Shiny Things

Calculus & FFXI -- Haste vs Enmity

2010-04-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

Introduction

The blog entry looks to answer a question found in an Allakhazam post, where the OP poses the following question:

For a long time now, I have been using a full enmity set for casting Flash to maximize as much hate as I can get out of flash. However, I am curious, over the course of an extended fighting session, say HNM/God/Ground king/Omega etc, would it be mathematically better to use Haste when Flashing?

Judging from the responses, the general consensus is to emphasize Haste over Emnity. This would probably be true based on observation.

We would like to give mathematical support to verify this claim.

But before we start, we need to establish how Enmity works, and how +Enmity and +Haste affect your overall enmity gain.

Enmity 101

In late 2007, Kaeko (of Odin) began a series of tests to break down and analyze exactly how Enmity (also commonly referred to as just "hate") works. I won't go over the whole series, but to briefly summarize the basics,

Enmity has two components:-

Cumulative Enmity (CE)-- Enmity that does not decay over time, but instead decays when you take damage.
Volatile Enmity (VE)-- Enmity that naturally decays over time, and is not reduced through taking damage.

The sum of a person's CE and VE is that person's Total Enmity (TE), and the one with the highest TE value "has hate" (i.e. the mob goes after that person).

Both CE and VE share the same base unit of measurement (E), defined as "the enmity generated by casting Cure 1 for 0HP," and each is capped at 10,000E. Therefore, there is an overall "hate cap" at 20,000E.

The goal would be to reach this hate cap as fast as possible, and once you have reached the cap, maintain it.

Constructing the model

For any particular action, be it Flash, Provoke, Dispel, or what-have-you, the Enmity, $E$ that you gain as a result of performing that action can be thought of as a function of one variable, that variable being the total +Enmity from your gear and merits ($e$) that modifies the base enmity gain ($e_0$). Notice that I said a function of one variable, even though $e$ and $e_0$ both appear in the equation, but because I am talking about a specific action here, $e_0$ is really a constant.

+Enmity is a straight percentage increase over the base enmity gain, so

\[E(e)=e_0(1+\frac{e}{100})=\frac{e_0 (100+e)}{100}\]

(As documented by Kaeko, here.)

Similarly, your recast, $R$, can be thought of as a function of haste ($h$) that acts upon the base recast time, $r_0$:

\[R(h)=r_0(1-\frac{h}{100})=\frac{r_0 (100-h)}{100}\]

(As documented by Kirschy, here.)

Now that we've got some quantities, it's important to be clear what exactly we want to model. Since one of a tank's main goals is to maximize the amount of Enmity they have, you could just model the current amount of Enmity a tank currently has as a function of time, and maximize that. However, there are several complications in doing so, including taking enmity decay into account, not to mention that such a function is not even continuous.

We can accomodate for all that with the appropriate substitutions, but the question is whether all that is actually relevant to our problem.

Sure, we'd like to maximize the amount of Enmity that we have, but we don't consider Enmity's rate of decay when choosing what gear to wear. Instead, we load up on +Enmity and +Haste gear, and aim to generate as much enmity as we can, with as low a recast as possible.

That is to say, the quantity that we really want to maximize is not the actual amount of enmity we have, but rather the enmity generated per unit time, or the rate at which we generate enmity.

This is thankfully much simpler to model, and is the classic "rise over run" function:

\[f(e,h)=\frac{E(e)}{R(h)}=\frac{e_0 (100+e)}{r_0 (100-h)}\]
Now that we have the quantity we want to maximize, it's time to use calculus.

Which is better, +Enmity or +Haste? When?

In order to answer the OP's question, we want to see how the rate at which we generate enmity, $f(e,h)$ changes as we change either $e$ or $h$. We can then analyze the resulting quantities to hopefully establish a relationship between the two.

So, in order to approximate how the rate changes as I change one of the input variables, I first compute the partial derivaties:

First, the partial with respect to $e$:
\[\frac{\partial f}{\partial e}=\frac{e_0}{r_0 (100-h)}\]
Then the partial with respect to $h$ (this one uses the product rule):
\[\frac{\partial f}{\partial h}=\frac{e_0 (100+e)}{r_0 (100-h)^2}\]
Notice then, that
\[\frac{\partial f}{\partial h}=\frac{100+e}{100-h}\frac{e_0}{r_0 (100-h)}\]
\[\frac{\partial f}{\partial h}=\frac{100+e}{100-h}\frac{\partial f}{\partial e}\]

Recall that the two partial derivatives approximate the incremental gain in the rate of enmity generation as we increase either +Enmity or +Haste.

Thus, if $(100+e)/(100-h)>1$, that means that $\partial f/\partial h > \partial f/\partial e$, so +Haste has more impact than +Enmity on the rate of enmity generation.

Conversely, if $(100+e)/(100-h)<1$, then $\partial f/\partial h < \partial f/\partial e$, so +Enmity will have more impact than +Haste on the rate of enmity generation.

Clearly, that fraction acts as a boundary of sorts that separates the two cases, and in order to get an idea of what this boundary looks like, we set the two partial derivatives to be equal. So,
\[\frac{100+e}{100-h}=1\]
\[h=-e\]
This is thankfully simple, although you might expect such a simple relationship, since both +Enmity and +Haste act on the base enmity and recast time in a similar way. In any case, the relationship can be illustrated using a graph as follows:

Thus, we get the following conclusion:

If the sum of your +Enmity and +Haste is greater than 0, you will gain more by increasing +Haste over +Enmity.

Otherwise, if the sum of your +Enmity and +Haste is less than 0, you will gain more by increasing +Enmity over +Haste.

Since the vast majority of Paladins out there (hopefully) have a positive sum of +Enmity and +haste, this analysis shows that you will benefit from increasing +Haste over +Enmity the vast majority of the time. (Q.E.D. ^^)

Further questions and limitations

While the simple analysis above illustrates that +Haste should generally be prioritized over +Enmity, it only tells us that the gains from +Haste is more than +Enmity. What it doesn't tell us is how much better +Haste is over +Enmity, under given conditions.

So while we can say +Haste is generally better than +Enmity, the only way we have right now to compare two pieces of gear against each other would be to plug the values into $f(e,h)$ and see what numbers come out.

Since the function is simple enough to compute numerically, I won't go down that line for now, and is not a typically asked question, anyway. But if you wanted to, you can simply repeat the analysis I did on INT vs MAB to better understand the relationsihp between +Enmity and +Haste.

More importantly, understand that this model only captures a small part of tanking mechanics-- the first part where the goal is to generate as much Enmity as you can, as quick as you can. This would be fine if there weren't a cap to the amount of CE and VE a player can have, but there is, and this analysis does not directly apply to the latter part of tanking, which focuses on maintaining the hate cap after it has been established.

Fortunately, that analysis is also simple, since any extra Enmity over the cap is effectively wasted, your focus now shifts to just trying to use your actions with as high a frequency as possible, so stack +Haste all the way.

2009-08-24T08:42:00.001-07:00

\[D=k\left (1+\frac{M}{100} \right)[B+\lambda(I_Y-I_M)]\]

\[D=\left [\frac{k(B- \lambda I_M)}{100} \right ]M+\frac{\lambda kMI_Y}{100} +k \lambda I_Y+k(B- \lambda I_M) \]

\[\frac{dD}{dM}=\frac{k(B- \lambda I_M)}{100}+\frac{\lambda kI_Y}{100} \]

\[\frac{dD}{dM}=\frac{k[B+ \lambda (I_Y-I_M)]}{100} \]

\[\frac{dD}{dI_Y}=\frac{\lambda kM}{100}+\lambda k\]

\[\frac{dD}{dI_Y}=\frac{\lambda k(M+100)}{100}\]

\[\frac{dI_Y}{dI_M}=\frac{\triangle I_Y}{\triangle M} \]

\[\triangle I_Y=\frac{dI_Y}{dM} \]

\[\frac{dI_Y}{dM}=\frac{dI_Y}{dD}\frac{dD}{dM} \]

\[\frac{dI_Y}{dM}=\frac{100}{\lambda k(M+100)}\frac{k[B+\lambda (I_Y-I_M)]}{100}=\triangle I_Y \]

\[\triangle I_Y=\frac{\frac{B}{\lambda}+I_Y-I_M}{M+100} \]

\[\triangle I_Y=\frac{\frac{B}{\lambda}+I_Y-I_M}{M+100}=\frac{\frac{541}{2}+125-89}{71+100}=1.792 \]

\[\frac{1.02}{1.01}=1.00990=0.99% \]

\[\frac{1.51}{1.5}=1.00666=0.67% \]

Money, where art thou?

2007-01-08T01:50:00.000-08:00

As detailed over at a recent post on the Bloggaru, I've found myself to be in a rather tight spot in terms of money. Thanks to me picking up RNG (of all jobs) on impulse, I quickly burned through a lot of my cash supply, and even with Celestria paying me a commission for each elemental bead carved up for her, I found myself with just 200k to my name.

Not exactly the best way to go for a Goldsmither, eh?

And so I sat down and scoured the lists for something to make. At Goldsmithing 86, that plus my Shades, Apron and Advanced Imagery brings me up to a virtual skill of 91. Hitting the 51-tier means targetting anything with a skill cap of 40 and below.

A few days ago, another fellow Goldsmithing, Nynaeve, mentioned that she was making nice money off synthesizing the Silver Ring +1 recipies. With that in mind, I quickly checked the AH, and set about to try and make me some Courage Rings +1.

Three stacks of Silver Ingots set me back another 90k. I picked up some Sardonyxes from the Lower Jeuno jewelry shop, and from the AH, averaging around 1.5k each, and of course picked up the requisite crystals, too.

I managed to turn three stacks of Silver Ingots into nine Silver Rings +1. The next step would be to turn all those into Courage Rings +1, the end result being that I got 4 Courage Rings +1 out of the whole deal. All in all, it took me a little over an hour to assemble, and with Courage Rings +1 selling for 50k on the AH, I make myself about 100k profit.

Not quite the numbers I was looking to put out, but for a 51-tier synth, I wasn't really expecting too much.

Nearing the end...

2007-01-08T01:41:00.000-08:00

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 85.1
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Bastok Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Powerful Wind
Moon phase: Lightsday, Full Moon (100%)

85.1(+5)
9:38 Success, +0.1!

85.2(+5)
9:51 Success, +0.1!

85.3(+5)
10:04 Success.
10:17 Success.
10:31 Success, +0.1!

85.4(+5)
10:47 Success, +0.1!

85.5(+5)
11:00 Success, +0.1!

85.6(+5)
11:36 Success, +0.1!

85.7(+5)
11:49 Success.
12:01 Success.
12:13 Success.
12:25 Success.
12:38 Success, +0.1!

85.8(+5)
12:50 Success, +0.1!

85.9(+5)
13:08 Success.
13:37 Success.
13:51 Success.
14:04 Success.
14:18 Success.
14:31 Success, +0.1!

One last level of Elemental Beads to go. ^^

86.0
14:45 Success.
14:59 Success.
15:23 Success, +0.1!

86.1
15:35 Success.

I can see why they say Elemental Beads give good skillup. Actually, it seems to be the case that, although I occasionally got subpar skillup rates, a lot of my skilling sessions have at least averaged a +0.3 gain per twelve synths, but the number of these "streak" skillups off Beads is really quite remarkable, considering that I'm technically synthing over cap.

Anyway, Celestria and I met up again a few days later to continue:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 86.1
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Al Zahbi Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Powerful Wind
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Gibbous (74%)

86.1
1:30 Success.
1:42 Success.
1:54 Success.
2:06 Success.
2:17 Success, +0.1!

86.2
2:31 Success.
3:00 Success.
3:12 Success, +0.1!

86.3
3:25 Success.
3:38 Success.
3:52 Success, +0.1!

86.4
4:05 Success.

At this rate, two more skillup sessions should bring me to cap. Then, goodness knows what...

Catching up...

2006-12-30T20:06:00.000-08:00

It's certainly been a long time since I last updated this. There are certain things I had done that have not been recorded, including reaching Goldsmithing 84 in the meantime off one of Celestria's batches of beads.

I also went a little bit adventurous and skilled up on Diamond Shields! :D

Granted, the cap is higher than Elemental Beads (Beads cap at 87, while the shield caps at 90). Prices have changed drastically since then, but at the time, the materials cost 900k to put together.

900k for a skillup synth is a lot, I know, but if memory serves me correctly, in relative terms, 900k was just the price of two elemental ores. However, the price of Diamond Shields were a whopping 2m, on an NQ! Each successful synth, regardless of whether I actually skillup up or not, net me around 900k, which is certainly a very welcome break from the mass gil {/toss} of the 70s!

