IN-DEPTH CRAFTING GUIDE

INTRODUCTION

FINAL FANTASY X|V: A REALM REBORN

Written by: Dagon_Cain (Hello! Hi! *hand waves*), AKA Grey_Cain on the Square Enix official FFXIV Forums

Hosted on:

www.gamefaqs.com (*bows* Thank you for hosting this!)

www.neoseeker.com (*thumbs up* It's all good!)

Version #: 2.51 (as in, updated as of patch 2.51)

This guide is intended to be a full, cradle-to-grave guide for your first crafting class (neutral to all classes). From choosing your first craft to slogging your way to 50 and on to 1-star recipes and beyond, you'll find full instructions and explanations along the way.

Disclaimer: All content of this guide, except where noted, was created by myself except for the "Good Ending" and "Normal Ending" macros (which came from Dorin in Whitefall's thread), "Fancy Pants 3-star" macro by NyneAlexander (the macro name isn't his fault), and the "Really Final Product" macro sets which heavily used rotation ideas from Aphraell and Whitefall on the Square Enix official FFXIV Forums. The rest of the information presented is as I have learned it pretty much exclusively from my own crafting experience, with some research done to confirm my own observations. I use no meaningful information from other sources.

If you notice any errors, still have some questions, or just want some of my macros for your own use you can e-mail me at: mage_knight69@yahoo.ca

RESOURCES

When I don't feel like looking things up for myself in-game (or I can't get in-game to confirm for myself), these sites are usually where I go for additional information.

• Aphraell's thread

  http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/113810-80-Durability-100-HQ-using-all-NQ-materials

• Whitefall's thread

  http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/107998-Crafting-100-Success-100-HQ-2-Star-Items

These two threads provide a lot of macro ideas for getting to 100% HQ on 2-Star recipes. As far as I know, my macros don't directly copy anything here except Dorin's ending macros, mostly since my macros are built on the basis of the minimum necessary Craftsmanship (347) and Control (318) for 2-Star recipes, and most of the macros in these threads require Control upwards of 335-340.

• FFXIV 2.5 4-star Master Best in Slot Gear Guide (+Max Materia Melds) by mahiko

  http://www.ffxivguild.com/ff14-arr-doh-crafting-gear-guide-endgame-l50-maximum-materia-melds/

• Rachel Joy and Zayd Sophos 2.3 list of max materia melds

  http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/2a50uy/fullymelded_accessories_with_meld_caps/

• Raldo's crafting gear materia cap post

  http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/91516-Best-materia-setup-for-crafters?p=1273980#post1273980

Materia caps for crafting gear in all slots as well as recommended melds. Raldo's list hasn't been updated for the new i55 accessories (Belt, Neck, and Earrings), but FFXIVGuild and Rachel Joy's lists are up to date.

• Nyalia's Desynthesis Leveling and Endgame Guide

  http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/181498-Desynthesis-Endgame-Guide

Nyalia's incredible write-up on basically everything you should be desynthing.

• Crafting As A Service

  http://caas.com/

A great, customizable listing of crafting items with a recipe-planning option that I don't personally use. It's been updated with a new interface since 2.3 for better usability, though I don't know how much it's been updated. It also links directly to XIVDB for its item info pop-up windows so you don't have to go all the way to another site.

• XIVDB

  http://xivdb.com/

Breaks down each recipes into its component parts and all of the necessary ingredients to craft each individual component, and those component's components, at the same time. It even occasionally tells you where you can obtain the item whole without having to craft it.

• Gamer Escape

  http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/

I find this a lot more reliable than XIVDB when trying to find the sources/marchants to obtain particular items. Very useful, with a lot of sub-links to other recipes, creatures, merchants/NPCs, quests, etc. that are related to the item you're trying to make.

• Crafting Simulator and Recipe Database

  http://www.ffxivcrafter.com/

A neat site that can help you set up your theoretical macros/rotations when you can't be in the game yourself. You'll need to know your stats ahead of time, though, which leads into...

• Ariyala's Final Fantasy XIV Toolkit

  http://ffxiv.ariyala.com/

Great for figuring out your stats when you can't get into the game to check it yourself.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

1-star - A special recipe for making item level 55 items. Requires either Craftsmanship 275 (ingredients) or Control 255 (final products) just to start the craft. Note: You can meet both requirements with an HQ set of Patrician's gear, the level 50 quest blue main-hand weapon, and an off-hand HQ Militia tool.

2-star - A special recipe for making item level 70 items. Requires either Craftsmanship 347 (ingredients) or Control 318 (final products) just to start the craft. Note: You cannot meet either requirement without materia. You need to have a full set of HQ class-specific crafting gear, i55 blue main-hand, HQ Militia off-hand, plus accessories/gear melded (overmelding not required, but saves slots) with Craftsmanship and Control materia (tier 3 mostly, tier 4 is not necessary) in order to start crafting 2-star recipes. Special ingredients necessary for most recipes at this tier are only purchasable from your Grand Company for 800 GC seals each (7,200 per item crafted from them), but they drop in later High-level Roulette dungeons and Boarskin treasure maps, and can be gotten from desynthing i70+ items.

3-star - A special recipe for making item level 75-90 items. Requires Craftsmanship 391 AND Control 374 for both ingredients and final products, plus a Master Recipe book for your class just to start the craft. Note: You'll need to first craft 5 specific HQ ingredients (36,000 seals) for a given class to unlock that class's Master Recipe book. With that single Master Recipe book you can get a full set of crafting gear that'll put all of your classes almost to 3-star stats with maxed-out materia on a full set of i55 accessories. Once you get the Master Recipe book for the other classes and their i70 Artisan tool, you'll be right into 3-star stats. Funny thing, though, your i55 class gear with maxed out materia still has slightly better stats than this Artisan set, so don't toss out your materia-filled gear just yet!

4-star - A special recipe for making item level 95-110 items. Requires Craftsmanship 451 AND Control 407. If you can make these items, then CONGRATULATIONS!! You've won crafting! Note: It's easier getting your Supra and Lucis tools (sort of) than making the 3-star HQ token items that you'll need to unlock the Master Recipe II books, so you should try to get those tools first to make it a little easier unless you're just swimming in Fieldcraft Demimateria III's.

Adventuring Classes - These are the classes of the Disciple of War (DoW) and Disciple of Magic (DoM) categories. You'll need to have one of these leveled in order to unlock levemetes for tradecraft levequest turn-ins at distant zones (but not local turn-ins).

BiS - Best in Slot gear is, like the name says, the best piece of gear you can have in the slot.

Condition - Each step can have one of four states: Normal, Good, Excellent, or Poor. Condition only affects Quality, but it is a multiplier applied after all other additives and multipliers. Normal increases quality by x1, Good by x1.5, Excellent by x4, and Poor by x0.5. Good is always followed by Normal on the next step, and Excellent is always followed by Poor and then Normal.

Consumables - Items that are used from the inventory and whose effects have a limited duration. Ex: Food and Potions.

Control - Increases the amount of quality you gain from 'Touch' abilities.

CP - Crafting Points (CP) restrict how many skills you can use to craft an item. CP is refilled immediately upon ending a craft (whether by success, failure, or quitting). CP starts at 180, and it doesn't go up with levels. Only accessories, materia, a few pieces of gear, and certain food will increase CP.

Crafting Classes - The eight crafting classes in the Disciple of the Hand (DoH) category are Alchemist (ALC), Armorer (ARM), Blacksmith (BSM), Carpenter (CRP), Culinarian (CUL), Goldsmith (GSM), Leatherworker (LTW), and Weaver (WVR).

Craftsmanship - Increases the amount of progress you gain from 'Synthesis' abilities.

Cross-Class Skills - Every crafting class has a skill at level 15, level 37, and level 50 that can be used by every other crafting class. You can equip one cross-class skill for every five levels of your current class (minimum 1), but you can't change them while you're in the middle of a craft so choose wisely.

Dailies - Quests or activities that can be repeated each day, but for crafting only refers to the Ixal beast tribe quests, which are focused on crafting classes. You can only take up to 6 beast tribe quests per day between ALL beast tribes, and only 3 from each quest vendor.

Desynthesis - Breaking down an item into its component parts. Each class has its own Desynth level, but you can only have a maximum of 330 Desynth levels across all 8 classes, minimum 1 per class, maximum 110. Only equipment, housing items, and fish can be desynthed.

Demimateria - A special type of materia only obtainable through desynthesis. Basic demimateria comes in Battlecraft (from DoW/DoM gear), Fieldcraft (from DoH/DoL gear, fish, and housing items), and Clear (anything that give demimateria, but only used for selling to NPCs) varieties. You can begin receiving demimateria from desynthing i15+ equipment, r15+ housing items, and level 15+ fish. Demimateria II come from higher level items (i45+, 1-star housing items, 1-star fish, possibly lower), and Demimateria III from i70+ equipment, 2-star+ housing items, or 2-star fish. Don't use these as hard numbers, as I am only guessing based on my limited experiences, particularly with housing and fish. Mastercraft demimateria only comes from Talan's equipment (only his i70 Artisan's tools, Artisan Glasses, and Forager's Hat, but NOT any of his other gear), and you can also possibly get Demimateria III's from them (according to others). Primal Demimateria only comes from Primal gear.

Difficulty - The number of progress points you must achieve in order to successfully craft an item. Most of the time I'm just going to refer to this as progress.

Durability - Restricts how many times you can use 'Touch' and 'Synthesis' abilities before the craft fails. Ingredient recipes always have 40 durability, and Final Product recipes start at 60 durability up to recipe level 14, rise to 70 durability for recipe levels 15-30, and then max out at 80 from recipe level 31-50, including 1- and 2-star recipes. Durability is reduced in 10 point increments unless Waste Not/II is active, which reduces durability loss to 5 point increments for the duration of the ability.

Dye - Color-changing on the fly to better coordinate your gear and look. You need to finish a level 15 quest in Vesper Bay (bring Orange Juice) to apply the dye. You need a level 26 gatherer to get the ingredients to make the dye. You need to be a level 30 crafter (not CUL) to make the dye. Certain merchants also sell dyes, but not the same shades as the crafted stuff. The crafted dyes are closer to true color shades like white, black, red, blue, etc. than anything you can buy in the store, but they still aren't perfect (or even close if you compare the real color side-by-side).

Efficiency - The multiplier increase to your base progress or quality points when using 'Touch' or 'Synthesis' abilities.

Gathering Classes - The three gathering classes in the Disciple of the Land (DoL) category are Botanist (BOT), Miner (MIN), and Fisher (FSH). Having at least one of these leveled alongside an appropriate crafting class can save you a lot of money.

Gear - Anything you can equip; weapons, armor, belts, and accessories. If a particular slot has differences from the rest, I'll usually name that slot (such as 'Primary Tool') while referring to the rest of the slots as 'gear'.

Glamours - Crafted items that let you change the look of your gear. Glamours are divided between each class and further separated into tiers 1-5. The class that can repair the vanity piece you want your gear to look like determines what class's Glamour you need, and the item level of that item determines the tier (each tier cover 20 ilevels, except tier 5 which covers i81+). Example: Making an i90 armorer-repaired Helmet look like an i55 weaver-repaired hat requires a Tier 3 Weaver Glamour Prism. A level 50 crafter can do a little quest to unlock the ability to buy Glamour books for 3000 gil apiece (21,000 gil for the whole set because CUL doesn't count, again).

Grindus - The deity that causes the devs to make long, boring time-sinks and one of the Triumvirate of Gods that Prevent Us from Having Nice Things.

Housing Items - Crafted items for building a house and furnishing it, both inside and out.

HQ - High Quality (HQ) items have better stats, sell for more than NQ versions, and/or fill in a chunk of the quality bar when you start the craft (max 50% rounded down if all ingredients are HQ). HQ turn-ins at levequests get 2x the experience of a NQ (No Quality) turn-in. Class quest turn-ins don't gain any bonus, but from level 25 onward all Class quests will require HQ items.

Information Window - Appears at the bottom of the recipe list (second column) and gives you information on the currently selected recipe such as the element, Craftsmanship and/or Control requirements, whether the resulting item can be made HQ, whether the item can be crafted with Quick Synthesis, etc.

Item Level - Also iLevel. Example: i55 means Item Level 55. The equivalent level of an item, but not the level required to equip it.

Lagius Maximus - The deity that controls the lag that causes macros to fail and one of the Triumvirate of Gods that Prevent Us from Having Nice Things.

Levequest - A set of repeatable quests obtained from either the class's home city or a Levemete in non-city zones. For crafters, there are three types of leves: Town, Field, and Courier. Town leves are obtained in a city and turned in at the same city as it was obtained from. Field leves are obtained from a Levemete in a non-city zone and turned in at the same area it was obtained from. Courier leves are obtained from a city and turned in at the same area as the non-city Levemetes that you'd get the same tier leves from. For the purposes of this guide, you'll need to unlock levequests at the class's city's level 15 aetheryte camp (Camp Drybone, Hawthorne Hut, or Aleport), Quarrymill, Costa del Sol, the Observatory Whose Name Shall Not Be Written In Full, Whitebrim, and Sons of Saint Coinach.

Macros - A set of commands that will run in sequence and stop when there are no more commands in the list. You can create macros in the System -> User Macros menu. Each macro can have a maximum of 15 commands, and you can make up to 100 macros. No, you can't make a macro that restarts itself infinitely, nor can you start other macros from within a macro. Once activated, a macro will run as it was when it was activated, so changing it halfway through does nothing. Activating a new macro while another macro is running will stop the first macro, even if the new macro does nothing. Activating individual skills won't stop a macro, but they can supersede a macro command if the timing is right.

Master Recipe Book - These 15 books are divided between Glamours (7 books) and the real Master Recipes (8 books). Glamour books are bought for 3,000 gil apiece (21,000 total). Master Recipe books are bought for 5 HQ 2-Star ingredients crafted by that class, or 36,000 GC seals per class assuming you HQ every ingredient. That is a MINIMUM 288,000 GC seals to unlock all 8 Master Recipe books. You can save on seals by finding the items in Patch 2.3 and 2.4 dungeons, randomly in Boarskin map treasure chests, or buying them off the Market Board.

Materia - Slottable gems created by converting equipment with 100% spiritbond. The 'Materia Melding' ability can be received from Mutamix and his associates in Central Thanalan (north of Black Brush Station) when you have any crafting class except Culinarian (which can't meld materia to food unfortunately) at level 19, although the crafting class quests will wait until level 20 to send you there. Only the level 20 and 50 Class quests will require items to be melded with materia. Mutamix can also remove all materia from an item, but all materia on the piece will be lost, so plan ahead. It might be better just to craft a new item and convert the old one to materia.

Meld - Insert materia into materia slots with the 'Materia Melding' ability. Each item starting from level 15+ has a specific number of materia slots. Filling those slots is always 100% likely. Purple, blue and pink gear can never have materia. Crafted green gear can have materia, but not dungeon/tomestone green gear. Basically, if the item doesn't have at least one materia slot, it can't have any materia on it.

NQ - No Quality (NQ) items are basic items that you get from succeeding a craft, but failing to obtain HQ. Yes, getting NQ (especially after level 25) is still failing.

Overmeld - Insert more materia than there are slots. You can upgrade to the 'Advanced Materia Melding' ability from Mutamix when you've gotten a non-CUL crafting class (still no food love) to level 25 (bring 8 junk materia that you'd never use and can't sell, plus equipment with enough empty slots to fit all 8 materia). After filling the original materia slots on a piece of gear, you can still add more materia. Each piece can slot a max of 5 materia, regardless of how many slots it started with, but each additional materia after the base slots are filled has a drastically reduced chance to succeed.

Progress - You gain progress when using an ability that ends in 'Synthesis' (ex: Basic Synthesis), at the cost of 10 durability. When your progress equals the recipe's difficulty, you will successfully craft the item, which ends the craft immediately.

Quality - You gain quality when using an ability that ends in 'Touch' (ex: Basic Touch), at the cost of 10 durability. The amount that the quality bar is filled by and the percentage chance to get an HQ result are nowhere near equal. Having 50% of the quality bar filled gives you a 15% chance of HQ, but the chance of HQ rises dramatically the closer you get to a full quality bar. Getting to 100% HQ doesn't guarantee you'll succeed, though. You still need to get Progress to max.

Quick Synthesis - An option that ignores all of your abilities and just has a random chance to succeed or fail based on your level vs the level of the recipe. You only get the base XP for the craft, and no bonus XP (even if you get an HQ result). Only use this for crafts where you want to make dozens or hundreds of NQ items. Then go for a long dinner because there's nothing 'quick' about this option. It should have been 'Lazy Synthesis' instead.

Quit - Sometimes you just want to end it all. Quit ends the craft immediately. If you are still on Step 1, you'll retain all of the items and crystals as if you hadn't started the craft. After step 1, you'll lose all of the items and crystals you used for this craft attempt. If you want to have a chance of getting your stuff back, you'll need to run it into the ground with Touch and Synthesis abilities instead.

Recipe Level - Also rLevel. Example: r15 means Recipe Level 15. Recipe level is used in comparison to class level, as a character can't craft an item with a recipe level more than 5 levels higher than their class level, and the base amount of quality and progress obtained are modified based on the difference between the rLevel and your class level. Recipe levels higher than 50 are referred to as #-star (ex: 1-star), as the #-star recipes do not have an actual level associated with them but are still affected by Ingenuity and Ingenuity II.

RNG - Random Number Generator. This evil algorithm determines whether your crafts will end up NQ or HQ purely on the basis of whether you've gotten quality to 100% or not. Always remember, if it isn't 100% it will probably fail.

RNGesus - The deity who holds power over RNG and one of the Triumvirate of Gods that Prevent Us from Having Nice Things.

Success Rate - A static percentage chance on whether a particular 'Touch' or 'Synthesis' action will succeed. 100% success rate means the action can't fail. Steady Hand adds 20% (while SH2 adds 30%) directly to this number, so a Success Rate of 80% becomes a Success Rate of 100% with Steady Hand (and therefore can't fail).

Tiers - Each class's recipes are divided into tiers of 5 levels each. The levels in each tier are a recipe's level, not the item's actual level or item level. You can still craft items up to 5 recipe levels over your own, but the next tier doesn't unlock until you're three recipe levels away (ex: recipe levels 6-10 unlock when you're level 3).

