The Gift

[JennifARGH]

Re: The Gift

EDIT: Duh, Jennifer... he already has a character >< NVM

[Ryouken]

Re: The Gift

Like everyone else said, be sure to spend your gil wisely and not blow it on expensive items that you don't really need.

Also, even if you've already acquired some gil, you should still farm drops to get familar with the Auction House, as it will be your main source of income after you finish of your 4 million gil. That way, you can get a handle over the prices for items in your server and, if you want to start crafting, know where to get ingredient items for free from mobs.

Heres a list of mobs depending on where you start:

San d'Oria

* Wild Rabbits/Forest Hares- Rabbit Hides (leathercraft), Slice of Hare Meat (cooking)
* Tunnel Worm- Ore (goldsmithing), Flint Stone (goldsmithing)
* Ding Bats/Mouse Bat- Bat Tooth (bonecraft), Bat Wing (alchemy), Vial of Fiend Blood (alchemy)
* Beetle- Beetle Shell (bonecraft), Insect Wing (clothcraft), Beetle Jaw (bonecraft)
* Wild Sheep- Sheepskin (leathercraft), Slice of Sheep Meat (cooking)

Windurst

* Rarab-(same as Wild Rabbits)
* Crawlers- Silk Thread (clothcraft)
* Bumblebee- Pot of Honey (cooking), Bee Chips (alchemy)
* Mandragora- Saruta Cotton (clothcraft)
* Crow- Bird Feather (clothcraft)

Bastok

* Rarab- (same as Wild Rabbits)
* Wasp- (same as Bumblebees)
* Sheep- (same as Wild Sheep)
* Worm- (same as Tunnel Worm)
* Vulture- (same as Crow)

Note that you should always have Signet casted on you so you can farm crystals as well, which are essential to crafting. Also that Silk Thread dropped from Crawlers can sell for at least 20k at the Auction House, so you can also use it was a way to earn gil as well as for crafting.

Always remember that gear is not important at lower levels (1-30) and that you don't need to buy all your stuff from the Auction House, most items that you will need at lower levels can be quested for and/or can be acquired through farming mobs.

Good Luck and Welcome to FFXI

[Neomage]

Re: The Gift

I would suggest laying off crafting untill later, but if you really want to start one I suggest Alchemy. Throughout FFXI medicines are used very commonly on things such as missions, kwests, BCNMs, ISNMs, HNMs, and KSNMs. Alchemy is very cheap to level and provides decent profits from 25ish on, which is rather easy to get to. Don't follow any online guides, but look around at webpages such as somepage and find what NPCs sell and look at the AH and find what you can buy from NPCs cheap -> syngthisize for profit or minimal loss and skillups.

Of you chose not to alchemy, that is fine, but there are 3 crafts you NEED to stay away from unless you have like 800x as much gil:

Goldsmithing. At first this looks like a great craft, as the beginning synths(1-10) are profitable and the late synths(90-100) are very very very profitable. Everything in between however, sucks 95.867888% of the time.

Cooking. Partner to Alchemy, you might want to level cooking up to 30 or so, but nothing past that. This the the cheapest, easiest craft to level and as a result, thousands of people flood this craft leaving about 2.1% of resipies are profitable untill the sushi levels, and even then you want to be able to catch your own fish.
I made this mistake myself and have cooking at 60 with about 4 million loss and if I really work of it I can fromit from this, but I earn money faster ding things like BCNMs.

Finally we have Bonecrafting. Everyone and their mother wants a Scorpion Harnerss +1, but only people who have several jobs ay 75 and a good HNMLS really obtain one of these. Many people level bonecrafting to attemp to synth these, but it doesn't work out so well for anyone except the players who sold them the ingrediants and crystals.

EDIT: Forgot some stuff. I don't know what job your leveling, but I would be cautious of really expencive gear(over 100k) and not even glance at items priced over 1 million. Leaping boots are nice, I love my pair, they make it a little bit easier to grind my melee jobs through jungles... but I was lucky and got them for 1 gil.

If your a mage or melee, THE BEST investment for our gil is your skills. If your a mage make sure you always have all your spells and magic skills apped as often as you can, and if your a melee, level a ranged weapon and 2 melee weapons(Thief, Dagger/Sword/Marksmanship, if your a Warrior, Axe/Greataxe/Marksmanship, monk, well just level H2H...)

[Likibiki]

Re: The Gift

I got cooking to 93 on way less than 1 mil... cooking takes time, effort and the ability to adapt to the changing market to make money from though.

You can get it to 60 on about 100k, if you're smart and use the NPC's wisely.

But it's ALWAYS going to be profitable, as everything is consumable. Be aware that you'll spend a lot of time gathering ingredients for a mass synthing session, though.