In any case, I reached GS84, although the problem was that I had lost my notes, so other than looking up my Craft Skills under my profile, I didn't actually know how close I was to 85.

Fortunately, Celestria was here to save the day. ^^ Of course, from my records, I now know that I took my four-month break from FFXI with my Goldsmithing at 84.4, but just keep in mind that I didn't actually know this when I came back. ^^

One thing to note is that before I left, I must've cleared out my Mog House a little. Taking out several Wicker Boxes, I had downgraded my overwhelming Wind energy down to powerful wind energy.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 84.4
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Bastok Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Powerful Wind
Moon phase: Earthsday, Waxing Gibbous (88%)

84.4(+5)
17:31 Success.
17:44 Success, +0.1!

84.5(+5)
17:57 Success.
18:10 Failed- lost the (Wind) Ore.
18:25 Success, +0.1!

84.6(+5)
18:38 Success.
18:51 Success.
19:05 Success.
19:32 Success.
19:43 Success.
20:04 Failed- lost the (Dark) Ore, +0.1!

84.7(+5)
20:19 Success, +0.1!

A couple days later, we continued with a second batch of twelve beads:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 84.8
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Al Zahbi Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Powerful Wind
Moon phase: Lightsday, First Quarter Moon (52%)

84.8(+5)
18:22 Success
18:35 Success, +0.1!

84.9(+5)
18:49 Success.
19:01 Success, +0.1!

GS85! Now I know what skill level I'm at for sure! >_<

85.0(+5)
19:28 Success.
19:42 Success.
19:55 Success.
20:07 Success.
20:31 Success.
20:45 Success.
20:58 Success.
21:11 Success, +0.1!

So I end here knowing that I am at 85.1. ^^

Eighty-Three

2006-06-10T05:56:00.000-07:00

Celestria came by with another dozen beads for me to carve, and so...

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 82.7
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Bastok Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Overwhelming Wind
Moon phase: Lightningsday, Waning Crescent (14%)

82.7(+5)
2:56 Success, +0.1!

82.8(+5)
3:06 Success.
3:25 Success, +0.1!

82.9(+5)
3:38 Success, +0.1!

83.0(+5)
4:14 Success, +0.1!

83.1(+5)
4:27 Success.
4:40 Success, +0.1!

83.2(+5)
4:56 Success, +0.1!

83.3(+5)
5:34 Success.
5:47 Success.
5:59 Success.

I have to admit, Beads so far have been really good skillup. This makes, what, a full 1:2 skillup rate over the last three runs? That's incredible for the post-60 crafting world. o.O

I am starting to get worried about not having enough GPto get my Fool's Gold by the time I git Goldsmithing 88. That, and I'm going to have to start raising money to get me GS87→88 soon.

When in need of cash...

2006-06-04T18:09:00.000-07:00

After throwing ludicrous amounts of gil at a linkshell attempt at the dreaded Airship battle for CoP, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of not having much gil on me. Now, understand that people's perceptions of "rich" and "poor" are all different, and I know several of my linkshellmates may get ludicrous when I say this, but after finally purchasing my Igqira Lappa, and throwing some 800k worth of items and medicines at Omega/Ultima Weapon before eventually losing (/fume), I was approaching 1m, and that's when I start to /panic about being "poor".

The problem is, I've never really been all that good at making money. I don't actively go out and ensure that my AH slots are full and what-not, nor do I scour the recipe list for items. Most of what I do for profit has been chanced upon usually by accident, as in the case with Energy Earrings +1, however, sales have been slow, and it's gotten to hte point where people are so desperate to sell their Energy Earrings +1, that three sales on the AH history has gone for 40k and less, which is rather impressive for an item whose AH history otherwise indicates a price between 120-140k.

But anyway, I needed money.

Browsing through the Allakhazam forums for inspiration, I chanced upon this post from Gourry, which in essence, demeaned all those higher-level crafters who expect to have profit recipies rained upon them. In particular, the part where he goes,

After doing an hour, not even a day, just 60 minutes of research i sat down with 2800k capital, and i have 1200k left in gil, and 6 million gil in items that'll take me ~a week to sell off.

I have to admit, I am pretty lazy when it comes to finding profit synths, mostly because I haven't really found a real, driving need for money, making me rather complacent about things. In addition, my own cautious, pessimistic nature also means that all the profit synthing I've been doing thus far have been "safe" synths, tynths that I am in the 51-tier for, such as Animal Glue, or more recently, Energy Earrings +1. Before that, I never really used my Goldsmithing for profit, at least, not to my recollection, other than desytnhing Mythril Earrings in Rabao. Yes, that was fun.

/sarcasm off

So anyway, I had two routes. I could either go with 51-tier synths, like Energy Earrings +1, however, I felt that the profit margin on those were too small to really be "worth my time" (told you I'm lazy XD), so while I did dig up some Sardonyxes that were collecting dust on my mule and turned them into a pair of Courage Rings, I was looking for something with a little more "oomph" in them.

That meant looking to the 31-tier. For me, at GS82, with a potential +5 from gear and imagery, that opened up every synth no higher than a cap of 56. However, in addition, I also wanted to be in a tier where I was on equal ground with GS100+6 people, so that also meant that they could not be in the 51-tier for whatever I chose to synth, meaning that the synth has to be higher than 55.

As luck would have it, the two statements "no higher than a cap of 56" and "has to be higher than 55" narrowed down my options perfectly, in fact, giving me very little room to move about, and so, my options were narrowed down to only synths with a cap of GS56.

As luck would have it, there are only four synths in the game with a cap of GS56, and of the four, one stood out as a potential moneymaker: Combat Caster's Boomerangs +2.

My history with Combat Caster's Boomerangs go back to the time when I was trying to get GS55 and onto the Platinum road. I'd skillup on them, back when the NQ was still profitable, and the extra funds from buying the raw CCB via conquest points gave me a good financial boost that helped get me to GS60. It was really slow moving though, but I have CCB+1s to thank. Now, I guess I get to thank them again.

At GS56, I am exactly at the 31-tier with gear and advanced imagery (56+31 = 87 = 82+2+3). At the same time, 56+51 = 107, which puts this synth out of the 51-tier reach of people who have maxed out Goldsmithing. A quick check on the clock showed that it was, quite by chance, a New Moon, and with Watersday coming up, I decided to head down to Jeuno, to pick up some (7) Combat Caster's Boomerangs with my Windurstian conquest points, headed over to Rabao to desynth some Mythril Ingots, and just waited for Watersday to arrive.

These are the results:

All in all, four NQs and three HQs. The NQs sell for just over 100k each, although I'll be sure to bing that price down. XD The HQs currently go for 600k each, making this run a nice, 2.2m worth. Given that I had also bought my raw CCBs with Windurst conquest points, I find myself a tidy sum ahead, although it will take time to sell the CCB+2s.

But it's nice to know that the option's at least there for when I need it. ^^

Just a Quick Run

2006-06-03T12:10:00.002-07:00

Celestria contacted me while I was on my way through Mount Zhayolm to solo up some xp for BLM, and asked to have a few (8, to be exact) beads cut up for her. And so, after accidentally getting Phasma aggro while fighting a Wamoura Prince, I decided to Warp back to Al Zahbi and then we head off to Bastok to cut some Ores.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 82.3
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Bastok Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Overwhelming Wind
Moon phase: Lightningsday, Full Moon (98%)

82.3(+5)
7:02 Success, +0.1!

82.4(+5)
7:15 Success.
7:27 Success.
7:40 Success.
7:53 Success, +0.1!

82.5
8:05 Success, +0.1!

82.6
8:18 Success, +0.1!

82.7
8:31 Failed- lost the (Fire) Ore.

I seem to be pretty lucky as far as the skillup/total synths ratio goes. Ten skillups in the last twenty synths? I'll take that. ^^ (Too bad about the Fire Ore though, although as Celestria put it, at least it was just the Fire one. :P)

Eighty-Two.

2006-05-31T21:12:00.000-07:00

Through other people rummaging through my blogs, I came into contact with another Woodworker, Celestria, who needed beads carved up for her. Seeing as how I couldn't refuse such an offer, she and I would occasionally correspond to setup some skillup/carving sessions together.

Last time we tried synthing, the results weren't exactly spectacular. Twelve synths later, I smashed two beads, and got a whole +0.1 for our troubles. This time however, would prove to be much different:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 81.6
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Bastok Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Overwhelming Wind
Moon phase: Earthsday, Waning Crescent (26%)

81.6(+5)
8:34 Success, +0.1!

81.7(+5)
8:47 Success, +0.1!

81.8(+5)
9:01 Success, +0.1!

81.9(+5)
10:31 Success, +0.1!

Good grief, 4 skillups in a row. That's certainly a nice start to things. ^^

82.0(+5)
10:52 Success.
11:05 Success, +0.1!

82.1(+5)
11:18 Success.
11:30 Success.
12:00 Success.
12:13 Success, +0.1!

82.2(+5)
12:26 Success, +0.1!

82.3(+5)
12:48 Success.

6/12 skillups. Very nice, indeed! Even better, with advanced imagery, I am practically at the cap for Elemental Beads, so the chances of breaking are lower. ^^ Hopefully, I will have saved up enough money for when I'm done with the beads to continue onto Goldsmithing 90, and then, well...

...I'll think about how to cross that river once I reach it. XD

It all started with some Silver Earrings...

2006-05-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't been skilling up Goldsmithing, or doing much of anything GS-related recently. It's rather unfortunate, but my finances are still low after my Nobles Tunic purchase, and I don't feel like I can afford a few breaks, not to mention that it's really a pain to sell ELemental Beads on the Auction House, so I prefer to just wait for when Lilly needs a few more beads to HQ some staves.

However, I've been slowly handing in items for GP, for whenever the time comes to hit GS88 and get my Fool's Gold. The item for the day happened to be Silver Earrings, which goes for 250GP each. One way to go about GP items is to just buy the item from NPCs and hand those in. The gem shop down in Lower Jeuno sells Silver Earrings for about 1250 gil each, for a nice 1:5 ratio, which is my bar for handing in items.

However, I figured I might as well try HQ'ing some Silver Earrings for sale, and then just dump my NQs to the NPC for guild points. Sure, it's a lot more expensive that way, but the HQs offset the losses several times over.

So I took my spare Silver Ingots from storage, and bought up three additional stacks of Silver Ingots from the AH, then went to go synth up in Xarcabard, just for kicks (and just in case the ice weather affects HQ rates somehow). At the end of the day, I had ten Silver Earrings +1, which was far more than I could sell at one time. In addition, there were something like fourteen Silver Earrings +1 already on sale, and I didn't want to contribute to that pool at all.

So my attention then turned to Energy Earrings +1, which is something I haven't made in a while, but decided to try out again today, since I had some Onyxes lying around on a mule. Last time I tried making Energy Earrings +1, I was at the 31-tier for them, so just to see whether things have improved, I took a look at the recipe again.

Energy Earrings via Silver Earrings +1 are a level 30 synth.

I am GS81+5, putting me into the 51-tier. o.O

*light bulb*

Some time later,

I actually ended up getting seven Energy Earrings +1 out of my ten Silver Earrings +1, and so what was once worth 400k had been upgraded to a whooping 980k! I'm certainly happy about this, although selling them so far has been a real pain. -_-

But hey, I'm a ruthless undercutter, right?? -_-

Beads, Part II

2006-04-26T00:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I last skilled up, but today, as I was logging in, I found that Lilly had sent me a message, asking if I could carve more Ores for her. Of course, I didn't turn her down. ^^

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 81.1
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Bastok Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Overwhelming Wind
Moon phase: Windsday, Waxing Crescent (7%)

81.1(+5)
12:02 Success, +0.1!

81.2(+5)
12:15 Failed- lost the Lightning Ore.
12:33 Success.
12:46 Success, +0.1!

81.3(+5)
13:14 Success.
13:27 Success.
13:37 Success +0.1!

81.4(+5)
13:54 Success.
14:08 Success.
14:40 Success.
14:53 Success, +0.1!

81.5(+5)
15:06 Success.
15:23 Success.
15:36 Success.

And that was that. ^^

However, with the release of Treasures of Aht Urhgan, pressure is mounting to complete the Elemental Beads stage so I can get rid of all the Wicker Baskets that's clogging up my Mog Safe. With four jobs (three of which are 70+), storage is very tight, and if I am to level up one of the newly released jobs, I will definitely need to free up some space.