Tools - These are the crafter's "weapons". Each crafting class has a Primary Hand tool and a Secondary Hand (or Off-Hand) tool. Check the "BiS Gear and How to Obtain It" section for details.

Vanity - These are items that look cool and/or fancy and/or weird that you wish you could be wearing all the time if only its stats didn't suck so bad. Using Glamour Prisms, you can project the look of these vanity items over top of your actual good gear, so you can look cool/fancy/weird and still be able to kick Leviathan's butt.

WHERE TO BEGIN

First off, figure out which crafting class is really going to help you most. What are you goals?

• To make/repair/meld materia to weapons
• To make/repair/meld materia to armor
• To make/repair/meld materia to accessories
• To make an endless supply of consumables
• To make money
• To get every crafting class to level 50

There are two classes that primarily make weapons:

• Blacksmith for Gladiator, Marauder, some Pugilist knuckles, and most crafting classes
  • Carpenter for Archer, Conjurer staves (but not melding, that goes to Alchemists), and Lancer, as well as Weaver and Goldsmith wheels, wooden shields, and Fishing rods
  • Additionally, Alchemist makes Arcanist books and Conjurer wands, while Goldsmith makes Thaumaturge rods and most Pugilist claws and horas. Leatherworker makes a few Pugilist weapons as well.

There are three classes that primarily make armor:

• Armorer for tanks and high-defense DoW gear, and also metal shields
  • Leatherworker for general DoW gear and some DoM gloves/footwear, plus targes, and a bunch of crafting/gathering gear for various slots
  • Weaver for primarily DoM gear and some DoW gear, and a lot of the crafting/gathering gear pieces
  • Additionally, Goldsmith makes a few DoM head pieces, and Carpenter makes a few shoes

There is one class that primarily makes accessories:

• Goldsmith makes all the precious metal and gem-based jewelry, including most crafting accessories
  • Additionally, Leatherworker is a close second on accessory-making, with the ability to make belts, neck pieces, wristlets, and rings, particularly for gathering classes

There are two classes that primarily make consumables:

• Culinarian makes meals for small bonuses that last a long time
  • Alchemist makes potions for instant effects or moderate bonuses that last a very short time

No one class makes all the money. In fact, making money off of crafting has almost nothing to do with which craft you choose.

• If you are an experienced Auctioneer, you shouldn't have troubles making money with any craft.
  • Taking time away from leveling to focus on cash crafts can make you extra money, but, again, takes time away from leveling.
  • If you, like me, aren't aggressive on the market boards and focus instead on leveling faster, you'll have trouble making money no matter what craft you try.
  • I got all of my money through self-sufficiency (ie: not spending much) and completing dailies every day. You will not get good money-making tips out of me.

Narrowing down the choices

Alchemist has the primary profession of making potions that are minorly useful to your adventuring career, but not so useful to a crafter.

• Tricks of the trade is tricky to use, but mastery can result in having a lot more CP to play around with. Too bad durability recovery is so expensive. Comfort Zone has the effect of giving you 14 extra CP (80 total) for every 66 CP you spend on it (if you can last the 10 steps necessary to get it all).

Armorer is pretty useless to start unless you're specifically making armor for a DoW you're raising side-by-side.

• It has the advantage of being able to make ingots, but Blacksmith can make the exact same ingots and gets at least one useful ability.

Blacksmith is capable of making its own primary and secondary weapons as well as those of most other crafting professions, plus Miner and Botanist. It also gets the ability to turn certain ore into ingots that other crafts often need.

• Blacksmith also gets Ingenuity at 15, which lowers the recipe's current level and makes difficult recipes more manageable. Ingenuity II isn't as useful until you're ready for 1- and 2-star recipes, and even then Ingenuity on its own is all you really need. Ingenuity II is absolutely required for 3-star recipes, though.

Almost all of Carpenter's recipes require items made by other crafting classes or used raw from gathering. Unless you're focusing on a few cheap synths to get by (which actually makes leveling really quick and easy to do), and/or have both Miner and Botanist (BOT is more important to have) leveled alongside, this will be an expensive class to raise first.

• On the other hand, Carpenter gets two of the most important cross-class abilities: Rumination (at 15) and Byregot's Blessing (at 50). Neither one can be used in combination with the other (they both eat your Inner Quiet buff), but Rumination is great for getting extra CP to complete a craft more reliably, and Byregot's can give a huge boost to quality, making it a lot easier to get HQ results without HQ materials.

Culinarian can make some crafting food, but the effects aren't really that great.

• Many Culinarian recipes require a LOT of ingredients (you want to know why there's 6 ingredient slots? Culinarian is why). On the other hand, a lot of the ingredient recipes make multiple items while the meal recipes tend to only require one of each item.
• Hasty Touch is extremely useful (0 CP quality increaser), very touchy (50% fail chance), and best used in conjunction with Steady Hand II (an extra 10% success rate over SH1 for only 3 CP more). Reclaim is occasionally helpful when you mess up your macros or when you just get screwed by the RNG.

Goldsmith gets to make most of the crafting and adventuring accessories, but only earrings for gatherers.

• Goldsmith also gets to make the other ingots that ARM/BSM can't make, and that are in higher demand for CRP/WVR in particular.
• Manipulation makes for a slightly cheaper (by 4 CP) Master's Mend, Flawless Synthesis can make early recipes 1-shottable while being practically useless later on (Standard Synthesis actually makes this pretty useless for GSM 6 levels earlier, but other classes can take advantage), and Innovation can give a hefty boost to quality gains for a few steps.

Leatherworker gets most of the gathering accessories and most belts.

• Leather is used quite a lot by other crafting classes, so you can make good money off of HQ materials.
• Gathering supplies for Leatherworker is the most inconvenient, but less inconvenient with a high-level DoW or DoM to bring genocide on cute, fluffy things and scaly, evil things alike.
• Waste Not is a cheaper and useful alternative to Master's Mend when you can one-shot crafts or need some extra attempts to succeed the craft while saving 36 CP, but less useful otherwise.
• Waste Not II seems great at first, but it's hard to use because you have to keep losing steps to things like Steady Hands and other non-durability reducing actions.

Weaver is mostly useful for being able to make most of your own crafting gear, while being frustratingly boring to make materials. Leveling BOT on the side is a must for gathering huge amounts of supplies.

• Later on, Weaver recipes chew through crystals like nothing else when you're making your own materials. Be prepared to unlock Miner so that you can farm Lightning/Wind crystals just outside of Ul'dah.
• Careful Synthesis can save you some CP and frustration by not requiring Steady Hand to have a 100% chance of succeeding a synth.
• Careful Synthesis II replaces both CS1 and Basic Synthesis entirely, and makes early crafts on other classes entirely trivial while still being a good, free alternative to Standard Synthesis.

Some other considerations:

• If you're planning to raise Miner side-by-side or already have it at a high level, you can easily farm supplies for Blacksmith, Armorer, Goldsmith, and Alchemist.
• If you're planning to raise Botanist side-by-side or already have it at a high level, you can easily farm supplies for Carpenter, Weaver, Culinarian, and Alchemist.
• If you're planning to raise Fisher side-by-side or already have it at a high level, you can farm a few supplies for Culinarian and Alchemist, rarely for Goldsmith.
• If you're planning to raise a DoW or DoM class side-by-side or already have one at a high level, you can farm supplies for Leatherworker, rarely for Weaver.

The wall of text is too much and you'd rather I just tell you what to pick

Well, at least make sure it's something you can gather supplies for. Otherwise it's going to get real expensive real quick.

• If you only have high-level DoW or DoM and don't want to raise a gatherer, congratulations! You're a Leatherworker.
• Leaning towards Botany for supplies but don't think food is going to cut it? Go for Weaver.
• Mining's your thing, but you need some direction on what to farm? Goldsmith's* also your thing.
• Any of these three also contribute to your crafting gear at 50 while providing useful abilities for raising your other crafts.
• That being said, if you don't have anything above, or you have everything above, just start with Carpenter.

*If Goldsmith is, in fact, not your thing, then Blacksmith will be. However, Blacksmith's usefulness is mitigated somewhat by the NQ primary/secondary tools you get from class quests, while you're never rewarded with the crafting accessories that a Goldsmith could've made.

Some quick advice before the real guide begins. When you hit a wall, and you're not able to consistently HQ after 25 with your starter craft, appropriate gear for your level in all slots (preferably HQ), and HQ materials, you need to figure out what you're having troubles with: not enough durability, not enough CP, or not enough quality increases. Then level some other classes to 15 for some cross-class skill help.

• Durability loss reduction from Waste Not (LTW), or progress increases from Ingenuity (BSM) or Rapid Synthesis (ARM).
• CP recovery from Rumination (CRP) and Tricks of the Trade (ALC), or CP savings from Hasty Touch (CUL) and Careful Synthesis (WVR).
• Quality increases from Hasty Touch (CUL) and Ingenuity (BSM).
• Mix-and-match for best results.

Now that you know which craft you're going for, it's time to get started with where to begin, again. For real this time.  

THE CRAFTING GUIDE

- NOTE: The macros presented in this guide are based off of minimal stats and low CP. If you have better stats, particularly more CP, you can make better macros. Experiment for yourself, check the resources above, or hit up Google to find higher CP macros.

1.) Starting Out

The class's home city (not yours) determines where you'll start your new profession, where you'll pick up your class quests, and where you get your levequests at.

• Gridania has Carpenter and Leatherworker, plus Botanist
• Limsa Lominsa has Armorer, Blacksmith, and Culinarian, plus Fisher
• Ul'dah has Alchemist, Goldsmith, and Weaver, plus Miner

Talk to the Guild Receptionist for your chosen class, read through the incoming wall of text as they tell you the lore behind their profession, then talk to them again to accept the actual quest to become that class. Just like the adventuring classes, your first quest ends by talking to the Guildmaster and saying 'Yes' to whatever question they ask, no matter how much suffering they've just promised you'll endure.

Equip your newfound primary implement, and voila! You're now naked, you pervert! Talk to the Guildmaster again to get your first real class quest.

2.) First Tier - Levels 1 to 5

You only get a lone Basic Synthesis skill to start, and you have to buy (or gather) the items necessary for the quest. At least you got some crystals, so you don't need to go out farming those (yet). Open up your crafting log (Personal Logs -> Crafting Log), and move the cursor to the item needed for the quest (should always be the first item) to see what you'll need. Next, go to the Guild Supplier and buy the items (or go out and farm them if you're that cheap) shown in the list at the right.

Incidentally, the Guild Supplier has all of the items you'll need to craft almost every recipe up to level 15. Certain other guilds' suppliers will also have a few of your own guild's primary crafted items (such as Hard Leather, Brass Ingots, and Cotton Yarn/Cloth), so if you're in need of a few dozen or hundred items for crafting final products and don't want to make them yourself you can just buy them straight up on the cheap (you really lose a LOT of XP doing this though).

When you have the items for your quest, open up the crafting log again (I recommend putting it on your hotbar from Actions & Traits -> Main Commands), go to the item, and choose Start Synthesis. Unless you've been lying this whole time about just starting out, you won't be able to do anything other than Basic Synthesis, so just activate that.

And it failed, didn't it? Get used to it. Sometimes, 90% will be 50% to FFXIV's RNG, and other times just going that extra little bit to 20% will yield untold strings of HQ rewards.

Well, try again and keep going until the Basic Synthesis finally succeeds. You only need one success to craft the item, but that RNG can get downright vindictive sometimes.

Item in hand, return to the Guildmaster and fork it over for their judging eyes. Depending on your Guildmaster's Dickery (DCK) class level, you'll get opinions ranging from masterful abilities with hidden talent, to barely avoiding getting tossed out of the guild for what a horrible crafter you are, you puppy-kicker.

Congratulations! You are now a full member of the guild! Take your new shirt in hand, and put it on. Finally, your exhibitionist tyranny is at an end!

You also get a stack of basic items to craft and yet more crystals. Now that the fanfare is over, get back to work. Start Basic Synthesizing all (every last one) of those items you got for your reward. Then go to the Guild Supplier and buy up all of the items you'll need to craft everything on your list of recipes. Then craft all of those items. If that's not enough to get you to level 5, either move onto the next list or re-craft one of the level 5 items enough times to get you to level 5.

When you hit level 5, take a quick breather and go talk to your Guildmaster for your next quest. Buy up whatever supplies you need and get cracking.

Wait! At level 5 you got a new skill, 'Basic Touch'. This is your first quality increasing skill. It sucks, but it's better than nothing. As an added bonus, raising the quality bar also gives you bonus XP if you succeed the craft, up to 280% (+50% for any rested XP you have sitting around)! Try it out on items you need for your quest (you should be able to get between 0% and 150% bonus XP), but leave at least 20-30 durability so you can finish the craft successfully. This here is where math gets involved, so if numbers make you nauseous keep a calculator handy, and good luck.

One thing you should really know from this point forward is that your HQ chance is graded on a log. Like, a logarithmic function that sees HQ chance rise slowly for a while before rocketing into the sun. Having half the quality bar filled is only worth a 15% HQ chance. At three quarters it's about a 65% chance. At nine-tenths filled it's around 85%. Two points short of max is 98%. I've never been 1 point short, so I can't tell if a 99% chance even exists. What I do know is that a 98% chance can still fail. Often. On the upside, your bonus XP is determined only by how much you fill the bar in and not the HQ chance/result. On the downside, if you start with all HQ items (50% filled) you can only get a maximum XP bonus of 240% (before bonus XP from other sources).

Once you've completed your items, hand them over for your next evaluation/reward. This time you get a secondary implement and your choice of level 5 crafting gear (picking something with high Control will get you slightly more quality increases and therefore slightly more bonus XP). Whichever you pick, go out and buy/make the other two pieces. If you've been struggling to get Progress going in these later levels, worry no more! That secondary implement will give you a big boost to Craftsmanship that will hold you over until around level 8.

Now that your introduction is over, if you've got an adventuring class at level 46+, take the time to head over to Gridania and begin the Ixal Beast Tribe quest line. The Ixal quests are focused on crafting and provide a big boost to XP, although you can only do 6 per day (although only 3 until you unlock the second tier). Also be aware that some of the quests require a gathering class as well to complete, but the level requirements on those are very low and listed in the quest description.

It doesn't matter what class you started with, as the only difference between the classes is which crystal shards get used to make the items for turn-in. Just make sure to buy the Ehcatl Wristgloves from the Ixali Trader first because you have to wear those gloves in order to craft anything for the Ixal quests.

Don't worry about your level, either. You could've started at level 1, but getting the first 5 levels out of the way first lets you get adjusted to the crafting process. The NPCs at the various crafting benches that you visit all give you a buff that lowers the recipe level to your own, but also sometimes comes with a penalty (like -100 max CP, or preventing use of cross-class skills). Also don't worry about the HQ requirements from the second tier onward because you can retry as often as you need to until you've made enough HQ items for the turn-in. It only costs you crystals (1 of each appropriate to your class, not the recipe).

Getting these quests done early and daily can provide you with access and currency to buy 2-star ingredients in bulk whenever you need them. This is especially helpful if you're just starting out and you've still got 7 more classes to raise after this. See the Ixal Daily Beast Tribe Quests section of the Appendix for more details.

3.) Second Tier - Levels 5 to 10

Alright, first list down. Now on to the next. If you hadn't noticed, your next list will unlock when you're 2 levels below the current max (so, at level 3 the Level 6-10 list opened up, at level 8 the Level 11-15 list will open up), and you can attempt to craft anything up to a maximum of 5 levels over you.

Repeat the new list same as the first. Pause for a moment at level 7, and then again at level 9. The first pause is for Master's Mend. Now you can get 30 Durability back (it's a waste if the craft is down by any less than 30), giving you a lot more leeway on those Basic Touches. Now's a good time to start making macros as well. Start with this one:

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Master's Mend"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

Now instead of typing that all out, you can simply highlight and copy that list, then go to System -> User Macros. Choose a spot and paste the list into the right-hand pane. Give it a name and change the icon if you want...Ah, "Basic Craft". I see. How original. >_> Just put the macro on your hotbar so you don't have to keep opening the macro menu to use it.

Replace Basic Touches with Basic Syntheses if you're having troubles succeeding, or if you need more than 2 Basic Syntheses to finish the craft. You need to have a '/wait X' command, where X is a number of seconds, or the game will try to perform the next action immediately instead of when it's actually ready. Without lag, you need 3 seconds after every Touch or Synthesis but only 2 seconds after other abilities. If you do have lag, consider adding another second or two to each wait. If you have a lot of lag, don't bother with macros. Just stick the individual abilities on your hotbar and use them as they become available in the same order as the macro. Do not attempt to macro-craft under heavy lag conditions!

A useful thing to know about macros: Using a second macro will stop the first immediately and the second will begin, but using non-macro actions won't stop a macro. Consider making a 'Cancel' macro with nothing in it that you can use to stop a macro that you hit by accident.

The next stop is for Steady Hand at level 9. This very handy (ahahaha) tool will finally end the tyranny of the RNG on Basic Synths and give more reliability to the Basic Touches. At this point, you can also buy (or make) your first accessory; a Copper Choker. This will bring your CP total up to 195 (197 for HQ), and give you more options with that very expensive Master's Mend eating all your CP. Time for two new macros:

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Master's Mend"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

-_- You named it "Steady Craft", didn't you? o_o

If you only need one Basic Synth to finish, just move Steady Hand above the second Basic Touch. Or, better yet, copy and paste the macro into a new spot and make the adjustment there so that you can keep both available. Crafts over your level especially are going to need the extra leeway. Next up:

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

"Inappropriate Touch"? Really? -_- Moving on.

This second macro is for final products that have 60 durability. It is also optional and for the lazy. You'll get better results doing it manually because you can use a Basic Synthesis where you've got a Normal result in the hopes that you get to drop a Basic Touch on a Good result instead. If you need more than two Basic Syntheses to complete a craft, you're going to either need to replace a Basic Touch with a Basic Synthesis, or use the previous macro and pray.

Okay, now you're level 10. On completing this quest you get to replace your old level 1 primary implement with a shiny new level 8 one! You also get a new pick of equipment, but by this point you should have already bought and/or crafted all of the basic level 5 equipment you'll need. So pick a piece to replace for free, such as the body or hands. Like before, buy/make the other pieces of level 10 gear to keep your Craftsmanship and Control appropriate to your level. You'll be repeating this gear update every 4-9 levels. I recommend obtaining HQ gear whenever possible (WVR time! Ya can't sew this! daaa-nanana), but it isn't necessary.

