Analyzing Recipes for 80-88

[Sabaron]

New Aht Urghan Recipes:

Elixir Vitae: Restores 3% HP/MP...... huh? I checked out its effects. A 75th level Galka PLD would get 48hp and 3mp.... A 75th level Taru SMN/WHM would get 21hp and 31mp... :huh: Am I the only person who thinks this potion is totally worthless? Why would SE add this recipe, make it garbage, and on top of that include Mistletoe as a reagent...

Polyflan: This stuff sells at a profit for some reason... It is only used to make Polyflan Paper and Strobes. One stack of Polyflan makes 144 Strobes...144...One Hundred Fourty-four non-consumable puppet parts. It can also make 36 stacks (or more) of Polyflan paper. A stack of Polyflan paper makes
33 or more stacks of Corsair cards. That means that a Stack of Polyflan makes 1188 stacks of Corsair Cards. Am I the only one who thinks this type of volumnous production is absolutely absurd? Notwithstanding the fact that corsair cards are -sold- by merchants and use both light crystals and whole clusters as reagents. Therefore, you cannot possibly beat merchant prices on them for most cards... I know that Polyflan sells, because I've been making it, and while it doesn't bother me... I just keep wondering if I'm making Polyflan just so low-levels can skill up off of it because it seems rather worthless.

I think whoever made the two above recipes must've been smoking Crack (probably laced with PCP).

On Asura a Broken Composite fishing rod sells for..... 25,000gil. Ok, but a fixed one costs 20,000gil--a 5,000gil loss and a light crystal loss (1250 on Asura). A grand total of 6,250. For one point of skill I need 36-48 syntheses or 225,000 to 300,000 gil per point--no way Jose... That and I have to actually sell 36-48 Composite Fishing Rods.... Lets take a look at the recipe to actually make them: Carbon Fiber x 3, Glass Fiber x 2, Cermet Chunk x 2. Now that last ingredient is the only one I need to look at. I can get cermet cheap from the Strange Apparatus (rather than making it myself from expensive shards costs me about 21k each from Qufim Shards) and they end up costing about 10-15k each depending on Infinity Core prices. We'll assume low end: 10k. Uhh... that's already 20k. Let's see.. Glass fiber is probably at least 2,000gil each regardless of production method. So loss of at least 4,000gil each (probably a bit more). Therefore, both of these recipes are money pits. Worthless..

Photoanima: 8 bottles of anima (some costing enormous amounts of money) for a single bottle worth 30,000gil (far less than the cost to make) that sells slowly. The only people who use it are bonecrafters making Shade Gear which is a good sell, but I don't want to learn 50 levels of bonecraft and 40 levels of clothcraft just to make the stuff myself...

Ouka Ranman: Like most fireworks, it's totally worthless. It only sells when someone's having a party/wedding/etc.

Espadons: Aah.. Finally, a nicely selling, good solid product. Unfortunately, I'd have to make waaaaay to many.

Mamushito: Worthless... no one buys them (at least on Asura) and when they do, they only pay 5,000gil--Shinobi-Gatanas sometimes cost more than that from the Tenshodo.

Elixir: Uhh.... Dragon Blood? Royal Jelly (Exclusive) reagents? Plus no one buys them (probably because no one makes them and the cost of Dragon Blood makes them too expensive compared to their Vile counterparts).

Gold Bullets: Silver ones are better and Gold Ingots are insane. No one makes 'em, no one can afford to shoot 'em, no one buys 'em.

Bloodies: People buy these, but they're non-consumable. Even if I evenly distribute my production and include Espadons I'm going to make so many that I'll flood the market. Do people use these forever or do they end up selling back?

Dragon Blood: The heart costs 700,000-1,000,000 gil on Asura and they're never available. One blood costs around 200-250k... Ok, but if I mess up.... it's only one synthesis. BAM! 1,000,000gil loss. Oh H__ no...

Does anyone have an idea of what to make? I was thinking of breaking and reforging Composite Fishing Rods, but that will only take me so far....

