FFXIV Master Crafter and Gatherer Guide

FFXIV Master Crafter and Gatherer Guide by SorryGlamYou

Hi, all! I’m glad I get to sit and do another guide for you guys amidst the Lucis grind, lol. I need a brain break and a lot has changed since 2.4! And as much as I wanted to do a comprehensive post for 2.45 (as a lot of changes were made to make things easier for you, the aspiring crafters reading this post!), alas, time did not permit me to do so. So here I go for 2.5, making sure to add in those changes along with the new ones!

Anyway, this guide is going to be for everyone… from the fresh green-sprout players to the endgame crafters (sharing my pain) who are just looking for a couple tips on what others do. As with last time, I’ll be glad to answer anything that I missed in the comments, too, so let’s make a discussion out of it. ALSO, as was requested in my 2.4 post, I will be incorporating gathering this time around! So let’s get into it.

As with my 2.4 post, I’ll be breaking this one up into parts:

• BEGINNER (Leveling): Leveling one or more crafts or gathers to 50, leveling desynthesis!
• INTERMEDIATE (Gearing up): What to wear? What to meld? What now?
• ADVANCED (High-level desynth, first main hand upgrade): Artisan/Forager level!
• MASTER (3-star & 4-star crafting): Supra level crafting/gathering!
• LUCIS (The vanity of master crafting/gathering): Because we can? :)

Happy crafting, gathering, adventuring, loitering… whatever you happen to be doing!

BEGINNER (Leveling)

From spending time on the forums, we see a lot of the same questions popping up everyday, so let’s start this off with some FAQ, shall we:

Q: Why do I keep hearing that I have to get all of my crafts to 50?
A: Good question! Yes, you will hear this a lot, and I will tell you that to be a MASTER Crafter (which is the end goal of this post, haha) it is a MUST. To put the answer short: Why? Cross-class abilities. For anyone new to the game, cross-class abilities are abilities unlocked by leveling a class (whether it be battle, crafting, or gathering) that can be used by some or all other classes in that category. This proves to be extremely valuable when crafting and will make your crafting journey exponentially easier in the long run. I’ll get more into which abilities are recommended to be prioritized later, but for now just know that getting these abilities unlocked will be a HUGE quality of life improvement as you work toward becoming a Master Crafter.

Q: Is it worth it to get into crafting? Gathering?
A: I’m biased. I will say yes, lol. Of course everyone’s play style is different (please see here), but jokes aside, there is a lot of value in leveling crafting and gathering. For one, it’s a means of becoming self-sufficient. It is also a decent (and sometimes great) way to make gil. Crafting and gathering also add a different facet to the game that makes it a more rounded experience. Like battle, crafting and gathering have their own end game. Just as with each battle content patch you have the top raiders going after the big kill first, with each crafting content patch you have Master Crafters clamoring to get the new shinies first and get first dibs on the market. Or just get flashy new items to /pose around in. Crafting and gathering have their own set of achievements, their own theorycrafting. It’s another game within the game that we already know and love. So is it worth it? Hell yeah, it is.

Q: What is desynthesis and why is it important?
A: Desynthesis was added in Patch 2.3 to allow crafters to destroy all of our hard work. Kidding. Kind of. Desynthesis is really a way of obtaining items that would be otherwise unobtainable, through the destruction of other items. It is also (though much less so) a way to hopefully get some of your materials up if you muss something up and NQ something you meant to HQ but have no use for as NQ. Here in Patch 2.5, the cap for leveling desynthesis is 350 with a max level of 110 for each class. This means that you have the ability to max out three desynthesis classes. So unlike leveling everything else in this game, with desynthesis you are forced to specialize to be of value with high-level items that have rare desynth drops. When you get into top-tier crafting and gathering, desythesis becomes extremely valuable for obtaining Mastercraft Demimateria and Fieldcraft Demimateria IIIs. Again, I’ll get more into this later, but note that it is absolutely important for endgame crafting/gathering and progression. You know, unless you want to spend millions upon millions on the market board.