Wait! Before you run off to a merchant to sell your old gear, you should know that you can save loads of money on the next craft you raise by keeping your old crafting gear. The catch is you're going to need a Retainer to hold it all. You should get through the story until you get far enough to hire one. Not necessarily right away, though. You've still got time and another five levels before the first major policy shift.

4.) Third Tier - Levels 10 to 15

Next 5 levels, same as the first, pausing at level 11. At this tier, you may have to go the Tradecraft merchant in the market area to get a few of the items you'll need to finish off all of the synths, but go ahead and skip any crafts that you can't find ingredients for. Just re-do a few items to make up for it. Your guildmaster or whoever you had to talk to for your level 10 class quest probably mentioned doing some levequests. Don't bother with that yet. That's level 15+ stuff.

At level 11 you obtain Inner Quiet. This may not be so useful for 40 durability ingredients, as you'd have to give up a Basic Touch (same CP cost) just to use it, but it gives you 20% more Control for each Touch ability you successfully use (max 10 increases, or 11 stacks total even though the first stack doesn't do anything). For now, this'll be handy for durability 60 crafts. Just tack it on top of your Inappropriate Touch macro up there (followed by a '/wait 2' on the next line) and you're good to go.

Observe at level 13 is kind of useless for macro crafting. If you're manually crafting dura 60 items, you can use it to get another try for a Good/Excellent result, or to pass by a Poor result. Even for manual crafting, this is about the only tier Observe will be useful. At higher tiers with more abilities available you're going to need every CP you can squeeze out for those sweet, sweet quality gains.

Finally! Level 15! Your first class-specific action is now in your pocket. Just reach in there and fumble around a little to get used to the feel of it. And remember to call your grandmother. She just wants to hear from you, though probably not about how you just got to level 15. She's already level 43 and racing for the finish line.

Time to equip your second accessory. Go out and buy it now because you're not getting any from your class quests no matter how long you hold your breath. While you're at it, figure out what you're going to steal from your guildmaster when you finish the level 15 quest and then buy up the other level 15 stuff that you can. By now, the gear at the shops in town are too low level for you, but fret not. You're almost at that step.

5.) Fourth Tier - Levels 15 to 20

After finishing the latest task of your guildmaster, you are now free from the restrictions of your Guild Supplier. Promptly stop attempting to complete every recipe and get ready to perform only 2-3 recipes per tier from now to 50. For those of that you that have just raised pitchforks and/or torches, might I remind you that your insistence on completing every recipe is both time-consuming and hazardously expensive. *ducks bottle* Alrighty then. You're on your own from here on out. Just keep doing what you've been doing and check in every so often for new macros.

Ah, I see another group heading back to the starting line for another craft. Just a minute (well, approximately an hour and a half)! Stick with me until at least level 20 when you can learn Materia Meld-oh. You know about it already? From when you advanced the story to learn Materia Conversion? Well, carry on then. Just don't replace a piece of gear until its 100% spritbonded so that you can convert it to materia when you replace it, and don't convert any gear that you don't have a replacement for. Eventually you'll need to learn Materia Melding, but that isn't necessary until you're ready to start 2-star recipes.

Now, the rest of you can head on over to the Adventurer's Guild in the same city. Talk to the levequest-giver (Eustace, T'Mokkri, or Gontrant) and peruse the Trade Levequest offerings. Then ignore everything except the quest that gives you the most XP and asks you to go to another zone.

Wait! The leves you're looking for won't even show up if you haven't unlocked levequests for the zone you're supposed to be going to, and those can't be unlocked without an appropriately leveled adventuring class. You don't have to unlock all of the levemetes, but by the end of this guide you will need at least a level 45 DoW/DoM class just to be able to make the turn-ins. In other words, when you out-level your adventuring classes you'll have to slink back to the grind. Try to hold back your bile as you take time away from your crafting for silly things like saving the world.

Once you've unlocked the Levemete appropriate to your current tier, you'll find a "Courier" leve in the list, so-called because you are delivering a package across multiple zones. These always give the highest XP reward per item turned in for their tier, but they can be difficult to HQ regularly even with HQ ingredients since they're almost always 2-3 levels above you when you first start the tier. By the way, try to always have HQ ingredients for every recipe you do from now until 50 even if you plan on getting cross-class abilities from other classes.

There are also "Town" leves which don't require you to leave town at all and are usually the best choice for crafters of convenience as they don't require you to unlock any levemetes. The turn-in person is the same for all Town leves from 1-50.

Finally, there are "Field" leves that are accepted from the levequest-giver at the named zone rather than the craft's city. The end-destination for both Courier and Field leves are the same person. Similar to Courier leves, you can't even accept Field leves until the Levemete is unlocked, let alone turn anything in.

Once you've accepted the Courier quest (and only the Courier quest; don't want to waste precious allowances after all), if you've been keeping up your adventuring ways you can teleport straight to the level 15 crystal for your craft's town (only for Camp Drybone or Hawthorne Hut, take the Fisherman's Bottom ferry to Aleport to save money), where they'll also have appropriate gear for you to buy. Otherwise, get walking. It may not seem worth it, but you only have to take the long way once (unless you're super-cheap).

Attune to the crystal and shortcuts shall abound. Also be sure to set this crystal as one of your THREE favored destinations. You'd be surprised how many people think you can only set one.

Now, with updated gear, proceed to pump out 6 HQ copies of that item you promised the levequest-giver you'd deliver. If you only brought enough materials for 1 item, don't worry. After the turn-in (super fanfare and wide-eyes for the people that just realized they got twice as much XP as the levequest said they would get O_O), teleport back to town. It's like, 100 gil. Just do it. I'm not waiting for you.

There's a shiny new piece of jewelry waiting for you at town now. Brass Wristlets Of Crafting will give you another 17 CP to work with, bringing your total to 212 (up to 217 if you've been splurging on the good stuff).

Macros at this point are heavily reliant on exactly which class you're raising. For instance, if you're raising WVR you can replace every single instance of "Basic Synthesis" with "Careful Synthesis", and remove any Steady Hands that were being used to get Basic Synth to 100% success rate.

If you have WVR 15, this is your new "Steady Craft" macro:

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Master's Mend"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Careful Synthesis"

/ac "Careful Synthesis"

Another example, using LTW 15:

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Waste Not"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

And [strike]"Super-Inappropriate "[/strike] (why only 20 characters!?) "Inappropriate Touch" for WVR 15 becomes:

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Careful Synthesis"

/ac "Careful Synthesis"

If you can't make a dura 60/70 item in two Careful Synths, just use Steady Craft for final products as well.

Other classes have other abilities to make use of. Experiment with your macros and try to be creative. Personally, I use a spreadsheet to calculate CP costs, durability losses, figure out action order, and add up the effective quality increases (not counting Inner Quiet or other Control-modifying abilities). It's a lot more involved than a calculator can handle.

Once you've updated your macros, grab enough materials to make the remaining 5 items and pick up that same levequest again. You should now recognize Courier leves as drugs, and you are already addicted. Unfortunately, you can only grab it once at a time, but once you've made the turn-in you can go back and grab it immediately, no wait, no randomness. Only the gil and item rewards fluctuate, and you're not here for that junk. Just that pure, sweet, Columbian XP.

At level 18, pick up a couple of rings to add 9/10 CP each, plus receive the much-needed Standard Touch. This is more pure than that garbage Basic Touch, letting a simple Steady Hand give you a 100% chance to succeed this Touch. Of course, it costs more CP, but your market sugar-daddy just gave you that new bling that brings you up to 230 CP.

Your new "Standard Craft" macro is:

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Master's Mend"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

Unfortunately, you don't have enough CP for another Steady Hand, so you'll have to sacrifice a Standard Touch to the RNG to make sure you complete the craft successfully. If you can do it in one Basic Synth, feel free to move the Steady Hand up a step.

You also now have "Appropriate Touching":

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

Fill in the extra lines with whatever new actions you got if you can find a place for them. Adjust for Synthesis abilities that will finish the job better than Basic.

Now, I know it's hard, but you're going to have to hold yourself back once you hit level 20 after those 6 turn-ins. Class quest is knocking and asking if you're okay. It just wants to talk. Your guildmaster knows, but says nothing. They're sending you on a quest to learn about Materia Melding from a Goblin and his way-too-merry band in Central Thanalan, just north of Black Brush Station. They just want what's best for you, and they hope learning this new action will let you get the help you need.

If you've learned how to convert items to materia (from advancing the main story), convert your level 1 Kurta (if it's at 100%) and take the other quest in the area that will teach you how to insert just the tip of the new materia (or any tier 1 elemental materia that happen to be clogging up your inventory spaces) into the requested item. See, that didn't hurt, did it? It was more than just the tip, but that's okay. You're fine.

Yeah, you're just fine, the melding was okay. It was your first time, but it wasn't mind-blowing or anything. At least it's over now. Just take your reward and leave quietly, crying softly to yourself even as you start thinking about your next hit. Rush back to town and find your leve dealer. They've got the stuff you need. Of course, you've built up a bit of a resistance. You need to do a little more to get the same XP high.

6.) The Rest of the Tiers - Levels 20 to 50

Now you have some choices. At tier 5, Triple Turn-In leves have appeared; one Town, one Field, each requiring either 3 (normally final product) or 5 (usually ingredient) items. Figure out which one is easier to make/gives more XP. Now triple it. That's how much a triple turn-in with NQ items gives. Double it for HQ. That's for 1 leve allowance. Triples have their own problems, though. They may need easy items 2-3 levels below tier, but they need 9 items for a maxed out turn-in. Then you have to make enough items for 6 turn-ins, 54 total items, because triple turn-ins didn't get the same XP boost as single turn-ins with the 2.1 update.

So, grab that Courier leve; you're heading to Quarrymill in the South Shroud for the next 10 levels. Also bring along 8 HQ items this time. Don't forget to register Quarrymill as your new favored destination!

If you're having troubles with making HQ items, just make the first two, then turn them in. That'll get you a level, which will net you the incredible Great Strides ability at level 21. This ability doubles the quality gains on the next quality-increasing ability you use. Ever wanted to know what a 1000% (yes, that is 3 zeroes) quality increase will net you? Now you can find out with a Great Strides/Standard Touch on an Excellent step. The only problem is timing, as Great Strides only lasts for 3 steps and goes away with the first Touch you use after it.

While you won't be able to use this without 254 CP (at least 1 HQ neck, wrist, or earring, or 2 HQ rings, plus Rumination from CRP 15), you can add the "Great Touching" macro for when you can afford it:

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Rumination"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

• Replace "Basic Synthesis" with "Standard Synthesis" when available.

On an ingredient recipe, this will leave you only 10 durability and almost no CP, so make sure you can one-shot the recipe before dropping this on it. I included CRP 15's Rumination here (32 extra CP at 4 stacks of Inner Quiet) to alleviate the cost of the second Steady Hand. If you feel like gambling on 90%, you can drop the Rumination and Steady Hand to bring this down to a 232 CP cost.

However, you're still going to need to be able to one-shot the ingredient. Best to use this only with 70/80 durability recipes, with a couple extra Basic Synths tacked on, until later.

Level 25. You've made it to the big times! Master's Mend II shows up now, but at 160 whopping CP for 60 durability restoration it's pretty much only useful on final products (when you can afford the steep cost). Ignore it for now and grab a new pair of Horn Earrings from the next tier for an additional 1-3 CP. It's probably not enough to change your rotation, but even a few CP can mean the difference between using a Basic Touch and a Hasty Touch. I can't even count the number of times I've had an awesome rotation thwarted by 1 CP and had to wait 5 entire levels for new accessories to use it!

Go to your guildmaster, who is now starting to recognize your contributions to the guild. They want a single HQ ingredient item from the 21-25 tier. Very simple. Buy it or make it, your choice. Turn it in and take your reward. From this point forward, every single class quest will require HQ items for turn-in. Nothing less will satisfy them or their customers.

Then head back to the Courier grind. Make 8 items and turn them in at Quarrymill again. Get new accessories at 26 (wrists), 28 (rings), and 29 (neck). Each new set of accessories is available 10 levels after the last, and the extra CP you can get from HQ accessories is incredibly useful. There aren't any new abilities in this tier.

Once you get to level 30, head back to your guildmaster for the defining quest of your career! They need you! Depending on the guild, you are now their one true savior and the only hope for them to stay afloat in these trying times. So get to work and get them their HQ turn-in!

Once that's done and out of the way, you'll notice that your Courier levequests are now directing you to Costa del Sol. Finally! You can save an incredible amount of money here with Blacksmith, Armorer, and Culinarian leves by using the Ferry Skipper at Fisherman's Bottom in Limsa Lominsa. Weavers, Goldsmiths, and Alchemists will want to just teleport because it's only slightly more expensive (with favored destinations) than taking the Airship and Ferry combined, and a lot faster. Carpenters and Leatherworkers are at the biggest disadvantage here due to the higher teleport costs vs time spent taking the Airship/Ferry.

Take a quick side-trip here over to Ul'dah's marketplace and talk to Syntgoht (er, Synhtghot--Synghot--Snothead, bah! Whatever his name is!). He'll give you a quick quest to go over to Bubblypots' camp again and learn the secrets of desynthesis! Now you can show your non-HQ results your true wrath by tearing them to pieces! And then laughing with joy as they pop like a pinata with materials to make new stuff (although really just the same stuff). See the Desynthesis section of the Appendix for more details.

Quality requirements make a sudden jump at this tier, so you're probably going to be making some NQ junk while you try to get the first two HQ items. Just take it in stride, as the NQs will still get you extra valuable XP that can save you a leve allowance if you fail to get HQ often enough.

At level 31 you get the overall best Synthesis ability, Standard Synthesis. 150% progress for 15 CP means that it is only rivaled by Rapid Synthesis and Careful Synthesis II (which you can't have yet). However, its 90% (100% with Steady Hand) reliability is far better than Rapid's 50% (still only 80% with Stead Hand II, which you also can't have yet), and the 30% higher progress over Careful Synth II means that you can one-shot ingredient recipes of your level and use the extra durability for more quality. Only that 15 CP cost holds it back from true greatness.

At this point, I'd recommend raising Carpenter to 15 and getting Rumination, if you haven't already done so. Then you can have the finisher macro "Standard Rumination" like so:

/ac "Rumination"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

As long as you have 5 CP left over and have at least 4 stacks of Inner Quiet (5 stacks means you don't need the other 5 CP), you can use this macro to one-shot most ingredient recipes at your level or lower, or gain a big jump on completing final products.

Once you hit level 35, head back for the next class quest. Once that's done and gone, your Courier leves will now be taking you to Coerthas for the next 10 levels; first to the Observatory Whose Name Shall Not Be Written In Full, then to Whitebrim. These are long walks, even with a mount, but they are definitely more than worth the XP.

At level 37 you get your class's second cross-class ability. Most of these are the junk Brand abilities that are only useful for a very few very rare recipes that you won't be completing unless you have a personal vendetta against progress. Only Culinarian gets the extremely useful Steady Hand II (Basic Touches are now 100% reliability, Hasties are up to 80%), and Goldsmiths get the next-class-useful Flawless Synthesis.

Keep going, and once you're at 40 you should know the drill.

At 43, you finally receive the second-highest quality increasing ability, Advanced Touch. With this in your repertoire, you are now ready to brute force HQ results until level 50 with this handy 280 CP "Advanced Touching" macro (possible with only three HQ accessories):

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Rumination"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

With this, you'll be able to manage HQ results that blow away your previous work. It's only too bad that you don't get it earlier.

Well, back to the grind. Pause at 45 to reflect on how awesome you are to your guildmaster, and then return. From here to 50, you're going to Revenant's Toll and the Sons of Saint Coinach dig site for turn-ins. After Coerthas, you should be more than ready for the distances involved.

At level 50, make sure to complete all of your class quests to get the i55 class Primary Tool, and then talk to the Achievement-giver in Old Gridania (Jonathas) to get the Master Ring for your class.

CONCLUSION AND NEW GUIDE+

And that is finally that! Level 50! Repeat for each new craft you plan to level, experimenting with macros as you go. Many times, you will find that reality doesn't mesh perfectly with the guide, but it should be close enough that you can get through with a little Ingenuity.

If there are any terms you don't understand, send me a note and I'll add it to the glossary. I can also send any of my masses upon masses of now-defunct macros that I've butchered over time while levelling each new class to 50 or even the current macros that I actually use for all of my crafting.

When you've raised all the crafting classes you plan on raising, you can move on to the new stages that were made available when you arrived at Level 50. Just understand that if you don't have all 8 of the crafting classes at 50 (yes, even CUL), things are going to be hard on you and your wallet, nearing impossible when it comes to the 3-star token items that lock you out of making 4-star items.

1-Star Recipes

Now that you've made it 50, you're now ready for 1-star recip--Oh wait, one more pesky thing to take care of first. You'll notice that those 1-star recipes have certain requirements on them. The ingredients require 275 Craftsmanship and the final products need 255 Control. Fortunately, you can easily achieve this with a full set of HQ Patrician's gear and your guild's level 50 class quest reward tool.

Careful, though. 1-star recipes are no joke. Consider them to be level 55 recipes, so make sure you grab Ingenuity out of Blacksmith and find a place for it in your macros. You also want to be as fully geared as possible.

Your first crafting class at this point, if you've been keeping your equipment up to date, should look like this:

• i55 Class Primary Tool (from level 50 class quest) or i55 Luminary Tool (from achievements)
• HQ Level 45-47 Secondary Tool
• HQ Patrician's outfit (Head, Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet*)
  • Personally, I stole each of my guildmasters' boots, which have similar NQ stats to the HQ Patrician's Gaiters and didn't cost me anything
• HQ Raptorskin Merchant's Purse
• HQ Electrum Choker
• HQ Red Coral Earrings
• HQ Electrum Wristlets of Crafting
• HQ Electrum Ring of Crafting
• i55 Class Master Ring

This should give you: Craftsmanship 278, Control 272, and CP 299. The early macros I provide may go a bit above 300 CP, but they are within range if you just make and eat some cheap HQ Frumenty for an additional 10 CP.

