Hello. I am a retired level 73 blacksmith(and 60 weaver, 37 carpenter, 60 leatherworker), and I thought I'd share some advice with the lower-level blacksmiths on how to raise skill as quickly and easily as possible. Also please note that at skill 50+, skill gain slows down by a LOT.

I would also advise that you craft on the day with the same element as your crystal or lightsday. Don't bother trying to make HQ items while gaining skill. And ALWAYS use Advanced Image Support!

I have included approximate cost of producing the item mentioned where possible, though ultimately, your costs will vary from server to server.

skill 0-2
bronze ingots
fire crystal + 3xcopper ore +1xtin ore(~178 gil)

Don't use beastcoins unless you have saved up a bunch of them on your own. They are expensive. Buy copper ore from the San D'Oria blacksmith's guild, blacksmith/goldsmith in Bastok, or
goldsmith in Mhaura.

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skill 2-4
bronze sheets
fire crystal + bronze ingot(~278 gil)

Just use the ingots you made getting to 2 skill. You should have about 2 stacks. That should be enough to get you to 4 skill. Go ahead and process your extra bronze ingots into sheets anyway, because you'll want them for . . .

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skill 4-6
bronze scales
wind crystal + bronze sheet(~378 gil)

You will likely not make any profit selling these, so save them up, or sell them to slightly more advanced smiths if you are desperate. If you save them up, you can use them later on scale armor suits.

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skill 6-10
bronze bolt heads
wind crystal + bronze ingot(~278 gil)

Easier just to buy bronze ingots off others for this, at least on Midgardsormr. Bronze bolt heads themselves are worthless, and the bronze bolts you can make with them don't sell very well, at least not on Midgardsormr. Your mileage may vary. I would advise selling these to the guild npc or a standard npc, taking the almost complete loss, and moving on with your life(and your craft)

I have heard one report that bronze scales can be made until 10 skill, but I was unable to get past 6 skill myself. It's possible something was changed in a patch, but I can not confirm this. Bronze bolt heads may also get you to 11 skill, but again, I can not confirm this.

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skill 10-15/16
scale mail suits OR tin ingots
Scale mail suit = earth crystal + cotton thread + sheep leather + leather vest + 2xbronze scales(~1800 gil)
Tin ingot = fire crystal + 4xtin ore(~220 gil)

Depending on your server's economy, one or the other may be more wise. On Midgardsormr, I could make scale mail suits at an average of 1800 gil per suit, which was okay, because I wound up selling them at about 2k per suit. Keep in mind that the overall frustration caused by this skill range can be mitigated by stopping your craft of scale mail and/or tin ingots at 15 skill, instead of 16(which is how high you can get off these items). Note that the new tin ingots apparently can be made from skill 10-16, or thereabouts. They are cheaper to make than scale mail, and are used in the production of various alchemical items(batteries, spark weapons).

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skill 15/16-20
iron ingots
4xiron ore + fire crystal(~2100 gil)

These can be made and sold at a profit if you buy ore from the AH on midgardsormr: Cost to produce in Midgardsormer: about 2100 gil(500 for ore, 90-100 for crystal). Cost to sell on Midgardsormer: varies between 26-30k for a stack of 12. In any case, iron ingots are useful anyway, so you won't be harmed by saving them up.

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skill 20- ~23
iron sheets
fire crystal + iron ingot(~2200 gil)

Trust me on this. Sheets sell well on their own, or can be used for . . .

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skill 23-26
iron scales
wind crystal + iron sheet(~2300 gil)

Just use the sheets you got getting to 23(or is it 22? I don't remember how far iron sheets will take you)

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skill 26-30: iron finger gauntlets OR iron visors OR iron scale greaves OR iron chains OR iron masks
gauntlets = earth crystal +2xiron scale + cotton thread + leather gloves
greaves = earth crystal +2xiron scale + cotton thread + leather highboots
iron visor = wind crystal + iron scale + iron sheet + sheep leather
iron chain = earth crystal + 2xiron ingot(~4200 gil)
iron mask = earth crystal + iron sheet + brass sheet

Depending on your server, these may or may not sell well. They do not sell well on Midgardsormr. Note that the iron scale pieces all sell well to the guild npcs if you can't sell them to players, though you will still take a loss. The loss is least severe on visors. You may also get a lot of failures if you try iron scale pieces at 26! Your other choices are to make iron chains or iron masks, but these do not sell well on the open market, at least not that I can tell. I made iron chains from 26-29 and got lucky by selling all my chains to one guy(Manapy rules). Some people make iron masks, but these seemed almost as bad economically as iron chains. Again, your mileage may vary.

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skill 31-36
steel sheets
fire crystal + steel ingot(~3300 gil)
Just buy the ingots off the AH. On Midgardsormr, it's only 37k-40k per stack. Er, was.

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skill 36-40
steel scales
wind crystal + steel sheet(~3400 gil)
These may or may not sell well to skill ~50 blacksmiths on your server. I had one customer(Negimaru rules!) who bought all my steel scales at 3500 gil apiece. I made a profit off those.

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skill 40-41
iron mittens
earth crystal + iron sheet + lizard skin
These require around 10 leatherworking. If you can manage that, this is an easy, cheap way to gain skill. You can sell them to the Bastok blacksmithing guild for up to 2700 gil apiece. Keep in mind that you probably won't be able to gain blacksmithing skill on these past 41. They seem to raise leatherworking too, up to 10, if you don't have it already(I did them with leatherworking 9).

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skill 41-45
iron subligars
earth crystal + iron sheet + lizard skin + cotton cloth
You can gain leatherworking up to 12 on these, too. These sell to the Bastok blacksmith's guild for 3560 odd gil, max. Keep in mind that the guild only buys around 18 of any one item per day(maybe only 16?), and that the price they pay will drop for a few days after you sell a lot of them(and will rise back to the max price later).

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skill 45-49
steel visors
wind crystal + iron scales + steel sheet + sheep leather
The only reason I advocate this synth is the fact that you can sell them to the San D'Oria Blacksmith's guild for 5040 gil apiece, max. That amounts to a decent return, but you are losing money doing it. Steel visors will sell in Jeuno to players sometimes(they're level 48 steel scale for crying out loud), but at least on Midgardsormr, they uh, don't sell all that swiftly. I would not advise skilling up steel finger gauntlets or greaves at this point.

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skill 49-52
Darksteel ingots
fire crystal + 3xiron ore + darksteel ore(~7000-8000 gil)
This is expensive, and you will scream in pain when you lose a chunk of darksteel ore. Well, nearly. These can be sold at a profit, however, and they do sell fairly well. Sell them to players, of course. You should be able to get at least 1k profit per ingot. Possibly more. Please note that after 50 skill, skill gain slows down a lot.

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skill 52-55
Darksteel sheets
fire crystal + darksteel ingot(~7100-8100 gil)
This is an easy synth if you have lots of darksteel ingots left over after getting to 52 skill. It's nice not having to juggle all that ore. Getting to 53 skill off this was very, very slow, but it picks up afterwards, and it turns out you can make these until 55 skill! What a deal! Skill AND you can sell them for a profit.

And . . . that's it for now!

I'll add more details to a message later in this thread.

thanks, i jsut started smithing and im glad u told me not to buy beast coins that would have been alot of money down the drain. And because of that i reaced level 2 really easily. There should be one of these guides for every craft.

Just doin my best to help people avoid some of the pitfalls I fell into while crafting.

On a side note . . . I have yet to see any sites listing the item requested for the tests given at 48 and 58 skill. They are:

48 skill: mythril pick(um, I think? 38 skill was war pick, so 48 is . . . ehh I'll stand by my story)

58 skill: darksteel falchion

Anyway, more crafting advice:

skill 55-56
steel greaves
earth crystal + 2xsteel scales + cotton thread + leather highboots

Joy, more steel scale crap. These cost about 7k per item on Midgardsormer to manufacture(will vary wildly from server to server), and sell to the guild in San D'Oria for 4200 apiece, at most. Can you say nearly 3k loss per synth? I knew you could. On the plus side, these will sell in limited numbers in Jeuno, depending on your server. Try not to over-saturate the market too badly. There might be something better to make at this skill level, but I don't really know what. Breastplates, gauntlets, and schlaegers are in this skill range, but they do not seem economically viable compared to steel greaves.

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skill 56-66
nodowa
earth crystal + iron sheet + silk thread

What a let-down. The Nodowa is a fountain of skill, but no fountain of gil. I was figuring I'd get 5k per nodawa selling to NPCs. No such luck! Players on Midgardsormr do not buy these, at all, and they sell to NPCs for about 2750, or to Tenshodo shops for just under 3k(and only in small quantities). However, the recipe is simple, you can make a lot of them, and you can skill up on them for a loooooong time. The losses are somewhat disappointing in light of all the failures I've gotten on them from 56-59, but one you hit 59, it seems to be easy-street. 58-59 is really rough. Tough it out, or pick a different synth(your choice) until you hit 59. Once you get up around 62 skill or so, expect to be making upwards of 40-50 nodowa per skill point. I kid you not.

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skill 66-73
darksteel pick
fire crystal + darksteel ingot + elm lumber

I got bummed out doing these until I tried selling them to a standard NPC vendor. Then all I could say was "whoa". 12,484 gil per pick with Hero-level fame. Cha-ching! Even with overpriced darksteel and elm, you can still do well. It is possible to make a profit selling these things to npcs, some of the time. Not all of the time. This is a good time to invest in Fire moghancement!

more to come later.

Awesome. Very helpful! I agree that every craft should have a guide like this. I am sure you can take a look at the recipe list for Blacksmith and compare this guide to the recipe list for other crafts, find which item is least expensive to synth, and then continually synth it until level up.

this should be a sticky...

The main risk behind looking at lists is

a). lists aren't always correct(for example, many lists, even the one on Killing Ifrit, have a leatherworking synth of air crystal + 2xsheep leather = Sollerets. Sollerets require something like . . .41 goldsmithing to make, I think. The correct item here is Solea). Sites don't even agree on the skill needed for this synth! It only requires 4 leatherworking, in reality. I used this synth to get my leatherworking to 9, though I think you can take it up to 11 if you want. It's a terrible money-sink though. As is most low-level leatherworking.

b). Sometimes expensive synths are better because the product sells well on the open market on your server. You CAN raise blacksmithing from 21-26 making spathas, but they don't sell for anything worth mentioning on Midgardsormr, so the relatively small cost to make them(3xbronze ingot + 1xlizard skin) is negated by the fact that you'll probably wind up dumping them on NPCs for around 300-350 each.