Q: Can I just specialize in one craft?
A: My answer to this has changed over time, but I’ve finally settled on an answer that I will keep until they change everything up on us. YES. You can specialize in one craft. BUT. The catch is that you will still want to level everything to 50 for cross-class abilities. Once that is done and done, then if you only want ONE Supra, ONE Lucis, by all means. That’s your prerogative. :) Though I will say that now with Artisan’s and Forager’s gear… you have no excuse. Your other classes are geared, too, anyway. ;)

Alright! So now that we have those out of the way, let’s focus on leveling.

CRAFTERS
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There is a formula that you will see tried and true floating around “how do I level crafting…” here on reddit. That formula is get everything to 15 > get CUL to 37 > get CRP to 50 > get everything to 50 (or something to that effect). Here is why. Cross-class skills for crafting classes come in three tiers: Level 15, Level 37, Level 50. Getting everything to 15 unlocks that first tier of skills which are, quite frankly, already going to make your life a LOT easier. The best way to do the 1-15 grind is to go through your crafting log and try and complete one of everything in there. And don’t just try to complete it… try to HQ (high-quality) it.

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FOR OUR GREEN SPROUTS AND NEW CRAFTERS
Crafting uses three stats: Craftsmanship, Control, and Crafting Points (CP). It also relies on the Durability of the craft. Craftsmanship handles what’s known as Progress: how many steps it takes to finish the craft. Each craft in your crafting log has a set amount of Durability and also a set point Difficulty (the amount of Progress needed to complete the craft). This determines how many steps it will take to complete your craft. Without the use of abilities, a craft with 40 durability gives you 4 steps to complete it. A craft with 80 durability gives you 8 steps to complete it. The higher your Craftsmanship, the more points you get toward meeting your Difficulty point goal. So when you do your first craft, it may take you two synthesis steps (you will have an ability known as Basic Synthesis to do this) to complete the craft. However, as your level and Craftsmanship in your gear increase, it may only take one step, with Progress to spare. Control handles the quality of your craft. The goal with most crafts is to get the quality bar as full as possible in order to obtain a high-quality item at the end of the craft. As you use abilities known as Touches, your quality will increase, getting you closer to reaching 100% quality. DO NOT be discouraged if at first you are only able to get to 5% quality. Just as it will take you fewer steps in the future to complete crafts, it will take you fewer steps as your Control increases to max out an item’s quality. So, as an example, in your first craft you may use Basic Synthesis and it does not complete your craft. You see that it got you more than halfway through your Progress, though, so you know that one more hit will complete the craft. But you still have 60 durability left! So what do you do? You use a Touch. It worked! Your quality increased slightly. You use another one. It worked! Another increase. You try to use it again… but you can’t. You have to finish the craft now. What happened? Well, that brings us into Crafting Points, or CP as it is better known. Most abilities have a cost, and that cost is CP. As you use abilities, they will expend this resource, and once it’s gone you will have to use an ability to get it back, or let it go and move on. So this stat needs to be watched closely throughout the entire craft, along with your Durability. In a nutshell, you want to leave yourself enough durability to finish a craft based on how much Craftsmanship you have (and Progress you make per synthesis step), get your quality bar as filled as possible using Touches (note that the percentage of quality displayed is not directly proportional to the amount of quality you’ve gained… it’s got an ugly skew so the more you fill it up you chances of getting a high-quality result multiply), and make sure you don’t run out of CP to use abilities along the way.
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It’s important to note that the more you fill up your quality bar, the more XP you get from completing the craft. So don’t neglect quality just for the sake of finishing crafts quicker! You will also get a log completion bonus every time you complete a craft for the first time. Completing unique crafts for the first time also counts toward achievements in your achievement log! And with that, you should be able to get everything to 15 and, by this point, should have figured out that you can make yourself your own crafting gear with your Craftsmanship, Control, and CP stats! \o/

Make sure that as you go along making your own gear as you level, you convert items into materia as you go. This materia will prove very valuable later.