Your goal before proceeding to the 2-star section is to be equipped with:

• i55 Class Primary Tool (from level 50 class quest) or i55 Luminary Tool (from achievements)
• HQ Class-specific gear (Head, Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet)
• HQ Militia Secondary Tool
• HQ Dodore Belt
• HQ Rose Gold Choker
• HQ Mosshorn Earrings
• HQ Militia Wristlets
• HQ Aetheryte Ring (x2)

With this, your total will be: Craftsmanship 312, Control 308, and CP 319. You won't be jumping ahead to the 2-star recipes with stats like these, but for 1-star it's more than enough. The CP is especially important, as using the easy-to-make Frumenty food will give you the additional 10 CP you'll need to use a more advanced macro that you'll see later.

If you can't afford everything, that's okay. At this point, I really recommend starting all over on your next craft and making those pieces when you can make them yourself. The 1-star recipes will be quite difficult without certain cross-class abilities and all HQ gear (including Militia secondary tool). You don't need your class-specific gear just yet, as Patrician's is still perfectly fine for 1-star recipes; class gear just makes it a bit easier.

All of this is made easier, and less expensive, by having most of the level 15 abilities (Rumination, Waste Not, Hasty Touch, Manipulation, and Ingenuity in particular), Steady Hand II from CUL 37, and Byregot's Blessing from CRP 50. So get those level 15 abilities, and make your next 50 craft Carpenter, if you didn't start with it. The second (or third) class to get to 50 should be Alchemist, for Comfort Zone, unless you already bought some of the i55 gear and have at least 302 CP. If you did that, then Alchemist can be one of the last ones your raise.

Culinarian goes next, and, even though you technically only need level 37, getting to level 50 for the 1-star crafting-stat food recipes can absolutely make a difference with 2-star recipes. Then raise Weaver followed by Goldsmith followed by Leatherworker for materia melding. This leaves you likely only two or three classes away from a full set, so you may as well keep going for Alchemist (if you didn't raise it earlier), then Blacksmith, and finally Armorer.

Once you have Carpenter to 50, as you get each additional craft to 50 add this "Ultimate 40 Pre-Star" macro to your hotbar for recipes lower than level 50. It costs 302 CP, but this will help you craft HQ products reliably from NQ ingredients (with i55 primary, HQ Militia secondary, and full HQ Patrician's, it's worth about 1900-2000 quality before Conditions):

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Waste Not"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

When you get Alchemist to 50, Comfort Zone becomes a permanent addition at the top of every 1-star and later macro. It will reduce your overall CP requirements by 14, making the Ultimate 40 Pre-Star macro cost only 288 CP.

When you're ready, it's time to step onto the first of the final stages. It's dangerous to go unprepared. Take this 305 CP macro, "Ultimate 40 Stars":

Ultimate 40 Stars:

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Ingenuity"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

/ac "Basic Synthesis"

You'll notice that this will give significantly less quality than "Ultimate 40 Pre-Star". You MUST resist the urge to just continue using that macro. Or don't. Nothing prepares you for failure like getting to the end and realizing that your Synthesis abilities are now synthing for merely half the progress. As long as you can provide HQ ingredients, this is still worth about 1600-1700 quality. When you have Comfort Zone to add at the top, you can change the 4th Basic Touch to a Standard Touch for a little bit of extra quality.

For the "Finale Producto", a mere 294 CP:

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Ingenuity"

/ac "Waste Not"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Careful Synthesis"

/ac "Careful Synthesis"

• It doesn't fit in the macro, so manually activate Careful Synthesis one more time to finish.

You can replace the "Hasty Touch" with another Careful Synthesis if three just isn't enough. Otherwise when you have 312 CP (after upgrading your accessories to i55 versions, or once you've put Comfort Zone at the top to reduce the cost), you can change the "Hasty Touch" to another "Basic Touch". As you get more CP and abilities, you can continue tweaking this macro for your day-to-day crafting that you don't want to waste food on.

You can make up for some NQ ingredients here, gaining about 2100-2200 quality. You'll still need more CP and new macros (later on) to get to 100% HQ chance from 0 quality on 1-star crafts and even r45+ crafts.

The next step is obtaining the items necessary to craft 1-star ingredients. The hardest-to-obtain base items for 1-star ingredient recipes are gathered from level 50 unspoiled nodes (except LTW). Fortunately, the items drop in packs of 3 (or 5 for CUL ingredients). A level 50 gatherer kitted out in full HQ class gear with i55 blue primary and HQ off-hand Militia tool will give you 321 Perception for gaining High Quality (320 Perception required) base items, albeit at just 1% chance (max 5%, so you'll need to use the 30% HQ ability).

These base items can be crafted into 1-star ingredients (except Culinarian, which is messy but easier), which are then used in the 1-star final product recipes. The most common items to go for are Crawler Cocoons (WVR), Darksteel Ore (BSM/ARM), Gold Ore (GSM), and Spruce Logs (CRP). 2x Crawler Cocoons are combined with 1x Effervescent Water (120 quality) to make Twinthread, while 3x Gold Ore combines with 1x Copper Ore (don't bother with HQ copper, it's only worth 14 quality) to make a Rose Gold Nugget. 3x Darksteel Ore makes a Darksteel Nugget, and 3x Spruce Logs make a Spruce Lumber.

Leatherworker gets to farm 1x Hippogryph Skin combined with 1x Black Alumen to make a Hippogryph Leather for its 1-star recipes. Culinarian gets to use 1-star gathered items raw. Also note that the ingredients for 1-star require 3x Crystals (not mere Shards), and final products use 3x primary Crystal and 2x secondary Crystal. A level 26 BOT or MIN can really save you a lot of money at this point.

If you're ready to jump in to the big stuff but are still low on CP and trust in our lord and hater RNGesus, you can use this cheap, 80% reliable "Really Hasty Product" macro for a mere 316 CP, or 330 CP without Comfort Zone:

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Master's Mend II"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

If Hasty Touch only fails three times, it's just as good as "Really Final Product" below at a much lower CP cost. However, RNG can and will make all 9 Hasty Touches fail and not even feel bad about it, so you might want to Reclaim and Hasty Touch to end it in those instances, or just not rely on this for expensive recipes. If you think you have enough Inner Quiet stacks, then proceed onward.

Macro deuce "Really Almost Hasty":

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

You could also just use Hasty Touch and Great Strides outside of a macro if you don't feel like using yet another macro. If you still have another 18 CP kicking around you can add Innovation before or after Great Strides and choose your ending based on the last step. If you have the extra 18 CP but you're at less than 8 stacks of Inner Quiet and still want to give it a shot, then use a Basic Touch instead of Hasty Touch.

If you're sitting on a Good or Excellent condition at this point, use this awesome "Good Ending":

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Ingenuity"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

If your condition is instead only Normal or Poor, just use this sad sack of a "Normal Ending":

/ac "Ingenuity"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

Once CP is no object (and you can craft 1-star CP food), use this 370 CP/384(!) CP (can be lower, see below) macro "Really Final Product" for ingredi-er, final products:

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Great Strides"

• Activate "Normal Ending" or "Good Ending" as appropriate to finish.

If you don't have Careful Synthesis II, you can add an extra Careful Synth by removing the Hasty Touch. If you think that you'd rather have a Basic Touch and no Innovation instead of the Hasty Touch, you'd be surprised to learn that Innovation at this point (at 7 stacks of Inner Quiet) adds *slightly* more quality to Byregot's than another Basic Touch, without the durability cost. The extra Hasty Touch then uses that extra durability to replace the lost Basic Touch. That being said, if you don't have Innovation or you don't want to rely on a Hasty Touch in such an important macro then you're going to be making that Hasty Touch into a Basic Touch anyway.

If you don't need the third Careful Synthesis II you can save additional CP by changing Manipulation to Waste Not (reducing CP to a more reasonable 338/352).

Incidentally, if you want to get 100% HQ result on 2-star recipes with all NQ ingredients this is the macro to use. However, it will require even more Control, something in the area of 335 at least, as this recipe is only worth about 2400-2500 quality at the minimum 318 Control (rising to 2700-2800 if the Hasty Touch succeeds).

If you're really hurting for CP/Comfort Zone and don't trust RNGesus, just continue using "Finale Producto" with enough HQ ingredients to make up the quality difference (600-800 should do it).

2-Star Recipes

Before even being able to craft a single 2-star recipe, you will absolutely need your HQ class-specific gear, all HQ accessories, and a buttload of crafting materia before you'll even be able to start a 2-star recipe, which you can think of as a level 70 recipe. Oh, and you need an appropriate level 50 crafting class just to meld the materia into your gear if you don't want to pay/beg for someone else to do it.

So, once again, the gear you'll need from this point forward is:

• i55 Class Primary Tool (from level 50 class quest) or i55 Luminary Tool (from achievements)
• HQ Class-specific gear (Head, Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet)
• HQ Militia Secondary Tool
• HQ Dodore Belt
• HQ Rose Gold Choker
• HQ Mosshorn Earrings
• HQ Militia Wristlets
• HQ Aetheryte Ring (x2)

That being said, the materia "buttload" is about five pieces of tier 3 Control materia and around nine pieces of tier 2 Craftsmanship materia. If certain pieces of your gear are not, in fact, HQ, you will need to add more materia to make up the difference. Your gear will be HQ, or you will pay the difference (the difference isn't cheap).

This would be a good time to head over to mahiko's Materia melding list over at:

http://www.ffxivguild.com/ff14-arr-doh-crafting-gear-guide-endgame-l50-maximum-materia-melds/

You can also check out the resources for other materia melding sources, but this is the most up to date so far.

For the record, you need a minimum 347 Craftsmanship and 318 Control for 2-star recipes. Control is easier to match and usually more expensive on the market boards, hence why it gets priority for accessory slots. Craftsmanship is relatively cheap, and grants a higher bonus with lower tier materia. Mix and match as appropriate. Whatever slots you have left over should be filled with the highest tier CP materia you can get your hands on. You'll want enough CP materia to get to at least 328 base CP (I splurged and went all the way up to 329 at this point) to use with HQ Bouillabaisse food. More CP gives more leeway on macros. 1-star macros work almost as well on 2-star recipes, but you need to use Ingenuity II for the ingredient macros.

I don't recommend going for the minimum requirements, however, because if you don't plan ahead you'll likely end up wasting materia when you need to re-meld for 3-star recipes. The class gear with maxed out materia will be your BiS gear until 4-star level anyway.

You should also stick to just maxing out one class's gear and focus on getting Talan's i70 Artisan's gear for all the other classes. If materia is too expensive even for maxing out one set of gear, then go for the minimum requirements and make getting Talan's gear a priority. The stats are only slightly lower than class gear and still qualify you for 3-star stats without having to max out 8 full sets of crafting gear.

2-star recipes follow the same pattern as 1-star recipes, in that you need to craft the 2-star ingredients first, and then use those ingredients in the final products after. The difference is in how you obtain the materials.

First, the clusters (third tier of crystals). These can only be gathered from level 50 unspoiled nodes. If you don't have a level 50 gatherer by this point you're going to be paying through the nose for clusters. At least these recipes only need 1 cluster of each primary and secondary crystal type.

The ingredient recipes generally require 9x philosophy tome (now GC seal/Ixali Oaknot) items. You can get them out of i80+ dungeons (ie: those dungeons that drop gear/tokens to get gear of i80 or higher) at random, pay 800 seals for each (7,200 seals per item), pay 1 Oaknot for 2 (but don't waste Oaknots on these, ever), or just buy them off the market board. Dungeon drops can even come in HQ varieties now, but you're still going to be relying on Byregot's Blessing more than ever here. The other items can are all over the place, including 1-star ingredients or monster drops. Fortunately, you don't need HQ 2-star ingredients to get an HQ 2-star final product.

The final product recipes require 1x 2-star ingredient plus a variety of other items (occasionally including other philosophy tome items). It's a lot easier to obtain HQ on final products because of the extra durability, plus having a greater variety of potential sources of HQ items than the ingredients.

Once you have the important half of the classes at level 50, you can start making use of the following macros. They don't even require any additional CP materia if you can get your hands on some HQ Bouillabaisse food (+13% CP, max 43 CP). Of course, if you have extra CP, you can start replacing Basic Touches with Standard Touches for 14 more CP each. With enough CP, you'll even be able to build your own better macros, like "Really Final Product" back in the 1-star section.

"Ingredient Finale" (Costs 347 CP/361 without Comfort Zone)

Necessary Cross-Class skills:

• Comfort Zone (ALC 50) - Optional
• Byregot's Blessing (CRP 50)
• Steady Hand II (CUL 37)
• Waste Not (LTW 15)
• Ingenuity (BSM 15)
• Careful Synthesis (WVR 15)

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Waste Not"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Ingenuity"

/ac "Waste Not"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Careful Synthesis"

• Activate Careful Synthesis one more time to finish.

"Producto Finale" (Costs 352 CP/366 without Comfort Zone)

Necessary Cross-Class skills:

• Comfort Zone (ALC 50) - Optional
• Innovation (GSM 50)
• Byregot's Blessing (CRP 50)
• Careful Synthesis II (WVR 50)
• Steady Hand II (CUL 37)
• Waste Not (LTW 15)
• Ingenuity (BSM 15)

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Waste Not"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Great Strides"

• Activate "Normal Ending" or "Good Ending" as appropriate to finish.

Aside from "Really Final Product" back in the 1-star section, when you do have enough CP, you can use this 370/384 CP "Ultimate 40 2-stars" macro on ingredients:

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

3-Star Recipes

Well, that was unexpected. As of patch 2.2 there are now 3-star recipes. Good luck! . . . Oh, I guess you want help with those too, huh? Well, I guess I'll give it a go.

3-Stars: The Questening

First off, you have to do a little quest for Guiding Star in Mor Dhona. His quest unlocks the actual merchant you'll be needing, Talan, who stands right beside him but is too good to give you the time of day without Guiding Star's recommendation.

You may have read it in the Glossary, but most 3-Star recipes don't just require 391 Craftsmanship and 374 Control (for both ingredients and final products). You also need to purchase a Master Recipe book for each class, although some classes have a few non-master 3-Star recipes which are exactly the same except you don't need a book first.

And just how do you obtain said books? Oh, right. I already spoiled that in the Glossary, too. You simply need 5 HQ 2-Star ingredients using the Philo--ahem, GC/Oaknot crafting items. At 800 seals per ingredient times 9 ingredients per item times 5 items (or more if you fail to HQ any of them) times 8 Master Recipe books, that's 288 bloody thousand GC seals, or a mere 36,000 seals for just one! -_-

Or to go the Oaknot route, you get 2 items per Oaknot, so you just need 23 Oaknots per book (you're stuck with the extra) times 8 Master Recipe books, means just..carry the one...184 knots, which can be obtained in a mere 16 days! And if you started collecting these early on, you'll be able to cut the time down even further. Clearly, Oaknots are a much better source for these items than seals.

No wait, STOP!

Oaknots have a higher purpose. You see, patch 2.4 introduced Ehcatl Sealants to the purchase list, and these are used for crafting the 3-star i70 offhand tools and the even starrier 4-star i60 Artisan's and Forager's (for Gatherers) gear. You'll need 480 sealants just for the crafting stuff (6 sealants per offhand tool and 3 per piece of gear), and only if you always HQ everything.

So, gathering seals is going to be necessary; not just for this but for the new Lucis tools as well. Just do your daily Supply/Provisioning missions for over 350 seals per turn-in, doubled for HQ items, doubled for turn-ins with a star beside them (4x for an HQ+Star turn-in). This'll net you more than 8,400-9,100 seals if you have all 8 crafts and 2-3 gatherers at 50 (I don't care about Fisher, so I get fewer seals). You will also get an extra 3000 seals each week from the challenge log, pretty much when you hand in all of your seal turns-in on the first day after the weekly reset (1000 for turning in 5 HQ items and 2000 for turning in 10 items, although gatherer item stacks still only count as 1 for each).

Then put your daily allotment of levequests into the Sons of Saint Coinach Grand Company Levegiver for another 2,400 seals (make sure you're doing them at +4 levels for the most reward). Finally, run FATEs while you attempt to gather Atma for your Zenith weapon upgrades. Aim to get around 1,000 seals from FATEs per day (it takes less than an hour even in low-level zones), although there's a good chance you'll get all of your Atma long before you finish seal farming for all 8 classes.

However you manage it, as long as you can get at least 11,250 seals per day and complete your upper tier Ixal quests, you'll have your first recipe book in just 3 days! Or immediately if you already had a stash of Oaknots handy and don't care about Sealants (you really should care)!

Now, that means it'll be about 24 days total to get all 8 finished (far and away much better than the previous 80 days that seals alone would have taken), but if you spend a couple of hours in a high-level zone doing FATEs, getting on the A Train (killing A-rank hunt enemies on respawn), or farming for a few of those Madman Whispering Rods you can drop that time by a third to half. Just remember to buy the items you'll need every 25,000 seals or so to avoid the cap, and stack up Oaknots until you're ready to cash in those chips.

He Who Crafts the Ingredients Crafts the Master Recipes

If you're planning on crafting the new i90 equipment then for all that is destroyed by Holy, please start by buying Lime Sulphur to make Growth Formula Delta Concentrates for Alchemist. Alchemist's ONLY 3-star recipe is Terminus Putty (not the only recipe in the book, just the only 3-star one). Terminus Putty, meanwhile, is required by every 3-Star i90 equipment recipe (and no other recipes, closed parentheses, period).

So at this point, if you're like me and only have the bare minimums for Craftsmanship and Control, you're going to have some issues reliably crafting HQ versions of those 2-star ingredients. Well, continue worrying. I don't have any easy answers. The answers I do have may seem terrifying at first, but with some practice on 1-star recipes with much cheaper/easily replaced items you too will be able to achieve 100% quality on ingredients with 90% reliability.

