[UndyingSwordsman]

Ok, I am doing three crafts right now, wood, food, and cloth. I have reached level 50 with them all, but something is now happening! Instead of getting my regular pings of .1 or .2, I see .1 MAYBE every 10 synths. What is going on? I have never had this happen before. Does the game slow you down once you hit level 50? Help me, I think something is amiss. And before you say it, I have tried at different days, different hours, etc. Nothing seems to be working now!

[Taskmage]

Yup that sounds about right. Around level 50 skillups slow down a lot. A stack of synths that might've gotten you a whole skill point before might only get you one skillup now. At this point it becomes really attractive to craft during the most optimal times at very specific level gaps. Check the link if you don't know the theory.

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/Crafting_Skill_Ups

[Caspian]

After about 50 or so skillups become few and far between. I've gone 15 or 20 synths before w/o a single skillup, but then later on I'll get 4 out of 5 real quick. Its just the way it works later on, so dont worry, its not just you.
I also think you can pretty much kiss anything over a .1 skillup goodbye. I can't remember the last time I got at .2 or .3 on woodworking.

EDIT: also, I've read some tests on other forums, and over a long period of time at the later crafting levels, you get about 1 .1 skillup every 4 synths.

[Lleo]

Skilling up a craft past 50 can be a pain. You will need from 20 to 60 synths to get a level. In my experience will it over time average to around 40 synths pr level when you skill 1-5 levels below cap. So when I get a level in 3 stacks (or less) of materials I'm feeling lucky.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

From 50 to 60, it usually takes me 30 synths to get a full level. After 60, the 0.2 skill ups disappear, and it takes me about 40 synths to get a full level.

[Icemage]

Skillups get rarer and smaller as you gain in levels. Seems to change a bit every 10 levels or so - the higher you get, the rarer and smaller the skill gains. The last 10 levels from 90-100 is almost all +0.1s unless you're levelling Fishing, which potentially can still give +0.3s once in a while due to the extreme level of some legendary fish.


Icemage

[Murphie]

Thanks for answering that question, Icemage. No one else seemed up to the challenge, so we're really lucky to have you.

[Icemage]

Should also be noted that ALL crafts (Fishing included) do experience noticeably slower skill gains upon reaching level 50. This change is a lot more noticeable than the ones at 60/70/80/etc.

Hard to put a real number on it, but I'd say the chance of skill gain falls from 1 in 2 to a bit more than 1 in 3 at that point (different for Fishing, since it has much slower skillups than all other crafts). At level 90+, my skillup rate is creeping close to about 1 in 4 on both Woodworking and Cooking (and my friends in other crafts report the same).


Icemage

[UndyingSwordsman]

Now here is an interesting follow up. I have cooking and cloth both at 52, so I tried an experiment. I did cooking at 62 with support and direction, and it took 51 synths to gain 2 levels. Then, I did a level 53 synth with cloth, and I got the level almost right away. Maybe you are supposed to not do such a large gap when you get higher? Thoughts?

[Icemage]

Common wisdom accepts that very large gaps (10+) in skill vs. synth hurt you more than help in most cases, but there are times when you'll still come out ahead.

I like synths that are 3-6 levels above my current skill level (after synth support), but that's more for my peace of mind than anything else. If I don't really care about success (i.e. the resulting product doesn't sell for anything significant), I'll go as high as maybe 9 levels above with synth support, but since there's a better statistical chance of skillup on success than failure, it's situational.

Higher gaps reduce your chance of skillup per synth, but in cases when working with very expensive materials, it often makes more sense to intentionally try to fail and perhaps save some of the materials (though use of Moghancements).


Icemage

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Now here is an interesting follow up. I have cooking and cloth both at 52, so I tried an experiment. I did cooking at 62 with support and direction, and it took 51 synths to gain 2 levels. Then, I did a level 53 synth with cloth, and I got the level almost right away. Maybe you are supposed to not do such a large gap when you get higher? Thoughts?

The main difference in skill up rate you'll see is when a recipe is more than 5 levels above your skill vs. 1 to 5 levels above. You can only get skill ups from a failed synth if the recipe is 1 to 5 levels beyond your cap. From my experience, this is not affected by guild equipment or image support (e.g. getting +3 from advanced support will not allow you to get skill ups from failures on a recipe that is 8 levels above your skill).

Sometimes, it still makes sense to do a recipe that is 6+ levels beyond your skill, just because the alternatives are too costly. For Bonecrafting, I did Bone Patas for at least 10 levels (58 to 68), Tigerfangs for 11 levels (68 to 79), and Gavial Masks for about 11 levels (~89 to 100). Oddly enough, the number of synths per level didn't vary by anything noticeable from one level to the next on those stages, IIRC.