Goldsmithing 69!

After many, many, many Platinum Rings, I've finally attained Level 69!



At least, that's the short version.

What really happened was that my plants finally came into fruition, and the Platinum Nuggets I harvested was enough to supply me with just about three stacks of Platinum Ingots, which eventually took me to 69.1.

The harvest was, on the other hand, very disappointing, yielding just 14.5 stacks of Platinum Nuggets, or 29 Nuggets per character. Compared to my expected 36 Nuggets per, I was basically short of about three stacks of Nuggets. Heck, one mule's yield amounted to a whopping eight (yes, count them- eight) Platinum Nuggets. I've definitely had better harvests before.

The funny thing is, I still ended up with a profit overall, albeit modest. When all the tallying was done, I came out to be about 250k ahead, so I guess I don't have too much to complain about. I'm still unsure what went wrong though, although I suspect it is because I fed the first crystal on Darksday instead of my usual Earthsday. It was late at night, and I didn't really want to wait another two hours for Earthsday to roll around. >_<

Tree Cuttings have shot up in price though. A stack of Cuttings now fetch a whopping 220k-230k, which I find odd seeing as how singles go for 15k/ea, or 180k/stk. I guess if I stockpiled singles, I'd be saving myself some 200k per round, which is pretty good...^^

Anyway, for those aspiring Goldsmithers, you will need a lot of Platinum Ingots. I think I went through at least six or seven stacks to get that one level. >_<

Now just one more level of Platinum Rings before it's Goldsmithing hell, aka, "the 70s." ; ;

The long trek up.

It's been nearly three weeks since my last post, but to be honest, there's not a whole lot going on. Ever since I hit Goldsmithing 68, I've been somewhat relaxed about skilling up nowadays.

Of course, I've been fully enjoying the wonders that is being in the 51-tier for Silver Earrings +1, and can easily make a decent amount of change in a small period of time assuming I don't overdo things and flood the market. Silver Earrings +1 don't sell all that quickly, but I get them cleared before the AH bounces them back to me. With desynths taken into the scheme of things, I've turned two stacks of Silver Ingots into 11 Silver Earrings +1. That's roughly 140k profit in about thirty minutes or so, five of which is spent on an airship. Can you say, "{Yes, please}"? ^^

However, if I have a whole lot of Silver Earrings +1, I instead try to gem them up to make Energy Earrings +1, and sign them too. It's strange, but quite a lot of people seem to want Energy Earrings +1 from me. I've made, and signed six so far, and have sold a pair to Eratosthenes and Opticon, keeping a third pair for myself. The HQ rate isn't great, since I'm still stuck in the 31-tier, but after crunching all the numbers, I still end up ahead after making my own Silver Earrings +1. I just don't have to sell as many things, that's all.

I've recently resumed skilling up on Platinum Rings, but the going is slow, and harsh. For some reason, it really does feel like there are a lot of people trying to get through this part, as for some inexplicable reason, there has been a shortage of Platinum Ingots around, and the price is slowly, but surely rising. At the time of my previous post, a stack of Ingots were going for 1 million gil per stack, but now they're fetching 1.3m. I've since resorted to making my own Platinum Ingots from Nuggets, since they only cost me 95k per Ingot if I made it myself. In addition, I have my plants to harvest in a few days from now, and I've updated my garden to six mules fora total of sixty pots. Hopefully this harvest will supply me with plenty of Nuggets to last a while. Worst come to worst, I can always sell the extras.

68.6 right now. The trek to 70 is looking pretty steep right now. At least it's breakeven if I made my own Ingots. Getting to 80, on the other hand, is going to take a while. >_<

Silver Smelter!

The importance of friends in higher places is very evident today. On Odin is a high level Goldsmither (95+) who is a friend of mine, Binyabr.

Now, the problem with Platinum Earrings is that first you need to make a lot of them, and secondly, you need to somehow release them to the AH without crashing the market. Now, I had already turned a stack of Platinum Ingots into Platinum Earrings, and they were selling pretty slowly, but I had five more stacks to go and needed a way to get rid of all of them.

Enter Binyabr.

As a high level Goldsmither, he could use all the Platinum Earrings he can get. At his level, he can also try to HQ either Triumph Earrings or Communion Earrings for a very nice chunk of change. However, that requires a lot of Platinum Earrings, which aren't exactly flowing out of the AH. Which is where I come in.

In the end, we agreed that I would sell all my Platinum Earrings to him at 140,000 gil each, which is 10k below the AH price- 7.5k if you count the AH tax into things. Sure, it's greater loss, but I wanted to be able to get rid of all the earrings en masse, which was what I was able to do.

So I went about turning all my stockpiled Platinum Ingots into Platinum Earrings. To give aspiring Goldsmithers an idea of how much Ingots you will need, I used up six stacks of Platinum Ingots before getting my level, which is a cause for celebration!



Sure, I took a slightly higher loss/synth than I would've had I slowly leaking out to AH, but I felt that the benefits for being at Goldsmithing 68 were worth it. First off, I get my Goldsmith's Apron. Now that alone is worth the extra hit, but in addition to that, I can now squeak into the 51-tier for Silver Earrings and HQ them for a tidy profit. I am also in the 51-tier for cutting gems with Goldsmithing 68 + imagery. As such, the potential outweighed the immediate cash hit I'd be taking. Besides, these Platinum Ingots have been stockpiled for so long, I had grown rather not used to having the money, anyway. >_<

In retrospect though, I probably should have asked Binyabr to see if he can split some of the profits with me- it would've made my life skilling in the 70s slightly easier, and he's probably have an extra HQ for profit to himself. (And one more to cover the costs of the Earrings... -_-)

Ah well.

With Goldsmithing 68, I now had the opportunity to take the rank test to become a Goldsmithing Artisan. The test item was a Mythril Breastplate, which was sold out in Jeuno for 50k. >_<

So instead, I set about making it myself. >_<

The required ingredients were two Mythril Sheets, two Darksteel Sheets, and two pieces of Ram Leather. Instead of buying all the ingredients off the AH and synthing it, I decided to travel Vana'diel to get the ingredients myself the cheaper way.

This is in spite of just happily shelling out about a million gil skilling up. Crafting's funny like that sometimes. ^^

Once I handed the Mythril Breastplate in, I finally attained Artisan status at the guild, and with that, I immediately headed over to the guildpoints person, who now asked if I wanted to trade 100,000 guild points for a Goldsmith's Apron.

And so, I have what I consider to be my greatest accomplishment yet so far in my Goldsmithing career, and possibly even in game, although that and BLM75's up to further debate. ^^



So...happy... :D