As you gain new abilities, familiarize yourself with them and what they can do. When you get those Level 15 abilities, TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEM. You can immediately cross-class them to your other crafts to make things easier for yourself. Eventually you will start seeing that little “Normal” at the bottom left of your crafting window change to Good, Excellent, or Poor. Congratulations! You’ve unlocked Condition! When you land on a Good, one of two things will happen. Either you can use the Level 15 Alchemist ability “Tricks of the Trade” to gain back 20 CP and use up that Good condition OR you can use a Touch and get a x1.5 multiplier on quality for that step! I know, it’s exciting. If you get an Excellent and you can afford to use a Touch, USE IT. That’s a x4 multiplier right there! Note, though, that an Excellent isalways immediately followed by a Poor, giving you a x0.5 on your quality gain for that step. :( So if you can use that step for something that isn’t a touch, go for it.

From here, you’re going to want to focus your leveling with leves (available from levemetes in city-states and out in the world). Continue completing as many new items as you can in your crafting log, make sure to keep up with your class quests every five levels. But the majority of your XP will come from leves from here on. There are three types of leves: Local, Courier, and Triple. I will simplify this for you: if you are ONLY turning in high-quality items for leves, triple turn-ins are where it’s at. They will net you the most XP, the most gil, and will be the most leve efficient! If you are turning in NQ items, Courier leves will give you the most XP, but will about break you even on gil with the teleporting. Local leves are a nice filler. Watch your leve rewards! These can sometimes be very valuable, giving you a nice chunk of shards, or important items… and with Patch 2.5, those level 45 leves are VERY important. I’ve done over 100 of them in the last few days. (Oh, the grind!) You should also be doing your Grand Company turn-ins which will get you a nice chunk of XP and refresh every 24hrs. They also give you Grand Company seals which will come in handy later on.

Your next goal will be to at least get Culinarian to 37. Why? Well, this unlocks the cross-class skill “Steady Hand II.” You may already be familiar with Steady Hand at this point, and how it increases the percentages of success on your touches and syntheses by 20%. Well, Steady Hand II will now increase them by a whopping 30%. No more misses! Hurrah!

And then you want to get Carpenter to 50. This unlocks for you the holy grail of abilities: Byregot’s Blessing. Ah, yes, a blessing it is. By now you may have already figured out the value of your ability Inner Quiet and using it at the start of your craft before you attempt any touches. Inner Quiet stacks up each time you increase the quality on your craft by using a touch, capping at 11 stacks. With each stack, it increases the amount of Control you have, so the more stacks, the more quality your next touch will give. Byregot’s Blessing is the mother of all touches. It takes those stacks that you’ve accumulated and creates a MULTIPLIER out of them. You want quality? BB will give you quality. Haha.

From there, you want to get everything else to 50 and reap the benefits from all of those cross-class abilities! After having gotten at least one to 50, you already know how the grind feels, so there are no more surprises. Just keep chugging along and you’ll get there! Good luck and please, most importantly, HAVE FUN. Crafting is a grind, but I promise it can be a fun one! If you get frustrated, take a break, switch to a battle class, go kill some things, come back to it later. :) It will still be right where you left it.