Of course, the surest way to do this would be to get my Fool's Gold, but I will need both Goldsmithing 88 and 150,000 guild points to do that. I'm slowly working on both of them though, and with any luck, it shouldn't be too much longer before I have free space again. ^^

Beads, Beads, Beads!

2006-04-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a long, long time since I last skilled up my Goldsmithing. One would think I'm rolling in the riches by now, but as it stands, I haven't actually been using much of my Goldsmithing to make money. I tried the odd rock-carving here and there (reminding me why I don't like cutting rocks -_-), but nothing too special, to be perfectly honest.

Instead, I worked on giving my Mog House a complete makeover, to make way for a whole lot of Wicker Baskets (51, to be exact), which would give me overwhelming Wind energy. Why? To help out with my Elemental Bead carvings. I certainly don't want to lose any of those...o.O

A whole lot of reshuffling around, and crimping my Mog Safe with gear from three jobs, as well as all the Wicker Baskets (one of the jobs had to give ; ;), I finally got overwhelming Wind energy in my Mog House. -_-

And so it was off to carving beads. I initially bought five beads- three Ice and two Earth, and carved them on a Full Moon, Windsday, to get no skillup. Fortunately, I didn't care so much since these aren't loss.

However, over the next few weeks, I was unable to sell them. I tried listing them on the Auction House once, but Woodworkers rarely actually buy them off the AH, or so it seems, and all five beads bounced. I didn't really want to pay the listing fee all over again. -_-

And so I held onto my beads, while trying to look for a Woodworker who might want Elemental Beads en masse. A few weeks later, no luck. ; ; It looked like I might just hit a dead end after all that.

But then, I decided to actually, y'know, afk-Bazaar outside the San d'Orian Woodworking guild (I never afk-Bazaar, for some reason -_-). While waiting for the airship, by complete stroke of luck, I happened to bump into Lilly, a JP Taru Woodworker who was in my Dynamis linkshell, until she quit the game. As it turns out, well, she came back (surprise, surprise).

We exchanged our greetings, and I let her know that I was now GS80 and could cut beads. As it turns out, she had a whole lot of Elemental Beads stocked up on her mule, and couldn't find a Goldsmither to cut them for her, so she asked if I would kindly carve them into Beads for her. Of course, I agreed!

So she went about muling all the ores over while I went to get a quick lunch, and by the time I got back, we were ready to head over to Bastok to get some carving done!

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 80.0
Skillup synth: Elemental Beads (various- cap 87)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Auster's Staff, Goldsmithing Apron, Shaded Spectacles
Direction: South-East
Location: Bastok Goldsmithing Guild
Moghancement: Overwhelming Wind
Moon phase: Windsday, Waning Gibbous (88%)

80.0(+5)
16:45 Success, +0.1!

80.1(+5)
17:00 Success, +0.1!

80.2(+5)
17:16 Success.
17:30 Success.
17:43 Success, +0.1!

80.3(+5)
17:56 Success.
18:11 Success, +0.1!

80.4(+5)
19:05 Success, +0.1!

80.5(+5)
19:19 Success.
19:32 Success.
19:52 Success.
20:06 Success.
20:20 Success, +0.1!

80.6(+5)
20:34 Success.
21:07 Success.
21:21 Success.
21:34 Success.
21:46 Success, +0.1!

80.7(+5)
21:59 Success, +0.1!

80.8(+5)
22:13 Success, +0.1!

80.9(+5)
22:32 Success, +0.1!

Four skillups in a row. o.O Why couldn't this have happened in the middle of gold hell? I'd have saved myself tons of money! >_< For the record, that was an entire level in just 21 synths, so waaaay below average. But like I said, too bad these are actually profit synths, instead of {money}{/toss} synths. ; ;

81.0(+5)
23:16 Success.
23:30 Success.
23:44 Success.
23:57 Success, +0.1!

My last synth would be done on Iceday, Waning Gibbous (86%). To be honest, I was nervous about this last synth, since Ice is well, strong against Wind, so I have an increased chance of breaking. >_<

81.1(+5)
0:14 Success.

Phew. I have to admit, I was quite nervous during all that, being paranoid at breaking somebody else's ores. Thankfully, and to my surprise, none of them failed, which I guess was partially due to the good timing on Windsday. Lilly was so happy with the results, she even offered to sign me an HQ staff from the beads I carved, so I'm definitely looking forward to her present. ^^ She even bought both my Earth Beads at a discounted rate, although that was all she could afford at the time.

I don't blame her though. Thinking back, that was some 13 million gil worth of Elemental Beads I just carved through. Scary...

Anyway, I don't know whether Lilly will continue to supply me with Ores to carve. Hopefully some kind of Goldsmither-Woodworker duo will arise out of this, but for now, I'll leave that to later. ^^

Gold Hell complete!

2006-03-15T23:57:00.000-08:00

Once again, I planned for skilling up on the next coming Darksday, New Moon, and in preparation for its arrival, I stocked up four sets of synths (that is, 48 Gold Ingots and 48 vials of Mercury) in my Mog Safe. I felt it was important for me to get this over and done with, not only just for completeness' sake, but also because it's almost certain that Bastok would be back in its usual third place next week, and there was no telling when the next time I'd get easy access to lots of Targes would be. >_<

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 79.0
Skillup synth: Gold Buckler (cap 80)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Deegis's Armour (H-6)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, New Moon (2%)

79.0
0:01 Success.
0:22 Success.
0:35 Failed- lost the targe.
0:47 Failed- lost the gold ingot, targe.
0:59 Success.
1:47 Success.
2:25 Success, +0.1!

79.1
2:41 Success.
2:55 Success.
3:07 Success.
3:21 Success.
3:37 Failed- lost the gold ingot.
3:55 Success.
5:15 Success.
6:08 Success.
6:22 Success.
6:38 Success.
6:58 Success, +0.1!

I have to admit, it wasn't exactly the most encouraging of starts. I was debating for a while over whether I should wait for another day while desynthing some of the Gold Bucklers, but eventually decided that, come hell or high water, I was going to get Goldsmithing 80 tonight! >_<

79.2
7:20 Success, +0.1!

79.3
7:36 Success.
10:02 Success.
10:15 Success.
10:28 Success.
10:43 Success.
10:57 Success.
11:11 Success, +0.1!

79.4
19:08 Success.
19:22 Failed- lost the mercury, +0.1!

79.5
19:50 Success.
20:14 Failed- lost the mercury, targe.
20:28 Success.
20:44 Success, +0.1!

79.6
21:05 Success.
21:21 Success.
22:07 Success.
22:23 Success.
22:37 Success.
22:55 Success.

It now turned to Firesday, New Moon (0%).

2:00 Success.
2:12 Success, +0.1!

79.7
2:27 Success.
2:42 Success, +0.1!

79.8
2:57 Success.
3:09 Success.
3:26 Success.
3:38 Success.
5:39 Success.
5:51 Success.
6:26 Success.
6:39 Success.
6:52 Success, +0.1!

79.9
7:12 Success, +0.1!

It is done. Goldsmithing 80. OMG, OMG, OMG, I am finally done with the Goldsmithing hell. {/joy}

The sense of accomplishment of going through Goldsmithing hell and making it out in one piece on the other side is just marvellous. On another note, I sure am glad I sold my Hedgehog Bomb for 4m, because as it turns out, I ended up just shy of 4m in the end, so yeah, I really ended up needing that in the end. ^^;

And then there was one.

2006-03-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

Sometime before this, I got Nappycat to synth me some Targes since he'd get some Smithing skillups, and I have yet to meet somebody who'd turn down an offer for free skillup anyway. ^^

The result of that was I managed to get some +0.1 skill out of eight Targes or so, although I do not remember where that second +0.1 came from that separated my last records from today's.

Anyway, Bastok had (finally) gotten out of third place, so it was time to skillup again!

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 78.3
Skillup synth: Gold Buckler (cap 80)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery support
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Deegis's Armour (H-6)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waning Crescent (12%)

78.3 (+5)
6:34 Success.
6:47 Success.
7:01 Success.
8:26 Success.

I took off my shades and apron at this point, bringing me down to an effective 78.3 (+3).

78.3 (+3)
8:46 Success.
8:53 Success, +0.1!

78.4
9:06 Success.
9:30 Success, +0.1!

Imagery wore, so I put my GOldsmithing gear back on to compensate for it.

78.5 (+2)
11:28 Success.
11:42 Success.
12:09 Failed- lost the Mercury.
12:24 Success.
14:27 Success, +0.1!

78.6 (+2)
14:40 Success.
14:54 Success.
15:07 Success.
15:21 Success, +0.1!

78.7 (+2)
15:35 Success.
15:50 Success.
16:03 Success, +0.1!

78.8 (+2)
16:17 Success.
20:01 Success.
20:20 Failed- lost the gold ingot, Mercury.
20:32 Success.
20:45 Success.
22:39 Success.
22:52 Success.
23:04 Success.

At this point, I didn't know whether to continue or not. Recalling some horrendous streaks where I'd go for double digit synths before seeing a skillup, I have to admit, I was hesitant to continue at this point. However, so close to 79...; ;

I decided to take off my shades and apron to see what would happen.

78.8
23:27 Success.
23:40 Success.
23:53 Success, +0.1!

By now, it had turned to Firesday, New Moon (10%). I didn't relly want to synth on a non-Darksday, but in the end just decided to go for it. After all, I was just 0.1 away from my goal! ^^

78.9
3:12 Success.
3:30 Success.
3:48 Success, +0.1!

Goldsmithing 79! Just one more level separates me from the end of gold hell! On another note, I decided to check in with Fatimah to see what she advices me to synth next, and lo and behold:

It's almost time. ^^

But first! One more level of Goldsmithing to go, and I'm going to have to go under some major Mog House renovation to switch my Moghancement over to overwhelming wind! I do not want to break any beads! >_<

About Gold Bucklers

2006-03-14T03:46:00.000-08:00

It's time to take a break and do some random commentary on my current state of things.

As you might have noticed, my current skillup synth right now are Gold Bucklers, which is the "traditional" route most people take up to Goldsmithing 80, where they cap. At current prices, they are only slightly cheaper than Gold Gauntlets to make, since the cost of a Targe offsets the cost of two Cermet Chunks, but the tradeoff is a worse desynth return.

Here're the details as I know it:

Gold Buckler (cap: Goldsmithing 80)
1x Gold Ingot
1x Mercury
1x Target

Gold Buckler Desynth:
NQ: Iron Ingot
HQ1: Holly Lumber
HQ2: Mercury
HQ3: Gold Ingot

In practical terms, this is significantly worse that the Gold Gauntlets desynth that goes Mercury, Cermet Chunk x2, Cermet Chunk x3, Gold Ingot. Holly Lumber is a terrible resale (relatively speaking), and I always /fume when I see the HQ animation go off only to get a block of wood. -_-

Anyway, the final ingredient, the Targe, is what prompted me to write this entry.

Targes are occasionally found on the AH, usually at just over breakeven prices, so buying them up as you see them isn't such a bad idea. I suppose you could try to make connections and stock up on a lot of Targes, like how one finds a Bonecrafter when looking for Bone Patas en masse, but not many people skillup on Targes at that point in Smithing. This is unlike Bonecraft, where Bonecrafters know to look for an up-and-coming Goldsmither to dump all their Bone Patas on.

So, you can make the Targets yourself, or at least, I could, since I had the requisite Smithing skill.

Targe (cap: Smithing 36)
2x Iron Sheet
1x Holly Lumber

Only problem is, first of all, I'm terribly lazy, as I'm quick to admit, and furthermore, I can't stand the idea of buying the Iron Sheets when I could just make them (cheaper) from Iron Ingots. Ah, but then I'm lazy, so I don't really want to do 24 synths just to ready the Iron Sheets, then another twelve just to make my materials for my GS skillup synth! ^^

I gave a friend, Nappycat a hand at some Targes, since he could skillup on them, and besides, I had yet to meet somebody who'd turn down a chance at free skillups. However, I still had to procure the materials, so this wasn't terribly ideal, at least from my point of view.

The other alternative is to buy them from NPC. They are sold from Zemedars, who resides around (H-6) in Bastok Mines.

The problem is, Zemedars only sells Targes when Bastok is not in third place on the Conquest standings. Unfortunately, if your server is anything like mine, Bastok tends to like occupying the last place spot (hence, "Lastok") so it's quite rare to be able to actually buy Targes from him.