In the end, your crafting strategy has to be based on the market. You have to choose synths based on availability of components and the price/demand for the product. Making stuff that either won't sell in volume, or won't sell for a decent return per-item, is a recipe for bankruptcy and frustration.

So, the guide I've listed here is weighted pretty strongly on the economy on Midgardsormr. You might be able to get away with crafting different stuff on other servers, and you might even make some cash doing it, though I'm fairly certain that the things I listed in my guide will do well on any server(except bronze bolt heads, hah).

One thing to remember is that you shouldn't craft stuff that comes as a quest reward(especially a low-level quest reward). Bronze subligars, spathas, rabbit mantles, lauan shields, etc. None will sell well, or so I would imagine. Elm staves, ugh!

bump for great info.

@blmsmithing lv 6.

hey, DR, you know anything about lightning crystals and goblins equipment?

i've been trying to find some info on that but no avail.

This is fairly common knowledge among japanese blacksmiths, I think, so I guess I can divulge information on this without risk. That and I'm not so dependant on goblin gear for money anymore heh.

Anyway.

Goblin helms, masks, mail, and armor can all be "broken down" via lightning crystals or cut apart by wind crystals to make raw materials. We blacksmiths need only concern outselves with the mail and helms.

lightning crystal + goblin helm = 1 bronze ingot OR 1 iron ingot OR 1 steel ingot

lightning crystal + goblin mail = 3 bronze ingots OR 2 iron ingots OR 1 steel ingot

The exact skill needed to execute this synthesis is unknown to me, but I started doing it at 22 skill. You can make a lot of money off this if you get a lot of iron or steel, and if goblin mail/helms sell cheaply on your server. Or you can farm your own. I do a little of both, really. I still get a lot of failures with this at 60 skill, though it's no so bad anymore. Instead of frequent failures, now I just too much bronze(boooo).

Wind crystals are easier to handle with goblin helms/mail, but also yield less exciting results. Helms can yield either 1 bronze sheet or one iron sheet, while mail will yield 3 bronze sheets or one iron sheet. I've never seen steel sheets from either one. I've heard at least one report that using wind crystals in this fashion will sometimes give skill at around skill 20 or so. I uh, can't really confirm this. I don't seem to get any skill at skill 50+ while doing this.

While I'm at it, you should also know that lightning and wind crystals can be used with quadav backplates, and I'm certain that lightning crystals can be used with quadav helms and antican pauldrons. The pauldrons and backplates will sometimes yield darksteel, though you need at least 60 blacksmithing skill to get this result(I think). I got my first darksteel ingot from a backplate the other day, and I'm pretty happy about it.

Finally, lightning crystals can be used on just about ANY piece of craftable equipment. Whether or not you can break it down seems to be based on your skill with the craft skill(s) that was(were) used to contruct it in the first place. What you get as result seems to be a semi-random pick from the list of components needed to make the object. For example, breaking down a yew wand yields yew lumber, but when I did the same to a kunai, I got a lizard skin. Go figure.

wow, very useful information.

just too bad it's so high lv >.<

but thanks to you, I got to lv 10 today. I hope to churn out some good stuff soon. ^^; thx again.

DrMrLordX,

Great write-up on Blacksmithing! Definitely the hardest part about crafting is knowing the synthesis recipes that give the lowest loss ;)

I'm curious though. Reading through your guide, I noticed that you didn't point out that one skill level that finally allows you to bring in the big bucks. Is there one? Or is even level 50, still too low to rake in a good enough profit.

DrMrLordX thanks alot for this great guide I was so happy to see someone do one of these.

I just would like to add that tin ingots can infact be used to raise skill from around 10-15 and are relatively cheap (although you arent going to make hardly any money back).

nice find on the tin ingots hadokenx.

fire crystal + 4 tin ores = tin ingot
120gil + 120gil = ??gil
very low failure rate at lv10

in half an hour, it got me from 10-12 for about 6k worth of materials and left me with 24 tin ingots. now i have 73gil left in my coffers. >.<

regarding the sells of tin ingots, on my server, the selling rate is rather sporadic in sandoria AH. under the history, two stacks sold at 10k, but i assume they are hard to sell because they are sold on dates far apart from each other. I'm hoping to hand them off at the break even point if possible


i would prefer making tin ingots to bronze rods/scale however, because you don't need a large gil base; tin ingots are also stackable.

if you guys find some uses for tin ingots, share the info. ^^'

The toughest part of black smithing I've found, is affording the fire crystals if you don't have any. I think it's time I just switched to one of my lower level jobs and go crystal farming in ghelsba, or stay with my warrior and go farming for crystals from goblins out in the dunes or deeper into fort ghelsba or the grotto.

1500-2000 gil for a stack of 12 crystals starts to get too pricey. I don't mind paying the shop's price for the copper/tin ores at the moment.

I raised my blacksmithing level from 2 to 4 in about 45 minutes or so, but after spending about 8k gil on crystals and materials.

Time to take up mining/logging/fishing to get gil, too, I think.

Good guide. I'm a level 28 Leatherworker but am planning to do other crafting as well. A Friend of mine showed me this thread and I found it to be very helpful.

Now...why isn't this stickied yet?

First off, thanks for the feedback on tin ingots. I was too high in skill to know where these lay on the smithing hierarchy when they were patched in. I still don't know any use for them. Goldsmithing maybe? Alchemy? Someone's buying them, so they must be good for something.

Secondly, I want to warn you that using wind crystals on quadav backplates/goblin helms/goblin mail seems to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. Yuck. One poster on this board earlier reported near-100% success rates on backplates with wind crystals at 53 skill, but I'm getting about 50% failure rates on them at 54 skill on airsday with advanced image support, and some of the successes yielded highly-undesirable bronze sheets. I'm sticking to lightning crystals on those backplates.

Thirdly, to answer cnick, here's a breakdown of the profit potential of 54 blacksmithing:

selling to NPCs, there is none. The closest I got was iron subligars.

selling to players, it varies. Wildly. If I can find something they'll buy a lot of, I can sell a lot of product, but the most commonly-bought items I can make don't yield much profit.

Example: darksteel ingot. On Midgardsormr, I can sell virtually any number of these for 9k per ingot, or maybe 5-10 per day in Jeuno for 10-11k apiece. It costs me anywhere from 7-8k to make one. That's 2-4k gil profit per ingot. Not bad, until you realize that they pretty much HAVE to be crafted on firesday, thereby limiting the amount of time per rl day I have to make them. AND you have to consider the nightmare of cobbling together that much ore. My biggest run of darksteel yet was 29 ingots. Tha'ts 29 darksteel ore and 87 iron ore. Ye gods. Now, I made all those ingots into sheets for skill, though had I sold the ingots, I would have made 58-106k gil. Not too bad, though it took about two hours to gather components and another 20-30 minutes to smelt it all. I wound up selling the sheets for 8k each, just to move them out of my inventory. I mostly broke even doing that. It should be noted that there's an iron ore shortage on Midgardsormr(we need more miners, help!), so that makes darksteel even more inconvinient.

Example: breastplate. Talk about frustration. fire crystal + 4xiron sheets + 2xsheep leather. The Jeuno AH price on these was around . . . 18? I think? 15k? something like that. They're way down due to being oversold. Cost to produce is around 10k. Bastok blacksmith's guild pays, uh, maybe 7k for them. If I sell to the guild, I'm looking at a big loss.

And don't even get me started on kodachi.

Thus far, the products that have sold in the greatest volume for me, and at the highest speeds, have been ingots. If you can crank those out, you can make some money. If I really put my mind to it, I could probably make decent cash just cranking out iron and steel(I get HQ synths on fire crystal + 4xiron ore once every 3-4 synths now, which yields steel), but there is such a limited supply of ore that I can't really do it all day. All things considered, I'd probably make better money on darksteel, because I can load up on darksteel ore from the AH and, if need be, use iron ore from the guild(yes, at 675 gil per chunk) and still turn a profit. 2-3k per ingot, that is. I'd just have to stop crafting once I ran out of money. Then I could sit around and wait for someone to buy it . . . yipee. That's always fun.

nice info, but was wondering if you could possibly mark your money sinks in the guide? like approx how much u spent to get from this skill to this skill, etc, obviously it would almost entirely depend on game economy but your money sink would give a nice approximation of what it might cost some of us. thanks!

Thanks.

I had an idea that nothing really stands out as the huge money maker. Especially considering the higher you go, the less potential buyers you have >_<

"Money sinks" aren't uniform unless you sell everything that you make to an NPC, and even then, they aren't uniform because non-guild NPCs will pay out based on fame and CHA of the smith. And the cost to make the items in question is based on server economies.

Given the relatively peculiar nature of Midgardsormr's economy, all I can really do is guess when you'll be losing money and when you won't.

Almost all bronze synths, except maybe scale mail suits, will lose you money.

You may lose money on iron and steel scales if nobody will buy them.

You will probably lose money on iron mittens and subligars, albeit not a whole hell of a lot of it.

You might lose money on steel visors if you're impatient.

And . . . that's about it. Oh yeah, you'll lose money on steel cuisses and greaves too, if you make those. I need to revise my list in light of some new discoveries related to darksteel sheets.

Ive been managing to make some decent money off of smithing so far ( im only Blacksmith lvl 17). This is almost solely because i do a good bit of mining. I find my own ore and smith ingots to raise my skill. I usually can sell iron ingots for 2.4-2.5k each and i smith my own brass ingots to raise my goldsmithing (these sell decently as a stack on my server; Quetzalcoatl and you can also go further with them to rasie skill BrassIngot> BrassSheet> BrassFlowerpots etc) as well as finding the rare but very nice Darksteel ore which sells for 8K (again on Quetzalcoatl).

So far nothing makes really great money and it takes patience and a good bit of time mining but it will raise your skill a good bit early on and at the very least you should be able to make your money back which is the important thing when just raising skill.

If you can stomach mining, more power to ya.

I can't, but fortunately, many many others can. I rely upon dozens, if not hundreds, of individuals to provide ore for my hungry smithing machine(as do most of the other regular blacksmiths)

On the plus side, I'm finding that various mythril and darksteel weapons in Jeuno sell nicely. I made some mythril scythes and a darksteel axe that sold well, and I'm selling darksteel ingots by the stack there, now(sheets sell by the stack, but chains do not, at least not on Midgardsormr). There is some reliable profit potential there, though it's nothing shocking. It's not bad considering that I buy all my components off the AH, toss them together, and then sell the result. The trick is to make only one per day, and make a number of different items, rather than to make a large number of the same item over and over. That way you preserve the value of each individual item on the AH.

edit: sadly, some folks did not sell mythril scythes and darksteel axes in moderation on Midgardsormor. Both sell for very little profit now.

wow. very good info.

i would like to request to the powers that be to have this fine post stickied.

