The arrow making fallacy.

[Brer Fox]

I've stopped levelling woodworking, since I've discovered it's a total waste of money.

The last arrow you can ever make a small savings on are beetle arrows, any later arrows, at least on my server, you're wasting money if you buy the ingredients from the AH.

On my server, the elemental arrows cost about THREE TIMES as much to make, and are EXTREMELY high level, and can still fail. Horn and scorpion arrows are about a third, and half as expensive as just purchasing them straight, and can still fail. Plus it takes considerable time, and usually the need for image support, to even craft a good amount.

Woodworking also sucks for general money making. Bows are super-expensive to make, only sell well with +1s, and most of them require equal levels in bonecraft or whatever the heck.

Clubs and staves sell for like, a penny. They cost about 5k to make, sell for about 500. Shihei is alright if you're a higher level, but it's like the only think you could ever make a buck on. No JSE, spears/lances take blacksmithing, everything else takes goldsmithing or clothcraft, or something.

If you're levelling woodworking right now, save yourself thousands and thousands of gil and just buy arrows. The money I spent getting from level 1-32 in carpentry could have taken me through 1-32 as a ranger.

[CL0uDvII]

I was wondering if that was true, because I saw no sense in woodworking when I was lvling my ranger. Can anyone else confirm this? Thanks.

[Biterman]

Who told you to buy the ingredients in AH?? :P
Join Guild in Sandy, compare between AH and Guild, buy cheapest, synth.
You can also invest in field gear, and go chop some logs.

Its almost the same for all other guilds. Why you think most, or at least intelligent, goldsmithers and smithers mine their own ore?? If they buy from AH their profit is minuscule, unless its a +1. Same issues you are having.

[Brer Fox]

You obviously don't craft.

I'm in the guild, it's impossible to get to 32 skill without taking the guild tests, and it's impossible to even level that high without advanced image support.

Secondly, ingredient prices are often cheaper in the AH than the guild shop. Only lower level wood and arrowwood go for any deal less at the GS than the AH. You also cannot buy arrowheads, fletchings, or most of the time, arrowood lumber from the shop. There's only ONE stack available, and unless you can beat the five or six campers, you'll have to forfeit a stack of wind crystals to cut the same amount from the logs.

Logging is dandy, if you're using newbie wood. It's very costly in both time and money for hatchets and the now-necessary field gear to go out and, if you're lucky, get a few elm or chestnut logs for a couple of hatchet stacks. Sure, arrowwood is a common yield, but why cut them when they are 20 gil and in almost limitless supply at the GS? Plus, you often get them with scavenge if you're a ranger.

You are forced to buy arrowheads unless you have high enough bone, gold, or black smithing to make them, and then they're much cheaper to just buy. Fletchings are the same way, a little easier to make than arrowheads, but still require skill. I believe elemental arrowheads require alchemy and super rare item 20X6 +15 to make, so leave that to some Japanese guy.

Plus, arrow levels are very high, to make horns, a 29 arrow, for example, takes 49 skill. That is a LOT. With the money you spent raising that up, you could be level 60+ with a RNG buying from the AH, and I'm not kidding.

This post is for the peoples, I'm just bringing it to your attention that it's much, much cheaper, faster, and exponentially more advantageous to just buy stacks from the AH. This game, sadly, doesn't reward crafting enough, unless you're like level 100, and that takes millions and months of time.

[excaliburefire]

What do you mean by guild test? I'm leveling woodworking and never saw anything about guild tests? Who do I speak to for this?

[Brer Fox]

The guild leader, the guy who you talked with to join the guild. For wood, he's the guy outside the lower level of the complex looking at the big lumber rack.

You take your first test at 8, and continue taking them about every 8 levels. The 'test' is simply to make the item he tells you to and give it to him. Tests advance your guild rank and unlock the caps that keep you from levelling the skill.

[Zyuu]

I took my woodworking to 49 before stopping a few days ago and can say the same thing.. for my server at least. Unless you can make your own arrowheads, it just isnt worth it.