I suppose I kinda lucked out though. Just two weeks ago, Bastok was in second place, and that allowed me to do my earlier skillup binge. However, knowing the conquest was going to be retallied, I made a mental note to buy up a whole lot of Targes and store them on a mule (something you might want to consider doing) for when Bastok was in its usual third place, but for some reason, I was just busy with other things and never got around to it.

Thus, my dismay the following week, when, lo and behold, Bastok was in third place and I couldn't get a lot of Targes quickly and conveniently. -_- Fortunately, Bastok is actually in first place this week (a real rarity, btw), so my goal is to complete the Gold Buckler road, and finish off the Gold hell by the end of this week!

Almost there...

2006-03-05T16:47:00.000-08:00

I actually did a smaller skillup run prior to this, but for some reason, I seem to have misplaced my recordings, so all I can say is that I took twelve synths to get a whole +0.2. ; ;

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 77.3
Skillup synth: Gold Buckler (cap 80)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Deegis's Armour (H-6)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waning Crescent (21%)

77.3
0:03 Success.
0:22 Success.
0:38 Success.
2:35 Failed- lost the gold ingot, targe.
2:59 Success.
4:10 Success.
5:04 Success.
5:20 Success, +0.1!

I had a tough decision to make during this. On the one hand, I had gone through quite a lot of trouble to make sure I had enough materials to go through with this. On the other hand, eight synths before a skillup may be a sign of a bad day to skill, as evidenced by my previous bad streaks. Eratosthenes was also skilling up his Clothcraft, and went 2/14 in terms of skillups, so I figured I might as well do fourteen synths and see if I do better. ^^

77.4
6:10 Failed- critical failure, +0.1!

77.5
6:26 Failed.
6:40 Success.
6:55 Success.
7:18 Success, +0.1!

77.5 (+5)
10:47 Success.
10:59 Success, +0.1!

Okay, technically that was 3/15 skillups, but since one of the failures had no loss, I didn't count that one in. ^^

For some reason though, and I'm not sure why, I started putting on the full imagery support and Goldsmithing gear to boost myself an effective five levels, or two pseudo-levels above cap. I'm still unsure whether this was a good move or not, but my skillup rate post-imagery sure seemed to support the idea that imagery past cap is a good thing:

77.6 (+5)
11:16 Success.
11:28 Success.
11:44 Success, +0.1!

77.7 (+5)
14:28 Success, +0.1!

77.8 (+5)
14:41 Success, +0.1!

77.9 (+5)
14:55 Success.
15:09 Success.
15:26 Success, +0.1!

78.0 (+5)
15:45 Success.
15:59 Success.
20:15 Success, +0.1!

78.1 (+5)
20:28 Success, +0.1!

78.2 (+5)
22:11 Success.
22:24 Success.
22:38 Success.
22:53 Success.

A New Moon...

2006-02-24T12:48:00.000-08:00

It's a New Moon! And Darksday, too! Thanks to the MithraPride Vana'diel Clock, I've been able to plan for today, and have been prepping up for this day. Cermet Chunks are in oversupply in Jeuno, and I managed to save about 10k gil from snagging stacks from undercutters, although the real cramp on my skilling is the shortage of Mercury.

And so, I've been camping the Fishing guild down in Bibiki Bay for the past few days. Other people also wait for the guild to open, but I can still get roughly four stacks of Cobalt Jellyfish before the guild's daily supply is all bought out, which is enough for a stack of Mercury or more, if I HQ. Pretty nice- I get to save about 20k per stack of Mercury, although I can't help but feel my efforts are slightly misdirected, seeing as how I can make more money HQ'ing Silver Earrings than synthing Mercury.

But, oh wait, the Auction Houses are all out of Mercury. Right, so that's why I've been camping the guild!

Anyway, my goal was to get that last level off Gold Gauntlets, where it was then time for the final push through Gold hell- Gold Bucklers. The good news is that I actually calculated the costs, and I think done correctly, the monetary cost for Gold Bucklers is just slightly cheaper than Gold Gauntlets, although they don't desynth as well. Hoepfully I'll have enough money to last me through to level 80, although I have this sinking feeling I will run out sometime at Goldsmithing 79.

Anyway...

This skillup session was split into two sessions- one at the New Moon, and one at the Darksday prior, so a Waning Crescent. I had to cut the first skillup session short, because I ran out of Mercury, and had no way of picking up some more in time. >_< (Hence my running over to Bibiki)

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 76.0
Skillup synth: Gold Gauntlets (cap 77)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Rosel's Armour Shop (K-8)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waning Crescent (21%)

76.0
4:40 Success, +0.1!

76.1
4:59 Success.
5:20 Success, +0.1!

76.2
5:34 Success.
5:53 Success, +0.1!

76.3
7:33 Success, +0.1!

76.4
7:50 Success.
8:04 Success.
8:17 Success, +0.1!

76.5
8:55 Success.
9:11 Success.
12:44 Success.
13:00 Success.

No skillup in the last four synths. ; ; Ah well...there was always the New Moon to look forward to:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 76.5
Skillup synth: Gold Gauntlets (cap 77)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Rosel's Armour Shop (K-8)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, New Moon (2%)

76.5
0:05 Success, +0.1!

76.6
0:18 Success.
0:32 Success.
0:47 Success.
2:16 Failed- lost two Cermet Chunks, mercury.
2:30 Success.

I complained about not getting skillups, when Seraphpdh mentioned avoiding the early mornings, instead trying for close to dawn. Looking back at my last notes, I saw a good skillup run around 5 o'clock, so I just sat around desynthing until then.

5:03 Success, +0.1!

Guess he was right. ^^

76.7
5:23 Success, +0.1!

76.8
5:42 Success.
6:06 Success.
7:16 Success, +0.1!

76.9
9:27 Success, +0.1!

Goldsmithing 77! Three more levels to go! Even better, that only took up twenty-five synths, or two stacks of Gold Ingots, so I just saved about 1.5m gil there on ingredients, which will come in very handy when the time comes to make that last push through to 80. ^^

I moved onto Gold Bucklers now:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 77.0
Skillup synth: Gold Gauntlets (cap 77)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Rosel's Armour Shop (K-8)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, New Moon (2%)

77.0
10:54 Success, +0.1!

77.1
11:09 Success.
18:55 Failed- lost the Gold Ingot.
19:09 Success.

And then I ran out of Targes. >_< Oh well, I can easily make some more Targes anyway- they just take time to make, because you need a piece of Holly Lumber (which is easy to get), but you also need two Iron Sheets, which are proving to be more of a challenge. Iron Ingots are low in supply for some reason, and the sheets are likewise. I guess I'll just personally sheet up a stack of Iron Ingots in preparation for this, but so far, I've only been able to get one stack of Iron Ingots...perhaps it's time to get out my Worker's gear again and go mining? >_<

Skilling with a Vengeance

2006-02-21T20:43:00.000-08:00

I'm really tired right now, so I'll cut to the chase:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 75.0
Skillup synth: Gold Gauntlets (cap 77)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Rosel's Armour Shop (K-8)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Gibbous (64%)

75.0
4:57 Success.
5:12 Success.
5:28 Failed- lost the gold ingot, two Leather Gloves, +0.1!

My gosh, I skilled up! The bad streak is over!

75.1
5:55 Success, +0.1!

Yep. The bad streak is over (/joy)

75.2
6:28 Failed- lost a Cermet Chunk, a vial of Mercury, a pair of Leather Gloves, +0.1!

75.3
6:52 Success.
9:52 Failed- lost a Cermet Chunk, a pair of Leather Gloves.
10:06 Success.
10:20 Success, +0.1!

75.4
11:46 Failed- lost a vial of mercury, a pair of Leather Gloves, +0.1!

75.5
12:19 Success.
12:48 Failed- lost a gold ingot, a pair of Leather Gloves, a vial of Mercury, and a Cermet Chunk.
16:46 Success.
17:15 Success.
17:42 Success.
18:22 Success, +0.1!

75.6
20:17 Success.
20:35 Success.

Later in the day, I tried again:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 75.6
Skillup synth: Gold Gauntlets (cap 77)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Rosel's Armour Shop (K-8)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Gibbous (83%)

75.6
11:57 Success, +0.1!

75.7
12:15 Success.
12:42 Success.
13:02 Success, +0.1!

75.8
13:22 Success.
14:15 Success.
14:29 Failed- lost the gold ingot, two pairs of Leather Gloves, +0.1!

75.9
14:49 Success.
15:05 Success, +0.1!

Finally, Goldsmithing 76! ^^

76.0
16:47 Success.
17:05 Failed- lost two Cermet Chunks, a pair of Leather Gloves.

Doing the math, it took me 27 synths without yesterday's silliness, and 48 synths with. Either way, four stacks of Gold Ingots per level (at current prices, 5,600,000 gil) seems to be sufficient, with plenty of room for error, ala stupid, no-skillup streaks. -_-

Now, unfortunately, at that price, I only have enough money for three more levels...maybe I might just get stuck at Goldsmithing 79 after all. >_<

What the...

2006-02-20T22:24:00.000-08:00

I'm too depressed right now to really go through the details, but in a nutshell:

21 synths since dinging 75.0.

14 Gold Gauntlets, 3 Morion Earrings, 4 Gold Bucklers later.

Approximate cost of 2.7m.

ZERO skillups.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 75.0
Skillup synth: Gold Gauntlets (cap 77)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Rosel's Armour Shop (K-8)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (7%)

75.0
6:15 Success.
6:30 Failed- lost a Cermet Chunk.
6:48 Success.
7:08 Success.
7:38 Failed- lost the mercury, 2 Leather Gloves, and a Cermet Chunk.
7:59 Failed- lost the gold ingot, Mercury, a Cermet Chunk, and 1 Leather Gloves.

Learning from before, I stopped synthing. I should've taken this to heed, but I decided to try again the next Darksday.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 75.0
Skillup synth: Gold Gauntlets (cap 77)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Rosel's Armour Shop (K-8)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%)

75.0
0:05 Success.
0:25 Success.
0:39 Success.
0:53 Success.

Altogether, that's fourteen consecutive synths over three skillup sessions with no skillup. Perhaps the reported cap of Goldsmithing 77 was wrong, and I've been working on a Goldsmithing 75 recipe all this while? I decided to try other things.

Like Morion Earrings:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 75.0
Skillup synth: Morion Earring (cap 78)
Imagery Support: Advanced Imagery
Equipment of note: Shaded Spectacles, Goldsmith's Apron, Auster's Staff
Direction: South-East
Location: Bastok Goldsmith's Guild
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%)

75.0
14:32 Success.
14:49 Success.
17:03 Success.

No skillup. I moved onto something harder after I noticed the Jeuno AH had some Targets for sale- Gold Bucklers.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 75.0
Skillup synth: Gold Buckler (cap 80)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Shaded Spectacles, Goldsmith's Apron, Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%)

75.0
19:19 Success.
19:32 Failed- lost the Gold Ingot, Targe.
19:47 Success.
19:59 Failed- critical failure.

2,710,000 gil. All to waste. /sigh.

Half-way through hell!

2006-02-19T21:07:00.000-08:00

I set the plan into action today, moving onto Gold Gauntlets with my increased cash reserves. To make a Gold Gauntlet, you need to melt together a Gold Ingot, two Cermet Chunks, a vial of Mercury, and two Leather Gloves. The Gloves can be bought at the armour shop in Southern San d'Oria for 331 gil each, making this a relatively cheap synth.

Gold Gauntlets also have an Alchemy 54 subcraft requirement, but fortunately, I already had Alchemy 60 leveled. ^^

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 74.4
Skillup synth: Gold Gauntlets (cap 77)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Shaded Spectacles, Goldsmith's Apron, Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Rosel's Armour Shop (K-8)
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (7%)

74.4
16:37 Failed- lost 1 Leather Glove, 1 Cermet Chunk.
16:59 Success.
17:14 Success, +0.1!

74.5
17:28 Success.
17:42 Success, +0.1!

74.6
18:02 Success.
18:18 Success.
19:44 Success.

I waited for another Darksday before continuing on with my skilling. This time, the day/moon phase was Darksday, Waning Crescent (31%)

74.6
10:40 Success, +0.1!

74.7
11:03 Success, +0.1!

74.8
11:20 Success.
11:36 Success.
12:06 Success.
12:33 Success.
12:49 Success.

Given the five, no-skillup streak, I decided to take off my shades and apron.

13:20 Failed- lost the gold ingot, 1 Leather Glove, +0.1!

Seemed to work. ^^

74.9
13:39 Failed- lost two Leather Gloves, +0.1!