Hey Dr.^^; Nice info but I have a question. What does Blacksmithing get you? Like weapons? so forth? thanks..Level 50-56 skill = how much money in return?

This info IS very helpful, too bad I didn't find this earlier but since then I was able to quickly lvl from 19-25 in a short period.

About to take your advice and do iron chains but after that it brings up a question. You mentioned to do steel sheets for 30+ i think it was. Whats confusing is that I checked other sites for steel ingots and its saying that to make steel ingots you have to be lvl 50+ in smith? :eek: :eek:

So for those low lvled like me in smith, we are only able to buy steel ingots instead of making our own?

And then we can make steel sheets to lvl up?

Need your help on this one Dr.

:biggrin:

A few answers . . .

#1: Blacksmithing gets you lots of stuff. As a primary skill, it gets you swords, daggers, knives, kukris, scimitars, falchions, two-handed swords, claymores, axes, great axes, baselards, knuckles, claws, baghnaks, some shields(the others are woodworking-based), scale mail, chain mail, plate mail, that funky vest/subligar-type armor, padded armor, and ingots, sheets, chains, and scales made from metal. And some other crap.

As a secondary skill, it's used in various bolts, arrows, lances, spears, and . . . some other stuff. Even a few leatherworking things. And some other stuff I'm probably not thinking of at the moment.

#2: In order to get steel at level 30-odd blacksmithing, you have to get it the slow, cheap way(getting it from gob helms/mail), or the quick, expensive way(buy it off the AH by the stack). I did a little of both. Making steel ingots using the 50-55 skill synths is just a bad, bad idea all around. Anyone at that skill level can make quite a bit of steel as the HQ synth for fire crystal + 4xiron ore. In fact, I get so much steel that way now that it's annoying the hell out of me. I keep winding up with steel that I don't need. I need iron by jove, so give me iron! *)

Oh ok thanks for clearing that up.

So for the recipe for the slow cheap way is it:

Fire crystal + gob helms/mail = Steel ingot?

lightning crystal + gob mail/helm.

i got about 1 steel, 2 irons, bunch of bonze ingots. it's rather random and i get lot of fails. might be better fro you though since you're higher lv smithing.

Oh ok thanks for the help and info.

Dr, thanks so much for the post. I've got somewhat of a gameplay-oriented question for you.

I find myself often scrounging for cash. I'm sure it's something almost everyone else in the game has problems with, and whenever I ask: "How can I make more money?" people respond with: "Crafting." Now, I've got no problems getting on as my 30WAR/15THF and smacking around some low-level gobs for easy gil, and using that formula, I can probably pull in ~8k an hour. Unfortunately, it's time-consuming and ultimately boring as hell. So I thought, why not try smithing? But I'm running into non-stop problems, and it's not really a factor of having trouble raising the skill. (Thanks in part to your guide.) I'm asking myself why I'm even bothering.

Looking at many of the smithing recipes, I don't see big-ticket items. Is it possible to make profit--I mean, REAL profit--from this craft? Your guide is littered with phrases decrying how much money you dumped into the skill--but for what? When I browse over the leathercrafting guide, I see that as soon as level 16 you can start pumping out lizard gear, which sells like wildfire and, judging by the ingredients, won't cost an arm and a leg. So I'm asking someone with experience in this craft: is it worth it? If I level my Smithing to 50, will I see a reward of any type? Is it a money-making craft, or should I take up fishing like everyone keeps telling me?

Secondly, are you only leveling smithing, or have you had to raise other skills simultaneously? Looking over recipe lists, almost 3/4 of the recipes require Woodworking or Leathercraft, and Bonecrafting to a lesser extent?

I don't want to come off as excessively negative, but I just spent an hour mulling over the recipe lists for Smithing, and your post, and I just don't know if this is the right road to go down, if all I want is to make some cash so I can afford halfway decent equipment. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

lol, smithing prolly won't bring you lot of money.

for me, i've been just trying to "break even", but i find having to plan my economics to be a fun aspect of the game. something to do when you get tired of hacking and slashing.

if you want money fast and you need it now....camp NM, kill mobs...

but i'll say this, if you want a money maker craft...do fishing. this rakes in A LOT more money than smithing at low lvs.

wait so smithing isn't profitable?

Smithing just like all other crafts are profitable, you just have to do your homework on whats sells, and don't sell well. Get use to breaking even alot on buying and selling, most importantly learn to harverst or get your own materials instead of always buying from AH.

Alot of ppl would say its wise to invest alot capitol into a craft, but when I started smithing just over 3 weeks ago (just got the game 4 weeks ago) I started wih just selling some items I got from drops which probably totaled maybe 5k combined. From that point I just got my own materials, crafted, sold etc since then and never had to worry about being broke, at least not for long pending on waiting for a few things to sell.

I'm lvl 30 smith right now, lastly do a second craft to help with the income, I use goldsmith which is 22 right now.

Hope my 2 cents help encourage.

:thumbsup:

:cool:

Lizard gear, selling like wildfire? Depends.

On Midgardsormr, for example, lizard trousers sold best in Bastok(I think) at about 2k each, until the market crashed. They take two lizard skins and leather trousers, which in my situation, would cost me about . . . oh . . . 1650 gil altogether to acquire, less if I farm the skins myself(booooring).

350 gil ain't bad, but it's not going to send you laughing all the way to the bank, and the market has crashed on them so that you can't get more than 1300 gil per trousers anymore. Aww, shucks.

As far as smithing is concerned, if I didn't mention it thoroughly enough in my guide, you can start making some cash blacksmithing at skill 10-11 or so. Scale mail suits sell sorta well, depending on your server, and depending on how smart you are about acquiring the necessary components. Iron ingots sell rather nicely too, so you can start making some gil once you can crank those out, IF you can find ore at the right price. Is it big money? No. But it's money.

Later on you start being able to make other things that sell fairly well, such as iron scale pieces, steel scale pieces, darksteel ingots, etc. Those have been some of my biggest sellers, if you can call them that. Yes, by 50, you can make darksteel ingots, and they will sell for a profit, even on an "economic hell" server like Midgardsormr. Not a huge profit, but a profit. And they sell frequently, in stacks and as individuals. If you do start selling darksteel, please do your part on your server to keep prices as high as possible. Thank you.

There are also 2948543903845 other smiths all trying to sell the same damn thing, in my experience, so if you aren't smart about timing and product placement, you'll just wind up selling at below the current AH value(and threatening to lower the value by doing so) or not selling at all.

I was searching for a "holy grail" item, one I could make and then sell to an NPC for more than the cost of materials, but the closest thus far has been the nodowa, and I'm still working on getting skill from those things. Needless to say, the nodawa is not "it". I can maybe make 100 gil per nodowa selling them to the Tenshodo in Jeuno, and they buy in limited quantities. Yippeee. I dont' even bother taking them there anymore.

The only thing I can tell you is that on my server, once I find something I can sell for good money, all the other smiths find out in about a day's time, and they flood the market. Jerks. They, along with dimwitted dark knights I suspect, brought mythril scythes down from 45k to 25k in about two to three weeks. GRAH.

I now dedicate much of my time either crafting or finding a way to run up the prices on goods when the AH in Jeuno empties out on a particular item, thereby giving me sole control of the market for a short time.

As far as other crafts are concerned, I have 37 woodworking, uh, 12 leathercrafting . . . and that's it. I need to get about 15-20 clothcrafting for the sam armor pieces(other than nodowa) sometime, and I need to raise my leatherworking so I can make jindachi. I need about 36-41 goldsmithing to make my own mythril. And I'll probably need bonecrafting someday. If I ever want to make bast parchment or that stupid katana that uses cermet, I'll need alchemy too . . . oy.

If I were you, I'd look into alchemy, cooking, fishing, and goldsmithing(not necessairly in that order) for money makers. Cooking and Fishing are the easiest to get into, but goldsmithing and alchemy will make you a ton of money if you work at em. Blacksmithing has the fault of producing a lot of stuff that enters the economy and never leaves unless some lazy PC sells stuff to an NPC for a huge loss. This doesn't happen very often. Chances are that armor and weaponry you sell on the AH will circulate through the AH many more times before it settles down somewhere. There may be some server somewhere on which you can sell 90-100% of the fruits of your blacksmithing labors for profit, maybe even a large profit, but I ain't on that server, so who knows?
(note: Midgardsormr is the home of the "8k gil death scythe". Yes, that's right! The price on the level 73 scythe in Jeuno was 8k gil! At least it's up to 11 now, I think. Oh joy of joys. Too bad they take around 23k just to make one.)

edit: oh, one last thing. If you gather your own raw materials, be very very careful about how quickly you transform them into armor, weapons, etc for sale on the open market. Look at prices carefully and see what would make you more money:

1). selling the item you intend to make or

2). selling the raw materials without processing them

You can safely sell raw materials, particularly frequently-used ones like iron ore, without risking market depression, and you can usually sell these faster than you can finished goods(at least in my experience). Sometimes the finished product will sell for more gil than the raw materials, sometimes LESS. Iron sheets are a hot seller on Midgardsormr right now, for example, but Altana help anyone who tries selling, oh, I don't know, baghnaks, iron swords, longswords, scimitars, iron finger gauntlets, etc on Midgardsormr.

I'd be selling iron sheets myself if I weren't busy using them for my own twisted purposes.

I'm currently stuck in raising my blacksmith skill. I'm at 22.0 Blacksmithing and I had been skilling off Iron Sheets and was under the impression that they'd get me to 26 Blacksmithing, but I've just synthed 30 Iron Sheets with no skill up.

The only other two obvious things I can think of to skill up on are Iron Scales or Iron Chain, but neither the A crafter nor the B crafter give me the recipe anymore. Iron Scales on my server sell at ~8k loss per stack and Iron Chain breaks even, but they sell ~1 stack per every 4-8 days in Bastok =(.

I've been getting recipes for Iron Fng. Gauntlets, lvl 37 def 9 and was wondering if anyone had experience making Iron Scale Amr and whether it was worth it. On my server, very few Iron Scale Amr items have sold in Bastok (haven't managed to get to Jeuno to check prices yet), although I 'do' see people wearing it. I'd try Chainmail except my leatherworking's still stuck at 5 =(.

Any advice would be appreciated ^_^

-Lerican

Lerican, I'm currently a lvl25 Blacksmith, and I was lvl22 not too long ago.

Yes, Iron Sheet stop raising skills at lvl22. Just Make Iron Scales. I'm lvl25 now, and I don't know yet if I can get to lvl26 with those. I'll try, though if someone has the answer... =)

I managed to start skilling up on Iron Chains ^_^. I will try Iron Scales, even though I can't get the recipe from the B Crafter.~~

THANKS!

