[Taskmage]

I'm using this crafting timer to figure out when the best time to skillup on Cornettes is. The skillcaps are 14 boneworking (main) and 14 goldsmithing (sub). If my boneworking skill is 11 and my goldsmithing skill is 10, does that mean my base difficulty for the synth is 3 (difference of main craft), 4 (highest difference), or 7 (total difference)? Should I try to keep each skill between 2-4 levels of the cap for best skillups or is it the total?

[Jei]

I did cornette at 9 bone 11 gold. (cap 14 bone 14 gold) I got very good skill up just like any other 5 gap synth I think. Bujt the break rate was horrible. broke 3/5. But it's still ok I think... it's a total loss synth anyway

[kiffkin]

Each craft is rolled for seperately, rather than it being the total difference.

[Taskmage]

Originally Posted by Jei

it's a total loss synth anyway

true enough

[Aeni]

You should do gelatin instead. It's quite profitable versus cornettes. Unless Bastok has never been in first place in a long time, you should try other methods.

I also find that those kinds of synthing is horrible to raise sub crafts. Better to target those subcrafts directly rather than put yourself in a hole.

[Taskmage]

I want to level both, and I don't see any really good alternatives in goldsmithing to get the next few levels before I can start silver ingots. Brass Ring and Brass Flowerpot look like total losses as well, and chew up more brass ingots than cornettes do. Gelatin is a good call though. I had started making that and turning it into meat broth before I remembered about goldsmithing. I haven't researched it myself, but I've been told nobody buys Gelatin on Lakshmi.

[Aeni]

Originally Posted by Taskmage

I want to level both, and I don't see any really good alternatives in goldsmithing to get the next few levels before I can start silver ingots. Brass Ring and Brass Flowerpot look like total losses as well, and chew up more brass ingots than cornettes do. Gelatin is a good call though. I had started making that and turning it into meat broth before I remembered about goldsmithing. I haven't researched it myself, but I've been told nobody buys Gelatin on Lakshmi.

Gelatin moves so fast on Hades. I believe you can move at least 10 stacks a day by yourself at 10-15K per stack. And that's in just one city. Apparently it's selling well in just about any of the AHs. That's insane.

Also try brass ingot recipes and then after synthing up a large number of items, desynth them. NPC sells the bronze stuff for peanuts and unlike guild, they have unlimited quantities. If you happen to HQ here and there, well, you made yourself a tidy profit. After desynthing everything down, you should at least be able to recoup losses by selling ingots on AH. Or hold on to a few on mules for guild points if you're contracted with the GS guild.

Double Post Edited:
Or hell ... hold on to a few items even if you're not contracted with a guild. The days when it's the item of the day, put it on AH as the prices tend to surge 10-50 times their original worth lol. Racqueteering ftw.

[Taskmage]

Seems I had it backwards. They move fast enough (10 stacks in 7hours in Windy) but at a sigificant loss. 7-8k for a stack of gelatin, 6-7k for a stack of bone chips, 2.5-3k for giant femurs. Only profitable if you can get a significant HQ % from the femur recipe.

[Aeni]

Originally Posted by Taskmage

Seems I had it backwards. They move fast enough (10 stacks in 7hours in Windy) but at a sigificant loss. 7-8k for a stack of gelatin, 6-7k for a stack of bone chips, 2.5-3k for giant femurs. Only profitable if you can get a significant HQ % from the femur recipe.

Well ... I farm ... my stuff. Also, bone chips are cheaper from guild, but I must imagine they are camped a lot? Idk ... before I started boneworking, I had accumulated like 10 stacks of sheep teeth, 15 stacks of bone chips and like 100 femurs and various other things. I haven't even touched my 10 stacks of sheep leather yet ...

[Jei]

When I skill up my bones there are always not enough chips in the AH. They selling for about 4k/stacks average on Titan. I tried farm.... got like a stack an hour. I can get 4k catching 1 fish so it makes more sense for me to just do my regular fishing you know

Luckily, I checked Sandoria AH like a month ago there was 60 stacks of bonechips and 40 stacks of beetle jaws selling.... price down to like 1k for chips and 10k for jaws lol I bought almost all of them and stored them all on my mule. I even have left overs after my skill got to 60.

[Taskmage]

Even when I farm my own materials I always consider the potential profit of selling the raw materials vs the gross profit from the synth and the gil/hour I would make farming. If you reduce the value of your goods by synthing them it's still a loss even if you only see your gil balance go up; it would have gone up by more if you hadn't done the synth. If the gil/hour from farming the materials isn't comparable to whatever your best moneymaking activity makes, then you're actually losing money by farming it; if you'd done your normal gil-raising activity instead, you could've bought more materials in less time than you farmed. It's not the most intuitive concept, but once you wrap your head around it, it makes sense. Little bit of economics I picked up from Icemage back in the day.

I'm a 3rd rank chocobo digger, so that's how I've been acquireing my materials. After an hour spent in altepa (assuming not too much competition) I can usually come up with nearly 4 stacks of bone chips, a couple dozen femurs, and an armful of zinc. If I'm lucky I'll find a couple chunks of gold, darksteel, or philosopher's stone to compensate me for my time. I don't know what I'd do otherwise. Farming bones suuuucks.

[Jei]

4 stacks of bones/hour that's really good. compare to famring, that's really really good.

[mikesjustice]

The crafting timer is an excellent starter tool for crafting.

However, the more you are at crafting, you'll come to realise that whether your 5 lvls out of cap, or 1 lvl out of cap, you have the same opportunity to skill up. I actually prefer to be only 1-2 lvls out of cap.

The only difference is that the larger the number away from cap, the larger the chance for fail.

One other point is that IF you choose to skill at cap, or one lvl higher than cap (of course modified gap using support/gear), you still will skill up the same. However, don't go beyond one over cap. The significant advantage of this is that once you obtain "cap" lvl, your fail percentage decreases vs being underlvl'd, and your HQ chances increase into the first tier.

This is a significant advantage when synthing high value items, as you get the benefit of all and the negative of none.

The crafting timer is a wonderful tool, and I used it for a long time starting out, but eventually experience and experimentation trumps all.

But to answer your question, the craft which is furthest from the item cap is the weakest link. It doesn't combine and give you how far away from cap you are, it's the weakest isolated craft from item cap that accounts for the gap.