[Snowball]

I'm rather interested in the guild aprons you can buy for each of the guilds in the game. (especially the one you can get from the culinarian's guild in Windy Waters which comes with a rather neat looking chefs hat too) I have read up on which guild NPCs you can buy them from, but at the moment for me, they all say something to the fact that I'm lower than novice, so I presume you have to be of a certain guild level to be able to buy one.
Could anyone please tell me which level in a guild you have to reach to be able to buy one? They all seem pretty useful to me. If they act like the advanced image support you can get, (do they all have a +1 on them? For e.g. cooking +1, leathercraft +1, woodworking +1 e.t.c.) then it will mean that I can do the craft without having to go back to a guild everytime to get the image support which gives you the ability to skill up on the craft.
Also, just out of interest..... how many people here have bough them too?

[LyonheartLakshmi]

You must be lvl 28+ and have passed the test to become a Novice in order to enter contract with the guild. Once you enter a contract, you can then turn in items in exchange for guild points.

To obtain the Apron for any guild, you must also be lvl 68+ and have passed the test to become an Artisan. If you aren't an Artisan or higher, the Apron will simply not appear in the list of items you can buy with Guild Points.

[Caspian]

Also, the chef hat doesn't come with the apron. It is a separate item that can't be obtained until lvl 48 skill, after you've taken the test.
Mysterytour has the items and the skill level they become attainable at, as well as the GP's required to purchase them.

[Icemage]

All guild aprons are level 68+, and require Artisan rank, as noted above.

All of them give +1 to their appropriate skill, EXCEPT for the Fishing Apron (which I own), which reduces the rate at which items are caught when fishing. In the cases of gear that gives + to skill, yes it is sort of like having permanent Guild Synthesis Support (which can be stacked with the actual support for even more bonuses, should you choose to do so).

They all cost 100,000 guild points from the appropriate guild (with an active contract, naturally).


Icemage

[neighbortaru]

Originally Posted by Icemage

They all cost 100,000 guild points from the appropriate guild (with an active contract, naturally).
Icemage

(very) roughly translated this is some 2-3 million gil if you're lucky

[Snowball]

Originally Posted by neighbortaru

(very) roughly translated this is some 2-3 million gil if you're lucky

Please excuse me if I'm asking a newb question, but I'm not quite sure what you mean.
I understand that when you reach a guild skill LvL of 28, that you can turn in items to recieve guild points, and guild points are different from gil, but are you saying that you can somehow recieve gil for giving items or some such?
You have me somewhat confused I think. I'm sorry about that.

[neighbortaru]

to synth the guild items for guild points, you will need crystals and materials to synth. 2-3 million was my estimate/guess as to how much this will cost you to get 100,000 guild points (cost of skilling up to level 68 is seperate).

[Icemage]

It depends on the guild. 2 to 3 million gil worth of materials sounds about average.

It's slightly lower for Fishing, since fish generally have lower material values than equivalent level synthed items, and significantly higher for Goldsmithing, where it seems almost every item is expensive compared to the guild points you receive.

I know I've already invested more than 2 million gil into my Woodworking contract for my gloves (and am now close to my apron), either in material costs or finished products.


Icemage

[Snowball]

Originally Posted by Icemage

All guild aprons are level 68+, and require Artisan rank, as noted above.
All of them give +1 to their appropriate skill, EXCEPT for the Fishing Apron (which I own), which reduces the rate at which items are caught when fishing. In the cases of gear that gives + to skill, yes it is sort of like having permanent Guild Synthesis Support (which can be stacked with the actual support for even more bonuses, should you choose to do so).
They all cost 100,000 guild points from the appropriate guild (with an active contract, naturally).
Icemage

WOW! 100,000 guild points hey? That's going to take forever to build up, even getting to guild skill LvL 68 before you can buy an apron. Both will take quite some time I guess.
But why would the fishing apron reduce the number of fish items you catch?
I don't understand.
You spend all that time skilling up on fishing, only to receive an apron which reduces the fishing rate! That doesn't seem right to me.
More like, pointless! (I guess the apron would still give an advantage towards skilling up, even though you would still get a low catch rate, which is still of some use at least)
At a low level fishing skill, there are a number of players (including myself) who have bought the blue fishing tunic, fishing gloves, and the trousers to complete the set.
If I remember correctly, these all give a +1 for fishing skill, and you still get a normal catch rate as usual.
From what I have learned here, I get the impression that it would be better to stick with the fish tunic e.t.c instead of waiting to get the fish apron at a high skill LvL. At least you get 2 advantages from the tunic set that you don't from the fishing apron.
Also, I'm a bit confused as to why you can be provided with a tunic set at low LvL for fishing, when you can't get anything similar for any of the other guilds at a low level. (leathercraft, cooking, woodwork, clothcraft e.t.c) I think there should be something like this which you can buy in the game. I don't really see why there shouldn't be. But please feel free to give your reasoning if you have any, to make me think otherwise.

