[Evion]

Hello All,

I have followed many crafting guides on what synths should be done at what levels. But, they don't specifically say whether you are more likely to get a skill-up for a higher level synth or not. Example: I'm level 8 clothcraft. Am I more likely to get a skill-up from a level 9, 10,or 11 syth? Or, does it not matter?

Thanks,

Evion

[WishMaster3K]

My ClothCraft is now 57 (or is it 58? I forget..) But I've gotten decent skill ups from Green Ribbon the past few times I synth. It's because I use the day and moon phase to help me out. Here is the list I've written down to help me out:

Day Order
Ice Water Earth Lightning Wind Fire Light Dark

L.Elements - F.Moon - Light, Thunder, Wind, Fire
D.Elements - N.Moon - Dark, Ice, Water, Earth

Difficulty
Moon of Crystal: -1
Moon opposite: +1
Halk Moon: +1

Directions
N Dark
NE Light
E Ice
SE Wind
S Earth
SE Lightning
W Water
NW Fire

Individually, they're menial additions, but if you combine them all, they help. I went broke trying to take Silk from 50-54 before I found this, then I was able to take Cloth to 58 in one long session a few weekends ago.

I feel they help, because normally, I wasn't getting jack shit for skill ups before.

[Evion]

Moon phase affects skill up chances?! huh... How about level of synth? Also, could you put me in your sig as Evion asks stupid questions or something (LOL?)?

[Jei]

I usually stick to synth 3-5 levels above me. Unless there are something exceptionally cheap around my skill range, I'll do up to 10-12 skill gap in that case.

[Evion]

Jei: Do you think you are more likely to get a skill-up for doing a synth 5 levels above you than if you did one at that is 3 levels above you?

[Jei]

3-5 above me seemed to give me better skill ups compare to 1-2 yea. Still pretty random tho.

[Evion]

Coo! TY...

[Tsrwedge]

CC60, I've found if I can keep the effective difficulty according to lokyst's Crafting Timer between 2 and 3, I have more luck with obtaining skill-ups. Higher than that, and I seem to get more breaks than I'd like, lower than that, too many successful non-skillup synths.

[Evion]

Thank you both.

[Armando]

Level of Synth in relation to your base skill affects skill-ups. The higher the synth, the better the skill-ups, but the more likely you are to fail.

The closer the moon is to being New Moon, the higher your skill-up rate, failure rate, HQ rate, and material losing rate. Full Moon does the opposite (reduced skill-up, higher success.)

Darksday and the day of the element that beats the crystal you're using have the same effect as New Moon. Lightsday, the day of your crystal, and the day your crystal beats have the same effect as New Moon.

Note that failures can give skill-ups, but only if the synth is within a certain range of your skill. I can't remember if it had to be within 5 or 7 levels of your skill. Although harder recipes give better skill-ups, if the recipe is so high that failures won't give skill, it's possible that you'll fail so often that you'll have a worse skill-up rate overall than if you had picked a slightly lower recipe that does give you skill-ups on failures.

Skill-ups will suck pretty hard on synths close to your level, no matter what you do.

What you can and can't use to skill-up is totally situational. You can continue to use a convenient recipe that's close to your level by synthing on New Moon/Darksday (or negative day) to increase skill-up rate. Or you can start using a high level recipe early by synthing on Full Moon/Lightsday (or beneficial day) to improve chance of success.

There's lots of factors to consider, ranging from willingness to waste gil, amount of inventory space, profit/loss from the recipe, the speed at which it moves, how much in a hurry you are to skill up, etc. Guides are fine and dandy, but everyone's journey through crafting is different. You'll have to use your judgment often.

[Necropolis]

Keep in mind one risk about synthing too far ahead of your level. As long as you're within 5 levels of synth you can still obtain skill ups from a break. Past 5 you'll never receive a skill up from a break; critical or non-critical break.

So consider what you're synth, in gold, I'd much rather synth and break with a chance to skill up as opposed to breaking and receiving no skill-up.

The early levels I never cared too much, since the synths were so cheap, but when you start getting to the levels where a single synth cost 20k+ you tend to be a bit more careful about what, where, and when you synth.

Personally I find http://ffxi.lokyst.net/timer/crafttimer.html to be a quick easy way to get comfortable with synthing. No guarantee that everything on it is 100% correct, but will give you a start on where to face, when to synth, and your risk on the synth.