Now, before we move on to Gathering… Desynthesis. I answered a bit of that earlier in the FAQ, but the big questions of how do I level it, which ones do I level, etc. are still unanswered. My personal recommendation for ease of end game crafting gear? GSM, LTW, WVR (that’s Goldsmith, Leatherworker, and Weaver for those still getting used to all the abbreviations in this game). These three will prove to be efficient when trying to get your demimaterias later on for your late and end game gear. However, I will be the first to admit that I have NONE of those three, lol. I personally took on CUL, ARM, and ALC (Culinarian, Armorer, and Alchemist). CUL is for desynthing fish and getting cushy vanity items, glamours, and minions. Armorer was almost entirely irrelevant, but now you can desynth CUL and ALC main hands for Mastercraft Demimateria at end game, as well as receive rare items from endgame battle content armor drops. And ALC. Well. Because I wanted it. No, I don’t use it. But don’t worry about that. Maybe it will become relevant again. Someday. Lol. BSM (Blacksmith) is also good for desynthing those crafting/gathering main hands in end game. And CRP (Carpenter), well. I think CRP is kind of one tier above ALC in terms of usefulness right now, lol. But if it makes you happy, go for it! As for HOW to level desynthesis, there is no right or wrong answer here. My only suggestion is do it as cheaply and efficiently as possible. If you don’t mind wasting the crafts that you NQ’d, desynth them. Want to seek out cheap vendor items to desynth? Do it. Obviously, buying items from the market board to desynth will be costly. You’re usually better off with vendor items at that point. Desynth dungeon drops you don’t need. Desynth gear that you get from quests that you don’t need. Desynth whatever whenever. Just don’t accidentally desynth something valuable, lol. And if you decide that you want to go for the (vain and useless but pretty) Luminary items from crafting achievements, use quick synthesis, spiritbind items for materia conversion, and then desynth the results! Haha. You’re a factory now! Yay! Lol.

GATHERERS
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As with the crafters, your main goal until you can do leves is to complete your log. Your Gathering Log is going to be your go-to for early levels. The nice thing is that they made adjustments somewhere along the way so that from your gathering log you can click an item that you want to gather and it will open a map for you showing the location of the item. Then, from there, you can click the nearest Aetheryte on the map to teleport to that zone. Fancy, I know. Gathering is extremely grindy, so be prepared for that from the start. If you’re not doing crafting yourself, you might want to team up with a crafting buddy to keep you updated on gear. For the lowest levels, you will be able to buy gear from a NPC (non-player character) vendor, but that doesn’t last forever. And the game’s market board can be extremely inflated from crafters charging a lot for things made out of materials that YOU’RE gathering. You might want to check your gathering log and look up some of the items you can gather on the market board. You might want to check xivdb to see whether the item is purchased from a vendor. If it is and it’s worth more on the market board than it does from the vendor, you might want to cheese that for a bit. Otherwise, gather it for the gathering log bonus and leave it. You won’t make any gil off of it. Focus your efforts on items that give you XP AND are more in-demand on the market board. Or if you’re crafting, focus on items that you can use in your crafts. Items you can sell or use will be the most valuable to you right now. Also, do not neglect your Grand Company turn-ins which will give you a nice chunk of XP and refresh every 24hrs. They also give you Grand Company seals which will come in handy later on.

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FOR OUR GREEN SPROUTS AND NEW GATHERERS
Gathering uses three stats: Gathering, Perception, and Gathering Points (GP). Gathering increases the success rate of gathering an item from a gathering node. Perception increases the success rate of gathering a high-quality item from a gathering node. GP allows you to use abilities to increase your gathering, quality, yield (the amount of items you get from a node), or hits (the number of times you can hit a node in one go). Unlike crafting, gathering is verystraightforward. You go up to a node and engage it. A window pops up. If you have never gathered the item before, it will show as a question mark with a lower success rate of gathering it. You can increase your success rate using an ability and then hit that slot in the window to attempt to uncover that item. If you’re successful, you will now see the item with a higher percentage rate of gathering it. Later on, you will occasionally come across “Rare” items that will only be gatherable once in that node. And much later on you will encounter “Unhidden” nodes which hold rare items, as well. We’ll get into that later. :)
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There is no right or wrong order to level your gathers in. Take note that Fishing… ah, Fishing. Fishing is its own game within a game with its own (insane) endgame. Check out the FFXIV Angler website if you want proof of that, haha. It can be very relaxing (or not). But with all of the gathers, I recommend that you sit back, hook up to a game controller, if possible, turn on Netflix or stream some anime or, you know… whatever floats your boat, and grind away. Use your leves efficiently and you’ll be 50 before you know it! Okay, you’ll probably know it. But… you’ll be 50! Eventually! Yay! \o/ Lol.