-Lerican

this lightning crystal thing is a phenomenon...

is there some GUIDE to the recipes?

i heard of not only gob helms being used but also orc masks, and goblin armors... interesting.

Lerican, Iron Sheets + Wind Crystal = Iron Scales.

That goes for ANY types.(Bronze Sheet + Wind Crystal = Bronze Scales)


And yes, breaking things up is something a lot of ppl don'T use and it's VERY handy.

I am pretty sure that every piece of equipment is breakable(Lightning+Sclae Greave = 3x Sheep Leather/Bronze Ingot)
The problem with Breaking tihngs is the huge failure ratio...

And also, every Beast-made item is breakable(except the "Fetich" ones).

Wow! polly one of the most useful forums threads ever! thnx a million!
umm. but i saw something pretty wierd. does it have to do with blacksmithing?
Lightning Crystals -> Leatherbelt + ??? = Steel Ingot?


is there such a recipe?

Not sure about that synth, spiritsaint. It sounds . . . odd.

Taoist, as far as lightning crystal "breakdown" synths are concerned, I don't know all that much about them, other than the fact that, apparently, the different components of an item are available as results in the form of various HQ results.

For example, using a lightning crystal on a willow fishing rod(I think?) gave me willow lumber on a normal result, and something like linen thread on a HQ. This is all woodworking-based here, mind you. I haven't done much work with lightning crystals on blacksmithing items, though I can tell you the normal result on a kunai is lizard skin, and on a light axe is 2 bronze ingots.

There are other items like quadav helmets, goblin masks, goblin armor, etc that are not related to blacksmithing, and have not been mentioned in this thread as result. Beast-made stuff follows special rules when you break it down, usually allowing multiple different results depending on whether or not you get a HQ, and which HQ you get.

hmm.. i see

i'll search around for something close to recipes for LIGHTNING formulas.

woohoo!
this sounds interesting. could u or someone post something on Beastmen items and their like?
oh yea, i didnt really understand what u mean by...

"Beast-made stuff follows special rules when you break it down, usually allowing three different results depending on whether or not you get a HQ, and which HQ you get."

These are the beastmen synths I know of at the moment & use:

Wind+Goblin Mask = Sheep Leatherx1 (Leatherworking)
Lightning+Goblin Helm = Bronze/Iron/Steel Ingotx1 (Blacksmithing)
Wind+Yagudo Necklace = Grass Threadx3 (Clothworking)

Others which I know/have heard of but dont use or know the result (may not be correct):

Lightning+Quadav Backplate = Iron? Darksteel? ingot
Lightning+Goblin Mail = Ingots of some sort
Wind+Goblin Armor = Cotton Thread

So far when I use wind to cut beastmen stuff, I rarely fail and it seems to be a regular synth. However, when I try to break beastmen stuff/crafted items with lightning, the result is erratic and the failure rate seems independent of your skill level. I DO know that breaking a certain item is related to a skill level/range because I have gotten skill increases on some of these synths and was not able to do others until I increased my crafting skill.

Basically, breaking items down in general (including non-Beastmen items) has a higher failure rate than other synths and the result is not static. If you do a Lightning+Goblin Helm synth, if you succeed, you will often get an Iron Ingot, but sometimes you will get a Bronze or Steel Ingot. If you do a Lightning+Scale Mail synth, you may get one or more items used in making Scale Mail. The varying results you get when doing lightning synths (non-thread synth varieties) are the difference between which items you get. A Steel and Iron Ingot are HQ results from Gobbie Helm and well, Bronze Ingots just suck.

A lot of AH prices are based off what you can get from breaking down Beastmen items into raw materials (thus why beastmen items sell quickly, at least on Kujata).

As for breaking down crafted items, it is BEST to break down an item which has few ingredients, best if only one, and costs less than buying the raw material itself. You cannot break down every crafted item, but most equipment you can. I haven't found one for Blacksmithing yet since most of our recipes require a lot of ingredients so breaking them down doesn't always yield a profit =(.

Hope that helped~~
(If someone finds a mistake, please correct ;c))

-Lerican

Alchemy:
Lightning+Goblin Mask = Glass Fiberx2(HQ1=4/HQ2=6/HQ3=8)

DrMrLordX,

If you could make a cleaner list of everything that you have found for this and other crafts, please do so. I shall make it a sticky for all to see. Great guide and keep it up.

P.S

I shall PM you about this.

hmmx thats cool.
can someone explain to me abt the HQ1, HQ2 thinggies?

When you synthesize an item, most recipes provide for what are called HQ (high quality) results. When you perform one of these successfully, it is accompanied by a unique sound and animation.

The biggest factors in creating HQ synths are skill, and luck.

When you do succeed in making an HQ synth, you have the possibility of creating a certain degree (+1, +2, +3) of HQ item, again depending on recipe.

Some recipes do not have HQ synths, like Brass Ingots (I actually got the animation and sound for an HQ Brass Ingot at one time, but the result I obtained was just the standard Brass Ingot x1). Others have HQ synths with unique names, like the Colored Stone results (Tourmaline, Peridot, Emerald). Yet other recipes simply concatenate the result name with the +1 moniker.

When you look at an item's icon in inventory/AH/etc, you can usually tell HQ results because they will have a White/Blue band around the outside of the icon square.

great post^^


ok i'm lvl 10 now, syning about 12 bronze rod and it didn't leave up my skill at all :(

i'm gonna try fire and tin, i'll do about a stack and i'll give ya guys the results :)

ok just tired it, didn't even give me a skill

i don't know whats the most effective way to get it all the way up
from lvl 10-16

i really don't know what to try

The Guide has been edited. May the supermoderators smile upon said edit. Hopefully *P

Ginku, you likely have not passed your blacksmithing test.

Talk to the blacksmithing guildmaster NPC in either San D'Oria or Bastok. You'll be assigned the task of making a specific item. Make the item, or buy it off the AH(or somewhere else), and trade it to the guildmaster NPC.

You will not be able to advance your skill past 10 otherwise.

I believe your first test will be to craft a Xiphos.

And yes, using lightning crystals for "breakdown" synths, on beast-made items or otherwise, is rather difficult. However, I have not had a lot of luck with using wind crystals as a substitute. I get a lot of failures. Your mileage may vary, who knows.

Also, when using wind crystals instead of lightning crystals, you do get different results. For example, wind crystal + gob helm = bronze or iron sheet(instead of ingots, and steel does not seem to be possible? I've never gotten it).

lol thx for the info..i don't know how the split out of my mind i will remember it now

now i'm gonna go save up some more money

then i'll give the results if 4xtin and fire, will be a cheaper method to skill it up, if not i'm gonna go bronze rod, it seems to be the most cost effective way to raise it up.

A recipe that uses Tin Ingots would be great.

Sales on Phoenix in Bastok are about 1 stack a week, for $3k or so. Makes money since tin ore was only 30 gill each, but is way to slow for my playing style, but is great for leveling. I will be taking these to level 15, at which time I hope to find something else that is cheap, and will still level.

Even if the recipe is much higher level, or other skill such as Alchemy, it will gave me the idea wether to save them with my mule, or take the loss. If the recipe is so hard to find, there must be profit in the result if it is used at all.

A tip from another site, says they are used to make Batteries. Evidence was based on failures of a person crafting and loosing tin ingots. Full recipe was not obtained. :(

From all the digging around I could do, I found this:

Water Crystal -- (Copper Ingot, Tin Ingot, Cermet Chunk, Rock Salt, Lightning Cluster, Distilled Water)

Yields 33, Alchemy skill ~60.

Agreed, found this as well.

Alchemy and Smithing at 56-59 Battery = Water + Copper ingot + Tin ingot + Cermet Chunk + Rock Salt + Lightning cluster + Dis. Water

They stack to 99.

I am assuming this is the recipe for the lvl10 batteries.

Lvl10 = Battery
Lvl30 = Kilo Battery
Lvl50 = Mega Battery (?)

I am also wondering if the tin ingot is used in the making of the Spark type weapons that use these batteries.

From the level requirements I wil hold no hope of selling Tin Ingots quickly, and will likely guild or npc them.

ummm. i know this question have been asked many times but i get many different answers.

when does it get profitable?

I don't think it does =/ at least not anytime soon. The biggest problem with Blacksmithing is that its end products (weapons & armor) get recycled through the economy so even if something is profitable to make now, it will likely drop in price as more people buy it and sell it back to AH when they've outlvled it. The few perishable tools we can make are cheaper to buy in a town that you have decent fame in. Considering the current average lvl of NA players, demand for higher lvl JSE (the big reason to skill above 60, imho) is still based largely on the JPN players and already supplied by JPN crafters. It is likely that the majority of synthed items you can profit from is from making materials for other crafters to skill up off of (ingots, sheets, scales, chain, etc.).

Does this mean that blacksmithing not profitable? Absolutely not, however, the measure of how much is based on your server's economy. If you are a miner, blacksmithing is wonderful for turning iron ore into ingots. Similarly, if you are a goldsmith, you can turn silver ore into ingots and likewise with mythril (although it is rare to get silver and mythril in the quantities that would require someone to melt them into ingots unless they were keeping all 'semi precious' ore). This translates into higher effective carrying capacity (dependent on the yields you get) and on my server at least, an increase in profit over selling raw iron ore since iron ingots and sheets sell for more than the ore it takes to make them and require less AH space.

So far, I have not found profit beyond making Iron Sheets and my first 'money maker' was making Iron Ingots and selling them in stacks for up to 2.5k profit per stack. Stacks of Iron Sheets make up to 5k profit per stack. The profit is based on buying iron ore at the 'low price' since the 'high price' is usually set by higher lvl crafters making darksteel ingots and no profit can be made when considering ore at that price.

(All Bastok Prices on Kujata Server)

Iron Ore: 500-600
Iron Ingotx12: 28000
Iron Sheetx12: 32000
Fire Crystalx12: 1500-2000

Also, you can make a profit out of breaking down Beastmen armor, although the margin is result it not definite and you may also take a loss if you fail too often.

Goblin Helm: 400-600
Lightning Crystal: 100-150
Bronze Ingot: 100-300
Iron Ingot: 2200-2500
Steel Ingot: 3000-3500 (may have permanently dropped to 3k)

A Gobbie Helm+Lightning synth requires a minimum of 500 and up to 750 to acquire via AH and, if successful, results in a profit of -650 to 2500. I have both made and lost money on gobbie helms I'm not sure if i'm in the plus or minus range =/.