Goldsmithing 75! I am now officially half-way through Goldsmithing hell! ^^ I particularly quite liked that last skillup synth,

Failed, skillup, and only lost two Leather Gloves and a Fire Crystal for a total of what, 1,000 gil? That's by far the cheapest skillup I've had in a long, long time. Practically free. ^^

75.0
14:16 Success.
14:35 Success.
15:18 Failed- lost the gold ingot, 1 Cermet Chunk, 1 Leather Glove.
15:34 Success.

Ah well. I hit Goldsmithing 75, which is good enough for me. ^^

The plan.

2006-02-19T06:31:00.000-08:00

Ashuras have plummeted. I don't know what drives people to undercut to the point where Ashuras are a more of a loss than other synths, but evidently the collective logic isn't rational at all.

Thus, I've seen searching for other recipies to skillup off. Somehow, I ended up in a conversation with my Goldsmithing partner-of-sorts, Nynaeve, and we got talking once again. She suggested I skillup on Gold Gauntlets, which, after looking at things, is a pretty good idea, since it's not all that lossy, I'm not help back by the AH like Ashuras, is a good four levels above me (I suspect my bad Ashura run was largely due to the fact that I'm only 0.6 away from cap).

It was somewhere in there that we made the following observation.

Look at the price of Gold Ingots on the Odin server as of two days ago (17th February):

Now, look at the price of Gold Earrings:

Can you believe it? An 80k profit a synth?? As I put it, "You know how much trouble this would've saved me if Gold Earrings were profit?! /fume" Up-and-coming Goldsmithers are having it easy, I'm guessing largely because there are quite a lot of Goldsmithers in the 70s, although that's just speculation. I really don't see how Gold Earrings can be profitable. >_<

Anyway, I've sold my gear, including my beloved Nobles Tunic, after talking to Nynaeve about it, and thinking a whole lot. Hopefully, the money I get from selling my Nobles, and my Blessed Set will be enough to make that final push to Goldsmithing 80. I'm sitting on 23 million gil right now, and if my calculations are right, that might _just_ get me to Goldsmithing 80. If it isn't enough money, then I have about 300 Beastman's Seals to help raise the money for that final push through.

Such is the plan.

Now to wait for a Darksday, New Moon. -_-

Alas, it was not to be...

2006-02-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning to find that the Vana'diel clock was actually wrong in its timing, and that my favoured Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%) actually occured some two hours earlier than I thought it did.

And so, I hurriedly bought up some ingredients, and sat down to synth, eager to push on through the 70s. Unfortunately...

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 74.3
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (7%)

74.3
5:24 Failed- lost the gold thread, uchigatana.
5:38 Success.
5:52 Success.
6:09 Success.
6:22 Success.
6:36 Success.
6:49 Success.
7:02 Success.
7:17 Success.
7:29 Success.
7:44 Success, +0.1!

74.4
8:02 Success.

Yep. A whole twelve synths, and only a +0.1 to show for it. /sigh. The math works out to aboue 1.15m for that 0.1, making it one of the more expensive point-oh-ones I've had in a while, and pushing my total Ashura count for 74->75 way up. /sigh...

Well, I guess that's confirmation enough that if it's a bad day, just stop after three or four synths. The better question is though, what is the minimum number of synths you need to tell?

Seventy-Four! ^^

2006-02-01T02:50:00.000-08:00

Given how I ended my last run at just 0.1 away from 74, I felt that I couldn't wait for my ideal Waxing Crescent (26%) to come around, and decided to try out the New Moon instead, after I saw it was Lightsday, New Moon (5%) one day. Besides, I had heard from other sources that Darksday, New Moon is the best for skillup, although I personally had doubts of my own. I figured I might as well test it out, while my skillup synths were (relatively) cheap-ish.

And so I bought up my ingredients in advance, like any crafter should, only to find that come Darksday, it had changed to Waxing Crescent, 7%. >_<

So much for testing out New Moons, I guess...

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 73.9
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (7%)

73.9
5:57 Success.
6:10 Success, +0.1!

Ta-dah! Goldsmithing 74! ^^

74.0
6:28 Success, +0.1!

74.1
6:41 Success.
6:54 Success, +0.1!

74.2
7:08 Success.
7:22 Success.
7:35 Success.
7:47 Success.
8:00 Success.
9:25 Success, +0.1!

74.3
9:44 Success.

Well, that was +0.4 in twelve synths, so a flat out 3 synths per +0.1, as expected. Getting to 74 from 73 also took 29 Ashura synths, so that pretty much mimics the pace here. I guess from that, I will only need another 21 Ashuras to hit 75, and officially reach the half way point in the gold hell. Of course, then the synths get a whole lot worse...

...but I can worry about that some other time. ^^;

However, there is one thing I've been meaning to touch upon, and that is the "responsible crafting" versus "powerleveling a craft". I'm personally not a huge fan of powerleveling through a craft, simply because my attention span just isn't long enough for me to sit through a few concentrated days and get a craft to 60. In addition, I am also admittedly lazy, so even if I do have the things, I still have to drag myself to the correct place and skillup, and that is clearly asking for too much.

And so, I've been saving and going slowly through the Goldsmithing levels, until Christmas came around, and suddenly the price of Gold Ingots shot up 700k a stack. Actually, the total price increase was by a whole 1m/stk, so Gold Ingots effectively doubled in price.

While I may not have felt the pinch right now, seeing as how Ashuras have also risen in price, once I am done with Ashuras, I will be back to either desynthing or NPC'ing my products, at which point the newly inflated prices will hurt. A lot.

I then think over to Mikejustice, who just powered through his way through the 70s, buying up thirty stacks of Gold Ingots back when the price was just over 1m/stk (I think they were 1.3m/stk or so) and storing all his Ashuras on mules and what-not. The result is that he's now in the high 80s, having gone thorugh the 70s before the price increase, and he is better off for it.

Of course, he had the financial reserves to do so, but I too had a decent amount of cash lying around with me that I could've used to pump into some Ashuras, or heck, I should've just bought up some Gold Ingots in advance and tried hedging my losses, since I was sure to use Gold Ingots sometime.

But alas, I didn't, and that is a mistake I made. Oh well. Just something to think about the next time you criticize someone for powerleveling. ^^

{I'm back!}

2006-01-31T02:33:00.000-08:00

Yowzers, it's been a while. Granted, my break from the game did little to help out in this respect, but I haven't been able to garden as of late simply because I've been jetting all over the world (irl), so the pots would have to wait for a time where I would actually be in one plane two check the plants for two weeks.

Actually, I wonder if anyone even reads this blog, since it is a rather niche topic, but I guess for the sake of interest, I might as well keep it going.

The inflation of last Christmas affected me slightly. Gold Ingots went shooting up to about 2.1m/stk now, as opposed to 1.4m/stk when I took my break. I have this gut feeling that those extra 700ks will eventually add up, although the good news is that the Ashura price on the AH has also gone up, so I still effectively lose just a Gold Thread per synth. Too bad those have gone up to 1.1m/stk, so I've been trying to get the odd thread or two from camping the Clothcrafting guild in Windy as of late.

It's still some 73k per thread, but that's still better than the 90k or so the AH asks for.

I tried synthing up some Ashuras before I left. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to key in the data before leaving, so I don't remember the specifics, but I managed to get +0.2 in four synths, putting me at 73.6.

It is from there that I continue.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 73.6
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waning Crescent (31%)

73.6
3:11 Success, +0.1!

73.7
3:30 Success.
3:45 Success.
3:59 Success.

After waiting for some of the Ashuras to sell, I tried again, with the same conditions, except that the moon phase had now changed to Darksday, Waning Crescent (12%).

5:45 Success, +0.1!

73.8
5:58 Success.
6:11 Failed- lost the gold ingot, gold thread.
7:37 Success, +0.1!

So just 0.1 separates me from Goldsmithing 74. I'll get that tomorrow, when the moonphase lines up to be just the combination I like it at, although I really ought to give this Darksday, New Moon thing a try sometime. It's been 27 Ashura synths up to 73.9 though, so that's exactly on par with the "3-synths-per-skillup" idea, so I guess I shouldn't really be complaining. ^^

It's been a while...

2005-12-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

Wow...it's nearly been three weeks since I last tried skilling up, mostly because those Ashuras probably turned out to be a bigger pain to unload than what I expected.

On the plus side, not skilling up on the scheduled time meant that I actually, if at least briefly, had a whole lotta money on me! XD I finally crossed over the 10m mark in my walletaru for the first time, and I have to admit, it looked rather pretty...

...But I guess gil in the pocket is not much good, and besides, will even depreciate in value as time goes on. So...pretty while it may be, I eventually spent some, bringing me back down to the under-10m mark. ; ;

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 73.0
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%)

73.0
14:17 Success.
14:30 Success.
14:42 Success.
14:54 Success, +0.1!

73.1
15:07 Success, +0.1!

73.2
15:21 Success.
16:49 Success, +0.1!

73.3
17:02 Success.
17:14 Success.
17:27 Success, +0.1!

73.4
17:41 Success.
17:54 Success.

It'll be slow going from here, at least for a while as I'll be taking a break from the game for a month or so. We'll see what happens when I get back. ^^

The unwritten agreement

2005-11-25T18:29:00.000-08:00

After waiting for about a week, the moon and the day lined up once again. A few post sago, I found I had excellent skillup rates on Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%), and since then, I've been trying to concentrate the bulk of my skilling on those times.

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! >_<

Just for +0.1...

2005-11-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

Tried skilling up again today.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 72.4
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Gibbous (64%)

72.4
2:52 Success.
3:05 Success.
3:20 Failed- lost the Gold Ingot, Uchigatana.
4:34 Success.

No skillup. >_<

I tried again later during the day though, and did...slightly better:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 72.4
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Gibbous (83%)

72.4
7:49 Success, +0.1!

72.5
8:02 Failed- lost the Gold Thread.
8:15 Success.
8:29 Success.
10:45 Success.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to go back and count all the Ashuras I've made so far, just to get an idea of what the pace is like. The count isn't exactly the most encouraging, either. In twenty-nine synths, I've gotten +0.5. >_<

I remember back when I was doing Moonring Blades, I figured a stack of synths would get +0.3, or one skillup every four synths. This is even worse than that. I really ought to start looking back at my data and see just when the skillup conditions are more favourable. I'm already having a rough idea, but I need some more data to confirm that.

On another note, I checked out the Platinum Ingots in lieu of what I said in my previous post. For goodnes knows what reason, there are now fourteen stacks of Platinum Ingots on sale...-_-

One more time...

2005-11-18T10:32:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to keep a rhythm where I get a +0.1 a day, but offloading all those Ashuras is starting to be a little bit of a pain. I'm contemplating just powering through as many Ashuras as it takes to get a +0.1, and storing all of them on mules to slowly be released in trickles in the future. Already, my name takes up quite a lot of the AH history, so I'm sure observant people must be noticing something by now...

Anyway. Here's today's records:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 72.3
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff, Goldsmith's Apron
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (7%)

72.3
3:03 Failed.
3:16 Success.
3:36 Failed- lost the Gold Ingot and Uchigatana.

After failing twice in three synths, I decided to play a little bit safer and put my shades on as well.

3:53 Success.
4:05 Success.
4:18 Success, +0.1!

72.4
4:31 Success.

On a side note, my plants have grown, and my, I got a very nice harvest this time. I managed to get a grand total of twenty-two stacks of Platinum Nuggets, which, when sold for 175k/stk, make 3.85 million gil worth! I could, on the other hand, take the Nuggets and some Ores and Ingot them up, but there have been some problems as of late:

(1) There appears to be an influx of Goldsmithers in the Platinum Ingot stage. Platinum Ores, once plentiful, are now scarce and go for at least 50k in Jeuno now.

(2) Because of this, there are nine stacks of Platinum Ingots on the AH, and not enough buying power.

Like I said, I could Ingot up the Nuggets and try selling them in stacks of Ingots, but the demand for the actual Nuggets appears to be higher. If I were to Ingot them up though, the profit would increase to 5.2m, so I guess I really ought to do so...

/fume

2005-11-16T19:04:00.000-08:00

Ashuras are selling a lot faster than I thought they would- I seem to be able to comfortably go through four a day, while still keeping the supply constant at three Ashuras up on the AH. The Ashuras from the previous synth run had sold, and so I decided to synth a few more come the next Darksday:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 72.3
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff, Goldsmith's Apron
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Full Moon (93%)

72.3
6:11 Success.
6:25 Success.
6:38 Success.

I decided to stop here and list the Ashuras up on the AH, during which I went to do some things with Onekomaru. When I got back, I found two Ashuras had sold, so I decided to replace one of them, but it had changed to Firesday, Full Moon (95%) by then.