In a sense it is (if you can make your own arrowheads) b/c on my server there isnt always arrows/arrowheads for sale, especially scorpion. But cost wise.. not really worth it at all w/o bonecraft

1500-2k for arrowwood lumber or ~200 for 12 logs at guild
2k for most arrowheads, sometimes even higher
~500 for fletching
~1400 for wind crystals in san, 1k-1.2k in bastok (mules help ALOT)

so about 5500-6k for stack of each, or 4500 or so if you make your lumber for: 4 possible stacks of arrows

this only applies to beetle, horn, scorp really.. no idea about anything after scorp, silver is even more expensive (2500 for arrowheads)

Sell rate varies but usually they sell anywhere between 1k-2k for a stack of arrows.. so you save what.. 1k or 2k maybe, depending on skill/fail rate and depending on the arrow type... and save like 3k if you make lumber but..

How long did it take you to a) make all that lumber w/ crystals (takes an annoyingly long time after the 200th stack you make.. 2 combines/minute x 6 x # of stacks) b) how long would it take you to farm 3k if you were using horn/scorp arrows? (L29-45+)

Not worth it.. only for availability.. you can make arrows when you want, assuming there are arrowheads to be found. Its just all that running around, back and fourth to AH, to mog, to AH, to guild, even with flee, takes so long.. can farm money so much quicker to just buy the things lol

Anyways I decided to try ninja first.. shihei powder making might be worth it ( I hope) :p I probably spent around 100k I guess on woodwork once all my arrows sell.. still got like 50 stacks in my different mules mogs

[Biterman]

Originally posted by Brer Fox
You obviously don't craft.

Lvl 37 cooking. :P
At this lvl, I already broke even and are making small profit here and there(not my main income)

Once I get it to 50, I will pick other craft. I have checked materials on AH and GS, and on my server is cheaper to make the arrows(exc. Iron).

Those who seek a high lvl craft for great profits better look elsewhere. Profit from crafting mostly come from +1. If you really want profits, sell the materials needed to crafters.

[tonka]

It's unfortunate you lost that money, but there's no way that just crafting 32 is going to make you any money or save you any money. Crafters main goal those early levels is just to gain ANY gil back from the mass items they burn for XP, so if they have to sell for a penny they will. It's better than 0.

Crafters (outside of fishing/cooking) make money by leveling way beyond the required range for an item, then making HQ versions of that item. The normal versions of items are only made for skill ups, so they dump them in the AH for any price. If they can sell them at all they're pretty content.

One thing i notice is that when people say you can "save a lot of money" by crafting, they are talking about farming for the components themselves and pretend the components are worthless.

I remember someone posted that Alchemy was a big money maker, you can make 9k beeswax for "free" by farming for beehive chips. I pointed out that a person farming for chips can make MORE money just directly selling the chips and not losing the crystals for synth or failures. And what's even more stupid is wasting time killing Wasps for chips when you could be doing profitable hunting, such as rams & elementals.

Unless your server is totally destitute of crafters, in general you will make more money farming components, selling them to crafters, and then using the money to buy the finished goods vs trying to craft things together with lowbie craft skills.

[Kenki]

If you leveling woodworking only for arrows then you better off just buy them from AH. It's stupid just to make some arrows with the cost as much as buying the products.

But hey, is that all woodworking for? Hello? Woodworking means bow, furniture, pole arms, wands and many other stuff too. Horn arrow on my server is about 2k per 99 and I make from crafting is about 50~60k per 2 stacks of quivers 12x99. Doesn't look like a good deal, but hey I got 10 lv up in woodworking so I can make some crossbows high enough for my level so I can go around level up maskmanship.

Well, there are a lot of ways to make money from crafting. I know of ways to make 30~50k per 2 days without leaving out of town to farm (yes 30k is pure 100% profit with 50k is the revenue). Later on I farm and craft for money -> 120k in 2 days (double profits).