I've decided to put my blacksmithing on hold for awhile after losing ~50k in failed Iron Chain synths since no one buys Iron Scales on my server (reason being that Chainmail is not profitable to make anymore unless you're making Silver Mail from it). If you mine, I'd highly suggest getting to at least 16 skill so you can make iron ingots w/o synth support to aid in effective carry load. If you're rich or abhor mining, then I dont think blacksmithing will make you a profit =/.

-Lerican

I was thinking of raising BlackSmith to make money by breaking Goblin Helm and Mail but after reading this thread, it seems like the failure rate is pretty high and the profit you make from this isn't that good. But do you guys suggest it or killing tigers in battalia for teeth will probably give me more money.

Depends on your server, really. If you can get fangs from tigers, that's an easy 2100 gil per three no matter what your server(got that 15 thf sub, or 45+ thf main? even better). As for gob gear, eh, well, farming that can be touchy, and the results are not guarenteed. AND if you want to convert a positive result(such as 2 iron ingots from one mail) to gil, you've got to sell to other players. The tiger teeth will yield gil instantly.

Heck, you're level 65, no? You could probably find better sources of income than gob gear and tiger fangs. But tiger fangs would be easier and faster, by far.

Thats a nice guide dude:thumbsup: . Im thinkin of startin blacksmithin but im still pretty low lvl and im from windy but it seems like all the good places for buying stuff is in sandy and bastok. plus the guild isint in my town either what should i do'?

You can make bronze scales from level 4-10 you dont have to waste the extra money making bronze bolt heads.

I just did this last night so its confirmed :)

Just starting my Smithing since the sudden crystal market crash on Midgardsomr, blew about 8k to get Cooking/Goldsmithing/Blacksmithing to lvl 3 each =X

The funny thing is, i find myself doing blacksmithing in the Goldsmith guild coz the copper there is just so dirt cheap(it dropped from 12 gil at first to 10 after a couple of hours...wierd). burning corn while the shop is closed (23-8) gives me something to do.

The most annoying thing is that i have to run to metalworks smith guild just to get tin, run all the way back again to get copper...kinda time wasting?

oh btw I mine quite a bit in Z-mines, but my AH is always full of stuff, so i usually sell my iron ores @ 350 each. surprisingly...noone buys them! >_<

Anyone know where to find a guide to 90+ Smithing? Or perhaps are already that high themselves? Thanks in advance.

No clue, Kisada. I've been flying by the seat of my pants levelling blacksmithing since about skill 50.

And yes, I'm still stuck at 66 blacksmithing. The expense is too great for me to continue at the moment.

So, are you a skill 90 blacksmith, perchance? Maybe you could give ME pointers *)

So basically after you have perfected a craft and got it really high,
what do you do? like in blacksmithing, what do yo udo with that skill? what do you make that makes profit?

So basically after you have perfected a craft and got it really high,
what do you do? like in blacksmithing, what do yo udo with that skill? what do you make that makes profit?


Well thats easy, its like real life you got to study your market. See what sells well and don't sell well. Because its always changing.


For example since the Ps2 noobs started the scale mail and +1 scale mail been a hot seller but that will change soon

Nothing is definite in this game, which is good, if you to be good at any craft you'll have to do your homework.


Hope the 2cents help


Peace

Can anyone tell me how to craft solid mail armor? It is a lower level than chain mail but has slightly higher stats. I havent seen anything written about it anywhere.

Thanks in advance! :)

It is a +1 scale mail synth. You get solid mail only from doing +1 to the synth of scale armor.

thanks for your guide.. I managed to get blacksmithing up to 30 in 1 day... having some trouble now at 30 though... some servers are pretty screwed up, like Odin... for example.. iron chains sell for 46k a stack (doesn't even sell very often on AH)... materials if you make it from ore costs 64k...

I looked through the entire list of stuff I can craft from 30-50, and everything is about as profitable as the iron chains (30% loss) if you buy the materials on any AH... it's just a little frustating that every single thing you can make comes from iron ignots or steel ignots... and we all know how expensive those are...

so was wondering if anyone has some tips to get through lvl30-50 smithing? until I can make darksteel ignots?

I am currently at 24 blacksmithing but steel scales synths seemed to have stopped giving skillups. Is this too early to start iron chains?

from 30-45, I ended up following DrMrLordX's guide.... I had to skill up leathercraft on the side from lvl 0 to lvl 12, and wound up at the end about 200k loss for the 15 lvls of smithing and 12 lvls of leathercraft I gained... I hope the last few lvls before I can craft darksteel ignots won't be too much of a gil sink... ; ;

Currently at lvl 14 smithing here, just wondering if i will be able to synth iron ingots safely without support imaging since i wanna be able to synth as i mine at the same time to save inventory space. thx

14 is too low to synth in the mines without advance imaging support...

you'll prolly pull off a few successful iron ingots synths, but its not worth it.

I tried at 15 and i still failed quite a bit.

Wait till 16 and you should be able to churn those with little to no failure ^^

Aye, thanks for the heads up. guess i will lug those iron ores back to town and synth them in the guild. ^^

Originally posted by UnholyReign
I am currently at 24 blacksmithing but steel scales synths seemed to have stopped giving skillups. Is this too early to start iron chains?

You can start iron chains if you like, but I'm sure you meant iron scales, not steel scales, yes?

Using the proper moghancement(in this case, Earth) will help you if you decide to start "early".

Originally posted by tfung
from 30-45, I ended up following DrMrLordX's guide.... I had to skill up leathercraft on the side from lvl 0 to lvl 12, and wound up at the end about 200k loss for the 15 lvls of smithing and 12 lvls of leathercraft I gained... I hope the last few lvls before I can craft darksteel ignots won't be too much of a gil sink... ; ;

45-49 isn't so bad. Steel Visors are easy to make and easy to sell, but you may lose a ton of money depending on the iron and steel prices on Odin. This would be a good time to either farm a ton of goblin mail/helms and break them down, or to go mining, or both.

Both iron and steel prices have gotten stupidly high on Midgardsormr. I am glad I'm not at this level of blacksmithing anymore *)

btw, iron chains sell for so little because high-level blacksmiths can get 2(possibly more?) iron chains per synth on HQs. A skill 80+ blacksmith would be able to crank them out like crazy. And they probably do, too.

Originally posted by DrMrLordX
45-49 isn't so bad. Steel Visors are easy to make and easy to sell, but you may lose a ton of money depending on the iron and steel prices on Odin. This would be a good time to either farm a ton of goblin mail/helms and break them down, or to go mining, or both.

Both iron and steel prices have gotten stupidly high on Midgardsormr. I am glad I'm not at this level of blacksmithing anymore *)

btw, iron chains sell for so little because high-level blacksmiths can get 2(possibly more?) iron chains per synth on HQs. A skill 80+ blacksmith would be able to crank them out like crazy. And they probably do, too.

yeah.. I finally got to 60... :thumbsup:
I started on Nodowas at 55.4, and it took me like 8 stacks of iron sheets and silk threads each on on earthday at full moon to get to 60... failed like 80% of the time at first, but slowly worked my way to 60.... after passing 58, I pretty much was successful on every synth... ^^

I was talking to another blacksmith on Odin who's at 66 now, and he's having trouble lvling it past that.. he said he was trying darksteel picks, and failed 30 times in a row at it... my guess was that his woodworking lvl was too low, but he said he had no problem with mythril picks before. DrMrLordX, do you have any insight onto lvling after 66?

edit: nm.. I saw your update on darksteel picks... I guess I'll try it when I get there... ^^

im currently on lvl 10 i just got lvl 10 the other night, i wanna start synthing tin ores(scale mails are abit too expensive for me to synth) wheres the cheapest place i can get tin ores from?

Smithing guild in bastok's metalworks

Hey, it's a great guide but I have one problem: It sucks up my money like no other. What is a good way to make gil to continue levling the craft?(I'm Level 14 WAR, and Level 10 smithing)

Nobody?

Nobody?

nope nobody, but I have a question, IM lvl 15, I hear you can't synth iron Ignots easily until lvl 16, Tin Ignots wont take me up anymore past 15, so what else can I make real cheap for a fast level, thanks

tfung: When doing darksteel picks, set up Fire Moghnancement and keep a bucket close by in case vomiting occurs. I found the losses to be dismaying at first, but eventually, I started making a profit off it. I don't know what the woodworking requirement is to make darksteel picks. All I know is that, at 37 woodworking, I was apparently above the trivial mark(I gained no woodworking skill doing these).

Your experiences with nodowa sound pretty normal to me, though I think they may have altered skill-gain rates when doing risky(trivial 6-10 points above current craft skill level) synths. I think skill gain is pretty much even if you skill up on the same recipe over the course of 10 points of skill(in other words, 56-66 on nodowa should require the same number of synths as before).

Guitarhooligan: Your guess is as good as mine. I've been spoiled by having a decent selection of crafting skills for months. You could probably do alright farming choice items off low-level monsters and doing simple gardening(try growing fire or light crystals or something).

xShagratx: You can actually do iron ingots at 15. You will be taking a risk by doing so. If you can afford it, set up Fire Moghancement(yes, I know it can be expensive).

yeah... darksteel picks are great when they don't fail... I finally got to 73 smithing, and basically after lvl69 or so, they hardly ever fail... made a tiny profit on those selling to npcs, even when I bought stacks of ingots from AH at 120k a stack... even more profit if I made the ingots myself.

However, from 73 onwards, it's no longer as easy as before... I talked with another NA smither who's at 73, and we're both stuck on what to make next.. seems like every recipe from 73 onwards involves at least 3k loss per synth if selling to NPCs. Some items will sell at break even on AH, but sales are usually VERY slow..

I'm going to be taking a small break from raising blacksmithing until I get some more scratch. That may happen 1-2 weeks from now. At that point, I'll try to sort something out, and post my findings once I'm done on my next skill path.

I see 3, maybe 4 potential things to make, but yeah, losses will likely result on all of them. I personally don't mind 3k losses per synth. That's about what I suffered while making steel greaves. Granted, if it takes 40-50 synths per skill point, you're looking at 120-150k gil per skill point. Woop! Not pretty.

Anyway, if you want to post your findings here if/when you find the next best skill path, go for it. I'm going to keep my speculation to myself until I've had a chance to test it with my own money.

For this craft, how much is a good amount to save up and just completely splurge on this craft? And still make 50% of it back or so hopefully?

Like 100k?
And what skill will that get you to?

If you were to craft all the way to level 100 without ever selling ur goods how much gil would it cost?

Originally posted by blueoakleyz
If you were to craft all the way to level 100 without ever selling ur goods how much gil would it cost?

My guess is at least 50 mil... if not more.... You can't really survive with crafting if you don't sell back the stuff you make...