72.3
1:29 Success.

Four synths. 250k. No skillups. >_<

Ah well, {That's too bad.} I guess.../fume

Clawing upwards...

2005-11-14T11:22:00.000-08:00

Both Ashuras that I made yesterday have sold, so I decided to replace them. I'm still worried about upsetting the supply, but a balance needs to be struck somewhere. I've already noticed another Goldsmither carefully skilling up on Ashuras as well, and hopefully there can be some sense of mutual co-operation to not upset the market and ruin it for the both of us.

I wonder what stance I should take though. Past experiences have shown that people are not willing to wait and will spam the bejeezus out of any skillup synth and unload them all in a short about of time, although whether this release of products is controlled is another thing altogether.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 72.1
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff, Goldsmith's Apron
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waning Crescent (40%)

72.1
11:53 Failed.
12:14 Success.
13:12 Success.

I waited a few hours (actually about 10 hours) for both Ashuras to sell, then I decided to make two more Ashuras to replace them.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 72.1
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff, Goldsmith's Apron
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waning Crescent (21%)

72.1
18:53 Failed- lost the gold thread, +0.1!

72.2
19:09 Success.
20:10 Failed.
20:24 Success, +0.1!

So 72.3 and chugging along nicely...

{Taking a break.} - {Clothcraft}{Full attack!}

2005-11-13T15:20:00.000-08:00

Being just one level away from the Moonring Blades has made skilling that up a little less than ideal, or so I feel. However, I went to take a look at the going price for Ashuras at the Jeuno AH, and as predicted, the price had risen thanks to the NPC Fellow quests, so now Ashuras are only half the loss as they used to be! /joy!

Ashuras require a Gold Thread as one of their ingredients though. In addition, because these are weapons and as such, are prone to flooding, I cannot afford to spam the heck out of these like I did for Hydro Patas and Moonring Blades (I NPC'ed those). That being said, Ashuras are something that need to be taken slowly.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 72.0
Skillup synth: Ashura (cap 75)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff, Goldsmith's Apron
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Iceday, Waning Gibbous (86%)

72.0
11:53 Failed- lost a Gold Ingot, Uchigatana.
12:14 Success.
13:12 Success, +0.1!

And that was that. >_<

So in the meantime, I figured I might as well skillup my Clothcraft to the point where I can make my own Gold Thread. Gold Thread is a dual synth between Clothcraft and Goldsmithing, capped at Clothcraft 58, Goldsmithing 41. In particular, the Clothcraft cap should ring a bell to the astute Clothcrafters out there. Yes, it's right in the middle of the Silk Road, at least, the sucky part where the Clothcrafters throw away a Silk Cloth each time. ^^

With Gold Thread, I will have a breakeven synth that cuts off five levels from the Silk Road. Granted, the initial investment is greater, as well as the risk. In the long run, I suspect the breaks from any Gold Ingots would make this a more costly synth than just cutting up Green Ribbons and NPC'ing them, but these are materials that I can use myself, so I might as well milk it for what it's worth.

And so, I hoofed myself over to Windurst and started to talk with some of my fellow Tarutarus there, including one that some of you might be very familiar with:

I have to admit, it's quite nice skilling up in a pre-50s environment again. For a moment, I had completely forgotten about +0.2 skillups, and it was quite a shocker when I saw my Clothcraft skill went up by +0.2. Actually it was more of a "Whoa! Oh, right... >_<" type of reaction.

Anyway, after much running to Selbina to grab Grass Threads and Grass Cloth, I have my Clothcraft sitting at 9.2, and waiting for the Clothcraft Guild to restock on Grass Cloth so I can hit Clothcraft 10 and start the fun that is Linen Threads. I'm not quite sure what path I'll take in skilling up Clothcraft, I'm using Aurikan's Clothcraft Guide as a starting point, and tweaking a few things here and there as I see fit.

Eight levels to go...

2005-11-12T14:18:00.000-08:00

As it turns out, I decided to wake up in the wee hours of the morning to craft. >_<

For those who remember, I had an incredible skillup rate at Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%) the last time I tried skilling, and with that in mind, I decided to wait for the same day and moon phase to come around so I could actually test and see just how good that particular combination actually is.

Unfortuantely, I forgot to take into account the actual time. I thought Darksday started at 6:00am, but in actuality, it ends at 6:09am.

And so, when I logged on to skillup, I found it was 8pm Darksday, and I only had about 10 minutes worth of skilling to do. >_<

Fortunately, the day/moonphase combination did not disappoint. Both my first two synths were skillups, and there you have it. ^^

Eight levels to go before I'm out of hell, although this past level really wasn't too bad at all. ^^

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 71.8
Skillup synth: Moonring Blade (cap 73)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%)

71.8
22:47 Success, +0.1!

71.9
23:02 Success, +0.1!

72.0
23:18 Success.
23:34 Success.

And that was that. Only one level left of Moonring Blades to make, then it's onto Ashuras, which could get interesting now that the fellow NPC "genkai" quests actually give other players incentive to buy Ashuras...

O.o!!!

2005-11-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

The economy's inflating again. I'm not sure what's going on, but there seems to be a sudden surge in Platinum over the last week. Platinum Ingots were going steadily for 1.4m/stk just two weeks ago, but when I checked the AH today, stacks were selling for 2m/stk! I'm not really sure what the consequences of that are, nor what that means. Maybe a lot of Goldsmithers are in the late 60s, trying to skillup on Platinum Earrings and Rings? There seems to be some rathe reckless buying going on, too, at least from my point of view, so that gets me a little worried about what might happen once said people get to my stage and start buying up all the Gold Ingots...

In any case, it was time again for me to splurge on smashing some Gold Ingots in the hopes of further progressing my Goldsmithing. Thanks to the last harvest, I've had quite a lot of spare cash on me, so I felt justified in trying to skillup again.

And boy, am I glad I chose to skillup. Check this out! ^^

o.O?

O.o!!!

Here's the complete breakdown of that skillup session.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 71.0
Skillup synth: Moonring Blade (cap 73)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%)

70.0
14:48 Success, +0.1!

70.1
15:00 Success, +0.1!

At this point, I'm already quite happy with 2/2 skillups. Little did I know...

70.2
15:13 Success.
15:27 Success, +0.1!

Looking good...

70.3
15:41 Success.
15:59 Success, +0.1!

70.4
16:11 Success, +0.1!

70.5
16:24 Success, +0.1!

At this point, I could scarcely believe my own taru eyes. Was that three skillups in a row? Heck, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm not going to complain about it! ^^

70.6
16:38 Success.
18:05 Success.
18:18 Failed- lost the Tama-Hagane.
18:23 Success, +0.1!

Ah well, there had to be some semblance of slowdown somewhere. Besides, I didn't even lose the gold ingot on the break. ^^ After this, I decided to start desynthing the Moonring Blades I made, during which I got back two Gold Ingots (/cheer!) and a replacement Tama-Hagane so I could synth one last time...

70.7
23:23 Success, +0.1!

Wootaru!

Seriously, I haven't the foggiest idea what just happened. After all, who gets +0.8 skill in thirteen synths? Heck, who gets +0.8 skill in thirteen synths in the post-60 crafting world? Especially for something this expensive, I'll take it as it comes! ^^

Of course, the next step is to try to find out if this is a freak occurance, or if I have stumbled across something here. As such, the logical place to start would be to try synthing again under the same conditions (at least moon phase and day wise) to see if my skillup rate is as good then.

A quick look at the various Vana'diel calendars out there place the next Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%) to be on next Saturday, 12th November 2005. Unfortunately, Darksday is also from 5:12 in the morning to 6:09 (all times in EST), and I really don't think I can wake up for that. ^^

However, the next occurance will be on the following Friday, from 10:28pm to 11:26pm. That, I'm sure I can make, so we'll see then if the skillup rate is as good as it was today.

Time to mark them calendars...^^

And now, for something completely different.

2005-11-01T12:37:00.000-08:00

Bonus points if you got the reference. ^^

I have to admit, I was quite taken aback when I saw the comments written in my last post. For one, I didn't even think anybody even read this blog, but I feel very-wery honoured at receiving such nice comments from people from other servers! {/bow}. It's really nice to see that what you do isn't going to waste, although I have to admit, it's rather strange both comments came on the same day. ^^

I even got a /tell from another aspiring Goldsmither on Odin, Vile, and he too said some very nice things about this bloggaru, which again, made me a very happy taru. {/grin} ^^

Anyway, we spoke about a few things, and given how I have to put things on halt for a little bit, I might as well talk about them here as well. Besides, all I've been doing for the past month or so is talk about my skillups, which while admittedly is a large part of my Goldsmithing, is not all that is involved in a craft.

Of course, I find it rather strange to be dishing out advice, when there are many other Goldsmithers out there that are higher level than myself. We're approaching the time where several North American players are hitting the Goldsmithing 100 mark, which is quite obvious from the flurry of announcements and congratulations going on the in the forums over the last six months or so, so take what I say with a grain of salt. ^^

In particular, Vile and I talked about what he could do to get through the 50s. When I spoke to him, he had just hit Goldsmithing 50, but is not sure whether to take Goldsmithing past 60. I remember the time when I was a 50 Goldsmither, and those days were very different from now. For one, Gold Ingots were a 7k loss/synth, while now, they are 10k profit/synth. Of course, that didn't really make the transition period between Gold and Platinum any easier- in fact, trying to skillup on Gold Earrings and Gold Rings now is even more suicidal than before.

I didn't tell Vile about the Combat Caster's Boomerang +1 route that I personally took to get myself to 55, although one really does have to stretch his or her patience to get that far on CCB+1 alone. Nor did I tell him about my grand plan to start skilling up on Platinum Ingots at GS55, the finer details of which are outlined in one of this blog's very first posts.

I did, however, encourage him to take up gardening, which really is the fuel to all this, at least for me.

One thing I stressed was to be able to maintain a certain pace. This, of course varies from person to person. I, myself, am admittedly lazy. I do not go out and religiously keep all my mule's AH slots filled, heck I am lazy enough to the point where I don't really sell anything with my mules because I have to run all the way to the delivery NPC just to send my main character the money.

My pace, as you might be able to determine from the last few posts, is just to garden, and use the proceeds to fund 12 skillup synths each weekend. Others, try to aim for a +0.1 every day, others have their own style. Either way, the idea is to keep some semblance of a rhythm so you can plan things (and your finances!) better. In addition, if you have a "rhythm", you know that eventually you will break past whatever stage you are currently stuck on- for me, it's the 70s "hell". If I were to instead blow all my money on powerleveling, I'd probably end up very depressed and quit thereafter.

Don't get me wrong, occasionally I will go try to synth for profit. For example, I still occasionally chance upon the oppportunity as I see them (for example, just yesterday, I noticed there were no Silver Earrings +1 in stock), and take them as they come, but my easygoing pace means I'm not meticulously going over every single recipe with a fine tooth-comb to get profit. That's just me though. ^^

Nine levels to freeeeeeedom...

2005-10-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

Keeping more or less with the general plan of burning a stack of Gold a week (or at least, that was the case for the last two weeks), I decided I was carrying too much gil on me, and seeing it was a Full Moon, Windsday, I decided to try skilling up to get that last +0.3.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 70.7
Skillup synth: Moonring Blade (cap 73)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Windsday, Full Moon (98%)

70.7
11:37 Success.
11:49 Success.
12:00 Success, +0.1!

70.8
12:12 Success.
12:26 Failed- lost the Gold Ingot, Mercury.
12:40 Success.
12:52 Success.
13:03 Failed- lost the Gold Ingot.
13:17 Success.
13:29 Success.
13:41 Success, +0.1!

70.9
13:54 Success.
17:36 Success.

I was so disappointed after that. After thirteen synths, I only got +0.2. 0.2! For 1.5 million gil! I was a very sad taru. Even more frustrating, my skillups just abandoned me right at 70.9, too. -_-

If there was anything to be cheerful about though, my plants had finally bloomed and was ready to be harvested! I was quite pleased with my total yield, even though one mule turned out a dud and only managed to grow one stack of Platinum Nuggets. -_- In the end though, I managed to pull out 18 stacks of Platinum Nuggets from all my pots (60 pots), which at current prices of 230k/stk of Tree Cuttings and 190k/stk Platinum Nuggets, I just earned myself a nice extra 2.2 million gil or so, which is probably going to be spent funding next week's Gold Ingots. :P

In either case, I decided to try skilling up once more with one last Gold Ingot I made out of Beastcoins on Darksday. The first time, I failed the synth, but fortunately didn't lose the Gold Ingot. I did, however, lose the Tama-Hanage (my only one left), so a quick run down to the Jeuno Tenshodo was in order.

