So, you want to be a Leather Crafter? - Leathercraft 101

[Brennon]

Leather crafting is not for everyone. All crafts require rather large amounts of gil, and Leather Crafting is no different, so If you're not patient enough to either farm your gil, or wait for things to sell on AH, perhaps you should wait before starting to work with leather. That being said, after much hard work and time and gil invested into Leather crafting, it CAN be profitable. Hopefully this guide will help you find your own niche in the leather market without too much pain and failed synths.


Sheep Leather - 0-2
Crystal: Dark 3-4k a stack
Ingredients: Sheep Skin(200-400gil each on AH, less at Guild, Windurst Tea Leaves (400-500 per stack on AH) , Distilled Water (9g each at Guild)

*This synth doesn't get you much skill, but you'll be using the Sheep Leather in other synths rather soon. Otherwise you can make

Sheep Wool 0-4
Crystal: Wind 1.2-1.5k a stack
Ingredients Sheep Skin X2

*This synth is somewhat profitable, especially if you buy your Sheepskins from the Guild.

Leather Gloves 2-8
Crystal: Wind
Ingredients: Grass Cloth (1k per stack on AH), Sheep Leather x 2(7500-9000 per stack on AH)

You're probably going to lose money here, but after getting to 6, switching to Solea is fine, and you can do without that Grass Cloth

Soliea 6-11
Crystal: Wind
Ingredients: Sheep Leather x 2

Lizard Mantle 8-14
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Grass Thread (1k at AH), Lizard Skin (8k per stack at AH) Lizard Molt (2-3k per stack at AH)

You're definately going to lose money here, but you'll lose less money than with any other recepie at this level.

Dhalmel Leather 13-21
Crystal: Dark
Ingredients: Dhalmel Hide (400-500 gil each on AH) Windurstian Tea Leaves, Distilled Water

I've always liked skilling on leathers, because you don't really lose any money even if you buy your hides from AH, and if you farm them yourself, you can make money easily. Selling Stacks of leather is good at any city, as it's a consumable item used in several different guilds. If you don't really need the money, you can save the leather, because you'll be using it soon anyway.

Leather Ring 18-22
Crystal: Wind
Ingredients: Dhalmel Leather (14k per stack on AH)

In case you want to use Dhalmel Leathers right away instead of selling them, this is a good recepie, and your Leathers will last a while. Wind crystals are much cheaper than Dark crystals also.

At this point you have two options. Dhalmel Mantles, or Sandals

Dhalmel Mantle 21-27
Crystal: Ice (900-1.2k a stack on AH)
Ingredients: Dhalmel Hide, Wool Thread (20-22k per stack on AH)

At this point, you may not be comfortable buying Wool Thread as such a high price, but you're gonna be making lots of other kinds of mantles later on, so you might as well get used to it now. If you dabble in Cloth craft, you can always make your own Wool Thread, but you won't be saving a whole lot of money doing it that way, and it takes alot more time of course.


Sandals 22-29
Crystal: Wind
Ingredients: Sheep Leather, Dhalmel Leather

Slightly Cheaper than Dhalmel Mantles, but you're going to fail a bit more until 23.

Parchement 25-31
Crystal: Dark
Ingredients: Sheep Leather, Rolanberry (I don't actually remember the price of this, i'll edit it in later. It's not terribly expensive though)

Chance are you're not gonna be skilling using this synth a whole lot, as you won't find Rolanberries for sale on AH that often. It can be profitable to sell in Jeuno to aspiring bards though, which is why I mention it.

Ram Leather 27-35
Crystal: Dark
Ingredients: Ram Skin (400-600 each at AH), Windurst Tea Leaves, Distilled Water

Another good money making synth. If you've got a lvl 30ish job you can go to Lathiene or Konschtat with several stacks of crystals, water and tea leaves, and leave with several stacks of Ram Leather, which go for 15k each on AH.

To continue, you've got several options here as well. Leather Gorget, Wolf Gorget, or Waistbelt, it all depends on what's available and how much cash you have to spend.

Leather Gorget 32-37
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Grass Thread (1k a stack on AH) Ram Leather (15k a stack on AH)

A decent synth, rather inexpensive if you make your own leather, but Ram Leather is better, even though it doesn't get you as far. I mention it because you may want to use that Ram Leather as you make it, and this is a good use for it.

Wolf Gorget 34-39
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Cotton Thread (5k a stack on AH), Wolf Hide (400-500 each on AH)

You *may* have trouble finding Wolf Hides, but it's a decent synth.