13 mil on my server will get you to about 90 (i spent half that so far and im 62). Smithing is just a pain to lvl fast, your better off takin it slow and build materials for a week then guild your ass off for a day or 2. BTW makin nodawas SUX, i wanna get as close to 66 b4 i attepmt darksteel picks. I can make them now but i have like 99% failure rate. Plus if i can make darksteel picks i really dont care how fast i skill as long as i dont fail too much. 12k per pick in AH is quite nice, seeing as how i have high woodworkin skill i can HQ elm till the end of time and fund myself plus stack materials. Alson has anyone been doin the guild quest everyday, its quite fun and im lookin forward to the guilding equip ^^

currently im on the Sylph Server and from what ive notived blacksmithing is much more profitable than Goldsmithing. i started out as a goldsmith but am now starting to switch over to blacksmith. thanks for the post ^^ this will help out :D

I'm a Level 30 RDM and I got my Blacksmithing up to level 11ish with this guide. First off, thanks for the guide. It's been very helpful!.

Secondly, I have a few questions regarding profit. I'm looking at a 130k+ on new items to buy (Dispel, Centurions Sword, etc.) and it's not pretty. I'm going Tin Ingots now - but the price is very eratic on my server. I'm looking at Iron Ingots to make some profit. What do you think? The price for ingots is more than the price to make them (unless I calculated wrong) but I don't know much about skill failure.

What do you think about this idea...or should I wait until I can make Iron Sheets. Will this be a steady way for me to make profit (making tons of cash isn't as important as consistancy and sell rate).

Will this work for me or should I just hunt those stupid Rams.

Mitsu: Darksteel picks actually sell for 12k to NPCs, not on the AH. This, of course, is even better. That means you can make 36 or 48 darksteel picks for skill and then dump them on any NPC merchant you like for instant gil returns(and, hopefully, profit). I don't think anyone actually uses darksteel picks for anything other than blacksmithing skill *)

Calladan: Iron ingots can make you money, but iron sheets are often better. Take a look at the individual and stack prices of iron ingots vs iron sheets on your server. If the price difference is more than the cost of a single fire crystal, you're probably going to make more money on the sheets once you have the ability to make sheets reliably. Also take a look at the rates of sale. There's no sense in making iron sheets if ingots are selling 5x faster, unless you're the only guy making the sheets(not likely). Ore supplies should also affect your decisions regarding ingots vs sheets. If ore supplies are tight, sheets are probably a better option.

As far as rams are concerned, I'd do both. Make ingots/sheets, put them on the AH by the stack, then hunt rams like mad and put ram horns and skins on bazaar or on AH with a mule character. Earn money from multiple angles. You can also try growing yourself some fire crystals on the side and selling the extras. Blacksmiths are not notorious for having "extra" fire crystals, mind you.

Originally posted by blueoakleyz
If you were to craft all the way to level 100 without ever selling ur goods how much gil would it cost?

It's hard to put a pricetag on doing this because of supply limitations. Many materials you need for blacksmithing absolutely must be mined or grown(and mining is, by far, the fastest way to get this stuff). Darksteel ore is a prime example of something you just can't snarf up at guilds or off npcs.

Your costs would rise dramatically at higher levels of skill because you'd literally have to buy out every scrap of material you needed for your current skill path. You'd drive up raw and processed material prices. Miners and other blacksmiths would laugh all the way to the bank, and you'd probably get frustrated by the AH constantly running out of the ore, ingots, lumber, leather, etc that you want/need for your skill paths.

I wouldn't advise it unless you intend to make a lot of other people rich for very little real increase in speed of skill-ups. You WILL bog down eventually, once you outstrip your server's ability to produce the resources that you need. Keep in mind that other crafters will be vying with you for these same materials. Also keep in mind that my guide features very few sell-backs to the AH. I already try to dump the majority of the fruits of my skill-up labors to NPCs or guild NPCs, except for highly profitable stuff like ingots and sheets that are often in demand. The thing that slows me down on skill paths like nodowa and darksteel picks is supply. There is only so much darksteel in the land at any given time.

LOL just gettin to the point where i can make Darksteel Picks with a reasonable success rate. right now im workin on buying 30+ Cupbards for fire moghancement (which i will do over time). Its a plus to have other EASIER guilds lvled as well for they can supply you with gill quite frequently. IMHO Smithing has to be one of the HARDEST guilds to raise, simply because after 80 all synths will cost anywhere from 70k-400k (on my server). One person on my server that is 98.6 Smith has been workin on it since he started and he estimates around 10-20 mil from 70-98. Although pricey high lvl smiths are as rare as high level/GOOD ninjas on my server ^^

60k Guild points earned so far...only 260k to go :sweat:

30+ cupboards for fire moghancement?

You know each cupboard has a elemental rating of . . . 6(as I recall), right? I was able to achieve fire moghancement with just 4 cupboards(to overcome the 20 earth provided by my 10 porceline flowerpots). What kind of messed up furniture do you have that requires you to have 180+ fire?

In reality, blacksmiths should have a furniture setup that allows them to swap furniture around to set up fire, lightning, and earth moghancement as the occasion warrants. I suppose you could make the argument for air moghancement as well.

Would anyone mind explaining Moghancements? Im not totally sure as to what they do? If I get 4 cuborads at +6 fire thats +24 fire? so does that help my fire crystal synths??? explain please =)

lol i already have furniture set-up for fire and Desynth (only 2 that REALLY matter in Smith) What i want to do is get a "Filled with Elemental Energy" message from my mog. Just to test my theories, plus i have around 5 mules so i switch furniture around ALOT. I never have more than one type of furniture in my MH at any given time. I beleive to get strong aura youll need elemental rating of 51-120, then for Filled Aura 121-???.

Originally posted by Mitsu
lol i already have furniture set-up for fire and Desynth (only 2 that REALLY matter in Smith) What i want to do is get a "Filled with Elemental Energy" message from my mog. Just to test my theories, plus i have around 5 mules so i switch furniture around ALOT. I never have more than one type of furniture in my MH at any given time. I beleive to get strong aura youll need elemental rating of 51-120, then for Filled Aura 121-???.

I severly doubt that higher levels of elemental aura will improve moghancements, but hey, you never know.

FYI, desynth is a pretty worthless moghancement. Lightning moghancement is superior. I didn't believe it at first, but now . . .

lol i was truly wondering about having a lightning moghancement over desynth. Losing 9+ Quad backplates is not fun at all -.-

Sorry, but i didnt see any list on how to make steel ingots....I know that they are made of iron ores but how many and at what lvl?

They are HQ synth of Iron Ingot.

Or, you can use this recipe:

Steel Ingot
Skill cap: 54

Bomb Ash ×4　
Iron Sand ×4

HQ: Tama-Hagane

So when can i expect HQ's of iron's? at lvl 40-50smithing?

Same chance as HQ1 of anything..

ie: gets better at 10 more skill then the skill cap, better again at 30 above, and then once again at 50..

Thanks for the information^^ better get cash and get my skill up 30more lvls ^^

hi, i'm currently @69.7 on smithing
and was wondering about what to craft next after darksteel picks

i was planning on doing Kari. Arrowheads from 73 to 79.. but i wanted to know the estimated cost of arrowheads to npc

recipe is : fire crystal + iron ingot + tama-hagane..
estimating about 7k per synthesize (yields 6 arrow heads)

a stack of this sells for 6~8k in my server... and not very often either
so i'm guessing it's selling for less?
hrmm, maybe it's not worth doing it? (i remember darksteel headbolts only selling for like 1.3k per stack to npc... sold it in AH of course ^^;; ) maybe darksteel mittens etc are better gil return if i'm selling to npc... hrmmm ><;;

oh, and also, wanted to know if anyone knew how much darksteel gorget sells for to npc?
sorry that i've been asking a lot of questions, but would be wonderful if anyone can share their experience
thanks a lot ^^

Maybe you can pair up with a Woodcrafter?

I wanted your opinion on a skill-up path...

I'm really not too keen on the idea turning my very expensive Iron Sheets (which I use to make a profit) into not so expensive Iron Scales. I may be mistaken - but I don't think these sell very well.

I want to do Gladius/Gladiator til 28. Iron Ingot x2, Ram Horn x1 - Fire Crystal. The problem is I will barely break even and it will be VERY slow going. I'll have to hunt for my own horns and buy Iron Ore very cheap.

I'm trying to break even here. So do you have any expierience with this - or is there some other path you might reccomend.

The sword sells decently on Lakshimi (5-7k) and I think a few sell every day. I thought about Longswords too...they sell better but they also use more expensive materials.

Anyway - give me some ideas for my 23-30 skill up. ^^

DrMrLordX, I'm currently diving into the Darksteel business *shrugs* and I intend to do Darksteel Ingots 'till level 52, and then Sheets 'till 55.

I've looked in Bastok, and there has been 3 stacks of Darksteel Sheets that have sold forever.

I have to ask: where did you sell them? Or where can I sell them? (note that I'm also from Midgard too ;)

Lilchunsanim, I'm not making any remarks about smithing after 73 until I've done it myself. I should be able to start smithing again soon, I hope. Leather 60 first, then . . .

Calladen, I avoided gladii because they require bonecrafting, and I did not have sufficient bonecrafting skill at the time to make them. You can try them if you like. You will flood the market, though, and those sale prices of 5-7k per sword WILL drop.

Iron scales aren't worth much, yes, but you won't take much of a loss if you get all your ingots from cheap ore or goblin gear(or other sources).

26-30 blacksmithing is messy. I "got lucky" by making some iron chains until 29 and then selling them all at a fair price. I mostly broke even. At 29, I switched to steel sheets, and that was great back then, but nowadays, steel sheets are very expensive to make.

Nemes, darksteel sheets are best sold in Jeuno. Sales on them are sporadic, but they do sell.

I got my smithing up to 81 yesterday... I must say there is no cheap way to get from 73 to 81... I've been making a bunch of stuff like darksteel scynths, zweihanders, and random darksteel armors... On Odin, all these items pretty much sell at a loss on AH, and even worse to NPCs... sometimes for items like zweihanders, they sell at break even, which isn't too bad... But basically it's impossible to powerlvl anymore... have to keep everything in balance and not oversaturate the market with too much of 1 item. Darksteel nodowas are alright to lvl up on after 78... If you buy the sheets or ingots from AH, you're looking at about a 6k loss per synth if you sell to tenshodo. But if you get DS from quadav backplates, you can actually make a small profit... Then again, DS from quadav backplates will give you a profit for anything you synth.

