Final Fantasy XIV (Guide in first post)

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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In terms of how some MMO's have crafting, and how FFXIV has crafting? FFXIV wins, hands down. I actually thought some parts of it were interesting. The little quests you get are .. at times.. tongue in cheek kind of funny. You can straight up just level a crafter to 80, but its going to cost you either a lot of time gathering.. or a lot of gil. If you're going to spend the time, or the gil, it just makes sense to level the ones related to the one you want to level. .. I thought it was semi-fun to level everything and after a while, I deemed weaving and goldsmith downright essential. Also, if you bring up other classes.. which you very likely will... Having all the trades will make it that much easier to level them.
 
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Kirun

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I really appreciate the info guys, very helpful.

I might try crafting out soon. I just hit the "filler" section of the ARR story and I want to blow my brains out. Most of this LARP is absolute trash(reminds me of the borefest around the section with the Sylphs), whereas the story around the time you meet Cid until the whole Operation Archon stuff is pretty solid. So, crafting would be a solid break from everything, but at the same time I really want to power through this shitshow to unlock Dark Knight. Although, I recently swapped from Paladin to Warrior and I'm loving the fuck out of it. I'm considering just staying Warrior and saying fuck Dark Knight, but I really love the Dark Knight aesthetic and am afraid I'll miss being an edgy boi.

What's a good resource website to get started with crafting? I feel like there's a way to be "efficient" with leveling an armorer and a guide telling me when to swap to goldsmith, weaver, etc. Or should I just approach it like a random class I want to try out, level it a bit, and swap if I hate that particular craft?
 

Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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I really appreciate the info guys, very helpful.

I might try crafting out soon. I just hit the "filler" section of the ARR story and I want to blow my brains out. Most of this LARP is absolute trash(reminds me of the borefest around the section with the Sylphs), whereas the story around the time you meet Cid until the whole Operation Archon stuff is pretty solid. So, crafting would be a solid break from everything, but at the same time I really want to power through this shitshow to unlock Dark Knight. Although, I recently swapped from Paladin to Warrior and I'm loving the fuck out of it. I'm considering just staying Warrior and saying fuck Dark Knight, but I really love the Dark Knight aesthetic and am afraid I'll miss being an edgy boi.

What's a good resource website to get started with crafting? I feel like there's a way to be "efficient" with leveling an armorer and a guide telling me when to swap to goldsmith, weaver, etc. Or should I just approach it like a random class I want to try out, level it a bit, and swap if I hate that particular craft?

I just slogged through ARR as fast as I could. They have talked endlessly about getting rid of that content, or at least consolidating it. I enjoyed parts of it, but it's why I quit playing this game originally. I liked Heavensward "some", and really started to get into the storyline in Stormblood. Just keep at it.

As far as crafting, just do google it. xivcraftinguide.com is ok, some others are nicer. Just pick the most up to date one. The leveling part of them doesnt really change all that much.
 
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bolok

Trakanon Raider
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I'm sure there is an actual autistic efficient way to do it, but keep in mind it's going to be either time consuming or expensive to level. It was a bit different pre all the revamped skills, but leveling pretty much every crafting/gathering class to 15 to start is what i did. It was a bit aids, but quite a few of the quest lines are fairly amusing. I ended up pretty much only leveling mining/botany/carpentry to any appreciable level because it's an interweaved nightmare after a certain point. And you WILL run out of inventory space doing that.

Abuse the beast tribe quests for sure, and leves. Leves kinda suck for combat xp- i usually blow them all on crafting/gathering. The story line of the Ixal isn't the best, and dealing with the special glove is annoying. Smashing out those is actually decent crafting xp for awhile. I wanted the wolf mount from them, so i did more than I needed to. The moogles in heavensward are real fast/quick and get you a decent set of gear to wear for the time spent if you don't want to deal with scrips.
 

Tarisk

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Snagged! Thank you!

One thing I'd also recommend for newer players (this is a personal preference) when going through the story, be sure to pick up any of the side quests with the blue icon (gold ! not as important) as these tend to unlock side content. From opening other jobs up, to dungeons, trials, raids, etc.