As a ranger (who found many goldmines) I seal my mouth so you guys can find out about it sooner or later. I just want to confirm that: If you just level up a craft for #1 a great deal of profit, #2 making only some products of that craft (ie. meatkabobs/arrows) you better off go farming or fishing which gives you the same amount of profit with less time and money spending even buying and selling from one AH (or NPC) to another can make 500k in a week.

Cooking 50, Woodworking 50, Weaving 23 (<-- pumping this one),
Alchemy 0 (<--- next target).

Note: cooking can have HQ items too, the chief- series are one of the example.

[Zyuu]

Nobody is arguing woodworking sucks, just that arrowmaking isnt worth it... hehe

Well it is worth it for one reason.. availability, if there is no shortage of woodworkers on your server and always plenty of arrows.. well.. maybe just buy em all.. and hope they always stay in stock

[Brer Fox]

Once you reach the 40's you get probably the only arrow you'll ever use regularly, scorpion, and they are always in stock. There are never less than 20 stacks on auction at any time of the day on my server.

[Zyuu]

always based on server though.. theres a shortage on asura from what I can tell.. not that it affects me anyway

[Sinzer]

This game, sadly, doesn't reward crafting enough, unless you're like level 100, and that takes millions and months of time.

I make pretty good money from my clothcraft. You guys need to remember that crafting is not just making items but can also be used to break items :) What do you think sells more a common drop off a mob, or that drop turned into 3,6,9 items used by other crafters lower in skill :p I can buy items off the AH for 500gil and in 2-3 synths put on a stack of items that sell for 4K.

I kind of agree on the arrows factor though being able to craft them yourself is nice from a RPG point of view, but does not seem fincianally advantageous.

[Tigre]

Maybe woodworking doesn't pay off in the end, but I can't express enough how much it rocks as I am just starting ranger. What I hear is that horn arrows sell for only 2k a stack, but what I focus on for now is that bone arrows sell for 1k a stack on my server. If you are too lazy to go out and hunt down the wind elementals, you can just straight up buy them for 1.5k. Yagudo fletchlings are 500 for 12, and bone arrowheads are only 200 for 12. All in all, if you don't screw up, it costs you 2.2k to make the arrows, but you get 4k if you turn right around and sell them. Now you may say that the 1.8k profit is pretty minimal, and I agree that those warbows aren't going to be rolling in anytime soon, but that isn't necessarily the point. The point is that anytime you can craft without losing money you should jump on it. I'm not even a lvl 7 ranger, so I use the profits I make to BUY wood arrows and then shoot them. So even with this, I will get through the first 10 lvls at least of ranger without losing or with losing very little gil.

Now, I haven't gotten far enough to see the changes that happen with ranger and woodworking, so I just wanted to share my experience. You don't have to make the arrows you use. Make whatever yields the highest profit, then use that profit to buy the arrows and bows or get whatever the hell you want. Just a thought from a ranger newb.

[excaliburefire]

So far woodworking has been really cost efficient at the beginning like for Stone and Bone arrows but when you get to Iron Arrows that's a different story. Here is what I found:

Wind = ~125each
Iron Ingot = ~2500each
Ash Lumber = ~330each
2xChocobo Fletch = ~60 for 2
--------------------
2955x3=7865 for 99 arrows.

You can buy them for 1k to 1.5k for 99 arrows

For Silver Arrows


Wind =~125
2xYagudo Fletch =~50 for 2
Silver ingot =~2000each
Arrow Wood =~175each
-----------------------
2390x3= 7170 for 99 arrows

You can buy at AH for about 1.7k for 99

Now at level 35 woodworking for Beetel Arrows

Earth =~25each
Beetle Arrowheads =~108each
Arrow Lumber =~175each
Yagudo Fletch =~25each
-------------------------------
333 x 3 = 1000 for 99 arrows

You can buy at AH for about 1k which comes even unless you make your Arrow lumber from the guild then it gets a little bit cheaper.