So far, it's been costing me roughly 300k per lvl... from just the pure loss selling to AH or npc, as well as synths exploding and losing items... I can see it getting worse from here on... :(

Question....I'm nly 16 right now, but am farming like mad to get my smithing up high enough to do darksteel ingots. when you said on the first page that they sold to an NPC for 12k or so....was that 12k profit, or just 12k in general.

if it was just 12k that they sold for, how much profit did u make?...

Originally posted by DrMrLordX


I severly doubt that higher levels of elemental aura will improve moghancements, but hey, you never know.

FYI, desynth is a pretty worthless moghancement. Lightning moghancement is superior. I didn't believe it at first, but now . . .


hm.. but the Lightning moghancement just says that it will reduce the chances of losing materials if ur synth failed.. IMO desynth moghancement is better XD

Originally posted by Drynavere
Question....I'm nly 16 right now, but am farming like mad to get my smithing up high enough to do darksteel ingots. when you said on the first page that they sold to an NPC for 12k or so....was that 12k profit, or just 12k in general.

if it was just 12k that they sold for, how much profit did u make?...

If you mean about the Darksteel picks, it's 12k in general. Not sure if everyone else has noticed this already or not, but prices can still vary depending on which country you sell in depending on your race. For example, an Elvaan will get the most out of selling things in San d'Oria. A taru, would do so in Windurst.

Either way, most of X's profits I think came from selling the Iron/Steel ingot stacks at first (since he was the only one able to make them other then JP players at the time). So by the time some of us get to the stage to make Darksteel Ingots/sheets, we might not be able to make profit if even half the people that's reading this guide decided to undercut a bit.

Originally posted by Beowulfe



hm.. but the Lightning moghancement just says that it will reduce the chances of losing materials if ur synth failed.. IMO desynth moghancement is better XD

Think about it this way. With the Lightning Moghancement, you have the same chance of a successful desynth as without it. But should you fail (which is still quite common), there's a less chance you lose the item. But with the Desynth moghancement, you have a higher chance for success, but should you fail, you have a high chance of losing the item as well.

What i'm trying to say is, if you don't lose the item on a failure, you have another chance at trying to desynth it again for a success. And since the success rates for desynthing is low already, unless you have 100 in smithing, your success rate even with the Desynth moghancement should be rather low.

That's how I understand it, but i'll let X decide if that's right or not.

Hey X.. nice guide, but Im having the same problem with going from 30-50 as tfung had. In other words, steel ingots are 50k a stack on my server, however steel sheets are 43k a stack and steel scales (which would be the final product after I finish synthing them) sell for only 30k a stack, and not very often in jeuno. Im guessing Ill need at least 7-8 stacks to go from 30-36, and then maybe 5-6 for 36-40.

That`s quite a huge loss, and although I would love to farm gobs for mails/helms, it seems that evil SE has dramatically lowered the drop rate of these items. I killed over 50 gobs today in kazham with thf sub, and not a single drop. They sell for 1k each minimum in all the ah`s, and I could easily buy 4-5 of them before i successfully get a steel ingot from them. Any tips for this kind of a situation?

Kuroi, the steel situation is rather nasty, but it was inevitable. You can farm goblin gear as you mentioned. I think the best place to do that is Zi'Tah, though I don't have a job high enough to farm Zi'Tah goblins yet.

Buying goblin helms/mail from the AH is no longer viable on most servers. I don't touch the stuff anymore.

My only other suggestions/comment is to tell you what most experienced goldsmiths tell newbie goldsmiths(if they tell them anything, that is): Bite the bullet and take the loss. If you can actually sell your steel scales at 30k per stack, sell em. It sure beats having to vendor the darn things. Alternatively, save a stack or three for steel greaves that you'll be doing from skill 55-56.

Blacksmithing was already rather complicated before, but now it's getting very expensive, even at low skill levels, due to shifts in demand.

Beowulfe, lightning moghancement and desynth are hard to compare without a lot of data to show the effectiveness of one vs the other. A shell-mate of mine(Kalgareth, actually) ran a lot of desynth tests and found that lightning moghancement was superior when there was an unlimited, or nearly unlimited, supply of crystals and a finite supply of components to be desynthed. If you have 10 quadav backplates, for example, and access to plenty of crystals, your overall results from the backplates will be better with lightning moghancement once you've finally consumed all the backplates. You'll wind up using more crystals as compared to the number of crystals you'd use with desynth moghancement.

Desynth is more desirable if you have a finite number of crystals and an unlimited, or nearly unlimited, supply of components available for desynth. If you take 4 stacks of lightning crystals out to Zi'Tah to farm goblin gear, you'll get the best results with desynth moghancemnet, but only because you are limited in your supply of crystals. You'll lose more mail/helms with desynth moghancement per synth, forcing you to farm more to compensate.

In most situations, crystals will be a). more plentiful and b). cheaper than the material you seek to desynth. Lightning moghancement is superior in those situations. If you do all your desynths in the field and are farming more components than you could feasibly store in your inventory, you may like desynth moghancement better.

Drynavere, it's darksteel picks that sell to NPCs for 12k each, not darksteel ingots. Profit varied based on the cost of materials. It wasn't static. Sometimes I took a loss if I bought stacks of ingots for 120k and used guild elm.

Have you come across any recipes that use Darksteel Chains? If you have and you can gain skill on them, let me know. But I do have a question about an Alternative around skill level 55. Wouldn't making Gauntlets from 55-57 be cheaper then making Steel Greaves? Also since there's a rise in rich Ninjas, would it be more profitable to make Manji Shurikens from 57-65? (I'm only taking it to 60 but just wondering).

Gauntlets are generally more expensive to make than steel greaves and sell to the guild for less. Steel scales have a typical market value of 2500 each(30k per stack). Iron sheets vary in value, but generally go for about 2700 or more as individuals. Steel greaves sell back to the San d'Oria blacksmith's guild for about 4k each, whereas gaunlets sell to the Bastok guild for around 1.5k to 2k(I forget which). In other words, the guantlets cost more to make and sell for less.

The only occassion on which steel greaves would be worse if if you absolutely had to buy all your steel from the open market in ingot form to convert to scales for your greaves. If you fear that possibility, just save your steel scales you made from 36-40 blacksmithing, or find some blacksmith in that range and buy up all their scales as they make them. Realistically speaking, you'd need 4 stacks of scales from 55-56 anyway. Possibly more.

Darksteel chains are used in the manufacture of haubergeons, along with some other crazy stuff(http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?fitem=2825). They have limited applications, and most folks who use them prefer to produce their own. You would have a devil of a time selling all the chains you'd make from 55-60. Also keep in mind that failure rates on darksteel chains would be high until about 58 skill. Furthermore, darksteel supplies are rather inconsistant. Securing enough darksteel for darksteel picks was bad enough. You'd need twice that per skill point for chains(or thereabouts).

Nodowa are far, far superior for skilling to 60(any beyond), both in terms of expense and supply. Failure rates are high, but with supplies that cheap/simple, who cares?

Well, I managed to get to 38 yesterday, and going to share a little tip for people going from 30-34. Light+Rusty cap gives you a padded cap, which you can sell to the vendor for 2.6k with max lvl fame. If you buy the caps off the ah for 2k each, you can make a profit off this.

However, I only bought two stacks of steel ingots, and this only took me to 38 which is where i am at right now. Now Im stuck.. I dont want to buy two more stacks of steel sheets and take the 20k/stack loss selling them back to the ah as scales, and I blew 30k somehow getting my leatherworking to only 7.. So I will try iron mittens until 41, looking at about 1.5k loss per synth. If anyone has any better ideas, please let me know.

Oh btw tfung, sorry I didnt realize my inbox was full. ^^;

Use the steel scales to make Steel Greaves? That's what i'm going to do.

At 28.4 skill now, been doing various Iron related items.

Tried doing Iron armour items, was very slow, and sale to AH and NPC was rather slow. Iron chains is even slower, 2 stacks of Iron Ingots although no failures, only gave me .5 skill and with a 10k loss it seems rather tedious.

Any advice for what i can try at this level to push my way past Iron items to get into the steel business?

Thnx dude :cool:

At 28.4 skill now, been doing various Iron related items.

Tried doing Iron armour items, was very slow, and sale to AH and NPC was rather slow. Iron chains is even slower, 2 stacks of Iron Ingots although no failures, only gave me .5 skill and with a 10k loss it seems rather tedious.

Any advice for what i can try at this level to push my way past Iron items to get into the steel business?

Rusty cap (2k at AH caught by fishermen) + light crystal = padded cap (NPC sale price 2600+ depends on fame)
that skill cap's at around 34 or 36

unless people are completly loaded they might aswell give up smithing

i had 800k a week ago only bought 50k bed ,gobbie bag 3 & 4
and spent about 50k on bst food/jug's
and im now down to 200k after taking smithing from 20-43 :eek:

Hmm, X.. I hit 56 finally, and started nodowa`s at 55.7.

I am extremely disappointed with the outcome so far. I went through 4 stacks of earth crystals and 3 stacks of the other two ingredients. I got a 0.1 and a 0.2 in those 50ish synths. 0.3 total for 50 synths. Not to mention i only successfully made 8/36ish. It was horrible. So anyway, my question you to and fung is, is there anything I was doing wrong? I started on earthday on a new moon. This has really discouraged me from continuing and I think I will take a break for a little while. Tfung said that he got from 55.4-60 in 8 stacks of ingredients. I got 0.3 in 3 stacks... is there some magical thing you did fung? Any help from you two would be appreciated.

New Moon I find is better for HQ... terrible for success and skillup tho.... If you want skillup and higher success rate.. try to synth at Full Moon. Even so, I started Nodowas at 55, between that and 59, the failure rates were horrible at Full Moon and earth day. Expect to take about 10 stacks of each ingredient to get it to 60, with tons of failures.

BTW, lvl87 smithing now.. ^^b

I kinda contemplating the future for my smithing now... at this lvl, the only thing I can smith to skillup on that doesn't require half a mil of ingredients per synth are death scythes (lvl93) and Bhuj (lvl95). They cost respectively 30k and 55k in ingredients each synth, and sells to npcs at 1/6 of that. They kind of sell to AH's at break even, but sell so slow that it's not worth the space on my mules to wait around to sell them. Since lvl80, the skillup rate gets much slower than before, and I get 0.1 skillup per roughly every 7-8 synths. It took me 30 deathscythes on full moon to get from 86.5 to 87... @_@;; I'm not sure how long it's going to take to get to 90.. but it just seems so long and painful to get it any higher... Orz...

I wouldn't advise doing nodowa at all until 56. It's a 10-point gap between your current skill(56) and the cap(66) at that point. Doing it at 55 is a real stretch.

