Long Term Plan need opinions....

[Burzum]

I would like to eventually play Ranger/Ninja... but I don't have eons to play time to farm gil for arrow/bullet costs.... So I've come up with the plan of starting out WHM... getting to 30 do advanced job quest for BST... lvl to 70... then farm gil till I'm satisfied that I have enough to make the 1-70 trek with ranger and lvl up Ninja to 30 somewhere in the mix... since Ninja and ranger are both costly... I though having the BST job lvled up would allow me to effectively craft component and gil farm for them as well as kill time waiting for PT's. Sound reasonable?

[Asharu]

Leveling to 70 with a Beastmaster will take you months. When I played Beta, I made a lot of gil through quests. That could be an option for you.

[Thylteev]

NOOOOO! Don't farm gil! That's dumb. Seriously, arrows aren't that hard to make for at least your first 20 levels in ranger. I forget what level the arrow is after iron but, seriously, just craft them. I always had at least 800 arrows with me and I only bought 198 arrows in my time being ranger in the beta. I mean, why do rangers have the Scavenge ability?

[Surfer`]

Gil farming isn't dumb. A Ranger needs more than arrows.

I got my RNG to the mid 20's and equipment was also a cost consideration and will be moreso at level 30+ with Centurions Gear(if you are not Bastok).

You don't have to choose BST to gil farm though imo. Many jobs are viable. I personally think a RDM does gil farming tremendously well because they are very adept at soloing too and you can sub THF if you wish. Even as a 55 WHM I was able to make 200,000 gil in about 2 days of moderate farming(6 hours total work), which isn't too bad considering Cactuar's messed up economy.

[Thylteev]

Still, you will craft many many more arrows in the time that you will have gil farmed enough money to buy fewer arrows. Plus, crafting is much more fun and opens the door to crafting better stuff. I can also make thousands of gil in less time than it would take from gil farming it buy selling crafted stuff. There are many types of arrows and much equipment that are not available in NPC shops, especially ranger stuff, it seems.

[Surfer`]

That is true that crafting is fun but there is another problem. In order to craft some of the higher level RNG items (ie. level 24 Silver Arrows) you need decent proficiency in Carpentry and Goldsmithing. It costs gil to get to this level, and making lower level arrows alone will not get you to the required carpentry level and goldsmith is truly indepdendent. You need to gil farm for this investment and future ones. When you can make silver arrows they turn out to be cheaper than buying them from SD when it is in 1st place.

And I disagree about the point that I would have made more arrows by the time I could have farmed enough gil for them with wood, bone and iron arrows. And low level crafts do not sell well at all from what I have seen, it costs money to raise skill.

[Thylteev]

That's not true, though. I made a whole lot of money selling things I had crafted, especially mage stuff. Willow wands sell especially well. Also, boomerangs sell quite well, as do self bows and long bows.

Edit: Also, I could make several thousand arrows in several minutes. I doubt that you could make the money for that amount of arrows in minutes. What you do is save all your bone chips that you find, take the scraps you can make arrowheads with that people are going to throw away and just save them. Fletchings are pretty easy to make for weavers. They're so cheap and easy that they don't mind making them for you. In fact, they raise their skill quite well.