I then sat down once again, and held my breath. Thankfully, the magical words finally came across the screen:

{/joy} ^^

I really wonder how much I spent on this level. I went through an initial 26 Gold Ingots for my first 0.7, before desynthing everything and leaving me with four Ingots. I then used another thirteen Ingots today, bringing the total count to 35 Gold Ingots. Put all the costs and everything together, it's looking at roughly three sets worth of synths, or roughly 4.5-4.6 million gil for that one level.

Now, if only I can keep this up for another nine more levels...^^;

Headstrong...

2005-10-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

I figured that, after getting money from some KS99 runs I did awhile ago, I passed 5 million gil, so I felt now would be a good time to spend it.

And so I bought up another dozen synth's worth of materials to continue cranking away at those Moonring Blades, and went ahead. Of interest, Gold Ingots were selling for 1.4m/stk, but only around 110k/ea. Doing the math, you save 80k from buying it up in singles. Granted, 80k isn't much in the greater scheme of things, but firstly, it adds up, and secondly, who turns down 80k in 5 minutes? >_<

Contrary to my usual practice of skilling up on Darksday, I tried synthing on Windsday (the day of the crystal) instead, after hearing reports on the Alla tradeskills forum that concurred with something I suspected with that awful Watersday sometime back. Past a certain point, trying to skillup on the day your crystal is weak to is only going to make you tear your hair out.

And so, without further ado,

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 70.4
Skillup synth: Moonring Blade (cap 73)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Windsday, New Moon (2%)

70.4
13:30 Success.
13:42 Success.
13:56 Success, +0.1!

70.5
14:12 Success.
14:26 Failed- lost the Iron Ingot, Mercury, and Tama-Hagane, +0.1!

Yes, that is everything except the Gold Ingot. ^^

70.6
15:26 Success.
15:39 Success.
15:51 Failed, lost nothing. ^^
16:06 Success.
16:26 Failed, critical failure. ; ;
16:42 Failed, lost the Iron Ingot, Mercury, +0.1! ^^

70.7
17:05 Success.
17:17 Success.

And that is that. ^^ I tried desynthing all the blades I made, and actually managed to HQ3 two of them, getting back to Gold Ingot. I now have four Gold Ingots from the original twelve, which means that that +0.3 only cost me around 1 million gil. (Note the "only" ; ;)

{/welcome} to Hell. ; ;

2005-10-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

It took a while, but my plants finally grew. ^^

After reading on the Allakhazam forums that harvesting your plants too early resulted in bad yields, I thought back to my previous harvest and decided to wait one more real life day before harvesting. As a result, I'm very, very happy that I did, since this particular harvest was spectacular. I harvested about twenty and a half stacks of Platinum Nuggets, which at their current going rate of 170k/stk, net me a grand total of 2.4 million gil profit! {Yes, please}!

All those Platinum Nuggets, which I wasted little time in converting to Ingots was literally just enough to cap Platinum Rings. Initially, the going was slow, and I was getting worried that I might not be able to get the last +0.6 I needed to hit Goldsmithing 70 in three stacks of Platinum Ingots. Fortunately for me, the second to last synth gave me a skillup, bringing me to 69.9, and with my last two Platinum Ingots, I skilled up once more, bringing me to Goldsmithing 70!

And now, hell starts. ; ;

Goldsmithing in the 70s is nicknamed "hell", simply because everything you make is major loss. Not only does everything involve a Gold Ingot, but it is also impractical to sell whatever it is you make on the AH. As a result, you just bite the bullet, suck it up, and power your way through the 70s, desytnhing and NPC'ing your products as you go, just trying everything you can to claw your way out to the light at the end of the tunnel.
And a very, very, very long tunnel it is, too.

Let's assume that it takes three stacks of Gold Ingots to get one level. Already, you are looking at 30 stacks of Gold Ingots just to hit Goldsmithing 80, and this is in complete loss. Currently, Gold Ingots are selling for 1.4m/stk, so multiplied by 30 gives you the grand total of 42 million gil!

Of course, the recent update bringing in a whole lot of new gear that has a gold component isn't helping me out in the least when it comes to saving money during this part of the ride. -_-

Eventually, I sucked it up, and went to buy a stack of Gold Ingots off the AH. After some cost analysis and much cross-referencing, the cheapest synth I had available to me were Moonring Blades, which still amounted to about 125k loss/synth. -_-

I was hesistant to skillup, but after innocuously checking the /clock to see that it was Darksday, New Moon, I decided to go for it.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 70.0
Skillup synth: Moonring Blade (cap 73)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, New Moon (7%)

70.0
11:40 Success.
11:53 Success.
12:04 Failed- lost a Tama-Hagane, Gold Ingot, and Mercury.
12:19 Success.
12:31 Success.
12:46 Success.
12:58 Success, +0.1!

70.1
13:31 Failed- lost an Iron Ingot.
13:46 Succes, +0.1!

70.2
18:23 Failed- lost a Gold Ingot, Iron Ingot.
18:37 Success.
18:51 Success.
19:07 Success, 0.1!

1.5m gil later, I got +0.3. >_<

I don't know whether to feel miserable this is so damn expensive, or relieved that it gets worse later on. I'm going to have to start finding creative ways to support this hobby of mine soon. Assuming my harvests are like the last one was, I can actually sort of support a skillup rate of one block (12) of synths every week. That's not too bad a rate, I suppose...

Goldsmithing 69!

2005-09-23T20:05:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-09-19T01:22:00.000-07:00

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!

2005-09-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

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

There's something about Watersday...

2005-08-30T23:03:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days, I've been spending my time up in Rabao desynthing Mythril Earrings and turning them into sheets, all in preparation for skilling up on Hydro Patas. I've noticed my desynth rate to actually be rather good, and I can hit the 14 Earrings -> 12 Ingots mark quite regularly, which is nice since as I've mentioned before, this saves me quite a lot of money. >_<

If you want an idea of how much it saved me, my next skillup run consisted of 91 synths, so we'll say 90 Mythril Sheets. At 4140 gil per earring, it takes me roughly 14 Earrings and two stacks of Lightning Crystals and a stack of Fire Crystals to make a stack of Mythril Sheets, or about 68,000 gil for a stack of Mythril Sheets. Sheets sell on the AH for at least 110k, so that's a saving of 3,500 gil a Sheet. Multiply that by 91, and you have total "savings" of 318,500 gil! I've already detailed out how I also make my own Animal Glue, so as one might imagine, my financial input into these synths was cut down quite nicely. ^^

Anyway, supposedly, Watersday is good for skilling up on Fire-based synths, and so, I decided to turn 36 Bone Patas into Hydro Patas. Unfortunately, what resulted was an exercise in frustration.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 65.0
Skillup synth: Hydro Patas (cap 67)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Watersday, Waning Crescent (24%)

65.0
04:30 Success.
04:43 Success.
04:55
Success.
05:12 Success.
05:25 Success.
05:39 Success, +0.1!

65.1
05:52 Success.
08:17 Success.
08:31 Failed- lost a Mythril Sheet.
08:44 Failed- lost a Mythril Sheet, block of Animal Glue. +0.1!

65.2
08:58 Success.
09:11 Success.
09:23 Success.
09:35 Success.
09:48 Success.
10:05 Success.
10:17 Success.
13:30 Success, +0.1!

Already, one can tell that something is wrong. Even assuming the normal skillup rate of one skillup ever three or four synths, these 17 synths should have at least gotten me an additional +0.1 instead of the rather stingy +0.3 I received. Unfortuately, the worst was yet to come.

65.3
13:42 Failed- lost a Mythril Sheet, block of Animal Glue.
13:55 Success.
14:07 Success.
14:19 Success.
14:31 Success.
14:44 Failed- lost a block of Animal Glue.
14:57 Success.
15:11 Failed- lost a block of Animal Glue.
15:23 Success.
15:35 Success.
18:17 Failed- lost the Bone Patas.
18:29 Failed.
18:42 Success.
18:54 Success.
19:07 Success.
19:19 Success.
19:32 Success, +0.1!

65.4
19:46 Success.
19:59 Success, +0.1!

Count it. That's seventeen consecutive synths there without a single skillup. I was literally tearing my hair out at this point in frustration. Normally, if I sense the day was bad, I would quit trying to skillup altogether for the day, but I decided to tough this one out because I wanted to find out if Watersday really was all that cracked out to be. So far, I have yet to be convinced.

I synthed 36 times, which normally is enough to nearly get me a full level, but instead I got just half. Oh well, I went back to the normal scheme of things the following Darksday:
Starting Goldsmithing skill: 65.5
Skillup synth: Hydro Patas (cap 67)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (7%)
65.5
04:44 Success.
04:57 Success, +0.1!

65.6
05:10 Success, +0.1!

65.7
05:23 Success, +0.1!

65.8
05:48 Success.
06:00 Success.
06:16 Success, +0.1!

65.9
06:46 Failed- lost a block of Animal Glue.
07:09 Success.
08:23 Success, +0.1!

*drum roll*

Goldsmithing 66! /cheer! ^^

66.0
08:41 Success.
08:54 Success, +0.1!

66.1
09:08 Success.
09:22 Success.
09:36 Failed- lost the Bone Patas, +0.1!

66.2
09:49 Success.
10:01 Failed- lost a Mythril Sheet, Bone Patas.
11:33 Success, +0.1!

66.3
14:36 Success.
14:49 Success.
15:02 Success.
16:25 Success.
16:50 Success.
17:13 Success.
17:28 Success, +0.1!
66.4
17:41 Success.
17:56 Success.
18:13 Success.
18:25 Success.
18:49 Success.
19:02 Failed.
19:15 Success, +0.1!

At this point, I had run out of Mythril Sheets, and so had to trot back to Rabao to make some more. >_< That particular run started off very well though, and I was quite happy with it at the end of that skilling session. Even made one more Patas at the Upper Jeuno AH for fun and got a skillup out of that, too. ^^

Anyway, the next Darksday, I started up again.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 66.6
Skillup synth: Hydro Patas (cap 67)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%)

66.6
03:49 Success.
04:02 Success.
04:17 Success.
04:30 Success.
04:43 Success.
04:55 Success, +0.1!

66.7
05:08 Success.
06:40 Success, +0.1!

66.8
06:53 Success, +0.1!

66.9
07:18 Success.
07:33 Success.
09:19 Success.
09:32 Success.
09:46 Success.
10:00 Failed- lost the Bone Patas, +0.1!

TA-DAH! I'm finished with Hydro Patas! :D

Now, just one level separates me from my apron. Unfortunately, it's one heckuva level. Platinum Earrings, otherwise known as a 17k hit to the walletaru with each success, and that's not counting the breaks. I already tried synthing five Platinum Earrings, breaking tow in the process and getting a skillup. In total, that one skillup point cost me about 250k, so it hurt quite a lot. >_<

I'm wondering how to best approach this. On the one hand, I can farm up Moblumin Ingots in Oldton Movalpolos and synth those into sheets (they are cap 69). The advantages are that it does not cost me money, and the Moblumin Sheets are later used to make a Shrimp Lantern which caps at Goldsmithing 72, so I'll have part of that settled as well.

Unfortuantely, what it does not cost me in money, it costs me in time. >_< While Nynaeve has been getting pretty good luck in getting Moblumin Ingots, in all the times I've been down to the Oldton Movalpolos, I've gotten a grand total of ZERO drops. Nadda. All the time I spent down theretrying to farm them could've otherwise been spent desynthing for profit in Rabao. An hour in Rabao pays for about five synths, as opposed to an hour in Oldton Movalpolos, which supplies me with one synth, if even that. In the end, it's just a matter of simple opportunity cost. >_<

68 is very important to me. Not only do I get my Apron, but at Goldsmithing 68, with my Shades, and my Apron, with Advanced Imagery (+3), I synth as a 73 Goldsmither, which just squeaks me into the 51-HQ tier for Silver Earrings. Now, not only can I get relatively cheap Silver Ingots thru desynthesis, but at the 51-tier, HQ'ing say, 1/3rd of them give me very nice profit by itself. And then I can just break down the NQ Earrings to try and reroll for the HQ. Each HQ nets me about 20k profit, and I should be abe to HQ them nearly half the time. How's that for profit? ^^

Still, the push to 68 is harsh. I'm looking at the other five stacks of Platinum Ingots I have stashed up, and they're looking mighty tempting, I have to admit. >_< One thing's for sure though. I don't think I'll try skilling up on Watersday again. No, not after what happened, at least, not for a while.