Waistbelt 37-43
Crystal: Wind
Ingredients: Ram Leather x2, Grass Thread

This is the recepie I personally recommend, as you can recover most of your investment selling to NPC or to guild.

From this point on, you're going to have far fewer options, and resources will be much harder to come by and generally more expensive. Not for the faint of heart.

Ram Mantle 42-49
Crystal: Ice
Ingredients: Ram Skin, Wool Thread

I told you you'd be using Wool Thread eventually. If you've gotten this far though, you may not mind the 20-22k per stack cost of this. Get every last skill point you can out of this synth, because after this it gets ugly for a while.

Himantes 47-52
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Lizard Cesti, Raptor Skin (30k per stack on AH)

You can start this at 47, perhaps even 46, but I really recomment waiting till 49, just due to cost.

Raptor Mantle 48-53
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Grass Thread, Raptor Skin x2

A doubly painful synth, as you use Raptor Skins twice as fast.

At this point, take a break from Leather crafting, and come back after you've forgotten the pain this has caused you.

Tiger Leather 53-61
Crystal: Dark
Ingredients: Black Tiger Hide(400-500 each on AH), Windurst Tea Leaves, Distilled Water

Ahh, sweet relief! Another profitable recepie. If you're one of those people that like to hunt Tiger Fangs to farm, bring along some leather making ingredients and double your income from hunting Tigers. ^^ You will fail alot but you may want to start using this recepie at 52, or even 51. You may find that this is a cheaper way to skill than the raptor gear, even in spite of failed synths. There are dark clouds once again on the horizon though.

Hard Leather Ring 56-62
Crystal: Wind
Ingredients: Tiger Leather (15-17k per stack on AH)

This is if you want to put that tiger leather to good use, and to delay having to use Cockatrice skins for one more skill level.

Beak Mantle 58-63
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Grass Thread, Cockatrice Skin x2 (1-2k on AH)

Cockatrice Skins are much more expensive in San d'Oria than they are in other cities, at least on Asura, so you may want to consider purchasing them elsewhere. I strongly suggest you don't start this synth until 62, as this is a big money looser. From 62-63 though, you'll want to make this, because it doesn't cosh as much money to make as your next synth.

Beak Jerkin 63-69
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Sheep Leather. Cockatrice Skin x 2

This is another synth that there is just no way around, at least for a few levels. You don't have to take it all the way to 69, because soon you can make Coeurl Leather.

Coeurl Leather 63-71
Crystal: Dark
Ingredients: Coeurl Hide (1-2k on AH) Windurst Tea Leaves, Distilled Water

Like other leather types, you can make this for a longer time with less failures than other recepie types, and you may wish to do so, since it's a cheaper synth, cost wise. I'd suggest not starting until 65 though, as 63-65 will cost about as much as Beak Jerkins, due to failures on THIS synth. But, Coeurl Leathers sell QUITE nicely, 35k a stack on Asura. Like Cockatrice skins, the San d'Oria prices of Coeurl Hides tend to be inflated compared to the prices in other cities.

You've got a few options coming up. Choose which you do based on cost, and whats available at the time.

Tiger Mantle 70-75
Crystal: Ice
Ingredients: Wool Thread, Black Tiger Hide

I bet your glad to be buying that Wool Thread now, aren't you? It's not TOO much cheaper over all than Cockatrice Skins of Coeurl Hides, but hey, it stacks, and its more readily available.

Tiger Jerkin 73-79
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Sheep Leather, Tiger Leather x2

I'd suggest taking Mantles until they cap, but overall this is not a bad synth.

Coeurl Gorget 73-79
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Cotton Thread, Coeurl Hide

Cheaper to make than Tiger Jerkin, but again Coeurl Hides are hard to find sometimes. They don't sell to NPC as well either.

Manticore Leather 73-80
Crystal: Dark
Ingredients: Manticore Hide (2-2.5k on AH), Windurst Tea Leaves, Distilled Water

This is also a profitable synth, and you can break even despite a higher failure rate if you choose to start at 72. I see stacks selling in Jeuno for about 60k pretty regularly.

Coeurl Mantles 79-85
Crystal: Ice
Ingredients: Wool Thread, Coeurl Hide

This is where I'm at now, so I can't provide much insight past this point.