In the ways of someone else's people, you will need to achieve zen mastery of the manual crafting method and as much CP as you can (I can do it fairly reliably in testing with 329 CP, but I use HQ Bouillabaisse to get up to 371 CP when I do it for real). And fortunately, I've got shortcuts:

• Remove Ingenuity and Rumination (or Waste Not if you're doing this on BSM or CRP) from your cross-class skills. Put in Tricks of the Trade (TotT for short) and Reclaim.
• After each step before you decide to finish the craft activate TotT every time it becomes available. Every. Single. Time. Don't worry, the rotation I'm about to give you will cover it.
• Start with Comfort Zone, Inner Quiet, and Steady Hand II. Yes, use TotT after SHII too, if it's available.
• Whenever SHII ends, re-activate it unless you're at 40 durability and Manipulation is still active. Activate it when Manipulation ends.
• Use Hasty Touch twice (no more, no less) to get down to 20 Durability remaining. After any TotT's have been dealt with, activate Manipulation.
• Use Hasty Touch three times, even if you had to activate TotT once or twice during Manipulation.
  • You see, having your durability at 20 means that even if TotT activates twice (it's not possible to activate thrice in three steps) your durability will only go up to 40 and there won't be any waste.
  • The only way this can fail is if you activate Manipulation, then get a TotT and Steady Hand II runs out at the same time so you re-activate SHII and get another TotT. In this extremely rare case, just use the TotT unless you're currently between 143 and 192 CP (the TotT is wasted here, but you could still try for another Hasty Touch without penalty).
  • If you find yourself in the enviable position of having nearly maxed out CP again and Comfort Zone is done, activate it again.
  • If you take yourself down to 10 durability while trying for an Excellent condition, you're going to have to spend some CP on an ability (refreshing SHII, even if it's still active, is a good choice) to get your durability back up to 20 before you can use anymore Hasty Touches.
• When your CP drops below 213, you'll have to make a judgement call.
  • If you want to chance getting more Good conditions, continue as you have. Just know that if you activate Manipulation on less than 213 CP remaining, and no Good conditions appear, you may have to abandon the attempt. I'd say that if you have less than 7 stacks of Inner Quiet, you should make the attempt rather than risk not being able to HQ the item.
  • Otherwise, use Hasty Touches to get back down to 20 Durability, if you weren't there already, and then prepare to finish it.
• Finish the craft. You will need a minimum 128 CP to do this and preferrably at least 7 stacks of Inner Quiet (more is, of course, better).
  • If you have less than 7 stacks of IQ, then use Reclaim and Hasty Touch twice to end it and try to get your items back. Well, unless you want to pray reeeeaaaaaally hard for a Good/Excellent result on Byregot's.
  • Activate the following abilities. WARNING: Do NOT activate TotT (more than once if you don't use Innovation) for the remainder of the craft unless you really need the extra CP because you were being foolish.
    • Steady Hand and Ingenuity II. Order between the two doesn't really matter, but I prefer Ingenuity II second in case I've been foolish and need to activate a TotT. Standard Synthesis still has a 90% success rate, but it will fail 100% to get enough progress without Ingenuity II.
    • Great Strides, OPTIONALLY Innovation. Activate Great Strides, and if a Good/Excellent condition pops up don't bother with Innovation. Otherwise, if you happen to have 57+ CP available after using Great Strides, go ahead and activate Innovation. It doesn't hurt unless you activated a TotT during this stretch, in which case, don't use Innovation under any circumstances.
    • Byregot's Blessing, then Standard Synthesis. Well, if you're not up to 100% quality after Byregot's you're going to have to evaluate only one thing. Do you have 55 CP for Reclaim? Well? Do ya? Otherwise, RNG HOOOOOO!

If done correctly, you should be able to get up to 7-9 stacks most times before having to end it. By the way, in case you think not using a macro is sacrilege, I still made one. :3

/echo Add Tricks of the Trade and Reclaim.

/echo Comfort Zone, Inner Quiet, Steady Hand II. TotT every time.

/echo Hasty Touch x2 then Manipulation.

/echo Hasty Touch x3. Use Steady Hand II when it runs out.

/echo ...repeat Manipulation, Hasty Touch x3, and Stead Hand II until under 213 CP.

/echo Steady Hand then Ingenuity II.

/echo Great Strides. Innovation if at 57+ CP remaining and NOT on Good/Exc.

/echo Byregot's Blessing then Standard Synthesis.

/echo Remove Tricks of the Trade and Reclaim when finished.

My chat box is 9 lines high, so this macro fills it, and also drives out RMT spam as an added benefit. Now, just repeat this process until you've got your 5 HQ items and head over to Mor Dhona to get your well-deserved shiny new Master Recipe Book!

Token Craft Guy

Each book contains a new 2-star recipe to craft a so-called "token" item whose only purpose is to be turned in to get Talan's Artisan's gear. You can get yourself a new primary tool for each class, plus a full set of Artisan's gear for the Head, Body, Hands (ignore these, stick to the Ehcatl Smithing Gloves), Legs, and Feet that can be worn by all DoH classes and replaces all of your unmaxed class-specific gear. Maxed out class-specific gear is still better, though.

Now, once you finally have your book, you can get to making your spiffy new furniture, but it's going to be hard enough without a new primary tool...and maybe some new glasses that'll let you see the aetherial energies a little better.

Aside from the recipe books, you probably noticed that Talan also sells new primary tools and gear for crafters and gatherers, and you probably also thought you want you some of that. Fortunately, you only need a token sum of 8, 10, or 20 2-star HQ ingredient items for each Artisan's tool, and another 4, 5, or 10 HQ for each piece of Artisan's gear (16, 20, or 40 items for four pieces, as they are equippable by all DoH classes, unlike the tools). So much more fortunately, these items only need 1-star ingredients or lower; no GC items, and no Terminus Putty.

You do still need to get the master recipe books first, though.

Okay, gear ready. Ingredients gathered. We're good now. Let's just start up that first 2-star token we're gonna need to--hooo jeebus! Nope! Nuh uh! Don't wanna! QUIT! QUIT! QUIT! Holy Rhalgr, SE! You really don't want people to craft these items HQ reliably, do you!?

2-Star Token Items
Durability: 80 d^_^
Difficulty: 419 O_O
Maximum Quality: 5257 x_x

Forget everything you've ever known (unless you had to learn this already with the 2-star ingredients)!! Drop Ingenuity for Reclaim! Kick Rumination for Tricks of the Trade! HQ ONLY!! No more macros?! *smack* Huh? *smack* Hey! Macro? Oh, yeah. As long as you can get all HQ ingredients (actually possible on these), you can almost use Really Final Product. It just needs a feeeewwww little touch-ups BUT only 356 CP (rotation from NyneAlexander):

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Great Strides"

You'll need to update your Normal and Good Ending macros (make copies because the old ones are still useful) to include both Ingenuity II and an extra Careful Synthesis II. As long as you get 105 progress from each CSII (you should be able to get it with 352-353 Craftsmanship, as 354 gives 106 progress but 351 only gives 104), you'll be just fine with this "Crappy Ending".

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

• Remember to switch around Ingenuity II and Byregot's in the new "Great Ending" macro, too.

This gives a pretty good preview of how the 3-star recipes are going to go, and having all HQ ingredients reduces the quality requirement to a much more manageable 2629. With 80 durability, the only issue with getting that much quality is the durability you have to sacrifice to progress. Fortunately, as you craft these tokens, you can trade in for better gear that will, when all pieces are obtained, get you with near to 3-star stats

3-Star Ingredients and You

Along the way, feel free to farm up some GC seals (you're now free of the tomestone tyranny; welcome to seal suffering). You're going to need 8100 GC seals for your first batch of Terminus Putty (3x Tawny Latex), and any gear made with Terminus Putty is also going to need another 9000-18000 seals depending on whether the item you plan on making asks for one or two of the new 3-star items (all of the new equipment recipes require 1-2 3-star crafted ingredients and 1-2 Putties, among other 1-star and lesser ingredients).

You can also obtain Tawny Latex and other 3-star ingredients from the Patch 2.4 and later dungeons, and they should be going fairly cheaply on the Market Board for most servers. Or you could, not really, get them from the Ixal Oaknots vendor, but why would you waste your Oaknots on anything that isn't Sealants!?

Terminus Putty x3

3x Tawny Latex: 2700 GC seals each

1x Filtered Water: 800 GC Seals (actually gets 10)

You get 10 Filtered Waters for 800 GC Seals, which you should have spilling out of your pockets. Tawny Latex is likewise cheap considering you get back as many Terminus Putties.

Saurian Leather

1x Saurian Skin: 9000 GC seals

1x Shroud Tea Leaves: 2-star Botanist gathering item

The tea leaves might be a bit difficult to obtain at first, but it's a simple (and free) gather attempt once you can begin farming the nodes.

Cashmere Cloth

1x Cashmere Fleece: 9000 GC seals

1x Diluted Vitriol:

9x Filtered Water: 800 GC Seals for 10

6x Vitriol: 216 gil (it's GIL, just plain old GIL!)

Oh, hey! That is just the perfect amount of Filtered Water left over after buying it just for the Terminus Putty. The Vitriol is bought for straight gil from the Kobold beastman vendor, at merely Neutral (starting) reputation.

Wolfram Ingot

1x Scheelite: 9000 GC seals and the knowledge that SE is just making up words now

1x Ferberite: 2-star Miner gathering item and an additional made-up word

Clearly, SE messed up as anyone with even a passing knowledge of alloying knows that Scheelite and Ferberite should actually mix into Seeicandoittoo, not Wolfram. Like the tea leaves, once you're able to farm Ferberite, you're able to farm it for free.

Gold Ingot

1x Raziqsand: 9000 GC seals, and you have to correctly find Raziqstan on a map

1x Native Gold: 2-star Miner gathering item

Repeat what I said about the tea leaves and madeupnameerite.

Whew! Man, my Cashmere Robe of Healing feels like its going to be so easy to get right about now. Whazzat? Oh, right. 445 difficulty and 4980 quality. -_- Oh wait. I just want that for vanity! Wow. That just saved me so much effort it's unbelievable.

I guess for someone that actually wants this gear for clearing content, I...I'm sorry, I can't actually come up with anything reliable to make up for those differences without going over 400 CP. If you do have 408 CP kicking around, you can activate this "I Hate You, Please d" D:< macro:

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/echo Activate Innovation and then Great Strides

• Do what the /echo says
• Activate Crappy Ending or Great Ending as appropriate.

However, even that's not really enough to get 100% quality 100% of the time. For a much lower cost, but a lot less reliability, you could also try this 378 CP "I'm sorry, I didn't " macro:

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Master's Mend"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

Next step with "really mean it":

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Great Strides"

• IQ 7-8 use Crappy Ending or Great Ending.
• Otherwise, use Reclaim and Hasty Touch to try again.

That's really the best I can do. Realistically, your best bet is to go back to the 2-star manual rotation (or alternatively, ahead to the 3-star token rotation), but adding in Piece By Piece now and using Great Ending or Crappy Ending to finish:

/echo Add Piece By Piece, Tricks of the Trade and Reclaim.

/echo Comfort Zone, Inner Quiet, Steady Hand II. TotT every time.

/echo Piece By Piece x2, Hasty Touch x2, then Manipulation.

/echo Hasty Touch x3. Use Steady Hand II when it runs out.

/echo ...repeat Manipulation, Hasty Touch x3, and Stead Hand II until under 216 CP.

/echo Steady Hand then Great Strides.

/echo Innovation if at 74+ CP remaining and NOT on Good/Exc.

/echo Activate "Great Ending" or "Crappy Ending", as appropriate.

/echo Remove PbP, TotT, and Reclaim when finished.

4-Star Recipes

And now for something completely impossible

The advent of Patch 2.4 brought about 4-star recipes. I have no jokes for I am simply too afraid. Oh, not of the recipes themselves. Once you're in, it's not a big deal. No, the part I'm afraid of is the 3-star token items you have to craft to unlock the Master Recipe II books that hold the 4-star recipes, including new crafting and gathering gear.

You might even recognize these tokens if you have a Supra tool. The same token items that got that for you are also the same ones that you need to get the Master Recipe II books. Oh, so no problem. Just craft up a few more of them and--Hold on there, little Johnny (or Jimmy or Billy or whatever your name is but with a -y at the end). You'll need to craft those token items in HQ for this step.

Don't remember because you blew through them with a bunch of Standard Synths before? Let me just refresh your memory.

Durability: 80 ^_^
Progress: 801 @_@
Quality: 8964 X_X
Kick in the teeth: 2x Fieldcraft Demimateria III each

You only need 3 HQ instead of 5 NQ. But you're manually crafting this no matter how much you, or I, really really really really really really really really really really wish otherwise. On the plus side, if you complete a craft and it comes out NQ, Patch 2.55 lets you trade it to Talan to get 1 of those Fieldcraft Demimateria III's back, so the cost is mitigated somewhat.

If you never really bothered to learn the manual rotation before, get ready for boot camp! First, make sure to set yourself up with the following cross-class abilities:

Tricks of the Trade

Comfort Zone

Piece by Piece

Rapid Synthesis

Careful Synthesis II

Steady Hand II

Hasty Touch

Innovation

Byregot's Blessing

Ingenuity II (Optional)

Manipulation (Optional)

Reclaim (Optional)

That's a lot of Optionals for stuff you'd normally expect to be required, right? However, depending on how good your stats and math are, the options you need can change drastically. For example, if you have your Lucis tool and 4-star stats (451 Craftsmanship and 407 Control) already you probably won't be needing Ingenuity II. Manipulation will only save you 4-12 CP depending on how you modify your rotation. Reclaim won't help you at all if you are decent at math and plan to trade in NQ's.

Innovation, by contrast, both adds to your final Byregot's and gives you another chance at a Good/Excellent, and every bit of quality is going to be necessary to have the highest chances. For the record, I did these without Innovation, but I had the CP for it on most of my attempts which could have saved me a good bit of money.

Now, onto the rotation. Remember your HQ Bouillabaisse and any FC bonuses you can get. First part, as usual, and may the TotTs be with you:

Comfort Zone

Reclaim (if you don't trust your math)

Inner Quiet

Now the Progress step, which starts early so you don't have it interfering with your Byregot's later. Again, use Tricks of the Trade whenever it's up whenever you can, even if you have to re-apply SHII.

Steady Hand II

Piece By Piece

Piece By Piece

• If you only have around the minimums necessary for 3-star crafts, consider adding another Piece by Piece. It will still give you slightly more than a Rapid Synth, but with less (ie: no) chance of failure. It eats into your CP, but that's workable.

Rapid Synthesis

Rapid Synthesis (if you did a third PbP and you're a ways above the minimums, check your math before using this Synth)

At this point, your next step depends on whether you're close enough that another Rapid Synthesis would finish the craft. Get a calculator if you need to, the game will wait. If you can fit in another Rapid Synth, do so. If you used a third PbP, you're going to be close enough that just breathing on it will finish, so you can skip the next paragraph.

If a third RS would finish it and you didn't use a third PbP (ie: more than 65 progress remaining, but less than 110), use Careful Synthesis II to find out how close that will get you (at 462 Craftsmanship, I needed two CSIIs at 65 progress each without INGII to finish, so don't worry about accidentally finishing it off unless you're over 500 Craft for some reason).

On future attempts, you can save the CSIIs to fish for Good and Excellent procs, but for now you want to know exactly how much durability you'll need at the end. If Rapid Synth fails more than twice, you're probably not going to end up with enough Inner Quiet stacks at the end for even Byregot's to make a difference. However, continue to the end for the sake of practice anyway. Never give up!

Next up, the first durability restoration project. To start, you're probably out of SHII and nearly finished with your first Comfort Zone. Your actual steps here will vary wildly depending on what's available, in the following priority order:

• First priority goes to Tricks of the Trade.
• Comfort Zone AFTER the last stack is used up. Don't use it even if there's only one stack because you will lose the CP from that stack.
• When durability is 20 or less, Master's Mend II.

  If you've got 20 durability and one stack of SHII left, you can feel free to use another Hasty Touch. Just don't use more than 1 at this point, of course.

• Steady Hand II when it runs out, but only on the step immediately before starting Hasty Touches.
• If durability is greater than 20, Hasty Touch until durability is 20.

And now meth, er, math. >_> <_< The absolute minimum CP you'll want to have at the end is 56 for a Great Strides and Byregot's, although you should really try to leave 78 for Steady Hand as well. You'll also need enough durability to handle Byregot's and any remaining progress steps you didn't take before, so at least 20, possibly 30 if you're going to use a CSII for fishing. However, at this point you should be at a fresh 80 or 70 durability. So for now:

TotT whenever it's available.

SHII if it's out.

Hasty Touch down to your minimum remaining durability.

If Comfort Zone goes down and you have between 144 and 183 CP remaining, go ahead and re-activate it. More CP is better spent on Manipulation, and less CP means you're about to end it anyway.

Simple. Now let's get algebraic. I'm going to give you a chart to follow. You can do everything for the line of the chart that has the CP you have remaining and lower (except where noted). NOTE, however, that this is NOT the proper order. That will come later. Consider this instead to be a priority list for what moves you'll have available when you're stressing out about all the Hasty Touches that failed already.

CP	Action
256	Master's Mend II (ignore 236 and 184 lines)
236	Comfort Zone (multiply remaining steps by 8 and add to current CP when consulting this chart again)
184	Manipulation (Change this line and above to 188, 254, and 260 for Master's Mend if you're not using Manipulation)
96	Innovation (Optional, above lines become 166, 218, and 238 without it)
78	Steady Hand
56	Great Strides
48	(Optional) Observe for fishing only if you have 38 CP and at least 2 stacks of Steady Hand right before using Byregot's
24	Byregot's Blessing
<24	Careful Synthesis II

The following is the order to perform each action in, based on remaining Durability:

Durability	Action
>30	SHII when down, Hasty Touch, TotT
30a	If 256 CP remaining, Hasty Touch then Master's Mend II
30b	If 236/240 CP remaining, use Comfort Zone then Manipulation/Master's Mend
30c	If 188 CP remaining, use Manipulation/Master's Mend
30d	If NOT using CSII for fishing: Hasty Touch, go to 20b
30e	If using CSII for fishing: Steady Hand, Great Strides, Innovation (if Normal), CSII (if Normal), go to 20a
20a	Byregot's Blessing
20b	Steady Hand, Great Strides, Innovation (if Normal), Observe (Optional, if Normal with at least 38 CP remaining now), Byregot's Blessing
10a	Going for Talan NQ turn-in on failure and/or you didn't use Reclaim and/or you like your chances: Careful Synthesis II
10b	Otherwise, if Reclaim is up and you don't like your chances: Hasty Touch

That is a lot to process, I know. But just do one step based on your current durability and the conditions listed, and you should be fine. Basically, if you can get your durability back up over 30, you have more chances to do Hasty Touches and increase your Inner Quiet stacks. Once your durability is at 30 and you can't get it back up, that's when you move on to the next set of instructions.

Most of the time, you're going to end up with a 20% chances or less (emphasis on 'or less') to get HQ by the end. That's normal. It's also something you can work with now, due to Talan's turn-in option.

