Full Metal Alchemist! - Alchemy 101

[Sabaron]

But its listed here as level20-28 Sairui-ran skillup. Thats wrong.

Its not bad really if you can farm. I farmed 3 stacks of slime oils in 2 hours using a thf sub. Got pretty lucky too since sometimes they drop 2 or 3x (happened once). I guess no one was farming that time since I saw only 1 or 2 people who are killing jellies.

Beeswax on the other hand is expensive. This you have to buy since some people can HQ them easily and sell them at 2/3 of what the price is for 3 stacks of beechips (for 1 stack of beeswax).

Yes, in that particular guide it is listed at 20-28, which is possible (read my earlier guide). You can do 8 below. You just have to do it at the proper time:

Since it uses an Earth Crystal, you would do it on Earthsday with New Moon (at or near 0%) with Guild Assistance which reduces the recipe difficulty by "3" to 25--manageable. See, again, my earlier post.

I'm going to do a cost/benefit analysis using data gleaned from http://www.ffxiah.com/ using Midgardsormr Jeuno AH averages:

Bird Egg (from Airship Dock): 61 (166 Avg @ AH)
Kazham Pepper (Regional): 66
Bomb Ash (Bastok): 535
Bast Parchment: 655 (7869/stack Midgardsormr Average FFXIAH)
Earth Crystal: 174 (2079/stack Midgardsormr Average FFXIAH)

So the cost is : 1491 per synth or 1596 if you can't get Airship Eggs.
Per stack made: 4473 (4788)
Average AH Price (Midgardsormr): 12039
Profit margin: 7566 (7251)
Percent Profit: 62% (60%)

The last line indicates that you will not lose money doing this synthesis on Midgardsormr unless your failure rate exceeds 60%. It is a very good skill-up synth for you. Please read the section of my guide on high-distance skillups (you can ignore the directional synthesis thing if you want). The 60% failure rate option is godly--this is why people do this synthesis for skillups (even for 8 points) it won't hurt you to bad if you do it right. I'm thinking you just don't like seeing your crystals break that much. ^^

3 stacks of slime oil will get you about 2 points of skill for 2 hours and roughly 20 minutes worth of work. Cutting the "farming" time down to a lean 15 minutes of shopping gives you 1 hour and 45 more minutes of synthing time which is 90 more syntheses, roughly, which is 5 more skill points worth of time. (30 seconds per synthesis--I think that's right, correct me if I'm wrong).

I think Sairui-ran looks very appetizing as a skill-up synth on your server if done properly from 20-22 skill to start depending on timing. Still disagree?

One more thing:

For the record, were I skilling-up alchemy at your level again, I would not go the way I did (mixed durables). At the time, I didn't have any cooking skill and skipped Sairui-ran. Looking at the recipe, now, I would probably have been better off doing it. Fortunately, I caught a good moon and sat in Jeuno doing Blinding Potions, which sell very nicely as well even with a high failure rate. Do an analysis yourself. I recouped my losses from the Silent Oil I made with AH materials...

[raidenn]

Yep I disagree.

You have to wait till Earthsday to craft for it and there are just so much space taken by 4 ingredients you expect to tide you over till 28. This is a common problem and we all know that we keep running out of space all the time.
2 stacks of bomb ash
2 stacks of eggs
2 stacks of b parchment
2 stacks of kazam peppers
The best you can do is make sure you can make them fast and reliably.
I got 14 cooking skill when I was doing this by the way. Not to mention having a hard time looking for that guy who bundles them.

Maybe silent oil is too expensive and there are gilsellers who can HQ the stuff cheaply but you can successfully make them 9 of of 10 at level 20 without relying on the day. Farming oils isnt so bad really. I think I had a more harder time farming beechips. Also you can camp the Ghost NM (which i did and got a couple of nice cloths)

How much do nebimonites cost in your server? Mine costs 20k a stack.
Mercury costs 23k a stack if you dont make them yourself.

Blinding potions costs 19k a stack which pretty much loses you a bit of gil.

[Sabaron]

Yep I disagree.

You have to wait till Earthsday to craft for it and there are just so much space taken by 4 ingredients you expect to tide you over till 28. This is a common problem and we all know that we keep running out of space all the time.
2 stacks of bomb ash
2 stacks of eggs
2 stacks of b parchment
2 stacks of kazam peppers
The best you can do is make sure you can make them fast and reliably.
I got 14 cooking skill when I was doing this by the way. Not to mention having a hard time looking for that guy who bundles them.

Maybe silent oil is too expensive and there are gilsellers who can HQ the stuff cheaply but you can successfully make them 9 of of 10 at level 20 without relying on the day. Farming oils isnt so bad really. I think I had a more harder time farming beechips. Also you can camp the Ghost NM (which i did and got a couple of nice cloths)

How much do nebimonites cost in your server? Mine costs 20k a stack.
Mercury costs 23k a stack if you dont make them yourself.

Blinding potions costs 19k a stack which pretty much loses you a bit of gil.

For Blinding Potions I recommend the recipe below. I only use Nebimonites to make Black Ink and not for skillups, for making Shihei (Jusatsu works too, but I don't make them...yet) to sell/use.