Coeurl Jerkin 85-89
Crystal: Earth
Ingredients: Sheep Leather, Coeurl Leather x 2 (35k per stack on AH)

You'll almost definately have to make your own leathers for this synth, I almost always have to. Kind of a pain, yeah, but it's likely cheaper, depending on server prices.

Tiger Mask 89-95
Crystal: Ice
Ingredients: Black Tiger Hide x 2, Wool Thread, Ram leather, Wyvern Skin (25k each)

or

Griffin Leather 90-97
Crystal: Dark
Ingredients: Windurst Tea Leaves, Distilled Water, Griffin Hides(30k each).

Even though the cost of these synths are roughly the same, you'll likely be able to sell the Tiger Masks easier than the Griffin Leather.

95-100 Panzer Mask
Crystal: Ice
Ingredients: Wool Thread, Ram Leather, HQ Coeurl Leather x2 (500gil each), Wyvern Skin

[Brennon]

NOTE: all prices quoted are average Asuran prices, and the prices on your server may be somewhat different. Also, I only list a price the first time i mention a particular ingredient.


NOTE2: The level ranges I provide for an item are, IMO, the beginning level that I feel it's good for Skill without losing too much money, and the level that the item caps at. You'll notice often that ranges overlap. This gives you some added alternatives if you don't like a particular synth, or materials are unavailable)

[imstimpy]

At level 8, Soleas are giving me .1 skillup every 1-2 synths (this was on lightsday). They sell horribly to the NPC and at the AH. A possible alternative to this is the Lizard Mantle. I could synth a Rabbit Mantle for a loss of only about 200 gil whereas the Soleas synthed for a loss of 1000 gil. There aren't too many options for back equipment so the mantles sold quite often.

Breakdown: **
Rabbit Mantle 4-7
12x Rabbit hides = 1000 gil
12x grass thread = 1200 gil
12x earth crystal = 300 gil
Cost = 7200 gil per 12 synths
= 600 gil per synth
Return:
NPC = 50 gil
AH = 400 gil

Soleas 4-11
12x Sheep leathers = 7000 gil
12x Wind crystals = 1800 gil
Cost = 16000 gil per 12 synths
= 1300 gil per synth
Return:
NPC = 150 gil
AH = 300 gil

Lizard Mantle 8-12
12x Lizard skin = 7000 gil
12x Lizard molt = 2400 gil
12x Earth crystals = 300 gil
12x Grass thread = 1200 gil
Cost = 11000 gil per 12 synths
= 900 gil per synth
Return:
NPC = 80 gil
AH = 500 gil

From a conversational viewpoint, the Lizard Mantle is far superior; you get almost 1.5 times as many potential skillups for the same price. Unfortunately, there are two things I don't know about this. First, as I haven't skilled on it just yet I do not know if the success rate or skillups are any good. Rabbit Mantles were not bad at all so my hopes are that Lizard Mantles will be as well. Secondly, I don't know what kind of returns can be expected from the Lizard Mantles since I have not yet looked.

I bring up the above things because there are some who want to powerlevel and there are some who just want to level the craft at a minimal cost. My attempt at the minimal cost approach is to analyze the recipies at my level, do a cost analysis, then select which is best. The small caveat to this is that some recipies simply will not succeed at expected level ranges (ie: sandles) and so I may end up losing in the end anyhow.

I've heard the transition to dhalmel leather can be painful, so I ask why you don't mention the possibility of taking the loss on the early level dhalmel leathers and start at 11? Skillups were pretty big for me when I tried something somewhat earlier than I should have. Soleas are a loss no matter how you look at it, so it may be no different to lose with big skillups instead.

For the parchment, rolanberries can be purchased at the item shop in Upper Jeuno near the Batallia Downs exit. I believe they are around 100 gil each.

** prices are from my own server so do your own research

[EDIT] Added prices.

[Brennon]

You can usually start making leathers 10 levels lower than the cap of the leather you want to make, but you'll fail alot, and even though you don't lose hides EVERY time, you do lose a dark crystal every time, and those add up.

I hadn't considered making Rabbit Mantles as an alternative to Solea, but it definately seems viable. I choose not to work with them simply because it takes so much resources, even though the cost is less. You may find yourself running to AH alot more often, to buy stacks and stacks upon stacks of Rabbit hides if you use this approach, depending on how many you lose at failures.

Lizard Mantle is definately a better synth, and now that I think about it, is one of the recepies I used at this level. I had tried to remember back and thought it was a lizard helmet that i had made. but it was Mantles. Helmets are just too expensive for this lower level of skill. It caps at 14, by the way. My initial post edited. . .