Normally, you'd want to just Reclaim and take the 90% chance to have another attempt. While Talan's turn-in gives you back one of the FCIII's you used, that's just a 50% return on investment, right? However, by Reclaiming like that you have a 0% chance of getting an HQ result, whereas with Talan you at least have a chance, however small, on every attempt. Sometimes, RNGesus will laugh at those who scorn a 43% and hand out success to the faithful. Talan's way gives you less attempts for high percentage chances, but more attempts for actually getting an HQ result.

Think of it this way. If you start with 8 FCIII's, you're basically taking the 90% chance to keep trying for high-percentage rotation results. On average, you'll get 10-20 chances before you lose 4 of your FCIII's and have to get more. However, you'll want at least 3 of those attempts to come out at higher than 50%, which requires both Inner Quiet at 10-11 stacks and at least a Good on Byregot's. If more than one Rapid Synth or Hasty Touch fails, you probably won't even make 50% even with a Good on Byregot's. On average, though, 2 of those steps WILL fail. You may have 10-20 chances, but more than half of those will be a loss before you even get to Byregot's. The chance of ending with a Good or Excellent result further reduces you to a good run on only 2-4 attempts. If more than one of those fails to HQ, you need more resources.

By doing the turn-in, you start with four attempts. Then you have two attempts. Then you have one attempt. Only 7 attempts. Since it's fairly easy to get to 15%, that will give you an average of only 1 HQ token. But there's still a chance for more HQ results, even if the percentages aren't very high. Taking Talan's option means trading off fewer attempts for more chances at HQ results. It all depends on how much faith you want to put in RNGesus.

With enough attempts you'll succeed eventually to get 3 HQ token items. Proudly hand those over to Talan for your Master Recipe II book and breathe a huge sigh of relief.

4-Star Recipes: The Fenrir of Crafting

Finally, never have to do that again (after completing it 8 times)! But with such a horrible wall blocking access to the 4-star recipes, it can only mean that the recipes themselves will be fully insurmountable. Well, let's at least see what we're in for beyond the 451 Craftsmansip and 408 Control requirements.

Durability: 80 o_o
Progress: 586 ?_?
Quality: 5783 *_*

Um. Wut? This has to be a joke. I'm outraged that these recipes would have such low requirements compared to the tokens! Why were the tokens so incredibly difficult when these are a walk in the park!? I demand the difficulty be rais-*smack* Wha? *smack* *smack* Right, no make more difficult. *smack* Yes, yes, just make tokens easier. *smack* *smack* I'm sorry! Please stop hitting me!

You can use the same rotation as the tokens, but you can save some durability for more Hasty Touches, and even a normal on Byregot's can get you to 100%.

The actual recipes require 4-star ingredients made from mostly Binding Coil Turn 1-5 drops (Allagan Silk, Leather, and Wootz Nuggets) or 3-star gathered items (Platinum Ore and Ebony Logs), mixed with Soldiery Tomestone ingredients (1 for the BCoB drops, 9 for the gathered items). Most of the gear recipes also require Platinum Nuggets, putting Goldsmith in high demand here.

The biggest reason to be in this tier, though, is for the BiS crafting gear, i60 Artisan's...wait. You mean the same stuff as Tala--no. His stuff is i70? What's going on? Why is the new stuff worse than the old stuff?

Well, it is worse before you stuff it full of materia. Each of these pieces has 3, count 'em, 3 base materia slots. The body and legs can be made by Weaver, the hands are made by Leatherworker, and the Feet are made by Carpenter. No new head piece, though, so the Artisan's glasses are still making you look frumpy.

Each piece requires, among other things, 1 Mastercraft Demimateria and 3 Ehcatl Sealants, so it might be a bit expensive if you haven't been keeping up on either Desynthesis or Ixal daily quests.

APPENDIX

The Cross-Class abilities You'll Need After Level 50

The abilities below are what you should generally keep in your cross-class list. Some abilities, like Piece by Piece and Rapid Synthesis, only really need to be added when working on 3-star+ recipes and/or manual crafting. In summary:

ALC 15: Tricks of the Trade

ALC 50: Comfort Zone

ARM 15: Rapid Synthesis (3-star+)

ARM 50: Piece by Piece (3-star+)

BSM 50: Ingenuity II

CRP 50: Byregot's Blessing

CUL 15: Hasty Touch

CUL 37: Steady Hand II

CUL 50: Reclaim (Optional)

GSM 15: Manipulation (Optional for manual crafting)

GSM 50: Innovation (Optional)

WVR 50: Careful Synthesis II

Byregot's Blessing (CRP 50, 24 CP): The king of Touching just how you like it. Once you have it, you'll never let it go. Counts as a Touch ability and has a quality formula of 100% + 20% * (# of Inner Quiet stacks - 1). For example, 6 IQ stacks makes this a 200% quality increase before Great Strides. However, it removes Inner Quiet and all stacks once used, restoring Control to its original level, so it can't be used with Rumination. Fortunately, the amount of quality gained is based on Control BEFORE losing Inner Quiet.

Careful Synthesis II (WVR 50, 0 CP): Increases progress by 120% for free and has 100% success rate, so it can be used outside of Steady Hand/II. It's useful in more situations than Standard Synthesis, but Standard can still save your bacon better (and non-bacon-related recipes as well) if you've been wasting your li-I mean, CP.

Comfort Zone (ALC 50, 66 CP): Restores 8 CP after each step for the next 10 steps, 80 total. Using this at the start of a long (two-part or more) macro will net you 14 CP, effectively reducing the CP you need to have on hand for long macros and manual crafting. Since it pays for itself and almost Inner Quiet, you should always use this on the very first step of almost any craft.

Ingenuity II (BSM 50, 32 CP): As Ingenuity, but the level is dropped even lower. At 3-star+ levels, Ingenuity II is absolutely required, and even at 2-star it can make a difference. At 1-star and below you're probably better off sticking with the lower-level version. The effect on Touch abilities is minor, but it's really the only way for Synthesis abilities to give any meaningful progress at the highest tiers.

Hasty Touch (CUL 15, 0 CP): Same as Basic Touch, but costs 0 CP for having only a 50% base success chance. This is mostly used in manual crafting at 3-star+ recipes because CP is sorely lacking at that point.

Innovation (GSM 50, 18 CP): Increases Control by 50% for three steps. This has no effect on the amount that Inner Quiet increases Control by, but it does multiply your IQ-modified Control. This combos quite well with Byregot's to give even more quality gains at the end of a combo, but at higher tiers it's a luxury that you may not be able to afford.

Manipulation (GSM 15, 88 CP): Similar to Master's Mend, as it restores 10 durability each step for the next three steps (30 max). WARNING: Durability is lost before Manipulation restores it, so if you use a Touch or Synthesis ability at 10 (or 5) durability your craft will fail immediately. On the other end, if you use it while at max durability, any non-Touch or Synthesis ability is going to waste some restoration.

Piece By Piece (ARM 50, 15 CP): Before 3-star crafting, this is just a garbage Synthesis-type ability. It fills in 33% (not exactly 1/3) of the REMAINING progress bar, but it rounds down. On high-difficulty (445!!) 3-star+ ingredient/equipment recipes and housing items (1494 at 3-stars!!!), though, it becomes a required Synthesis-type ability.

Rapid Synthesis (ARM 15, 0 CP): 250% progress for free! Sounds great! 50% success chance, maxed to 80% with Steady Hands II. Not so great. This is really only useful when you overestimate how much progress your regular synth will give and need to at least try to dig yourself out of the hole. It's like Reclaim, but for when you really really need it to please just let it happen, I need this, it's at 100% quality and Ingenuity II just went away because I messed up the rotation, and oh god, why am I so stupid!?

Reclaim (CUL 50, 55 CP): Gives you a 90% chance to recover all items (not crystals) used in a failed craft. That 90% cannot be modified by Steady Hand/II, by the way, so if your choice is a NQ item or 10% chance to lose all of the items anyway, you may be better off going with the NQ result unless you think RNGesus is somehow on your side. Hint: RNGesus could sustain its power solely on the tears of crafters.

Steady Hand II (CUL 37, 25 CP): Increases success rate of abilities by 30%. Notably, this gives Basic Touch a full 100% chance to succeed. Meanwhile, Hasty Touch and Rapid Synthesis go up to 80%.

Tricks of the Trade (ALC 15, Russian CP): A wild Good condition appears! Alchemist uses Tricks of the Trade. Alchemist regains 20 CP! While incredibly unreliable, this and manual crafting are the only way to succeed at 3-star+ levels. It doesn't work on Excellent conditions, though, unfortunately.

Other Cross-Class Abilities

Brand of (Various 37, 15 CP): They count as Synthesis abilities but are pretty much worthless, and completely useless to cross-class. The only recipes that make use of these abilities are elementally aspected recipes that only the class that gets the Brand for that element will ever get. In addition, the recipes in question are both rare and can be ignored completely for the purposes of this guide. The final nail in the coffin is that the elemental recipes just drop the progress result in half, meaning that they could just remove that aspect of the recipe and remove these abilities from the game entirely.

Careful Synthesis (WVR 15, 0 CP): 100% success rate, but only 90% progress. Still it's free and reliable, and usually the loss of 10% progress is more than up by not having to use Steady Hand to finish the craft. However, this is made completely obsolete by Careful Synthesis II, so once you have WVR to 50 you'll never use this again.

Flawless Synthesis (GSM 37, 15 CP): Adds 40 to progress, regardless of any and all modifiers. Great for low-level recipes when you can one- or two-shot them with this. Not so great later when your free Synthesis abilities start breaking 30-40 on their own, and made completely obsolete by the time you have Standard Synthesis.

Ingenuity (BSM 15, 24 CP): The updated version now slightly lowers the level of the craft, so you can now abuse lower-level crafts with it if you really feel the need to bully the weak. At 2-star+ levels, you'll be dropping this to use Ingenuity II exclusively.

Rumination (CRP 15, Russian CP): Restores CP based on the number of Inner Quiet stacks you've accrued minus 1. Starting from 2 stacks, you get 15 CP back then 24 then 32 then 39, etc. Or, to put it another way, each stack after the first gets you +10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1, plus an extra 5 on top, which adds up to 60 total at 11 stacks of Inner Quiet (the maximum). However, it removes Inner Quiet and all stacks once used (restoring Control to its original level) so it can't be used with Byregot's Blessing.

Waste Not (LTW 15, 56 CP): Reduces durability loss by half for the next 4 steps. If Waste Not ends and you have 5 durability remaining, it's exactly the same as if you had 10 durability remaining, so you can get away with only using three steps worth of durability loss reduction and still get the same effect as four.

Waste Not II (LTW 50, 98 CP): As Waste Not, but it lasts for 8 steps. Unfortunately, you'll usually lose at least one step to re-apply Steady Hand/II and possibly more for other abilities like Manipulation, Great Strides, or Tricks of the Trade, so it's not even really useful to replace a double Waste Not; just use Manipulation instead.

Materia

While not really required until you're ready to start 2-star recipes, Materia is a big piece of the end-game crafting requirements.

Your first encounter with materia is probably going to be during the main story quest at around level 15. You're sent to speak to a Goblin named Mutamix in Central Thanalan, just north of Black Brush Station. This quest has no crafting requirements and rewards the general ability Materia Assimilation. With this ability, you can convert any equipment that you've gotten to 100% spiritbond (and in the item description actually says "Convertible").

The type of materia you earn is based on the item level. Item levels 1-29 give Tier 1 materia, 30-44 gives Tier 2, 45+ gives Tier 3. Any item from a given tier (i15+) also has a small chance (about 10%) of giving a materia of the next higher tier, so a level 29 item could give you Tier 2 materia. Crucially, item levels higher than 60 have a much greater chance of giving Tier 4 materia (currently the highest tier of materia), though still not 100%.

However, given how long it takes to spiritbond those higher ilevel items, and the fact that you can only do it in dungeons where spiritbonding can get you kicked from the dungeon (depending on how they do it, no it's not against the rules for you to be kicked for spiritbonding), it's generally accepted that just spiritbonding i45-i49 items off of open world enemies in mass quantities is more efficient anyway.

The next Materia ability is learned by first getting any crafting class except Culinarian up to level 19. Don't worry about forgetting, though, because each class has a quest at level 20 that forces you out here to learn the ability anyway. This ability is Materia Melding, and is what allows you to meld materia onto items, fancy that.

For now, you can only meld materia into materia slots that already exist on an item, so if the item has two slots you can give it two materia. Materia slots only appear on items of level 15 or higher, and the chance to meld materia to these slots is always 100%. The item description will tell you what level and class of crafter you have to have in order to meld materia to the item, and you will also need a piece of Carbonized Matter of the same grade or higher than the grade of the materia you're attaching. If you don't have a Carbonized Matter of the appropriate tier, the game will automatically choose the next highest tier of Carbonized Matter that you have in your inventory, although it will also warn you about this in the confirmation window (the window that lists the Materia and the bonus it will be giving, the Gear to receive the materia, the Catalyst that will be used, and the Success Rate of the meld).

Be warned, however, that you cannot meld materia that is a higher tier than the item normally converts to (Tier 4 can only go into i55+ gear), and pay special attention to the bonus that the materia will actually add to the item. Each item has a cap on what stats can be raised to with materia, and combat gear's base stats are normally already at that cap. You'll be able to see this at the top of the confirmation window (under the materia name) that appears and tells you what catalyst is going to be used. If the bonus number is red, you're not going to be able to add the full amount of the materia's bonus. For example, if you try to add a Mind Materia I (+1 Mind) to a Conjurer's Wand (which already gives a Mind bonus), the confirmation window will show Mind +0 in red lettering underneath the materia name, Mind Materia I.

You'll also get another quest here at the same time that gets Mutamix to transmute materia for you. Basically, he steals 5 perfectly good materia from you and gives you back one random materia he had laying around. The level of materia you get is related to the levels of materia you gave him, but there's also a very small chance to get a higher tier of materia than what you handed over. Don't get too greedy, though, because you have absolutely no way of knowing whether you'll get anything worthwhile. You could end up giving him 5 elemental materia only to get the 6th elemental materia back.

At level 25, you'll be able to learn Materia Melding II, which allows you to overmeld materia onto an item. This works the same as normal melding, but when all the normal materia slots are full you can add even more materia, up to a maximum of 5 materia total (no matter how many slots it started with). You have a vastly reduced chance to overmeld materia, with a slight variation based on the tier of the materia being put in and how many pieces of materia are already in the item. The highest percentage I've seen is 45% for the second materia in a 1-slot item. The lowest, for the 5th materia slot on an item, has been down to 8%.

When you've got all your class-specific gear and are ready to try 2-star recipes and beyond, you'll need to meld and overmeld and overmeld some more to get your stats up high enough, but you really don't need melded gear for anything 1-star and below.

Dyes

Hoorj for color coordination! There's a level 15 quest in Vesper Bay (west of Camp Horizon in Western Thanalan, bring an Orange Juice) that you'll encounter while doing the main story quest (unless you exclusively use the Limsa-Vesper ferry, yes it's there, to go back and forth), but that just lets you apply the dyes.

Crafting the dyes has no quest-based restrictions. Instead, you just need to have a crafting class, even Culinarian for once, at level 30. The dye recipes are all level 30 and all identical between classes except the crystals:

1x class Primary crystal (second-tier, not shards)

1x class Secondary crystal (second-tier, not shards)

1x colored Pigment

The dyes that can be crafted are different from the ones you can buy in shops, and the crafted dyes' real value is in having access to real, actual, non-oddly-shaded colors. Real white, black black, actual red, blue, and green!

Hopefully, you've got a gatherer at level 26+ to get not only the pigments, but the crystals, too, from the same nodes.

Housing Items

Similar to Dyes, Housing Items don't have any quest-based requirement to craft. On the other hand, the level requirements are much more varied.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to a house, so I don't bother crafting any of these items. That means I don't really have even a general idea of what crafting these items entails. Oh well, if you've been able to figure out how to craft without referring to a guide for every little step, you should be able to figure out how to craft a housing item.

But just on the off-chance, let's have look at some of the recip--hooo jeebus! Nope! Nuh uh! Don't wanna! QUIT! QUIT! QUIT! Holy Rhalgr, SE! You really don't want people to craft these items reliably, do you!?

Let it be known that SE has decided that since quality doesn't matter, they're going to make damn sure that Piece By Piece is no longer a joke ability. 1424 difficulty. Wow. At least you don't have to make them HQ. This "Housing Horror" macro should cover you, anyway:

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/ac "Piece By Piece"

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

Glamours

Yay! I got my claws back (Darklight Gloves of Healing)! I'm a bit frustrated with the requirements to obtain Glamour Prisms, but it's still really nice to see people dressed up in a huge variety of fancy/fanciful outfits instead of the usual, dreary, level-appropriate stuff.

First off, to obtain the Glamours you have to do a little quest for Wiscard in Mor Dhona (it'll take five minutes tops if you read everything). Then you can buy Clear Glamour Prisms (or Glamour Dispellers) and Master Recipe (Glamour) books from Wiscard's assistant, Tataroga. You can also buy Clear Glamour Prisms and Dispellers from your local neighborhood trade goods dealer (Bango Zango in Limsa, Maisenta in Gridania, and Roarich in Ul'Dah).

Each Master Recipe book belongs to a different class, 7 in total because CUL doesn't make gear, and each costs 3,000 gil to buy (21,000 for a full set). Using the book from your inventory unlocks the Glamour recipes for the indicated class.

Each glamour prism comes in 5 tiers and is specific to each class, so there are Tier 3 Carpenter glamour prisms and Tier 5 Weaver glamour prisms and so on. When you want to apply a glamour prism, you need a prism for the class that can repair the item that you want your gear to look like (the vanity piece), and the tier of prism is determined by the vanity piece's ilevel.

Every tier covers 20 ilevels, except tier 5 which is everything from i81 and higher. Also, the vanity piece can't have a higher actual level than the base item although it can have a higher ilevel (you can make a level 50/i55 item look like a level 50/i70 item, but you can't make a level 49/i49 item look like a level 50/i55 item), you have to be able to equip both the vanity item and base item on your current class/job (but don't equip it), and it has to take up as many or fewer equipment slots than the base item (so that 4-slot Odin armor can be made to look like literally any other piece of tank body armor, but you will never be able to rock it like Odin while wearing useful gear).