INTERMEDIATE (Gearing up)

You’ve made it, hooray! Congrats on all of your 50’s and for making the right side of your search info all pretty and uniform, lol. By now you’ve probably got a nice reserve of materia from all tiers that you’ve saved up along the way (right? …right? Haha…) and you’ve done all of your Level 50 class quests to get your Relic main hands, yes? If for whatever reason you fell behind with those, go finish that up now. :) It’s important!

Anyway, welcome to the end game gearing grind! We’re glad to have you (even though those of us who do the grind right as the patch drops and before any nerfs secretly envy how easy you have it sometimes, lol). At this point I hope you have your desynthesis leveled and ready to go. You’re going to need it! Now. Let’s begin. Here is your gear progression guide for all of you Master Crafters and Gatherers out there. :D

MAIN HAND

• Relic from Level 50 class quest
• Artisan’s/Forager’s purchased with tokens
• Relic Supra purchased with tokens and Mastercraft demimateria
• Relic Lucis purchased with tokens and Moonstones

OFF HAND

• Sub-50 HQ crafted (meldable, but not recommended)
• Militia HQ crafted (meldable)
• Artisan’s/Forager’s HQ crafted (meldable)

FIVE-PIECE SET

• Sub-50 HQ crafted (meldable, but not recommended)
• Artifact (AF) HQ crafted (meldable)
• Artisan’s/Forager’s head purchased with tokens
• Ehcatl hands purchased from Ixali dailies
• Artisan’s chest, hands, legs, and feet purchased with tokens
• Artisan’s/Forager’s hands, legs, and feet NQ or HQ crafted (meldable)
• Artisan’s/Forager’s chest HQ crafted (meldable)

ACCESSORIES

• Sub-50 HQ crafted (meldable, but do not over-invest)
• Militia wrists and Aetheryte Rings HQ crafted (meldable)
• Dodore/Mosshorn/Rose Gold HQ crafted (meldable)
• FISHER ONLY: i70 battle accessories HQ crafted (melded with gathering materia)

Alright, there’s the what. Now for the how.

CRAFTERS
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If you haven’t already, make sure that any sub-50 gear you’re wearing is HQ. This is important. Done? Good. You’re ready to craft 1-star items. No, seriously. You’ve made it to 1-star. Just like that. Lol. The threshold for 1-star items is 255 Control and if you’ve got your Level 50 relic main hand and are wearing level 45-49 HQ crafting gear, you can make 1-star items. Don’t believe me? Try it. At this point, now that you have all of your cross-class skills, you should be starting every difficult craft that you undertake with Comfort Zone (50 ALC) and Inner Quiet. Make this a habit if you haven’t already. If your habit up until this point was to hit Inner Quiet first, get used to putting Comfort Zone before it. CZ is a free 14 CP over 10 turns. For long and difficult crafts, this just means a free 14 CP. Don’t waste that. Now remember earlier how I said that your goals are to watch your durability to make sure that you have enough steps to finish your craft, watch your CP so you have enough to execute skills, and get your quality bar up as high as you can before you complete your craft? Guess what. That hasn’t changed in the slightest, haha.

The first thing you want to do is make sure that you have your important cross-class skills equipped. Steady Hand II, Careful Synthesis II, Byregot’s Blessing (of course), Ingenuity I and/or II, Innovation, Waste Not I and/or II, Hasty Touch, Comfort Zone, Tricks of the Trade to name some (or most) of them. And now you start familiarizing with abbreviations. You’re going to see these abilities a lot on forums, here on reddit in reference to rotations, etc. Notice earlier that I abbreviated Comfort Zone to CZ? Crafters do this. It’s part of crafting culture. When you’re helping someone out and sending them your rotation, typing out each ability is a pain in the butt. But if I tell you “CZ > IQ > (SH) > PbPx2 > IngII > CSIIx2 then use SHII HTs and MMI/II as necessary, refreshing CZ whenever it’s down and using ALL ToT procs, leave 128 for SH > GS > Innov > IngII > BB to finish… finish early if you hit a Good or Excellent at 9+ stacks if you started with NQ mats, 7+ stacks if you started with HQ mats” do you follow, or was that gibberish? If you followed, great. I just told you my manual 3-star rotation and would tell you to “simply add in an extra CSII for 4-star.” NOW. If this was gibberish to you, it would be a good time to brush up on the cross-class abilities you’ve gained. It will all make sense very quickly, I promise. IngII = Ingenuity II. PbPx2 = Piece by Piece x2, so do it twice. (SH) means to use Steady Hand, but it’s optional, which means you’re gambling on those 90% Piece by Pieces if you don’t use it. ToT procs mean using your Good conditions to gain 20 CP using Tricks of the Trade (ToT). Like I said, this stuff is just crafter culture. Or as I say probably more often than I should (and I’m sorry for it), #justcrafterthings.