[neighbortaru]

items are different from fish. when fishing, you don't want items (usually).

[Icemage]

The purpose of the fishing apron is not the same as that of the other guild aprons. Since you only have a limited amount of stamina for fishing each real life day, reducing the number of non-fish items increases the amount of stamina you spend on actually catching fish, which in turn increases your fishing productivity.

The real point-waster is the Fishing Hole Map (which I also own) which gives Moghancement: Fishing (+1 Skill). It costs 150,000 guild points, only works when it is the dominant furniture in your mog house, and does the same thing as a 3000 gil pair of fishing gloves...


Icemage

[Caspian]

Does the fishing hole map not stack with all the available fishing gear? Or by that level is all that extra fishing skill unnecessary?

As for building up GP's, I think I spent somewhere around 1.5m for both the gloves and apron (very rough estimate) for WW'ing. A lot of the items can be bought off NPC's for cheap, and I'd just not do the item if it was gonna cost very much. As long as you have no problem taking your time to attain them, then its not near as expensive (much like leveling the craft to begin with).
I stil have to start saving up for the WW'ing furnishing. That will probably cost another million or so, so long as the new low prices hold.

Somewhat offtopic now, does all the +fishing gear do much anymore? I know it used to be able to lower your delay b/w casts. Is the +skill very helpful in pulling in fish now?

[LyonheartLakshmi]

I've done guild items for Cooking, Bonecraft and Leathercraft. There are some guild items in all 3 guilds that are very expensive. However, you can skip days and still obtain guild items in a reasonable amount of time. The average cost of the items I turned in came to about 7 gil per guild point. So I would estimate the "cost" of an Apron to be closer to 700k gil. Also, these estimates are from back before the current deflationary trend kicked in.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Caspian

Somewhat offtopic now, does all the +fishing gear do much anymore? I know it used to be able to lower your delay b/w casts. Is the +skill very helpful in pulling in fish now?

+Fishing skill doesn't do a whole lot. Nowadays it marginally affects bite rate, fishing attack, and rod resilience. Not terribly noticeable in small doses, though you do see significant change from 0 to 100 skill.

Fishermen get shafted on a regular basis in FFXI. It's a fact of life. Dragoons, Rangers, etc. complain about getting nerfed? Pfft. Fishing has gotten nerfed about a dozen times - they can come complain to me after they've spent thousands of hours levelling a job.


Icemage

[Kitalrez]

Originally Posted by Caspian

Does the fishing hole map not stack with all the available fishing gear? Or by that level is all that extra fishing skill unnecessary?

Icemage is referring more to the law of diminishing returns here. It's present in a lot of ingame formulas, it just hits fishing harder. Think of it like WHMs and MND gear. Cure spells have a built in soft cap, (30 pts for I, 90 for II, 180 for III, etc). Until we get V at 61, there's no reason piling on extra MND gear if you're already at the soft cap, since adding 4 extra points of healing to a Cure II that's already doing 90 is a waste of a perfectly good +mp slot you could be milking to toss out another 90 pt Cure II. Most WHMs generally realize the diminishing aspect of MND gear around 41, when Cure IV becomes available and we realize what a death trap that spell can be outside of emergency situations. There's no sense gearing up to max out a spell you're not going to use, so for the next 20 levels you see WHMs spending more money on the +mp gear and the +MND gear for these levels is selling dirt cheap. When Cure V is available at 61, since it lacks an easily reachable soft-cap, the +MND gear comes back into play again.

With fishing, the above scenario comes into play when we get closer to 100 fishing skill. Right now, the highest level "normal progression" fish is the Ryugu Titan at 103. So, if you skip the guild apron and just wear fishing gear and waders, you'll reach a soft cap in skill at 98. If you take the apron, that'll be 99. Anything over that level is pointless. Now, there are two fish in game that are much higher than 103, (namely Lik and Gugrusaurus), but because they're so far out of the "normal progression" from crayfish at 7 skill on up, fishing skill doesn't matter as much as other items. Lik and Gugrusaurus require a key item just to hook, plus another key item to keep them on the line longer, on top of two rings to help increase your ability to drain their stamina and keep them on the line even longer still.

With this obstacle in your path, +1 fishing skill isn't going to amount to much, you could better spend those GP on lures or something else. Which is what Icemage means when he says it's useless.