Maybe 80-88 is just a tuition void in Alchemy. I'm sure other guilds have this problem, but so far in Alchemy, I have not. I suppose I'll just have to calculate the cost of tuition and suck up the loss.

[Sabaron]

Well, I made my Ouka Ranman--I ended up getting to 84 in just 5 crystal-stacks and had some fun passing them out to "?" newbs and selling them at sell-to-merchant price to everyone else(I don't want anyone making money off my products by selling to merchants). It ended up being relatively cheap. I'm thinking of running back and forth on the ferry and breaking a composite rod or two over and over, but I have a question before I try it:

Does one need a certain level of fishing skill to even attempt to break a Composite Rod? I was looking around the net and there was a site that suggested that I would have to have mid to high level fishing skill in order to hook the fish that would be able to break the rod. Does fishing skill influence what gets hooked or just whether or not you can actually catch what's on your hook?

(I think I've got something like 0.6 Fishing Skill or something, so I'm totally clueless despite doing a litte reading on Titanictus)

Never mind; I found the answer at Titanictus

. . Before the last major fishing update all you had to do to snap a Composite Fishing Rod, for example, was hook a fish capapble of breaking it and hit enter. Though the Composite Rod is the second most durable rod in the game, many Alchemists could hook fish capapable of snapping it on the Ferry fairly consistently, even with a very low fishing skill.

However, under the current system, pressing enter before the stamina bar is completely depleted will merely snap your line 99% of the time. This means that in order to break a Composite Rod you now have to not only hook a fish capable of breaking it, but have a high enough fishing skill to completely deplete that fish's stamina. . .

[FatCharlie]

I'm currently 81.3. I crafted Polyflan from 78 to 81. I was going to take it to 83, but I bought out all the chimera blood and lesser chigoes on my server. I was going to take the Ouka Ranman from 78-84, but have since decided against grinding WW to 23, and I am now taking Holy Leather up to 87. If I can find more chimera blood I will continue that to 83, but if I can't I'll keep doing Holy Leather. From 87-89 I'll do super ethers, and from 89-91 ether cotton/ether leather. FRom 91-93 I'll do Icarus Wings. After that there is no such thing as a cheap synth it seems. Of course the recipes from 87-91 will depend on the price and availablility of ahriman wings. My main concern is getting above 84 so I can make Hakutaku clusters. Once I can make those I seriously doubt I'll craft anything else.

[Sabaron]

I did polyflan, ouka ranman, and have been making Espadons and Alchemist's Water as deflation has caused the Philosopher's Stone market on Asura to drop quite rapidly--making Alchemist's water still pricey, but well within the affordable range for your more affluent beastmasters. Drops in Panacea prices have also brought Gold Leaf extraction into the realm of possibility although Gold Leaves are rising currently as a result, most likely, of the new Chocolixir recipe. Holy Leather is a wash--it's only used to upgrade Cleric's Briault and Healer's Briault--74/75th level WHM Relic Armors, so demand is definitely very, very low. As it takes 3 stacks to get one point of skill you'll basically be spending this as tuition which on Asura came out to 685,000gil for the 3 points of skill that I need to cap it.

If you were not already aware, if you get a failure on Hakutaku Eye Cluster all of the eyes break every time. For this reason, most alchemists don't attempt to make eye clusters until they have 95 skill.

The biggest problem here is getting within range of Icarus Wing which is profitable and cheap.

[FatCharlie]

No I wasn't aware of that Sabaron, thanks for the info. I knew making the holy leather was a wash from the beginning, but while grinding my main concern is availability of ingredients. Ram leather is easy to come by and I can make my own holy water. Unfortunately once I hit 87 I'm screwed really. Ahriman Wings are selling for 30k a piece on Bismarck with zero stock, gold leaf and panacea are non-existant, as are revival tree roots. So getting from 87 to 95 is going to be incredibly slow. I could probably get to 89 with Carb rods, but cermet chunks are 80k a stack, and the ingredients are seldom available. Makes me wish I had TH2 sometimes. And get this a stack of philosopher's stones goes for 800k a stack!!!

