Cooking without losing a fortune?

[Effedup]

Ok, so I resisted crafting for a long time, and had some bad experiences with leathercrafting, so with some trepidation I took up cooking. I'd heard that it's one of the easier crafts to skill (if not the easiest), and that you didn't have to drop a ton of gil to level it up, and so far I'd have to agree...I've either broken even or made some money while levelling, with some exceptions, and NPCing something for more than cost is very nice ^^.

A lot of the guides out there are pretty old, and as such, synths that were great moneymakers just aren't anymore, and a lot of the recipes call for ingredients that are just not reasonably available anymore, so trying to find that next synth is getting more and more difficult...

Currently, I'm level 44.?, and have been skilling up Pickled Herring, which is one of those wonderful synths thaty NPCs for more than cost. Problem is, finding Nosteau Herring's on the A.H. (any of them, I check all 4 regularly) is a chore, and from the guild it will cost way more than it's worth. I'm sure I can get it to cap at 46, as soon as I can get my hands on more...

However, now I'm at the point where it doesn't seem like any of the synths are going to even break even, if not cost me 1k or more per stack (whether on A.H. or via NPC). I was thinking of going into Apple Pies (I have stacks and stacks of Pie Dough), but even that goes for close to NPC price on the A.H., which is a loss of 1k/stack if I buy everything from vendors (which I do) with my own dough.

So, my question is this...what's the cheapest synths you guys can think of to level from 46 and up? I'm not looking to make money here, but breaking even would be nice...and if that's just not possible, what's gonna lose me the least?

Also, I haven't gotten any of the cooking key items (like raw fish handling, noodle making, etc)...I know I'm going to want to get the fish handling at some point so I can make my own sushi (I'm doing all this so I can make my own food and save money, not make it necessarily). Whats the most efficient and cheapest way to get guild points so I can buy these things? On that subject I am clueless as well...

Thanks for any help you guys can provide...

[Jei]

1k/stack doesn't sound so bad imo... compare to other craft that it might take ~5k per single synth.

alternative I can see... I don't play anymore tho so I don't know if they'll cost more or less. I generally try to stick to things I can buy from NPC.

~50 grape juice.
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~52 crayfish ball if you can get crayfish at its cheapest price from fishing guild. quite convenient since the guild is right in whitegate.
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~54 Icecap Rolanberry. Not that it's cheap, but when it shows up as guild item, you can bazaar it in front of the guild for very good price because collecting ingradients for this is such a pain.
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~55 Baugreen sautee FF11 (FFXI) �������� ffrecipe - ���V�s�ڍ� (�{�X�f�B���؂̃\�e�[)

~60 yagodo drink. sells fast and profitable. FF11 (FFXI) �������� ffrecipe - ���V�s�ڍ� (���O�[�h�h�����N)

~61 stone cheese FF11 (FFXI) �������� ffrecipe - ���V�s�ڍ� (�X�g�[���`�[�Y)

~64 melon pie. I hate trying to sell these but you need to closen the gap for your next one FF11 (FFXI) �������� ffrecipe - ���V�s�ڍ� (�������p�C)

~70 squid sushi. try to get cheap ingradients from Norg and you can break even or make a little profit, depends.
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if you don't have sushi handling, you can make san doria tea. FF11 (FFXI) �������� ffrecipe - ���V�s�ڍ� (�T���h���A�e�B�[)

no easy way for 70~, sorry. Somethings I can recommend

- dhalmel pie 75?
- orange kuchen 80
- Tuna sushi if you feel like it, but its hard to sell.
- Pamama Au Leit (81)
- emperor roe 82. really good if you plan to make tavnazian taco later on. Collect them.
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- marron glace 84 FF11 (FFXI) �������� ffrecipe - ���V�s�ڍ� (�}�����O���b�Z)
- flint cavier (92). remember the roes you made earlier?
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- turn the cavier into tavnazian salad (92)
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then you can make taco, taco caps 82.

- rice dumbling
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- sweet rice cake is usually the most doable path to 99. you're throwing money away here.
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- 100, well, you can camp royal jelly fron the nest for cheap route. bring thf friend, tho. or you can try red curry with dragon meat. How much is dragon meat right now?

[Murphie]

I didn't use a guide to level my cooking. I just looked for recipies a couple of levels above my current skill (no more than 3, usually) that I could make really cheaply, and which required no farming. It worked out really well for me, and that's what I'd suggest you try. Not the in-depth advice you were looking for, I realize, but I'll see if I can't scope out a few items and get back to you.

[Effedup]

Thank you both for your input. My ls leader laughs at me when I tell him my goal of levelling a craft without losing my shirt to do it (after spending almost 200k to get leathercrafting to a dumpy 11 or 12 I'm tending to agree) but until now cooking seemed like it was gonna be pretty good as far as that goes; cheap ingredients, easy 1-2 item synths, and food sells generally well on the A.H.. However, it seems like I'm just in for a rough patch here.

Jei, I'm prolly going to end up levelling on grape juice to 50, it's the simplest synth, but it sells so slowly on the A.H. that I'm prolly gonna end up NPcing them and taking the loss. Same with pies (gotta do something with all that pie dough), NQ apple pies sell for about what they NPC (even less sometimes, which really boggles my mind), so Melon it will probably be, unless I find a synth that's less costly in that range (and save those pie doughs for when I can actually HQ something) ^^

Murphie, I haven't really been using a guide either since most guides were written before all the bans and are pretty much useless now, considering half the things peeps talk about "selling well" haven't sold on the A.H. since around when the guide was written...my current method is to scour ffxiah's recipes and sit and calculate what every item is gonna cost me, what it NPCs for, what it AHs for...in general I ignore the nasty synths too (I really dont want to spend 2 hours muling ingredients from all over the world). I've been keeping a log of my progress thus far (working on a little guide for peeps in my ls if they want it ^^), but today I sat down to plot my course from 50+ and, honestly, sitting here adding up rock salts, dried marjoram, and San d'Orian Flour over and over again is making me quite insane. If anything comes to mind in the future, please let me know...

On the subject of Key Items, other than Raw Fish Handling, is there any others that I should be concerned with getting? And what's the best method to getting guild points? Do you get money AND points, or just points? Sorry if these questions are noobish, but no one else in my ls has levelled a craft to the point where these things come into play, and I can't make heads or tails of it myself...

Thanks again! ^^

[Jei]

I got the noodle key item thing. Not much profit in there imo. They are expensive to make, expensive to sell and sell slow. Profit ratio is about the same as Taco but Taco was much less stressful to make. Just my thought.

[Nuriko]

When you trade something in for guild points, that's ALL you get out of it - no gil, no nothing. Keep an eye on the guild items and find something cheap for the points.

[Icemage]

Cooking is a breeze to level, compared to every other craft in the game. The only drawback to cooking (and it's a small one) is that synths tend to have a few more ingredients than other crafts.

Grape juice will get you to 50 with ease. San d'Orian Grapes are a pittance, and dark crystals are dirt cheap thanks to the existence of Imps.

Beaugreen sautee will then take you to 55 at minimal cost, then Yagudo drink to 60. Beyond that, things get hairy, but that's true for every craft above 60 (and really Cooking is still by far the easiest and least expensive synth craft to level beyond 60, all the way up to around level 98).

If you're flinching over 1K per stack, I take it you never researched how expensive it would be to level any other synth craft. Even with today's market deflation, I think it costs me some 30K per synth attempt to try and level Woodworking at level 95.


Icemage