One in particular I'd be sure to do once you finish the ARR story is the Hildibrand Manderville questline. I so badly wished these were voiced. The one in ARR is fantastic, the one in HW is meh, one in Stormblood is great. Just wish we'd see the one in Shadowbringers already.

But even some quests like above open up trials as well. One of my favorite chains still that's a side quest is the stormblood raids in Alpha/Sigma/Deltascape etc. Fights are great, music is great. Hard to go wrong.
 

Kirun

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One thing I'd also recommend for newer players (this is a personal preference) when going through the story, be sure to pick up any of the side quests with the blue icon (gold ! not as important) as these tend to unlock side content. From opening other jobs up, to dungeons, trials, raids, etc.

One in particular I'd be sure to do once you finish the ARR story is the Hildibrand Manderville questline. I so badly wished these were voiced. The one in ARR is fantastic, the one in HW is meh, one in Stormblood is great. Just wish we'd see the one in Shadowbringers already.

But even some quests like above open up trials as well. One of my favorite chains still that's a side quest is the stormblood raids in Alpha/Sigma/Deltascape etc. Fights are great, music is great. Hard to go wrong.

Yeah, I've been doing a decent job about paying attention to blue icons. I actually just found and enabled the "recommendations" window popping up every time I enter a new area. I wish I had enabled that earlier on, but that has helped in finding a lot of those "unlock" type quests.

Are the Hildibrand Manderville quests a blue icon? I pretty much entirely ignore the gold !, unless they happen to be right next to a MSQ giver. So, I'll probably miss them if they aren't blue.
 

Tarisk

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Yeah, I've been doing a decent job about paying attention to blue icons. I actually just found and enabled the "recommendations" window popping up every time I enter a new area. I wish I had enabled that earlier on, but that has helped in finding a lot of those "unlock" type quests.

Are the Hildibrand Manderville quests a blue icon? I pretty much entirely ignore the gold !, unless they happen to be right next to a MSQ giver. So, I'll probably miss them if they aren't blue.

Yeah, the Manderville one is blue. ARR starts in Ul'dah, HW starts in Foundation somewhere, and Stormblood's starts in Kugane. They won't show up until you finish the x.0 MSQ for the respective expansions, however.
 
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Kirun

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What should I be doing with excess materia? Should I just sell it on the market, or should I be transmuting it with that goblin in hopes of bumping it up a tier/getting crafting materia?
 

Pyros

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What should I be doing with excess materia? Should I just sell it on the market, or should I be transmuting it with that goblin in hopes of bumping it up a tier/getting crafting materia?
Low lvl combat you can try to sell although not worth shit. Low lvl crafting/gathering have value, can sell them to use the money to level stuff and buy them back later though and that's probably a better investment than keeping them to use once you're 80 since that's a long time away AND you probably won't use low lvl materias for early gearing anyway.

Generally speaking anything you can't use right away you might as well sell, and then buy it again if you need it later. You might run into issues where something can't be bought at the same price/easily, but shouldn't be very frequent and the convenience of not having full retainers constantly with all the garbage generally beats having everything. Unless you already have a bunch of retainers then you might as well just stock everything, but personally I've been trying to cut down on how many retainers I have, I get 4 during new expansions to have room to play with and get all the new stuff while keeping the old stuff, but after like a month I just dump all the old stuff and reduce my retainers so I can stay at 3, or even better 2(like currently I only have 2, so no additional price on my sub).
 
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Kantern

Silver Knight of the Realm
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Make sure you check the selling price of the materia (or any item for that matter) on the tool tip. You will run into cases where the prices bottoms out at the price it vendors for and sometimes even dips below that.
 

Cybsled

Avatar of War Slayer
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Ya, in Uldah near the Immortal Flames, there is a guy near a bench who starts the Hildi questline from ARR.
 
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Grizzlebeard

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Quick question, one of the biggest hangups for me whenever I return is the sheer amount of garbage I have across my two retainers. They're both full to bursting and my backpack usually has around 5 slots max left in it, usually due to my Armoury Chest overflowing.

How do you guys manage it?

Should I stump up for a third retainer or just be merciless and dump stuff I'm never likely to wear even on levelling new jobs?