[Sabaron]

No I wasn't aware of that Sabaron, thanks for the info. I knew making the holy leather was a wash from the beginning, but while grinding my main concern is availability of ingredients. Ram leather is easy to come by and I can make my own holy water. Unfortunately once I hit 87 I'm screwed really. Ahriman Wings are selling for 30k a piece on Bismarck with zero stock, gold leaf and panacea are non-existant, as are revival tree roots. So getting from 87 to 95 is going to be incredibly slow. I could probably get to 89 with Carb rods, but cermet chunks are 80k a stack, and the ingredients are seldom available. Makes me wish I had TH2 sometimes. And get this a stack of philosopher's stones goes for 800k a stack!!!

Philly stones are 1.2mil per stack on Asura :/
Comp. Rods are selling for 15k whole or 25k broken w/ Cermet @ 80k/stack.
Gold Leaf (when available) was at 10k/stack, now 15k.
Ahri Wings were 55k each, and potions 80k, now down to 35k/50k respectively.

[FatCharlie]

Yeah I guess I'm gonna have to farm some magic pot shards to make my own cermet chunks so I can take Carb rods to 89 and Espadons to 90. And I hope that giant bird feathers are easy to farm. There's a high level THF in my LS, maybe I can borrow/rent his TH2 services for a while. :)

[Saku]

I am currently lvling on mamushitto. I made my own ingredients from scratch to save $$$. It's slow but low cost. Basically I fished three-eyed fish and synth it into paralysis dust then synth dust with mercury to make paralyze potions ( I synthed my own mercury too). To reduce cost even more, I synthed my own animal glue and can HQ it easily since it's beyond tier III. Shinobi-gatana can be pricey at a time from norg vendor but it can also be cheap sometimes so I jsut need to check those vendors often and synth when the price is under 3k.

This is not the most efficient way and takes some time but it reduces your cost. You get some gill back from selling mamushito to vendors ^^

[FatCharlie]

Hmmm. Interesting choice. I will certainly have to consider this synth, though I'm not ready for it just yet; I hit 87 this morning.

[Sabaron]

I am currently lvling on mamushitto. I made my own ingredients from scratch to save $$$. It's slow but low cost. Basically I fished three-eyed fish and synth it into paralysis dust then synth dust with mercury to make paralyze potions ( I synthed my own mercury too). To reduce cost even more, I synthed my own animal glue and can HQ it easily since it's beyond tier III. Shinobi-gatana can be pricey at a time from norg vendor but it can also be cheap sometimes so I jsut need to check those vendors often and synth when the price is under 3k.

This is not the most efficient way and takes some time but it reduces your cost. You get some gill back from selling mamushito to vendors ^^

Mamushito on Asura are/were selling for 3-8k each and are, generally, overstocked and sitting around 3k. The paralysis dust from the Junk Shop are 2k each, and I don't fish. I did get quite a bale of Mercury from beating up Hecteyes in The Eldieme Necropolis in an XP PT though. I did make a couple of these, but only the +1 version is worth anything (350k). I have found Stun Jamadhars (I make my own Jamadhars), Espadons, and Alchemist's Water to be the best products in the skill range. It's going slowly, but I'm not losing any money. To get to 89-90, I'd recommend Espadon. It's a very nice sword even NQ and high-level PLD's like them--they won't pay much, but that's what Strange Apparatuses are for. I've found the cheapest Cermet comes from the SAs depending on Infinity Core prices (the chips are always 21,000gil).

[FatCharlie]

How much do the Infinity Cores sell for on your server Sabaron? Do you have a sure-fire strategy for getting cermet?