I did not know what NPC's sold rolanberries, as i've not made more than probably 2 stacks of parchements. Thanks for the info

[Lmnop]

helpful

I've been looking for a nice leatherworking guide for some time. Thanks a lot and good job.

[ibroyles]

Thank you very much Brennon, this is very helpful. Maybe we can finally get a sticky for us Leather Crafters.

[Brennon]

I've been looking for a nice leatherworking guide for some time. Thanks a lot and good job.

*looks at server that poster is on*

Oh no, a competitor!

[Dragonhope]

I posted my own guide on the forums that my crafting LS uses. It uses different items for skillpaths on a few things but I think it's pretty much the same. Compare the two yourself and tell me what you think ^^

Edit: Whoops. Forgot the link. http://s7.invisionfree.com/TheCraft

There you go ^^

[Lmnop]

Competition

81 > 4


You win

[kengosan]

lv 95-100 ~ panzer mask.

[Fukkatsu]

I've been looking into Leathercraft as the guild I want to be in, but is there any chance of good profit for middle level Leathercrafters? Because 80+ is a long time til you start making money.

[imstimpy]

Lizard Mantles were a wonderful success for me. They shot me up from 8-13. The skillups were .1 and .2 on Lightningsday with 50% moon.

You will be crafting the Lizard Mantles for almost a 100% loss if you do not have the means to sell them back through the AH. In going from 2-13, I probably accrued 40,000 gil in crafted items. This is being sold back slowly for minimal loss. Powerleveling your craft could easily blow 50,000 gil taking it to a mere level 12 or 13.

Dhalmel leather is a stretch at 13 when I started it. Success was probably 1 in 3, but skillups were good. I did it with advanced synthesis support, but on a neutral day (Windsday I believe).

I attempted to farm the dhalmel hides with minimal success. I spent an hour killing dhalmels and I had only 3 hides to show for it. This was done almost exclusively in Tahrongi Canyon, however. I only killed about 5 dhalmels in Buburimu Peninsula. The drop should be better in Bubu, but I think my time is better spent farming in my favorite location and then buying the hides at the AH in any city other than San D'Oria. My success for that hour of farming was not from the hides, but from the 6,000 gil in wind clusters, 3,000 gil in giant femurs, and 2,000 gil in dhalmel meat.

Making money in leathercrafting can happen as soon as you start crafting leathers. If you level on sheep in Ronfaure, La Theine, or Konschtat you have the opportunity to craft for pure profit. If you aren't leveling in an area with hides or leveling your craft on leathers, money can be made but time is better spent farming. Once your crafting level is ready to make the next leather, you can make money once again. I'm able to pull in 1,000 gil per synth on the dhalmel leathers, but demand prevents this from being a strong source of income. Time vs profit also prevents this from being more worthwhile than other means of farming, but it is nice to have an extra 7,000 gil profit sitting there in the morning.

As with all crafts, there can be money made at all levels. The trick is to find your niche and exploit it without flooding your market. If you do find a niche, don't tell anybody. For example: Archer's Rings used to be 400k and Sniper's Rings were sitting around 450k; that's 50,000 gil profit. Sniper's Rings crept up to 500k and shortly afterwards, Archer's Rings went up to 500k. There is now ZERO profit to be made crafting Sniper's Rings due to somebody flooding the market. Please don't do this.

I'm currently skilling on dhalmel leathers right now, so I won't have much to add for a week or two.

[Foxion]

Ok .. how much will it cost to get my Leathercraft to 40?
I have THII so i get my skins easly.

and thx for the guide.

[Aciid]

this needs a sticky... btw nice guide @.@

[imstimpy]

I'm at a profit at lv21. I've also been playing the market, going out of my way to buy cheap and sell high. Everything that has been made has been sold at the AH for maximum recovery. Consequently, it has also been quite a few weeks since I first started leveling. I've almost got all my lizard mantles sold finally. ; ;

As I said above, you could blow a hell of a lot of cash in leatherworking if you are impatient and want to power level it. I probably made close to 40 lizard mantles. If I had sold them back to the NPC then I would have lost 32,000 gil going from 8-13. Instead, I have been selling them to the AH over the past few weeks at 600g each and so I only lost 12,000 gil. This could have been drastically worse too because the materials varied up to 1,000 gil per stack between cities. That was just to go from 8-13.