Now you’re ready to look up a 1-star rotation, make it your own, if you like, by tweaking it your way, and go for it! This now gives you access to AF gear, Militia off-hands and accessories… no turning back now!

But… okay. Alright, I’m maybe not going to make you all follow the same grind that we did back when everything was shiny and new if you don’t have to, haha. So you’ve saved up Sealants from the Ixali and you’ve got gil to burn and you don’t care if what your wearing has your signature on it or not… fine. You can purchase any of the crafted items from the Market Board or directly from a crafter to skip ahead. I don’t recommend it, because… well… crafting! But you can do this. However, this will not get you the untradeable crafted tokens for the other items, so keep that in mind. So for those of you looking for the easy way… your shopping list is above, lol.

And for those of you who are going to do the grind yourselves (go you!), if you haven’t been gathering and don’t have a gathering buddy, now is the time to get one. Your 1-star items are going to require materials from Unhidden gathering nodes which are accessed by, well… see below. :)

GATHERERS
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Alright, so as for gear, if you aren’t crafting it yourself, then you’re going to have to buy it or have someone craft it for you. The latter is the cheaper option, of course, because guess what. YOU CAN NOW GATHER THE MATERIALS YOURSELF. :) If you haven’t dabbled in them already, MINs and BTNs, now’s the time to familiarize yourself with Unspoiled Nodes. FFXIV Clock is a great resource for this and there are also mobile apps with the same functionality. For FSHs you can start checking out FFXIV Angler as an awesome resource. Unspoiled Nodes have Hidden items. To see Unspoiled Nodes, you need the ability gained at level 46 to find them. I use a macro so that whenever I switch to my gathering class, this ability turns on. My macro looks like this:

/macroicon 20 gearset
/gs change 20 <wait.1>
/ac “Truth of Forests” <me>

So my BTN gearset is gearset 20 and after switching to it, I have a 1sec wait before it turns on Truth of Forests. And just like that, you don’t ever have to worry about it again.

Now, as expected, there are stat thresholds to be able to actually access and gather these nodes. But if you’ve got your Level 50 relic and you’re in level 45-49 HQ gathering gear or above, you’re ready to go for 1-star items. And these are the items you need for crafted 1-star gear, so… that works out! (You can also sell them on the Market Board to the crafters who decided not to take up gathering hint hint.)

ADVANCED (High-level desynth, first main hand upgrade)

And thus begins your grind. If you’ve made it this far, then you’re well on your way! For crafters, your quest for Master Tomes begins here. And for both crafters and gatherers, your grind for your main hand upgrades begins here. If you’ve neglected your desynthesis up to this point, now is the time you’re actually going to understand its value. ALL of you, crafters AND gatherers now need to start thinking about Mastercraft Demimateria and Fieldcraft IIIs. Mastercrafts, or MCs, are obtained by desynthesizing (desynthing) Artisan’s and Forager’s head pieces and main hands (obtained from Talan in Mor Dhona with tokens). So basically the grind here is gather/craft tokens > turn in to Talan > get item > destroy item > hope for something good > rinse > repeat. Field IIIs can be obtained from the same items as MCs, but also from bridal gear (purchased from the vendor just outside of the Aetheryte Plaza in Ul’dah under Novelty Gear) and 3-star furniture. You might also want to check the price of them on MB. If they’re cheaper than 10 of an item you’re going to desynth, buying them from the MB might be cheaper. Anyway, you will need 10 FCIIIs and 3 MCs for each Supra you want later on, so start saving them up! Oh, and those 1-star materials? They are still extremely valuable even at the 4-star level, so stock up on those, as well!