[Sabaron]

How much do the Infinity Cores sell for on your server Sabaron? Do you have a sure-fire strategy for getting cermet?

http://ffxi.somepage.com/questdb/510


Infinity cores are roughly 1000-5000 each depending on the frequency of Dynamis runs (which increases stock)--best on weekends. There is no sure-fire way to get cermet. Basically, what you want is not to get Rune Items or Elemental Clusters. The elemental clusters are easy to avoid by using a calculator to determine your password:

http://sholin.user.tehh4x.net/projects/

Both the Elusive Strangeness Calculator and the Strange Apparatus Password Generator are no longer operating, unfortunately, the link above contains a link to the program they used.

The occurence of Rune Items is more probable on the day of the elemental chip you use for the machine you are operating. For instance, Dangruf Wadi operates on Red Chips (Fire). Going on Firesday is supposed produce more Rune Items. I go to Dangruf on Iceday. Last time I went, I had four cores and got 24 Cermet and 1 Rune Chopper.

If you don't get as much cermet as you want, oh well... As long as you don't get a whole bunch of Rune Baghnakhs you'll be fine. Use the money from your sales to buy more infinity cores and chips.

It is, however, crucial that you have generated your doctor password because Elemental Clusters most definitely do not pay for their chip/core.

[Aside: Rune Items]

Rune weapons latent effects only activate when you are engaged in combat and have mp. The item will drain 3mp/tick. Many people like to combine +MP items and Refresh to use them. The most popular combinations include Kirin's Osode (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/4379). Other fixed +MP Items (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/list-by-affect.php?affect=MP&&result_set=30) can be used as well to provide an MP pool for the mundane classes. Note that Rune Chopper can be used by a Bard, Black Mage or Summoner (not to beat stuff up, of course, but for the Haste +9%). Rune Staff (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/2399) and Rune Rod (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/2378) are the most popular. The Bow and Bangles are also useful under certain conditions.

[FatCharlie]

Thanks for the info Sabaron!!

[levish]

ouka raman to cap and masumashito's are what I was doing you'll be happy when it's time to make icarus wings. Could try desynthing the mamushito's for skillups when you are done synthing them, but the rate is even worse than skillingup if you get any skillup at all.

the way i looked at it is that I could hq the animal glue a lot so it was a low cost item, the para pots were easily synthed from npc stuffs so that was a plus the only really sucky part was the shinobi gatana that you could buy 24 at a time from the npc before they rocketed in price.

[Sabaron]

ouka raman to cap and masumashito's are what I was doing you'll be happy when it's time to make icarus wings. Could try desynthing the mamushito's for skillups when you are done synthing them, but the rate is even worse than skillingup if you get any skillup at all.

the way i looked at it is that I could hq the animal glue a lot so it was a low cost item, the para pots were easily synthed from npc stuffs so that was a plus the only really sucky part was the shinobi gatana that you could buy 24 at a time from the npc before they rocketed in price.

Mamushito from 84-88 (Icarus Wing low-end +7) is like so:

Shinobi-Gatana x 144 = ~3000gil x 144 = 432,000gil
Paralyze Potion x 144 = ~4200gil x 144 = 599,520gil
Animal Glue x 144 = ~1500gil x 144 = 216,000gil
Water Crystal x 144 = ~125gil x 144 = 18,000gil
Total cost for 4 points: 1,267,720gil
Per point: 316,380gil

On Asura, Mamushito are worth 10,000gil each. They sell rougly 1 per day and you have 144 of them to sell. Filling your AH slots and retaining absolute control of the auction house for 144 days (about 5 RL months) assuming a generous 10% deflation rate per day because of extreme overstock declining by 1% per 7 week with a floor price of 2,000gil each. Floor price will be achieved after 19 days and the total recoupment from AH will be around 340,000gil leaving the final values at:

927,720gil total
231,930gil per point

recouped over 144 days of AH selling provided the 2000gil buyers don't undercut you. Vendor sales will result in a near total loss--on the order of 1%-2% of total paid out and the guild doesn't buy most high-level syntheses including Mamushito.