Now the only way I think would be good is raising Smithing, Goldsmithing and Woodworking all together but that's imposible and mine for some silver ore and iron ore to make ingots.

So what is the point?

[Cometgreen]

You're using the pretty crappy way to make silver arrows.

Earth crystals, 300 a stack
Ashwood lumber, 2200 a stack (from gs)
Yagudo fletching, 500 a stack
Silver arrowheads, 2800 a stack
5800 for 396 arrows, or 1450 for 99 arrows
1500 for 99 arrows at AH

At least, that's how it is on Phoenix. At higher level, you save more money because you can craft 66 or 99 arrows with one synth.

Cometgreen, not trying to make a point, just specify on silver arrows

[excaliburefire]

Yeah after writting into this post, I realised that there was other ways of making the arrows with the recipe you have specified and I way better then the recipe I showed you. Also to make iron and silver arrows you can use one Ingot to get 6 bags of arrowheads. So if the AH is out of arrows you can make them. Now I just have to raise my woodworking which is going very slow.

[Sinzer]

Or you could go to your local general items NPC and buy bone arrows for 4gil a peice!

That makes it 396 gil per stack. Of course for more profit you could just put these on the AH and rip people off :p

Any items under level 10 are usually cheaper from NPCs.

I have got my RNG to 11 at a cost of around 20K, that is not too bad I feel. I have full scale, R Archer Longbow and some minor items. No +1 bows yet as I will wait till powerbow as the other bows are too scarce to be worth the gil and I won't be using them for that long at this level.

I am pretty pleased so far with RNG, even at level 10 my little Mithra can outdamage anything else, we had a bad pull with 2 canyon crawlers, I thought I would try out my 2H....... 168dmg and one tough crawler down in one shot, pretty impressive for level 10!

I will most probably get to level 15 with RNG then use it for a sub for THF for farming. Back to Bard till level 40 so I can do BCNMs and finance RNG through the higher levels :)

[Novac]

I'm a carpentor at skill level 45.

I never buy wind/earth crystals. 1500/300 gils from AH

I never buy arrowwoods from AH. 100gil for a stack in GS.

Horn arrows are what I'm about to demonstrate in profit calculation:

Stacks of 12:
Horn arrowheads: 1500 AH.
Bird Fletchings: 300 AH.
Arrowwood: 100 GS.

Total cost: ~2000 gil.

Yield 4 stacks of Horn arrows without fail. Sells for 1500 each for a total of 6000 in AH.

I make 3k. If I bundle them into quivers, I make even more.

Now..... the hard part is selling it for 1500 per stack. Competition will drive it down to perhaps 1300 even.

Therefore... I sell them personally to rangers I know. They buy without hesitation.

Now if you cut your own arrowwood, you lose maybe 1500k in profit since you have to use wind crystals. And also an addition of earth crysals for 300 more gil. That'll cut your profit down to around 4000 per stack of ingredients.

If you buy the ingredients from AH, here's the breakdown:

Stacks of 12:
Horn arrowheads: 1500 AH
Bird fletching: 300 AH
Arrowwood lumber 3000 AH

That's a wooping ~4000 AH

As you can see, arrowwood lumber is the main concern. So either buy it from GS or make your own arrowwood lumber.

Of course, I didn't factor in the explosion rate since at level 40, I make 1 stack of Horn arrows with probably 1 whole stack of ingredients. That's when it's full moon. If you factor in the cost to get your skill up, you might break even. But hey, you got the skill up, right?

[poweryoga]

i don't know what the heck you're talking about, but i've saved over 200k by just making my own arrows, plus some huge profits on the side.

I craft my own scorpion arrows. I crafted my own horn arrows. I crafted my own silvers, etc. All the arrows (Except iron) that i used i made.

Of course you can fail, duh... you're saying crafting beetle arrows mean 100% success? you make it sound like all the other arrows fail more than beetles.

If the prices of the materials are the same as the arrows, you're one of the people that waste their money buying arrowood lumber in the AH. I've never bought a stick of arrowood lumber in the AH. Ever.