Basically, at this point, your to-do list becomes “whatever Talan tells me to do.” So. And if you need a resource for meld caps, I strongly recommend Ariyala’s Gear Calculator. It’s great.

CRAFTERS
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First things first, you need to unlock your first Master Tomes! One will allow you to craft tokens for further progression and the other will allow you to craft demimateria items. For each Master Demimateria tome, you will need 5 Battle Is and 5 Field Is. If you haven’t saved these up already, they’re fairly easy to get by desynthing low-level gear. A good rule of thumb is that crafting/gathering gear will desynth into Field demis and battle gear will desynth into Battle demis. Furniture will give you Fields.

For the Master I books, you’ll need 5 HQ of the 2-star material for each class. These 2-star materials will require items which drop from maps or can be obtained from the Grand Company seal vendor or Ixali vendor. You will need 9 for each craft, so a minimum of 45 of each material. You will also need those 1-star gathered materials and HQs of the 1-star materials crafted from them. So, for example, if you’re unlocking your WVR Master I tome, you’re going to need a minimum of 10 HQ Twinthread (2 for each) and 45 Potash. The good news? This patch they introduced HQs of the 2-star materials you need 45 of! (No, we did not have this luxury prior, lol.) So now you should not have too much difficulty getting the 5 HQ 2-star crafted items that you need. All you need to do is meet the 347 Craftsmanship threshold. (And, yes. You can still buy them off the MB or have a friend HQ them for you if you are so inclined. But you’ll be missing out on the experience when it’s already been made so much easier for you!)

Once you’ve unlocked your Master I tome, you will be able to start crafting the precious tokens needed for the items above that you will be able to desynth into MCs. You’ll also be able to get your Artisan main hands and your Artisan’s Spectacles which are still best in slot! You’ll also be able to get the shiny (literally), new Artisan’s chest, hands, legs, and feet from Talan (not to be confused with the better meldable crafted ones). Do not be deceived, though. These items SAY that they’re 2-star, but they’re much more difficult to craft than your standard 2-star. So figure out how many steps it takes you to complete them and have at it! The threshold on these is 347 Craftsmanship and 318 Control, so you should have already met these minimums by now on your journey to this point. And you are going to need a LOT of HQ 1-star materials. Check with Talan to see how many tokens you need for whatever you need and congratulations! You’re just about ready for 3-star. Just one last thing.

You can also now make new accessories for yourself from the Master: Demi tome. These accessories are BiS (Best in Slot) and you should craft these (these ARE regular 2-star crafts) and meld them. Once that’s done, then yes. Congratulations! You’re ready for 3-star! :D

GATHERERS
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All stocked up on 1-star materials? Making some gil? Good. Now it’s on to tokens. Tokens are items that can be gathered from Unspoiled Nodes that only have one purpose: to give to Talan in Mor Dhona. The first tokens you’re going to be working on are Umbral Rocks (MIN), Fragrant Logs (BTN), and Silver Sovereigns (FSH). The requirement for Umbral Rocks and Fragrant Logs was lowered in 2.4 from 370 gathering to 353 gathering. HOWEVER. If you’re going to meld your gear, it is strongly recommended that you meld to have at least 373 gathering (meld everything BUT your hat!) so that when you get your Forager’s Hat and main hand, you’re ready for 2-star nodes right out of the gate, as the threshold for those is 408! You also want to get as close as you can to 600 GP for the sake of your abilities! Check with Talan to find out how many token items you need to get your new head and main hand and then you can keep going to get items to desynth for Mastercraft demimateria in preparation for your Supra. :D

MASTER (3-star & 4-star crafting)

At this point, you know the grind pretty well. You give things to Talan and he makes you feel better about all the time you’ve sunk into getting things for Talan. Then he sends you back out to bring him back better, harder to obtain things so that again you can feel better about your time sink. Yes. This is our life now. But that’s okay! The light is at the end of the tunnel! Now it’s just Supra and then Lucis! Woo! Almost there!