My goals, as they have always been with Alchemy, is to make gil, have fun, and become a fully-featured Veteran. I haven't lost horrible amounts of money at any point during my craft and I'm certainly not going to spend copious amounts of money making worthless items no one wants, though I will undoubtedly make a few Mamushito to ease the burden on the markets I'm affecting. I'll be happy enough slowly inching my way up to 88 whereupon I will be able to make Icarus wings, sprinkled with Cannon Shells which will slowly bring me up to 94, Platinum Nuggets and Panacaea to 98 and finally Pro-Ether to 100. I do, however, intend to make some Papillons for use upon achievement of my 100th point. I've gotten rid of all of my Ouka Ranman which were relatively inexpensive to make.

As Bill Gates caricature in The Simpsons says, "I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks, " but, in fact, you must sometimes spend money to make money. The HQ of Hawker's Knife, Bloody Weapons, Bloody Boltheads, Espadons, Hakutaku Eye Clusters, will be more than worth it. I'd just rather not wait a really long time to make up for all my tuition. Besides, I've got gear to buy!

Cheers,

Sabaron

[EDIT: Add]

I was looking at the Desynthesis of Mamushito

Used in Desynthesis Recipe:


Alchemy (http://ffxi.somepage.com/recipedb/alchemy-desynth-1.php) (Skill Cap at Synth Level)

Crystal: Lightning
Result: Paralyze Potion (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/2952)
HQ #1: Elm Lumber (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/3401)
HQ #2: Iron Nugget (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/3127) x6
HQ #3: Tama-Hagane (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/3101)

Paralyze potion back is 4200gil on 2.5 500gil crystals for 1500gil recoupment per synthesis assuming a 50% break rate is 1475gil recoupment per synthesis. Elm Lumber is about 3333gil so... 2083 or 1042 (@50%). Iron Nuggets can be combined with an 810gil ore and a Fire Crystal (420gil) to make a 3500gil ingot...1020 or 510gil (@50%) recoupment and Tama-Hagane @ 6666gil is 5416gil or 2708(@50%).

Assuming 25% of each since desynthesis is rather random and I have no data on HQ rates (I just know they're very, very random)....

1475+1042+510+2708 = 5735/4 = 1433.5 gil per synth which is leagues better than you'll get selling all but a few of them to anyone of course when you burn 2.5 crystals half the time, that's 1250 resulting in a negative modifier or a measly 183.85gil per desynth.

This is pure speculation--grain of salt stuff. It could be better, or it could be much, much worse. Farmed Lightning crystals would be the way to go--they're easy to come by.

[Saku]

I just noticed your other crafting lvls, sabaron and I guess you don't have other crafts to support your alchemy lvling in term of gil so you have to solely depend on your alchemy. For me, I have fishing 97 which is/was reliable on making some gils and can support my alchemy lvling reliably. I lvled alchemy through potions route, paralyze, venom, poison, ether, hi pots and using any recipes that involves fish.

So for me, Mamushito is really cheap to make and just cost my time basically and crystals.

Paralyze potions: Paralyze Dust + Mercury
2xParalyze Dust = Lightning + Three eyed fish (which I can fish them easily in qufim)
Mercury = Lightning + 4xCobalt Jellyfish (100 gil each) (which I can buy them from guild)

Animal Glue: 2xBone Chip 1xrabbit hide 1xdistilled water + fire
Buy all from AH and HQ them easily to further decrease my cost

Shinobi Gatana: 2000-3000 gil from Norg Vendor. I never buy if it's 4000+ gil.