Sleepshroom
Poison Flour
Crying Mustard

Sleepshrooms are the only AH-only item. On Asura, 10k/stack. I didn't look at Midgardsormr before I wrote my last post, but they appear to be 20k/stack. However, on Asura Blinding Potion goes for 10k/stack and on Midgardsormr Blinding Potion goes for 20k/stack, so it's the same loss rate. In order to do this recipe you have to camp the Junk Shop in Lower Jeuno.

I wouldn't, however, recommend selling the potions; if you use them to make bolt heads you'll get more skill (later on) and make money either off the bolt heads or the bolts. You probably won't make all of your heads into bolts--it would take forever.

A stack of Blind Bolt Heads on Midgardsormr (17 synths) goes for 100,000gil. A stack of Bronze Ingots is only 10,000 gil, so 14167gil for a stack at 100% quality plus your potions: 6180 Flour + 360 Mustard + 20000 Shrooms + 1000 Crystals = 27540/stack or 39015 per 17 yielding 100000 - 14167 - 27540 = 58293gil Profit per stack of bolt heads or roughly a 58% Profit Margin....

As for the storage for the Sairui-ran reagents, do the gobbie bag and moogle bed quests--it shouldn't be a problem. Moogle bed quests are incredibly cheap because you only need to hold the bed on Conquest Tally day and you can sell it back when you're done or borrow a bed from a friend or LS Member. The gobbie bags (with the exception of the one with the Gold Ingot (III) and the Iolite (VI) are more expensive, but well worth it. Get a mule character (it only costs a dollar/month) and gives you access to a second set of 7 AH slots preferably in another town or Jeuno and you can use your mule to make purchases from regional/standard merchants not under your town's control.

If you've already got all that stuff and you still have inventory problems...maybe it's time for a Garage Sale or trip to the Armor storage/Random Event Crap storage people?


It's actually 5 reagents. You forgot the crystals. And you only have to craft on Earthsday for a single point of skill (2-3 sets of reagents or 10 inventory). After that, your new skill point will make up for the Earthsday bonus and you'll be crafting at the same rate you were the day before.


Also:

Your original post did not specify your inventory concerns, so I could not account for them, obviously. The only recipe I ever found to be a pain in the inventory was Hi-Potions/Drops since you have to make tons of them for a skill point, the Malboro Vines don't stack, and you need 2x sage per synth.

L&E's guide is still correct--you can do Sairui-ran profitably on Midgardsormr from 20-28 provided you don't have special circumstances such as a maxed-out inventory. Also Sairui-ran is an excellent alternative for those characters who cannot go out and farm their own Slime Oil either due to their job level or chosen profession.

Ominous Cloud is a bit elusive, but I like the fact that you got skillups on Cooking too (double bang for your syntheses). Did you make money on them?

Mercury on Asura is highly unstable. Sometimes it drops so low that it's cost is below my HQ rate for Cobalt Jellies, and I'm at 82. I'm sure that high level alchemists are not making oodles of really cheap mercury for profit, so I figure it must be low-level "rich" alchemists dumping the stuff at a loss. When I see this, I snag it. I only make my own mercury when the price is more than 10% above my cost--I'll pay 10% for someone to do that for me--it takes a while to make all the mercury I usually need. I don't bother with guild jellies either since it's only 6 in stock per Van day and that makes 1.5 vials (@NQ) per day--definitely a waste of time.

I don't think gilsellers make a lot of Silent Oil for profit. There are better things to do like Black Pearls or fishbots. Silent Oil profit margin and market position is too volatile for it to be palatable to GS, but that's just my thoughts.

[Evion]

For a thread titled "alchemy 101", I don't think it teaches too much. I just started in the guild (lv O), and need some info. I see the item to synthesize, and what lvl to do it, but what does that even mean? Is that the most profitable/best item to make at that level? Is this guild profitable overall? How much gil do I need to start off effeciently? When should I buy the needed ingredients at the AH and not? NEED HELP! Thanks,

Evion

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Is that the most profitable/best item to make at that level? Is this guild profitable overall?

The answer to those questions vary from one server to the next, and can also change drastically from one day to the next. So you'll never find a thread that can give you accurate answers to those questions.

How much gil do I need to start off effeciently?

That also varies from server to server, and can change from one day to another. This is also a question you'll never find an accurate answer to. If you want, we can pull bogus numbers out of thin air. But that won't help you.

When should I buy the needed ingredients at the AH and not?

You should buy ingredients from the AH when 1) it's cheaper than the alternative and 2) it's available on the AH.

To find out if there is an NPC source as an alternative to buying from the AH, I suggest researching with sites such as FFXIclopedia, somepage, and ffrecipe.

[un7ouchab1e]

^_^ Nice

[711rocks]

Kind of random/lazy of me to ask, but
in today's ffxi economy, about how much would it cost to get Alch from 0-100?
ragnarok has the highest economy listed on ffxiah.com if that matters at all
D:
Assume i'm not going to farm materials ><
maybe idk ><
thanks in advance D:

[WishMaster3K]

Omg, if you don't farm Alchemy materials, expect to go broke trying to make beeswax.

[711rocks]

yeah maybe I will crap
but definatly not everything