I’ve mentioned it a million times already in this post. But now is the time that you’re going to need to MCs and Field IIIs. Remember, 3 and 10 for each Supra, so desynth your hearts out. Hopefully by now you’ve been able to profit off of your new-found addiction to crafting and/or gathering, too. :) Honestly, now that you’re here, there’s not much more for me to say, haha. I already gave away my person 3-star rotation earlier in the post. And I gave the 2-star node gathering threshold in the ADVANCED section for gatherer’s (it’s 408 in case you missed it). So crafters and gatherers alike are really just working toward meeting thresholds. For 3-star crafting your new thresholds are 391 Craftsmanship and 374 Control. For 4-star you’re looking at 451 Craftsmanship and 407 Control. Like the 2-star tokens, the 3-star tokens are WAY harder than your average 3-star (and your average 4-star, for that matter). So you’re going to be relying on a lot of luck to unlock your Master II tomes, unfortunately.

As for gatherers, as long as you keep up with your gear upgrades outlined above, you won’t have any issues with any of your nodes.

Once you all have your Supras and crafted/melded Artisan’s and Forager’s gear… you can do everything in the game as pertains to crafting and gathering. I know, anti-climactic. I’m sorry. ;-; But now is your chance to jump onto the market board and compete with the rest of us! And… if you’re feeling particularly ambitious…

LUCIS (The vanity of master crafting/gathering)

Ah, Lucis’. What is the purpose of Lucis. Let me outline it for you:

• They make 3 and 4-star crafts and 3-star gathers slightly easier. Slightly. Unnoticeably.
• They’re huge like Luminaries.
• They’re dyeable.
• You can show them off to people.

And that’s it, lol. But if you’ve come this far, that probably doesn’t matter to you. It’s shiny, it’s new, and it’s probably going to help you with whatever is coming in the future. So you’re going to do it anyway and I can’t stop you!

Well yeah, that’s why I wrote this guide, lol.

So how are we getting our Lucis’? Well, the requirements are as follows:

CRAFTERS

• 20 Moonstones
• 20 HQ Crafted Tokens requiring 60 Token items
• Supra for that class

GATHERERS

• 20 Moonstones
• 99 HQ Gathered Tokens (BTN/MIN) or 30 HQ Gathered Tokens (FSH)
• 60 Token items
• Supra for that class

Moonstones can be obtained as a random drop from completing maps, turning in Grand Company seals (4000 seals each), or doing the Ixali Deliverance quest once per day. If you’ve never farmed GC seals before, now is the time to learn how. All I’m going to say is that Militia crafted items can be turned in for 633 GC seals each. That’s 127 Militia items per Lucis. Do with that information what you will.

The HQ crafted and gathered tokens are pretty similar to 3-star crafted and gathered items. For the crafted tokens, the main difference is that you’re working with 40 durability instead of 80, but the concept is the same. Note that these can be completed with 4 Careful Synthesis IIs to save CP. Again, just saying.

The Token items required for crafting the crafting Tokens and for turn-in with the gathered Tokens are obtained a few ways, as well. The most efficient way? Level 45 leves. Each leve with this as a reward will give 3 of the necessary Token item. You can also get them with GC seals, but I recommend you use those on Moonstones instead. You can also get these for 50 Allied seals each from The Hunt. But like I said, leves are probably the most efficient way until you run out of them.

And that’s that! Thus concludes “So you want to be a Master Crafter (or Gatherer!) 2.5 Edition!” Please feel free to ask questions and discuss below… and to post pictures of what you dyed your Lucis’! :D

Thanks for reading and happy crafting/gathering/adventuring!!!