[Prons]

I'm sorry for posting something that has probably been posted before, but, as of this posting I'm WHM19/BLM12, and I'm wondering when I should try to start crafting, and which craft is a good way for beginners to make good gil?

[DieselBoy09]

Food typically does alright. Fishing is ok as well, same with logging. Mining is ok once you get higher level and can hit "big pay off" areas. Overall don't expect crafting to make you large sums of gil, and expect it to be a fairly large investment unless you farm all your materials.

[Prons]

Originally Posted by DieselBoy09

Food typically does alright. Fishing is ok as well, same with logging. Mining is ok once you get higher level and can hit "big pay off" areas. Overall don't expect crafting to make you large sums of gil, and expect it to be a fairly large investment unless you farm all your materials.

Really? Because someone told me the way to make gil was to do crafting? Was he ""

[Wise Donkey]

You are not really going to hit the "big bucks" in crafting until you are a high level and can reliably HQ synths. IT is not a bad idea to start early though, and there are some things you can make a moderate profit on at the low levels. Cooking is a great place to start, as you can make juices and stuff to augment your leveling as a WHM.

[Ellipses]

There's "making money crafting" and then there's "making money crafting." It's not like you can just pick up a certain craft and instantly be making gil the whole way through. Generally, to make good money crafting, you have to have your craft(s) at a high skill level, so that you can make high-level synths that not everyone can, and so that you can get high-quality (HQ) results more reliably.

That means spending the money to skill those crafts up. Along the way, some recipes will make money, some won't. Sometimes you'll have ingredients readily available and easy to get for the recipe(s) you want to work on, other times you won't. Sometimes what you're making will sell quickly on the AH, other times you'll be forced to choose between waiting forever for it all to sell, if at all, or just dumping it off on NPC vendors.

You can make gil crafting. It's just that it's a significant investment of time, research, and gil before you start to see the bigger returns. Until you've got some crafts leveled a good way, it's better (IMO) to say that crafting is a decent addition to other money-making strategies like farming, HELM, and fishing.

[IfritnoItazura]

Market fluctuates. Prices for goods and supply for raw materials often change without warning.

Just about any craft can be used to earn some gil if you pay attention to the price changes and be ready to take advantage of it. Higher level crafters can get better returns and make many items the lower leveled ones cannot--but good profit comes only if they are vigilant.

* * *

In the past, I've made many a tidy sum off my Lv.3(? 2?) Leathercraft by combining farming sheepskin with crafting sheep leather--and waiting for the right time to sell. Well, killing the Rams and Thunder Elementals I came across also helped out with boosting profit/hour.

It was not a huge amount of gil, but it suited my THF42, my highest job then, just fine. Those sheepskin should be pretty easy to farm even at lower levels, and sheep leather can be made with Lv.0 Leathercraft. Had to be patient and not sell them when the AH was flooded, however.