Actually, I find that the moon phases just before and after New Moon have been rather favourable towards skilling for me. I'm not sure what to think about the actual New Moon though...
There was a little hiccup in the way involving Mikesjustice (you may or may not have heard of him), who is also leveling up Goldsmithing on one of his mules. He started the Ashura stage earlier than I, and consequently is also skilling up on them. However, he listed a whole seven Ashuras up on the AH, bringing the total Ashura count up to 11! This annoyed me, since I've been making a conscious effort at keeping the number of Ashuras on the AH down, so as to somewhat minimize any pressure to undercut. Fortunately, a quick /tell to Mike was all it took for him to see my side of things, and after a (rather sheepish) "oops >_<", or something to that extent, he agreed and hopefully things will be back under control.
His Ashuras have now cleared, and hopefully this unwritten agreement between the Goldsmithers to keep the numbers low and price high lasts. I still sense that the price will fall though, so there still is some pressure to get out of this stage quickly.
Anyway, I bought up twelve synths worth, and started cranking them out!
Starting Goldsmithing skill: 72.5
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%)
72.5
6:42 Success.
6:55 Success, +0.1!
72.6
7:06 Success.
7:19 Success.
7:36 Success, +0.1!
72.7
7:50 Success.
8:02 Success.
8:15 Success.
9:42 Success, +0.1!
72.8
9:55 Success, +0.1!
72.9
10:07 Failed- lost the Gold Ingot, Gold Thread, +0.1!
Gotta love those triple consecutive skillups! ^^
73.0
10:30 Failed.
11:05 Success.
12:25 Success.
Two more levels of Ashuras to go, then it's basically the home run stretch of synthing and desynthing whatever I made to claw up to 80. I think I've done a pretty good job at keeping my finances in shape. While admittedly, the pace isn't the fastest around, it's consistent, and money-wise, I am no poorer now than when I embarked upon Goldsmithing hell three levels ago. Quite hard to believe though, I'm almost a third of the way through! :D
Anyway, I've counted up the total number of synths for 72-73 (41 synths), so not only is that a lot of Ashuras I need to (somehow) get rid of, assuming current prices of a Gold Ingot for 110k, Gold Thread for 60k, and an Uchigatana for 3.6k, along with a sellback price of 110k (which cancels out the Gold Ingot), skilling up from 72 to 73 cost me 2,607,600 gil...
...Which really isn't too bad, considering how much worse some of the other levels were! >_<
