blacksmithing was already rather complicated before, but now it's getting very expensive, even at low skill levels, due to shifts in demand.

Beowulfe, lightning moghancement and desynth are hard to compare without a lot of data to show the effectiveness of one vs the other. A shell-mate of mine(Kalgareth, actually) ran a lot of desynth tests and found that lightning moghancement was superior when there was an unlimited, or nearly unlimited, supply of crystals and a finite supply of components to be desynthed. If you have 10 quadav backplates, for example, and access to plenty of crystals, your overall results from the backplates will be better with lightning moghancement once you've finally consumed all the backplates. You'll wind up using more crystals as compared to the number of crystals you'd use with desynth moghancement.

Desynth is more desirable if you have a finite number of crystals and an unlimited, or nearly unlimited, supply of components available for desynth. If you take 4 stacks of lightning crystals out to Zi'Tah to farm goblin gear, you'll get the best results with desynth moghancemnet, but only because you are limited in your supply of crystals. You'll lose more mail/helms with desynth moghancement per synth, forcing you to farm more to compensate.

In most situations, crystals will be a). more plentiful and b). cheaper than the material you seek to desynth. Lightning moghancement is superior in those situations. If you do all your desynths in the field and are farming more components than you could feasibly store in your inventory, you may like desynth moghancement better.

Drynavere, it's darksteel picks that sell to NPCs for 12k each, not darksteel ingots. Profit varied based on the cost of materials. It wasn't static. Sometimes I took a loss if I bought stacks of ingots for 120k and used guild elm.

[Dragonhope]

Have you come across any recipes that use Darksteel Chains? If you have and you can gain skill on them, let me know. But I do have a question about an Alternative around skill level 55. Wouldn't making Gauntlets from 55-57 be cheaper then making Steel Greaves? Also since there's a rise in rich Ninjas, would it be more profitable to make Manji Shurikens from 57-65? (I'm only taking it to 60 but just wondering).

[DrMrLordX]

Gauntlets are generally more expensive to make than steel greaves and sell to the guild for less. Steel scales have a typical market value of 2500 each(30k per stack). Iron sheets vary in value, but generally go for about 2700 or more as individuals. Steel greaves sell back to the San d'Oria blacksmith's guild for about 4k each, whereas gaunlets sell to the Bastok guild for around 1.5k to 2k(I forget which). In other words, the guantlets cost more to make and sell for less.

The only occassion on which steel greaves would be worse if if you absolutely had to buy all your steel from the open market in ingot form to convert to scales for your greaves. If you fear that possibility, just save your steel scales you made from 36-40 blacksmithing, or find some blacksmith in that range and buy up all their scales as they make them. Realistically speaking, you'd need 4 stacks of scales from 55-56 anyway. Possibly more.

Darksteel chains are used in the manufacture of haubergeons, along with some other crazy stuff(http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?fitem=2825). They have limited applications, and most folks who use them prefer to produce their own. You would have a devil of a time selling all the chains you'd make from 55-60. Also keep in mind that failure rates on darksteel chains would be high until about 58 skill. Furthermore, darksteel supplies are rather inconsistant. Securing enough darksteel for darksteel picks was bad enough. You'd need twice that per skill point for chains(or thereabouts).

Nodowa are far, far superior for skilling to 60(any beyond), both in terms of expense and supply. Failure rates are high, but with supplies that cheap/simple, who cares?

[KuroiOokami]

Well, I managed to get to 38 yesterday, and going to share a little tip for people going from 30-34. Light+Rusty cap gives you a padded cap, which you can sell to the vendor for 2.6k with max lvl fame. If you buy the caps off the ah for 2k each, you can make a profit off this.

However, I only bought two stacks of steel ingots, and this only took me to 38 which is where i am at right now. Now Im stuck.. I dont want to buy two more stacks of steel sheets and take the 20k/stack loss selling them back to the ah as scales, and I blew 30k somehow getting my leatherworking to only 7.. So I will try iron mittens until 41, looking at about 1.5k loss per synth. If anyone has any better ideas, please let me know.

Oh btw tfung, sorry I didnt realize my inbox was full.

[Dragonhope]

Use the steel scales to make Steel Greaves? That's what i'm going to do.

[kaiserht]

At 28.4 skill now, been doing various Iron related items.

Tried doing Iron armour items, was very slow, and sale to AH and NPC was rather slow. Iron chains is even slower, 2 stacks of Iron Ingots although no failures, only gave me .5 skill and with a 10k loss it seems rather tedious.

Any advice for what i can try at this level to push my way past Iron items to get into the steel business?