It's a slow path as I have to gather all the ingredients first. I sell all mamushitos for 1.1k each to vendor. It's a lost for sure but it's very minimal for me ^^

Good INfo on infinity cores btw ^^b

[Sabaron]

My Smithing skill is up to 25 now, so I can make Jamadhars with assistance. It'll be 30 shortly. As for supporting skills, all that is needed to support alchemy is:

Smithing: Boltheads, some bullets, arrowheads, some weapons
Got it recently: I can make all of the different bullets at present with the except. Not enough for Cutlass--no one makes 'em, no one buys 'em.
Goldsmithing: Lures (garbage) and bullets
Can make Silver Bullets, not enough for Hanger but no one uses Hanger anyway (at least not on Asura)
Bonecraft: Cermet/Stun Claws (latter is useless), some arrowheads
Don't have it... Maybe later, but I'm not particularly interested in most of the synths
Woodworking: Shihei, Bolts, some idiotic fireworks that no one buys.
Enough for bolts and Shihei. I'm not wasting money making Airbornes... I only make Shihei for myself. I plan to do Wood-60 for Garden Bangles, but I'm in no rush as there are never any Korringan Buds on anyway and they sell at 300k each which is approximately the price of the Bangles themselves--thus farmed product is the only way to go.

Maybe I'm missing something, but what else do I need? There are plenty of recipes in Alchemy, and I've almost always got a nice stable influx of profit. The other crafts require heavy tuition (with the exception of fishing, but see below). Eventually, I'll do Cooking 60 for Yagudo and Mulsum. I have found Alchemy to be my favorite craft overall because most things stack and most are also consumable. SE has designed the crafting system in such a way as to generate hideous, hideous, amounts of product and consumability is the only good way to move it. If 4 people level up smithing on Aspis, how many Aspis will be on the market? How many can in handle in circulation? At least goldsmithing has different stones of the same level.... If you don't HQ though, it's junk and no one will ever buy it...might as well bust out a Lightning crystal or stick it in the Guild inventory. I don't like tuition.

I hate fishing. Tried it--boring. Fish prices make it unappealing as well. Medicines and consumables are great products. Fish are marginal. In fact, the only fish I ever actually buy are Ink fish (whichever's cheapest) for Shihei and Cobalt Jellies which anyone with a fishing rod and time to kill can catch.

I've never tried to sell a Mamushito to a vendor... I didn't know they paid so well... I suppose that'd be the way to go. I don't like farming ingredients--it's awfully time consuming. To get 1 point of skill you need 3-4 stacks of reagents. How long does it take to fish up 36 Three-eyed fish--and as a secondary question... How much money could you have made/sold synthing various alchemy products during that time? With your profits from said sales, how much paralysis dust could you buy? Even if your stuff doesn't sell instantly, you have to remember that instead of fishing all that time you could be questing/levelling while you wait for your money to roll in so you can spend it on skill-ups and if you've picked a good synth, you should get back more money from your skillups than you spent--thus speeding up your skillups especially if you're still making money on the items you usually run.


On Asura, there are only ever the minimum number of Cobalt Jellies at the Guild (6) or 12 (I think) on Darksday. They are generally sold out at just after 8. I buy them from AH @ 5k/stack (416ea).

Double Post Edited:
Add:

I really don't know why I don't like fishing... maybe because there aren't any recipes and half the time you don't get anything good. It takes longer to fish a fish than to synth something, and the primary use for fish is food that I don't eat and can't make. In the time it would take me to fish up a stack of cobalt jellies, I could've bought 12 stacks of them and made a ton of mercury, taking in orders of magnitude more profit than I could ever hope to get either selling or processing the fish... I usually don't do any recipe that has a low work/profit ratio. A 30-second synth generally nets me at least 5k whereas I'd have to fish up some weird rare fish or 10 crappy fish taking a good deal longer.

[FatCharlie]

I started making espadons this weekend, and I'm very pleased with the synth. Thanks for the recommendation Sabaron. I crafted 9 and got 0.4 skillup points, which is pretty good. I put 4 of them up for sale (2 at a time) and all 4 have sold for 10k each. It will be a little slow getting from 87-90 because of magic pot shard availability, but I've been buying masks and desynthing them for the fibers and selling prism powders to buy my shards. I still have a butt-load of venom potions, venom bolt heads, paralyze potions and holy leather I could sell/NPC to buy more shards. In truth though I could use the slower pace. After taking a couple months off once I hit 60, I've been grinding for the past 2 weeks. I need to get my WHM up to 75.