That's why I recommended steel greaves from 55-56. Whether or not you save any money making greaves, I don't know, but at least you can calculate the overall expense involved when making them.

If you use earth moghancement while making nodowa, the early levels(56-61, really) will be much easier on your budget. If you had Smithy's mitts at 55, you could also make nodowa with about the same success rate as someone with 56 skill. Stuff like the mitts and apron should help skilling up immensely when there is still a risk for failures.

I had wondered how you finance all your crafting, tfung, but now I see that you have a level 70 job, so I know how now *) A level 48 rdm just can't earn the cash necessary to raise skill. So I'll be stuck at 73 for awhile. Oh darn *p

Arite i ahve a little problem.. im a level 36 sam and i refuse to get lv 40 until i have my jujuitsu gi and 2 sniper rings... currently i camp lizzy for money.. but im really getting sick of waiting for 1-4 hour spawns and only getting it 1 out of 10 times.. im thinking maybe blacksmithing can solve my problem.. i have 100k and was wondering if i could use that tog et blacksmithing high enough to a point i could make profit out of it.. please let me know if u think it can be done.. ro if u ahve any better idea's id love to hear them

smithing or most other crafts for that matter is not a quick money maker... it takes a lot of time to get the craft to a high lvl, not to mention the costs to that. Even when you have it to a high enough lvl, the products you make to sell for a profit takes time to sell (some more expensive and rare +1 equipment might take up to a month real time)... If you're looking to get money quick, I suggest that you hunt NMs, farm or do BCNMs...

Hey tfung and X, thanks for the replies. I am actually 56 now, but still really slow. Ill try waiting until full moon and try going for 60 again. When I was making dark sheets on new moon, I got quite a few 0.2 ups, so i thought new moon helped. Oh well, Ill try again later. Oh and fung, I have everything planned up until 73, but after that it looks extremely difficult to lvl up. Especially after 90, where almost everything involves the use of adaman sheets/ingots. Im planning to take smithing to 100, but holy crap that`s going to be a bitch ; ;

And as for money, I was just extremely lucky with bcnm 40. I got 4 erase scrolls and a phalanx in 5 times of going. I also mine in ifrits and have found 5 adaman total. Right now I have about 1.2mil saved up, and hope that will take me to about 80.

Expect 73-79 to cost you about 2 million gil, give or take, if you power-synth it. I have 1.5 mil gil at 73 and I won't even try to raise my skill at the moment. No way, no how.

Supposidly I've heard that you can do Padded Caps up to level 34 by using this recipe.

Light Crystal - Rusty Cap x1

When could I start this? It sounds a lot cheaper than Iron Products - and I even heard it can break help you break even.

I'm smithing level 22 now...so maybe 25-26ish?

got from lvl87.2 to 88.1 day before yesterday.... full moon 100%lightsday and 98% darksday...

50 synths
cost of ingredients ~ 1.5 mil
sold product to AH + npcs ~ 300k (would have been an extra 100k if I sold it all to AH.. but takes forever to even move 1)
loss ~ 1.2 mil

dumping 1.2 mil is painful... but at least I got some skillup from it and finally Veteran status... At least it's not as painful as losing a damascus... :o I'll try the same again next fullmoon on windsday and see how that goes with skillups... don't think it'll vary that much tho at this lvl. by the way, the guild test item at 88 is a celeta...

there are other ways to make money and skillup from lvl85-100 with adaman equipment. But most items sell very slowly on AH and there are always many of the same for sale at the same time... the cost of tying up 500k-3 mil gil per item waiting a week to sell for a 10-20% profit is a bit too painful. Though it's probably what I'll have to end up doing. No more powerlvling with minimal loss... :(

To the poster above.. I see a lot of people doing padded caps from that recipe. Seems to be pretty cheap and easy to do, providing there is adequate supply of rusty caps

1.2 million loss? Ouch that really must have hurt. Still, i guess at that level, you can do HNMs and go through money like that without too much of a guilt conscience.

Got my smithing to 39.1 yesterday after camping a few NMs and being able to throw some money into steel stuff.

As for Rusty caps, you can do them from 28 > 36. I did those last week, and they sell for a profit to ANY NPC, but even better if you can sell some to a Guild NPC.

Could I start sooner with reasonable results? I'm trying to not mess with Iron Sheets because turning a 37k item into a 25k item (Sheets to Scales) is just not a good thing for me right now.

I'd like to start that ASAP, so do you think maybe if I did it with Adv. Imagery and worked on Lightsday I could do it around 25-26?

my gawd.. spent about 1mil doing kari. arrowheads...
costing 8k per synth and selling back to npc for 170g x6..
it only brought me from 73 to 75.6 -_-;
maybe i should've waited for full moon... did it at 37% ; ;

bah, might as well just do darksteel nodawas now
since they have about same money lost -_-

since i have both mittens and apron, doing DS nodawas at my lvl doesn't seem that bad.. just gotta go back to windie to get more yellow jars to fill up my mog ^^;

i guess i'll have to blow about 2mil more before i can make hauberk... *sigh* i could just buy myself a balmung with the money i'll spend to raising it to 85ish ; ;
crafting is addiction ; ; /cry

Ugh... hit 65.8 last night and will start on dark picks after i get 60 wood (want to hq my own elm lumber). After 73... Im lost.. I have no idea what Im going to do, and dont have millions to spend on the craft. Antican pauldron go until 76 smithing, i might try those. Although we all know how awful desynthing skillups are.

On a side note, I came across a lvl 6 thf with no sub in bastok trying to sell a hauberk. I messaged him asking how he came across it, and wanted to know if i would buy it. I asked him how much and he told me 1.5mil. I just checked the jeuno ah that morning and price of hauberk was 1.35mil, so i told him that. I asked him again how he got it and he told me he shouldnt tell me this, but his friend hacked some site and gave him 10mil gil, and he managed to get smithing to 97+ and alchemy to 90+. I told him flat out he was lying, and tfung`s loss seems to prove that i was right, that he was lying. Anyway, what does everyone else think of this?

of course he was lying... you can't get 2 crafts to 90+ (on the same character).. :o

my guess is that the thf you talked to got the hauberk from a friend who quit the game or something... come on, if the guy managed to craft his own hauberk, you would have had to get the damascus from jeuno.. and thus he would be smart enough to sell it in Jeuno instead of shouting for to sell it in bastok (which I assume was what he was doing) ;)

Yes, that`s what I thought at first, but it would be possible to have the two different crafts on two different characters (which he might have had). Anyway, I still dont believe him because if it takes roughly a million per lvl in the late 80`s, there`s no way he could even get to 95 smithing, let alone 97 or alchemy to 90 as well.

I have been asked by a LS thread at the possibility to supply him with Darksteel bolt heads, i looked up the recipe and it seems to cap at around 62.

Would this be a viable skill up option ? Also, at what level could i start working on these?

You should be able to start making the boltheads at sill 52 technically. But I doubt you'd want to since there'll be a ton of losses. You should probably start at something like 55 or 56. And if you have a buyer or someone who gives you the materials already, you're free to skill up on whatever you want since you already have a set market for it.

Greetings and salutations. I have other, more pressing concerns that prevent me from having any time to play FFXI. It was fun while it lasted.

Props to TheCraft and all the blacksmiths out there.

I'll leave the guide as-is, and if board admin wants to transfer control of my posts in this thread to someone else for future editing, have at it.

oh noooo :(

come on you know real life is ugly! stay in game

hello, i'm at quite a loss as to what to synth next at 34 smithing. steel is around 50k per stack of ingots, and the last stack of scales that sold in any city sold for 30k maybe 1/2 a week ago. are there any alternative synths to skill up? i'm not looking to power level my smithing. i'm just looking for something affordable, since my smithing was supposed to be supplementary income, but instead, has become quite a large money sink. even at these low levels, i've already suffered roughly 100-150k in losses, which is not good since maintaining a well equipped black mage is fairly expensive.

secondly, since i prefer selling items to an npc and lose more money rather than wait for items to sell at the AH (and potentially saturate it with durables), is there a site out there that lists equipment prices when sold to npcs (rough estimates are fine) so i can plan my skill route further?

Buy Steel ingots in Mhaura, at the guild. They're 3,500 a piece there.


As for right now, War Picks are good 'till 37, and you sell them to NPCs.
( Fire crystal + Steel ingot + Elm lumber)

Can't remember ow much is sells for.... I think it's for 4,500, but I could be wrong.

I wouldn't advise this without Woodworking below 8 though.

went to mhaura today...on watersday. found out the guild was closed on watersday :( . waited 40 minutes, ingots sold for 7800 each O_O. anyway, the war picks sell for about 3.9k to the guild, so its not too shabby for leveling up on, i only lose about 4-5k per stack. thanks for the suggestion :biggrin: .

I wanted to make a question but the topic starter gone :/

Anyway, the question is simple: i'm at lv12 and i'm crafting Tin Ingot. But the skill goes up very little. Am i wrong? There is another sure recipe for lv12 to go up faster?

Thanks in advance. ^^


Munba

i think tin ingots are the cheapest skill ups to 15...unfortunately, they're used for almost nothing and don't sell for much...

went to mhaura today...on watersday. found out the guild was closed on watersday . waited 40 minutes, ingots sold for 7800 each O_O. anyway, the war picks sell for about 3.9k to the guild, so its not too shabby for leveling up on, i only lose about 4-5k per stack. thanks for the suggestion .

Hmm, that's quite weird. You probably got real unlucky, and every day of the week ppl were buying them there, which would explain the high price...

But I do remember it's very cheap there... Actually, I think it's 3,500, not 4,500. Definitly not more than 4,500.

while accompanying a friend on the ferry, i stopped by mhaura's blacksmith guild just for the hell of it again...this time, ingots were 3500g!! the major problem though, is that only 3 ingots were in stock...even when the guild first opened, there were only 3 in stock. still, thats about 700g cheaper than AH steel.

There ya go! :)

But yeah, that's the problem. Sometimes there's none in stock at all. What you can do is simply wait for the next day and buy all their supplies.

But once, my friend got as lucky as to be able to buy 7 stacks at the same time ... I guess it's about luck, hehe

Not really the right place for this, but the "Buy items" part of the forum doesn't seem to get much activity...so...
Are there any high lvl Blacksmiths on Pheonix who might be willing to craft me a Darksteel scythe if I get the materials?

I don't know if this was mentioned earlier in the thread, but Tin Ingots can be made as early as Lv. 6. (with advanced image support, had a good number of failures at Lv. 6, but still some skill ups) I haven't gotten much farther than that, as I've only been making ingots out of the tin I personally mine up, but its taken me up to Lv. 7, and I'm not breaking the synth as much as I used to.