[Zafron]

Well ive capped at tonosama rice balls and i think that is as far as i am taking cooking. I might do Sweet rice cakes after i get haubergeon and ametit+1, but probably not. Fresh mugwarts are rediculous.

In hindsight cooking is not the moneymaker i thought it would be. I knew it wouldn't be nearly as good as other crafts but it is even less profitable than i had hoped. No doubt this is due to the high volume of high level cooks on my server. By diversifying your sales you can do ok, but doing diverse synthing can take hours, because of the insane amounts of ingredients you have to gather for the different items. Even with gobbie bag IV, and 70 inv spaces as well as a mule in all 4 nations it is a real hassle. Other lv60 Freinds in my LS can farm gil about as fast as i can make it from cooking sales.

But dont' get me wrong i am glad i took cooking almost all the way. I get more use out of it for myself and my LS then i would get out of any other craft i think. It is very convienient to be able to consistantly make myself chiefkabobs, and the occasional red curry when i want to go all out so i have no regrets.

Given the relative ease with wich you can level cooking i'd say it is the perfect craft for people who want a craft but don't want to spend alot of time leveling it.

Here is the route i took after 55:

Stone cheese 55-61
colored egg 61-66
SanD tea 66-69
pear au lait 69-72

With no failures and high fame you will break even on stone cheese. Colored eggs and SanD tea is a big loss unless you grow your own ingredients and then it is still a loss. I recomend starting pear au lait at 65. Thats what i would have done except it wasn't in the game until i was already a 69 cook. Pear au lait is super and you will make money leveling off it.

choco milk 72-74
pamama au lait 74-81

Choco milk is a pain but you can come close to breaking even on it if you do it right. I have a big post about it on pg9 of this thread. After choco milk you will be making money on all your synthing right up until you decide not to level anymore. Pamama au lait is a money maker, has few ingredients, and sells fast. Only thing that would make it more perfect is if it stacked.

pumpkin pie 81-85

Pumpkin pie is another nice money maker so long as you gather the ingredients properly(buy ingredients from npcs not AH). At 5k per stack i was almost sad when i capped it.

rolanberry pie/persikos au lait 85-90

Rolanberry pies and persikos au lait will both make you money. As to wich on is better it is a matter of personal preferance. After trying both i like rolanberry pies, because there are a few things about persikos i don't like. For one you can only get persikos from failed attemps at growing dark elemental ore using tree saplings and dark crystals. This grow takes 3-4 weeks. Basically this means that you have to buy them off AH and even then the availiblility is limited. On top of this persikos au lait is a much more expensive synth than rolanberry pies so failures are alot more costly. Also i noticed that rolanberry pies seem to sell a touch faster for me. So my recomendation is rolanberry pies.

Flint caviar/tonosama rice balls 90-94

Probably the most profitable synth ive done that isnt HQ and extremely convenient. I went from 90 to 94 in a single day. For starters Flint caviar is a lv92 synth, tonosamas are a level 94 synth. But what is so nice is that flint caviar is actually the most difficult ingredient to come by for tonosamas. So while you are leveling your craft synthing cavier you are at the same time stocking yourself with the most expensive ingredient for tonosamas. To do this synth you have to start with an emperor fish and split it into 4 emperor roes with a lighting crystal. Then synth flint cavier using a dark crystal, emperor roe and rock salt to get 3 flint caviers for each roe. Then each flint cavier is good for 2 tonosama rice balls. So even though emperor fish are so expensive 1 fish will yield 2 stacks of tonosamas. The rest of the ingredients for tonosamas are super cheap.

So good luck to all future veteran cooks. I hope you can get as much use out of it as i have been able too. ^^