One odd interaction: If you have a base piece that is equippable by more classes/jobs than the vanity piece, the glamour will only work when you are one of the classes/jobs that can equip the vanity piece. My Artisan's Glasses, for example, are currently glamoured to look like the LTW class-specific hat. As a LTW, the glasses appear as the hat like normal, but as any other crafting class the glasses appear as glasses. There is a warning message and an icon on the item when this happens, so this is working as intended.

Each prism, regardless of its tier, requires the following:

1x class Primary crystal (second-tier, not shards)

1x class Secondary crystal (second-tier, not shards)

1x Clear Glamour Prism

2x class level 30-35 crafted ingredient item

And just because, the crafted ingredient items are helpfully listed here:

Alchemist - Growth Formula Gamma

Armorer - Steel Rivet

Blacksmith - Steel Ingot

Carpenter - Maple Lumber

Goldsmith - Silver Ingot

Leatherworker - Toad Leather

Weaver - Velveteen Cloth

Ugh, Velveteen. Double-ugh, Steel Rivets when BSM gets off with Ingots?! -_- Well, at least you don't need (can't get) HQ results.

Desynthesis

Basic Breakdown

Once you hit level 30, you can learn the Desynthesis action from one of Bubblypots' brainwashed assistants. The quest actually starts in the market area of Ul'dah, so head there first, now back to Blackbrush, now up to Bubblypots, back to me. You can desynth.

You can have a total of 330 Desynth levels now, divided between all 8 crafting classes, max 110, minimum 1, so you really only have 322 levels to play around with. For example, you can have two classes at 110 Desynth and a third at 104 Desynth, or 2 classes at 42 Desynth and 6 classes at 41 desynth if you spread it evenly (do NOT spread it evenly or I will DISOWN you!).

So, why should you desynth all your valuable craftables that you could wear or sell on the market for mucho moolah? In a word plus a prefix: Demimateria. Mastercraft Demimateria to get new Supra tools for your crafting and gathering classes, Primal Demimateria to get spiffy-looking Primal gear upgrades, and Fieldcraft/Battlecraft Demimateria that you can use to craft, uhhhh, furniture? And 3-star gear, can't forget the 3-star gear. Oh wait, there's also Clear Demimateria that's actually yellow and can only be sold for gil? Eugh!

The actual process of raising Desynth skill is to use the Desynthesis action (or right-click an item and select Desynthesis), select an item, check your chances, and then give it a try.

Your percentage chance is based on your Desynth skill level in the class that repairs the item versus the item's ilevel (or housing item's recipe level, or fish's capture level[?]). You can only rip apart final products and fish (Culinarian only). You get more skill for succeeding at low percentages (ie: when desynthing items close to too high for your skill).

Only full skill points count, so 10.99 skill is the same as 10.00 skill. You can also add 5% to the chance per materia melded (regardless of type or tier) to that item, or up to a 25% higher chance to succeed. HQ doesn't increase your chances, and nothing will increase your skill gain beyond moving on to higher level items.

When you do succeed a synth, you can get a variety of rewards:

• One of the items used to craft the item in a quantity anywhere from 1 to the full number used to craft that item (excluding Demimateria)
  • If the craft only has one item in the recipe and you don't get a Demimateria, you will ALWAYS get at least 1 of that item back
• Instead of one of the items used to craft the item, you may receive one or more Demimateria of a single type of a tier related to the recipe or item level (Field/Battle/Clear I's from i15-i40ish, II's from i40ish-i65 or 1- and 2-star items, III's from i70+ or 3- and 4-star items)
  • Fieldcraft Demimateria only comes from gear with Craftsmanship, Control, CP, Gathering, Perception, or GP on it (ie: Crafting and Gathering gear)
  • Battlecraft Demimateria only comes from gear without the stats for getting Fieldcraft Demimateria (ie: Adventuring gear)
  • Mastercraft Demimateria only come from items that Talan trades
  • Primal Demimateria only come from Primal gear
  • Clear Demimateria can come from anything that can produce any other type of Demimateria, and you will curse it every time it appears. Every time.
• 1 or more of each of the shards/crystals/clusters used to craft the item, up to the full number used to craft the item (some items do not return these)

To figure out which class you should raise and what you should use to raise it, just go here (hint, start with GSM):

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/181498-Desynthesis-Endgame-Guide

That's Nyalia's incredible write-up on basically everything you should be desynthing.

By the way, your Desynth level is separate from your class level, so it's entirely possible to have a level 1 crafter with a level 110 Desynth skill. You just wouldn't be the one crafting the stuff you rip apart. But wait! There's more! As you raise one class, there is a chance that one of your other classes will actually LOSE Desynth skill (0.01-0.03 at a time, to a minimum of 1 skill), however it won't happen now until you have all 330 skill levels assigned. It's not actually that big a deal until you start getting close to 100 in a skill that you're not raising regularly.

To avoid the skill loss, though, there's a trick:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/182722-Guide-How-To-Lock-Desynth-Level-and-Choose-What-Skill-To-Delevel

Namasu figured out that you can prevent a skill from de-leveling if you just desynth something with that skill (even trash level 1 items) once for every four desynth attempts you make, meaning that if you have three skills over level 1 you can prevent all three from deleveling if you desynth twice with one, then once each with the other two skills. Grekumah (the Moderator) even confirmed that a trick to avoid de-leveling existed, so this is almost certainly it. Grek's post also said they're planning to let us lock the levels eventually, so this trick will be moot once that happens.

Be careful though. Later in the same thread, Jeykama confirmed (pre-2.5) that if your skill total is already at max, the game will allow you to go above the max for a moment, but then it will "RNG smack" one of your leveled skills down to make up the difference. Even though the cap is now 330 instead of 300, it probably still works the same.

Master Demimateria Recipe Books

Talan has a new Master Recipe Book for each crafting class except CUL. Simply turn in 5 shiny Battlecraft I demimateria and try to part with your 5 desperately needed for other things Fieldcraft I demimateria to get the new book. Each of the recipes requires, among other things, a number of Battlecraft, Fieldcraft, or Primal demimateria to craft them.

Within the sacred Leatherworker and Goldsmith tomes lie the keys to creating brand new i55 accessories for the three slots that didn't already have them, so those books should be your first priority. There's a belt in LTW (and another belt for the gatherers) and both a Necklace and a pair of Earrings in the GSM book. These are 1-star recipes like the other i55 accessories, but they each require 10 (holy moly!) Fieldcraft I demimateria.

So get crafting, and work on your grip because you're going to be ripping apart a lot of trash. At least you don't need any of the previous books to get these ones.

Ixal Daily Beast Tribe Quests

The fifth set of Beast Tribe quests to be unveiled is focused solely on trying to get people to take up crafting. So much so that the quest requirement to unlock them is level 1 in any crafting class. They also have three extra reputation levels to obtain over the other Beast Tribes, but the first-tier rep rewards here are the same as tier three rep rewards from the other tribes and it only goes up from there.

These quests are also worth quite a lot of crafting experience. Too bad you can only take up to 6 each day, the 50-rep turn-in counts for 1 of those, and you can only get 3 from each quest giver, meaning you have to unlock the second reputation level before you can get use out of all 6 allowances.

As far as additional experience goes, you really need to start doing these quests as soon as possible in addition to levequests. As far as rewards go, the upper tiers (respected and later) start rewarding Ixali Oaknots, which can be turned in for 2-star and 3-star crafting items (animal fat, potash, scheelite, cashmere fleece, etc.), plus an i70 hand piece that has 3 more Control but 3 less CP than a fully melded class-specific piece and works with all classes in one inventory slot without materia.

The 50-rep turn-in quest is identical to the GC supply and provisioning turn-ins, except there's a different list of items, and you have a quota to fill instead of just handing over one of everything. Three items of the highest tier available will fill your daily quota, or you can still turn in lower tier items; you'll just need more of them. Ignore the stars and orange lines, and don't bother HQ'ing anything; it's just leftovers from copy/pasting the GC interface. There is no way to get bonus quota, not even for HQ turn-ins. When your reputation with the Ixal increases, the quota increases as well, and the list of items you can turn in adds a new tier.

On the plus side, you can figure out which of the items is the cheapest and/or easiest to make, and make enough of those items to fill the quota. Are they asking for 6 ethers? You can hand in 18 bought from an NPC. Need to fill a quota of 900? Just Quick Synth 23 tier 2 items (worth 40 quota each) and hand them over. There's no limit to how many times you can turn in one specific item on the list until you meet the quota. However, quota doesn't carry over, so if you've got 100 to go and turn in a 300 quota item, the 200 quota difference is simply lost.

A bunch of stuff to note:

• You can complete any of these quests as any crafting class, including frying up some delicious airship components with Culinarian. You just need to equip the Ixali Wristgloves purchasable from the Ixali Trader for 145 gil (be aware the i70 Ehcatl Smithing Gloves do not replace these, so you're stuck with them until you quit doing these quests).
• The only materials you need to provide are the crystals. All of the other supplies are given to you when you get to the part of the quest where you have to craft an item.
• When you hand over the materials to begin crafting, you'll get a buff that lowers recipe level to your own, but most times it also comes with a penalty depending on the quest, not the area.
• Different buff/debuffs stack, but same ones just refresh the timer. So if you have the -100 CP penalty, getting the -150 CP penalty will stack for a total of -250 CP, but getting the -100 CP penalty again won't reduce you by another -100 CP. These buff/debuffs can be cleared like any personal buff, and they go away when you change zones.
  • You should never attempt a recipe with more than 1 debuff. Always clear the previous debuffs before starting or you could find yourself trying to clear 800 quality on 40 durability without even enough CP for Comfort Zone.
  • Hilariously, the no cross-class skill debuff also affects Adventuring classes, so make sure you clear that debuff before running off to smite the A-rank in your zone that someone just announced.
• You can fail as much as you want (not getting an HQ item for a quest that needs an HQ item counts as a failure). Just talk to the NPC again to receive another load of supplies to try again.
• This means that you could technically never use a quality raising action and still succeed because you always have a minimum 1% chance of getting an HQ item. So don't worry about that 63% best-case scenario; just keep trying and eventually you'll have enough. Just remember to throw away the non-HQ crap that you just haphazardly assembled.
• After the first tier, the quests all require HQ items. At the later tiers even for level 50, or at low crafting levels, you may have a lot of troubles making HQ items reliably (particularly with the -150 CP and 50% CP debuffs). Don't worry, just keep at it and eventually you'll succeed.
• A level 46 adventuring class is recommended, but not entirely required. For a lot of the quests, you don't even have to fight anything. When you do have to fight, though, the enemies are a minimum level 46, and some non-combat quests require running through areas with level 46-49 enemies around. Make sure you've got something around at least level 40 so you don't have to skip any of the quests.
• Some quests require a gathering class, which you will be warned about before signing up for the job. You can complete these at level 1 in the applicable gathering class, even though it recommends level 15.
• When doing BOT and MIN quests, if the Rare/Hidden item doesn't show up, just back out and move onto the next node to save time. Don't worry about when you come back to the node; each node automatically resets in the order that you cleared them when only one node of the four remains (also makes map-hunting a LOT faster).
• FSH quests say they require Moth Pupa (that you have to provide yourself), but they lie! You can use any bait, including re-usable lures, that can be used at the indicated locations to reel in the quest-only fish. You can still catch non-quest fish in these areas (even with Moth Pupae), making it a huge pain.
• Watch your reputation before turning anything in. If you max your rep for a given tier, any further turn-ins will be wasted rep until you've completed that tier's side story quest. However, you can complete the daily quests, then do the side story quest to unlock the next tier, and then do your turn-ins to instantly get a jump on the next tier's reputation. The 50-rep quota, though, will increase along with the tier, even if you took the quest before raising your reputation level.

BiS Gear and How to Obtain It

So, you want to have the best gear so you can be the best crafter. Well, most of it's really easy to get, but some pieces are just a slog. Here's how you get it all.

Primary Tools

i90 Class-Lucis Tools

Craftsmanship +180, Control +97

No melds possible

Now available since 2.5 because Supra just wasn't good enough. Now that you've got a Supra, you can buy up some 3-star 2.5 token items from your local GC Seal dealer or get them randomly from level 45 crafting levequests. You need at least 60 (3 per recipe for the 20 HQ token items you'll need to make with them), so at 600 apiece you're looking at needing 36,000 GC seals. Not so bad, but you also need 20 of the 3-star GC items which cost 9000 seals each, or 180,000 seals, plus 20 Moonstones, which cost 4000 GC seals each, or 80,000 more seals. That's a total of 296,000 GC seals PER LUCIS.

• You can get 1 Moonstone randomly from treasure maps or 1/day from the Ixal daily quota quest Deliverance, and you can frequently find the 3-star GC items drop from teasure chests in the 2.4 and 2.5 dungeons or fairly cheap on the Market Board. Otherwise, it's time to get back to hoarding Water Crystals and crapping out tons of NQ Madman's Whispering Rods or whatever other 1-star gear you can make on the cheap for the turn-ins.

Think of the Lucis token crafts here as 3-star token lite crafts. They require much lower quality and progress (4980/222 vs. 8964/801) but also only have half the durability. The huge benefit, however, is that if you only NQ these items you can trade the NQ token to Talan to get back all of the GC items (the 3 that cost 600 and the 1 that cost 9000), meaning that you'll only have to resupply the crystals and the cheapo extra items to try again.

i75 Class-Supra Tools

Craftsmanship +149, Control +83

No melds possible

Thanks to Desynthesis, you can now go to the great lengths of obtaining an upgraded version of your old i55 Class Primary Tools, adding the Supra suffix to their names and increasing their stats. You can technically get these without an i70 tool, but you need to have the minimum Craftsmanship and Control to make 3-star token items (no HQ this time, thankfully), which means you have to spend the difference on more materia. You will also need 3 Mastercraft Demimateria (!) and 10 Fieldcraft Demimateria III's (!!!), which are either extremely rare to desynth or super-expensive to buy off the market boards depending on how you want to go about obtaining them.

i70 Class Artisan Tools

Craftsmanship +139, Control +78

No melds possible

New in 2.2 and made easier to obtain in 2.45, you get each of these by turning in 8, 10, or 20 HQ copies of the new 2-star ingredient items to Talan in Mor Dhona (see Talan for the exact items needed for turn-in, only possible after getting that class's Master Recipe book). Since you have to already be able to make 2-star items before you can obtain this, your i55 Class Primary Tool is the next best option.

i55 Class Primary Tools

Craftsmanship +107, Control +61

No melds possible

These are Blue tools, a different one for each class, with identical stats on all of them, and is the best you can get until you're able to craft 3-Star items. It's exactly the same as a Luminary Tool, but is about 560 times easier to obtain (yes, I did real math to get that number). Obtain the item by completing all quests given by your Guildmaster. It is a quest reward for completing the level 50 (and final) guild quest. I also stole my guildmasters' boots as my optional reward. All of their boots.

i55 Luminary Tools

Craftsmanship +107, Control +61

No melds possible

These are Blue tools that were carried forward from 1.0. The stats are identical to the i55 Class Primary Tools. They are still obtainable and are an achievement reward for crafting a number of items in each pair of tiers (HQ not required, recipe level, not item level or equippable level). This is required for each class separately, by the way:

• 50x r1-10 items
• 300x r11-20 items
• 750x r21-30 items
• 1500x r31-40 items
• 3000x r41-50 items

As you can see, just do your class quests.

Secondary Tools

i70 HQ Artisan Tools

Craftsmanship +139 (NQ +123), Control +78 (NQ +69)

Max Melds (from SorryGlamYou on Reddit): Craftsmanship +25, Control +14, CP +3 (not possible to actually reach max in all stats)

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/2kp7kw/so_you_want_to_be_a_master_crafter_patch_24/

2.4 finally gave new offhand tools to boost your creative capacity! Only CRP and BSM make these, and they're all 3-star crafts that require a 3-star ingredient item that you can make HQ, a 2-star ingredient item that you can HQ, and some other ingredients that aren't worth mentioning but are worth HQ'ing for this anyway.

They also require 6 of the new Ehcatl Sealants each (tradeable for 8 Ixali Oaknots each), meaning you'll need at least 48 Ixali Oaknots (9 per day maximum = ~6 days per tool) for each of these tools (and failing/failing to get HQ is really easy too). Lo, the great lord SE giveth, and the great lord SE taketh away and kicks you in the nuts for your trouble.

Ehcatl Sealants can also be bought from the MB, but unless you're stinking, filthy, horribly, disgustingly, other-back-handed-descriptors-for-wealthy-people rich you're stuck with the dailies.

i55 HQ Militia Secondary Tools

Craftsmanship +107 (NQ +95), Control +61 (NQ +54)

Max Melds (from Raldo): Craftsmanship +19, Control +11, CP +3 (not possible to actually reach max in all stats)

1-star recipes crafted usually by Blacksmith, but a couple are made by Carpenter.

Main Gear (excluding Belt)

Talan's i70 Artisan's Glasses (Head)

Craftsmanship +4, Control +39, CP +3

These are BiS for your skull.

Turn in 4, 5, or 10 HQ copies of the 2-star token items to Talan in Mor Dhona (see Talan for the exact items needed for turn-in, only possible after getting any Master Recipe book).

You should be able to get these once you can reliably make HQ 2-star items from NQ materials. You'll just be starting with all HQ ingredients for a similar effect.

4-Star i60 Artisan's Gear (Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet)

• Body: Craftsmanship +101 (NQ +89), Control +33 (NQ +29)

Max Meld (from Decrith on Reddit): Craftsmanship +18, Control +6, CP +3 (not possible to actually reach max in all stats)

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/2t1bvo/artisans_apron_meld_caps/

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +119, Control +39, CP +3 (not possible to actually reach max in all stats)

Hands: Control +33 (NQ +29), CP +3 (NQ +3)

Max Meld (from SorryGlamYou): Craftsmanship +4, Control +6

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +39, CP +3

Legs: Craftsmanship +3 (NQ +3), Control +33 (NQ +29)

Max Meld (from SorryGlamYou): Craftsmanship +1, Control +6, CP +3

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +39, CP +3

Feet: Craftsmanship +3 (NQ +3), Control +33 (NQ +29)

Max Meld (from SorryGlamYou): Craftsmanship +1, Control +6, CP +3

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +39, CP +3

Crafted Artisan's gear for some reason is lower ilevel than Talan's Artisan's Gear, but with a different appearance and much much much harder to obtain. You have to obtain the Master Recipe II books for Leatherworker (Hands), Weaver (Body and Legs), and Carpenter (Feet) to make all four pieces.

They do, however, each come with 3 open materia slots and stats only slightly lower than the i70 stuff. This means that you can get much higher stats than the i70 gear for your troubles. There is no i60 head piece to replace the i70 Artisan's Glasses, though.

Ehcatl Smithing Gloves (Hands)

Craftsmanship +4, Control +39

Rise through the ranks of the Ehcatl Nine to become Super-Trusted, er, attain Sworn reputation. Then buy them for a paltry 10 Oaknots, which you should have easily obtained more than enough just from doing the quests to unlock the final reputation level.

The stats are about the same as a fully melded HQ i55 class-specific hand piece (trading 3 less CP for 3 more Control), but it doesn't require materia and applies to all classes.

You can also have this long before getting to 50, so you never even have to make the i55 class-specific hand gear at all.

These gloves are just better than the i70 Artisan Fingerstalls that Talan has on offer, and even the i60 Artisan Mitts only give 3 CP more than these.

HQ i55 class-specific gear (Head, Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet)

• Head: Control +31 (NQ +27), CP +3 (NQ +2)

Max Meld: Don't bother putting materia on the head, as it's easy enough to just get the Artisan's Glasses.

If you really want to though (from Raldo): Craftsmanship +4, Control +5

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +36, CP +3

Body: Craftsmanship +92 (NQ +81), Control +31 (NQ +27), CP +3 (NQ +2)

Max Meld (from Raldo): Craftsmanship +16, Control +5

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +108, Control +36, CP +3

Hands: Control +31 (NQ +27), CP +3 (NQ +2)

Max Meld (from Raldo): Craftsmanship +4, Control +5

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +36, CP +3

Legs: Craftsmanship +3, Control +31 (NQ +27)

Max Meld (from Raldo): Craftsmanship +1, Control +5, CP +3

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +36, CP +3

Feet: Craftsmanship +3, Control +31 (NQ +27)

Max Meld (from Raldo): Craftsmanship +1, Control +5, CP +3

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +36, CP +3

1-star recipes crafted by various classes, mostly Weaver and Leatherworker.

Talan's i70 Artisan's Gear (Body, Legs, and Feet)

• Body: Craftsmanship +107, Control +35, CP +2
• Legs: Craftsmanship +4, Control +35, CP +2
• Feet: Craftsmanship +4, Control +35, CP +2

Turn in 4, 5, or 10 HQ copies of the new 2-star token items to Talan in Mor Dhona (see Talan for the exact items needed for turn-in, only possible after getting any Master Recipe book).

One item replaces all 8 class-specific pieces for that slot, and you can get them with any class. You can't meld them with materia, so the i55 class-specific gear is still slightly better when maxed out (1 point of craftsmandship or control per slot better).

Fortunately, a full set of this gear (including Artisan's Primary Tool and Ehcatl Smithing Gloves) with maxed out accessories and the i55 offhand tool will easily put you at 3-star stats.

Talan's i70 Artisan's Fingerstalls

Craftsmanship +4, Control +35, CP +2

If for some reason you haven't maxed out your Ixal reputation by this point, you'll have to settle for these. Obtain them the same way as Talan's other Artisan's gear.

HQ Patrician's Gear (Head, Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet)

• Head: Control +27 (NQ +24)
• Body: Craftsmanship +81 (NQ +71), Control +27 (NQ +24)
• Hands: Control +27 (NQ +24)
• Legs: Craftsmanship +3 (NQ +2), Control +27 (NQ +24)
• Feet: Control +27 (NQ +24)

Level 50 Weaver recipes (all).

Before you can craft 1-star items, you'll need a good set of gear to get you there. Patrician's gear is made exclusively by Weaver (all slots) and is the best crafting gear before 1-star.

HQ Dodore Doublet (Body)

Craftsmanship +81 (NQ +71), Control +27 (NQ +24)

Level 47 Leatherworker recipe.

This has identical stats to the Patrician's Coatee but can be obtained a few levels earlier. Whether you use this or the Coatee depends purely on whether you raised Weaver or Leatherworker first, or whichever is cheaper to just buy off the market board if you raised anything else first.

Accessories (including Waist)

HQ i55 Dodore Belt (Waist)

Control +31 (NQ +27)

Max Meld (from SorryGlamYou): Craftsmanship +4, Control +5, CP +3

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +36, CP +3

Requires Leatherworker Demimateria master recipe books to craft plus 10 Fieldcraft I materia.

1-star Leatherworker Master recipe.

HQ i55 Rose Gold Choker (Neck)

CP +32 (NQ +28)

Max Meld (from SorryGlamYou): Craftsmanship +4, Control +4, CP +6

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +4, CP +38

Requires Demimateria master recipe books to craft plus 10 Fieldcraft I materia.

1-star Goldsmith Master recipe.

HQ i55 Mosshorn Earrings (Earrings)

CP +32 (NQ +28)

Max Meld (from SorryGlamYou): Craftsmanship +4, Control +4, CP +6

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +4, CP +38

Requires Demimateria master recipe books to craft plus 10 Fieldcraft I materia.

1-star Goldsmith Master recipe.

HQ i55 Militia Wristlets (Wrist)

CP +32 (NQ +28)

Max Meld (from Raldo): Craftsmanship +4, Control +4, CP +6

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +4, CP +38

1-star Goldsmith recipe.

HQ i55 Aetheryte Ring (x2) (Ring)

CP +17 (NQ +15), Increased Spiritbond Gain +1

Max Meld (from Raldo): Craftsmanship +4, Control +4, CP +3

Total Maximum: Craftsmanship +4, Control +4, CP +20

1-star Goldsmith recipe.

Class Master Ring (Ring)

CP +17, Reduced Durability Loss +10

Achievement rewards for completing all of a given class's quests. Replaces one Electrum Ring of Crafting (unfortunately it's unique and class-specific) until you can make the Aetheryte Rings to replace both.

Grand Company Earrings (Earring)

CP +32, Spiritbond Gain +1

Achievement rewards for completing 500 supply missions for your GC. For how much you have to do for these, you're better off just using the Red Coral Earrings until you can get the Mosshorn Earrings.

tl;dr - A 3 Minute Guide For The Impatient

• Unlock Miner and Botanist and raise them to 50 first unless you're rich.
• Unlock Carpenter in New Gridania. This will be your first class to take to 50.
• Start crafting everything on your recipe list using Guild Supplier resources to get to level 15.
• Complete Class Quests every 5 levels for new gear. Buy all the other gear for the remaining slots. Get HQ gear where you can. Buy new accessories as they become available (every 10 levels).
• With a level 46+ Adventuring class (recommended, not required), unlock the Ixal beast tribe quests. Use these to supplement levequests.
• At level 15 start doing Courier levequests. You need to unlock levemetes (with DoW/DoM classes) at the destination zone to take the quests and make the turn-ins.
• At level 20 go to Central Thanalan to learn Materia Assimilation (you should have gotten materia conversion from the main story). Keep all your old gear for raising other classes.
• Level BSM, CUL, GSM, LTW, and WVR to 15.
• Continue completing Class Quests as they become available.
• Continue completing Courier levequests.
• At level 30 go to Ul'dah and learn Desynthesis. Also learn the other Materia actions just because you're here and you can.
• Once CRP is at 50, repeat in the order of CUL, WVR, GSM, LTW, ALC, BSM, ARM.
• Get the Ehcatl Smithing Gloves from the Ixali trader with some of the Oaknots you should have been hoarding (10 oak).
• Load up your level 50 cross-class slots with Ingenuity, Rumination, Hasty Touch, Manipulation, Waste Not, Steady Hand II, Comfort Zone, Ingenuity II, Byregot's Blessing, Innovation, and Careful Synthesis/II. Armorer drops Rumination (before 50 instead drops Ingenuity II).
• While raising GSM, desynth all GSM items that you don't need to turn in for levequests. Save up 40 Battlecraft I demimateria and 70 Fieldcraft I demimateria through desynthesis.
• Use 10 Fieldcraft Demimateria I's and 10 Battlecraft Demimateria I's to purchase the Demimateria Master Recipe books for Goldsmith and Leatherworker from Talan in Mor Dhona.
• Make/buy HQ gear so that you have 275 Craftsmanship and 255 Control.
• Make your HQ class-specific gear (except hands) and i55 accessories. Load it up with materia (leave the head empty if you can) until you have 347 Craftsmanship and 318 Control, minimum. If you can, you may as well try to get up to 355 Craftsmanship (359 if you had to fill the head) and 347 Control (354 if you filled in the head) in preparation for 3-star crafts.
• Make HQ Frumenty for 1-star crafting with the "Ultimate 40 Stars" and "Finale Producto" macros.
• Make/Buy HQ Bouillabaisse for unreliable 2-star crafting with the "Really Final Product" macros (requires at least some HQ materials).
• Load up your gear with even more CP until you can perform the high-CP macros to get 100% HQ with 2-star NQ ingredients (313 CP base plus 15 CP from materia plus 43 CP from HQ Bouillabaisse = 371 CP). Add extra Control as necessary to guarantee 100% quality, probably around 335-340 Control total.
• Craft 5 HQ 2-star ingredients for each class to unlock each class's new Master Recipe book. ALC first for Terminus Putty, then WVR, LTW, and ARM for new i90 armor, maybe GSM if you really want the glasses, and lastly CRP, BSM, and CUL for non-gear just to get the Primary tools.
• Craft 16, 20, or 40 HQ copies (depending on class) of the 2-star token items to get the Artisan's Glasses, Artisan's Gown, Artisan's Chausses, and Artisan's Pattens (ignore the Fingerstalls) to replace all of your class-specific head gear, and then 8, 10, or 20 more HQ copies of the same 2-star tokens for each class to obtain each class's new Artisan Primary tool.
• Temporarily replace two cross-class skills with Tricks of the Trade and Reclaim. Learn to manual craft.
• With 3 Mastercraft Demimateria, craft 5 NQ 3-star token items to get a Supra tool.
• Begin crafting 3-star Secondary Tools (6 Ehcatl Sealants for each).
• Fail to craft 3-star HQ Secondary Tools. Learn to manual craft again.
• Fail again.
• Fail again. Obtain more Ehcatl Sealants.
• Fail again.
• Successfully craft 3-star HQ Secondary Tools.
• Craft 20 HQ 2.5 token items, get 20 Moonstones, and turn your Supra tool into a Lucis tool.
• Craft 3 HQ 3-star token items to get the Master Recipe II books.
• Repeat for each class to unlock all 8 Master Recipe II books.
• Craft the 4-star HQ Artisan's Apron, Artisan's Mitts, Artisan's Culottes, and Artisan's Sandals.
• Load your new gear up with materia to max out the stats on the new gear.
• Revel in not being able to advance until the next crafting update.

Basically all of the Macros I use now

Note: The numbers at the end of some of these are the CP you'll need for that particular macro (including endings). The gear I used with these was simply the Ehcatl Smithing Gloves, all of Talan's Artisan's gear in the rest of the main gear slots (including Primary Tool), unmelded HQ i55 Secondary Tool, plus maxed out HQ i55 accessories. With just this, my stats were good enough to meet 3-star requirements on all classes with 346 CP.

Ultimate 40 338 For 1-star 40 durability items. To guarantee HQ, you'll need about 300-400 points of HQ ingredients.

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

Ultimate 40 2-Star (385 CP) ONLY with HQ Bouillabaisse. This won't guarantee 100% from 0 quality, but it'll get you close, and it's what you do with the crafted ingredients that really matters anyway.

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

HQ 1500 Quality (280 CP) My lazy HQ generator, as long as quality needed is around 1500 or less (including HQ items). Only works with 40 durability items if you can one-shot them with CSII. DO NOT USE on 1-Star or higher; it will fail. Note that Comfort Zone isn't included because, besides being utterly unnecessary, the whole point is to get a craft done with as few steps as possible to save time.

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

HQ 1500 1-star (335 CP) The lazy HQ generator modified for use with 1- and 2-star recipes.

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

1-star Producto (344 CP) For any 1-star and lower 80 durability recipes (anything lower than 80 durability also requires less than 1500 quality) that the HQ 1500's can't get to 100% on their own. Because of the lack of Waste Not, this can't be used with 2-star or higher recipes.

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/echo Activate Crappy or Great Ending

Really Final Product (359 CP) Only with HQ Bouillabaisse. This won't even guarantee 100% from 0 quality unless you get a Good or two at least on the Basic Touches, or if you have extra Control over the minimum 2-star requirements.

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Great Strides"

/echo Activate Normal or Good Ending

3-Star Level Crafter, but 2-star crafting WVR was the first class I got to 3-star level, and it had 335 CP base (378 with food). It was only 9 CP higher than my other classes, but that CP makes a pretty big difference. Now with the i70 Artisan's gear, my classes have 343 CP, and my WVR has 349.

Weaver 40 Star (331 CP) For 1-star ingredients. Still no 100% HQ from 0 guarantee, but it gets pretty close. Only 200 extra quality is needed for the guarantee.

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

Weaver 40 2-Star (378 CP) I just barely had the 378 CP necessary on my WVR with HQ Bouillabaisse:

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

Weaver Final Product (378 CP with Crappy/Great Endings) If the Hasty Touch in this lands, you will get 100% quality from 0 on 2-star crafts with the minimum Control. To start, here's the macro I currently use:

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Great Strides"

Finish with Crappy or Great Ending below if you missed them in the main FAQ (not enough lines to add a /echo line in the macro)

I haven't tested this next one, but seeing Elasia's 3-star macro set (found here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/161102-Elasia-s-Mass-Manufacturing-3-Star-HQ-Macros), I figure you can split the macro and put some TotT's in to get the CP to change the Hasty Touch to a Basic. So here's the same Weaver Final Product modified to work with Tricks of the Trade:

Weaver Product 1

/ac "Comfort Zone"

/ac "Tricks of the Trade"

/ac "Inner Quiet"

/ac "Tricks of the Trade"

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Manipulation"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Tricks of the Trade"

Basically, only use TotT when it won't interfere with a SHII. If no TotT is available, you'll just get an error message and have to wait 2 seconds longer than without it, so there really isn't any risk involved in this method.

Weaver Product 2

/ac "Steady Hand II"

/ac "Tricks of the Trade"

/ac "Basic Touch"

/ac "Tricks of the Trade"

/ac "Basic Touch"

(If you didn't get a TotT on one of the previous two, you can activate it if shows up now, otherwise let it go)

Weaver Product 3 146

• (use the next macro instead if you don't have at least 146 CP at this point)
  /ac "Basic Touch"
  /ac "Steady Hand"
  /ac "Innovation"
  /ac "Great Strides"

Weaver Product 3 128

/ac "Hasty Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Innovation"

/ac "Great Strides"

You can get fancy and put in even higher CP options, but you really don't need to until you do 3-star crafts.

In case you missed them in the main FAQ, the new endings just upgrade to Ingenuity II. The fourth CSII is for 3-star token items, not for use with actual 3-star crafts:

Crappy Ending

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

Great Ending

/ac "Byregot's Blessing"

/ac "Ingenuity II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

Ixal Beast Tribe Quests

For Ixal quests, I usually just do things manually because I'm too lazy to set up like four whole macros. Usually, they're just Steady Hands, Great Strides, Advanced Touch, then either another Advanced Touch (for 600 quality recipes, or with a Great Strides for the 800 quality recipes) and one Standard Synthesis, or just two Standard Syntheses for the 400 quality recipes. I use the HQ 1500 macro for the all of two 1400-1500 quality recipes, just finishing with a Steady Hand and Standard Synth because of the cross-class debuff.

For one 866 quality/-50% CP recipe (you know the one) I have to use a Standard Touch instead of the second Advanced Touch because I'm just a bit short on CP, but since cross-class skills are available, I can use CSII instead of Standard Synth to finish. If you don't want to do things manually, here's some macros for you (if you're below 2-star stats you'll probably still have to do them manually):

Ixal 400

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

Ixal 600

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

Ixal 800

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Standard Touch"

/wait 3

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

/ac "Careful Synthesis II"

The lack of commands allows the two actions to be used in priority order without adding extra time. It will attempt to do Advanced Touch, and if you don't have the CP for it (such as with the two -150 CP and -50% CP recipes) you'll get an error and it will then immediately perform Standard Touch. If you do have the CP, Advanced Touch will get used and Standard will just give an error message. Same thing with Standard and Careful Synths.

You base CP will need to be at least 332 for the -150 CP/-50% CP versions to work. You'll have 334 CP if you've maxed out the CP on your i55 accessories.

Ixal 1500

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Great Strides"

/ac "Advanced Touch"

/ac "Steady Hand"

/ac "Standard Synthesis"

Unlike the normal HQ 1500 macro, the Ixal recipes that need 1500 quality both restrict you from using Cross-Class skills. If you're on Weaver, you can use Careful Synthesis/II, but anyone else is pretty much stuck with Standard Synthesis.

UPDATE HISTORY

Version #: 1.0

• The first version with the full guide, which used information from FFXIV:ARR 2.1.

Version #: 2.25 (as in, updated as of patch 2.25)

• Added 3-Star Recipes to the guide, and Glamours, Housing, Dyes, and Materia were added to the Appendix.
• Added the methods to obtain BiS gear.
• 2.1 Macros have all been replaced with the 2.16 (happened earlier than expected) versions.
• Added some more terms to the Glossary and updated related parts of the guide.
• Moved the Conclusion up above the Star recipes. This way they're like a New Guide+ section.
• Updated descriptions of some cross-class skills, particultarly Ingenuity/Ingenuity II.

Version #: 2.38

• Added new BiS gear, desynthesis, and Ixal beast tribe quests.
• More Glossary and other updates to previous info.
• No more need to get almost a million seals! This section for getting the first set of Master Recipe books has been replaced with a much shorter Ixali Oaknot (plus seals) method.

Version #: 2.55

• Added the 4-star section
• Updates to the 1-, 2-, and 3-star sections
• New BiS gear, pre-BiS gear, and changes to getting Artisan's gear. Lucis means you'll need over a million seals again! What joy! *shoots self*
• Re-organized Cross-Class skill sections, and various fixes/update to the appendices.
• Added macros that I currently use/would use if I ever got around to pasting them into a macro.