Darksday {Yes, please.}

64! No wait, 65! ^^

2005-08-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

There comes a point when patience breaks down, and you just go for it. For me, that day just so happened to be today. ^^

It actually started when I looked at the AH again and noticed that there wasn't a single Platinum Ingot listed on the AH. No singles, no stacks. The stage was set for someone to quickly release their Platinum Ingots on the AH, which were sure to sell before the day was done.

What happened next was rather odd. Platinum Ores had fallen down to as low as 35k/ea. down in Jeuno, while they were still 50k/ea over in Bastok. However, Jeuno did not have any Platinum Nuggets in stock.

Bastok, on the other hand, had plenty of Platinum Nuggets, but no cheap Ore. ^^

Put 2 and 2 together, and you have a plan. ^^ After some airshipping down to Bastok, I had enough Platinum Nuggets to last me quite a while. I then Warped back up to Jeuno, and started synthing in front of the Auction House since I couldn't hold enough Platinum Ores in my inventory after all those Nuggetarus. >_< Surprisingly enough though, that last level went by pretty quickly. It only took me about two and a half stacks of Platinum Ingots to get my level, with some left over to complete a stack of Platinum Ingots for sale.

And then there was the magical two lines which only constitute about 90% of this blog's screenshots. :D

Goldsmithing 64! I'm done with Platinum Ingots! /cheer

From here onto Goldsmithing 67, it's pretty fast leveling. Since there is no need to grow any more Nuggets to make Platinum Ingots, I can now use any gardening I do as extra income to help support my Goldsmithing from here on, with the added benefit of being able to Ingot up the Nuggets for more convenient sales. Thanks to Kojiz, the Bonecrafter who supplied me with a lot of Bone Patas, I had two mules full of Patas to quite literally powerlevel my way through to 67.

The recipe for Hydro Patas is as follows: A fire crystal, a Bone Patas, a Mythril Sheet, and a block of Animal Glue.

Note that I have alternate methods of obtaining 2/3rds of the required ingredients. :D Mythril Sheets currently go for just above 110k per stack. However, with roughly two stacks of Lightning Crystals and a stack of Fire Crystals and some 14 Mythril Rings bought from good 'ol Scampblix in Rabao, I can make myself a stack of Mythril Sheets for about 60k, saving myself 50k in the process.

With Alchemy 60, I am into the 51+ tier on HQ'ing Animal Glue. A stack of Animal Glue sells for 17-20k on the AH. However, with four stacks of Bone Chips (12k), two stacks of Rabbit Hides (2.5k from NPC) and two stacks of Fire Crystals (7k), I can HQ to give me about three stacks of Animal Glue, saving myself another 40k or so on the Animal Glue.

It makes the leveling process...less painful, to say the least. ^^

Anyway, I tried synthing a few up with little success, and just one skillup, so waited until later to try again, this time recording the results. >_<

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 64.1
Skillup synth: Hydro Patas (cap 67)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Firesday, Waning Gibbous (86%)

64.1
02:35 Success.
02:47 Success, +0.1!
64.2
03:00 Success, +0.1!

64.3
03:14 Success.
05:42 Success, +0.1!

I was very happy at this point. After all, +0.3 skillups in five synths? {Yes, please}! Unfortunately, that was not to last. >_<

64.4
05:56 Failed- lost a Mythril Sheet.
06:08 Success.
06:22 Success.
08:46 Success.
08:59 Success.
09:12 Success.
09:25 Success.
09:37 Success.
09:50 Success.
10:04 Success, +0.1!

64.5
10:16 Success.

Hit a string of ten synths without a single skillup.../sigh. At this point, I had run out of Mythril Sheets, so I had to go make some more before attempting to skillup again. Some hours later...

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 64.5
Skillup synth: Hydro Patas (cap 67)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Lightningday, Last Quarter Moon (55%)

64.5
16:44 Success, +0.1!

64.6
17:05 Success, +0.1!

64.7
17:19 Success, +0.1!
During these last few synths, I was in a party with my friend, Seraphpdh after watching him get Cooking 100 (btw, {Congratulations!} ^^) After getting 3/3 skillups, we were joking that he brings me good luck and good skillups. Can't say I disagree with him...^^

64.8
17:34 Success.
17:49 Success.
18:03 Success.
18:16 Success, +0.1!

64.9
18:32 Failed- lost the Bone Patas, Animal Glue, and Mythril Sheet. +0.1!

Critical failure. >_< But oh well, I got Goldsmithing 65! :D Strangely enough, I don't have a screenshot of this. Not too sure why either, I must've forgotten or something like that. -_-

65.0
18:58 Success.
19:17 Success.

Ah well. ^^ It took a total of 33 synths to get one level (including the seven I tried to get that first +0.1), so overall, it's pretty much on par with the one 1:3 skillup ratio in the post-50 world.

The Hydro Patas are NPC'ed for 2,550 gil in Upper Jeuno, or if I feel particularly miserly, 2,601 gil elsewhere. It's only a 50 gil difference, although when you think about it, I'll probably be making about a hundred of these, but even then, what's 5000 gil? >_<

I'm curious just how much I'm losing a synth though. Doing the calculations:

Fire Crystal (12): 4000 gil
Bone Patas (1): 3,500 gil (x12 = 42,000 gil)
Animal Glue (12): 20,000 gil
Mythril Sheet (12): 110,000 gil
=====================================
Total cost (12): 176,000 gil (= 14,667 gil/synth)

So with an NPC resale of 2,550 gil, I lose 12,117 gil a synth, which isn't too bad I suppose. When you factor in the fact that I obtained my Animal Glue and Mythril Sheets through alternate means, I actually halve that loss, down to about 6,600 gil/synth, which is a much nicer figure. ^^

Now to wait for the maintenance to be over and done with so I can get back to making more Mythril Sheets to get up to 67, although I don't know if I have enough Bone Patas to last me that long. >_<

Goldsmithing 63!

2005-08-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

I've been synthing rather randomly nowadays, mostly due to an urge to try and skillup due to a lack of gardening (which will hopefully change soon!) and a desire to hit 63.

As it turns out, all those Hosodachis I made have not gone to waste- I made a Hosodachi that gave me a +0.1 skillup to Goldsmithing, putting me at 62.9. Sure, I lost half the ingredients, but the ingredients were fairly cheap, and besides, I don't care as long as I skilled up. ^^

Unfortunately, leaving me at 62.9 was rather mean. One day later, out of an itch to try and synth (again, I know :P), I decided to craft up two Platinum Ingots. The first one didn't give me a skillup, but the second...^^

DING!! Goldsmithing 63! ^^

I have one last level of Platinum to go, and I'm wondering if I should just buy my Platinum Nuggets from the AH and try running with those instead. I won't be able to start growing for another week, and after that, I still ahve another two weeks before the plants reach maturation. That's three weeks of inactivity, during which my Bonecrater is churning out more Bone Patas for me to use. >_< I think in all practicality, it'd be better for me to just skillup off ingredients bought from the AH, and hope I eventually complete that level.

Speaking of Bone Patas, I have a _lot_ of them waiting in three mules. It's probably enough to take me a level and a half, too...all I need to do now is craft up enough Mythril Sheets to go with the tons of Animal Glue I've already made, and then it's time to push to 67! ^^

Must...skillup...

2005-08-23T04:27:00.000-07:00

Well, the Hosodachis faded out real quick. >_<

As it turned out, several other people found out about the Hosodachis, or people are just returning theirs, and as a result, there are now plenty of Hosodachis up on sale, with each person undercutting the others to drive the price down. I really didn't want to get into a price war, but seeing as how the last Hosodachi sold for 45k (as opposed to 60k in the last entry), I guess I have no choice. ; ;

Anyway, I decided to craft two more stacks of Platinum Ingots today, which is something I normally don't do, at least, not with materials bought from the Auction House.

Because of my real life plans, I have been unable to garden simply because I was not able to check my plants daily, and so, instead of risking it, I decided to wait it out until I reach a period where I can start my next harvest with peace of mind. Unfortuantely, that day is twelve days from today. Yes, I could theoretically plant and harvest in time, but that's cuttings things real close, and personally, I rather not take the chance.

However, Faeyth (one of my friends) was starting his venture into gardening Platinum Nuggets, and after a successful harvest of nearly five stacks of Nuggets (he only had ten pots), I decided to buy them off him and craft them up. Besides, I was also itching to get some skilling done, so went ahead and bought up some more materials at the AH. >_<

In addition to the Platinum Ores I had stashed on my mule, I bought a grand total of eight more Platinum Ores for 292,500 gil, and eight stacks of Platinum Nuggets for 621,000 gil. In addition to that, I bought all of Faeyth's Nuggets, 56 in total, for 336,000 gil. That, and the requisite Fire Crystals for 3k/stk in Jeuno (wootaru!), I invested a total of 1,255,500 gil, not counting the Platinum Ores I already had on my mule.

The skillup was split into two sessions, one of Lightsday, the other on Darksday,

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 62.4
Skillup synth: Platinum Ingot (cap 64)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Lightsday, Waxing Crescent (24%)

62.4
03:32 Success.
03:44 Success.
03:56 Success.
04:10 Success.
05:45 Success, +0.1!

62.5
05:59 Failed- lost 1 Platinum Ore, 5 Platinum Nuggets, +0.1!

62.6
06:24 Success.
06:44 Success.
07:06 Success.
07:19 Success.
07:31 Success.
08:55 Success.

I found it a little unusual to get just +0.2 in twelve synths, considering past skillup sessions net me +0.4. At the time, I thought Lightsday had something to do with that, and so decided to try out Lightsday's opposite.

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 62.6
Skillup synth: Platinum Ingot (cap 64)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Pluto's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Darksday, Waxing Crescent (26%)

62.6
10:47 Success.
11:00 Success.
13:06 Success.
13:42 Success, +0.1!

62.7
13:58 Success.
14:19 Success.
14:40 Success.
15:02 Failed- lost 1 Platinum Ore, 4 Platinum Nuggets.
15:25 Success.
15:37 Success, +0.1!

62.8
17:15 Failed- lost 2 Platinum Nuggets.
17:28 Success.
18:37 Success.
18:49 Success.

Surprisingly, I did not skillup any better on Darksday than Lightsday, although the increased fail rate is more evident. Granted, these are very small samples, and I suppose my rather disappointing skillup rate over the two stacks would mostly be attributed to bad luck. I can't help but think about trying to compare these synths to another skillup session on a Waxing Crescent.

Anyway, in total, I used 25 Platinum Ores, 149 Nuggets, and 26 Fire Crystals to get 23 Platinum Ingots out. I took a spare Platinum Ingot I had lying around my Storage to complete the second stack. Cost wise, Platinum Ores were a high of 39k/ea, while the Nuggets were 78k/stk. Fire Crystals in Jeuno were at a surprisingly low, at 3k/stk. Overall, the costs add up as:

Fire Crystal (12): 4000 gil (x2.167)
Platinum Ore (1): 39,000 gil (x25)
Platinum Nugget (12): 78,000 gil (x12.147)
=====================================
Total cost: 1,931,134 gil

I ended up making 23 Ingots, which sell for 1 million a stack, so that's roughly 1,916,667 gil out for a loss of 14,167 gil. Since I sold these Ingots, I had to incur an additional cost of about 21k for AH taxes. >_<

Still, 35k for 0.4 skill points is pretty good for this stage.

I'm getting to work stockpiling Bone Patas up and getting the various ingredients together. It's a good thing I can HQ Animal Glue, since those are currently going at 20k/stk at the Jeuno AH, while the materials for a dozen synths cost me roughly 10k, and I can HQ Animal Glue at the 51-tier as well! All in all, I'll save myself roughly 130k just by making my own Animal Glue. ^^

Getting together some ten stacks of Mythil Sheets, on the other hand, will take quite some time in Rabao. >_<

Hosodachis!

2005-08-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

Nappycat found me a little gem of a synthesis a few days ago. As the name implies, that synth is a Hosodachi, a Greak Katana with a synthesis cap of Goldsmithing 64. The Hosodachi is one of the better Great Katanas available to a SAM37, and currently sells for about 60k on the AH.

The materials to make the Hosodachi cost approximately 27k. ^^

So not only is this quite a profitable synth (32k profit? {Yes, please}), I can even skillup on it en route to 64!

However, the recipe has some subcrafts which are probably responsible for its profit margin. Other than Goldsmithing 64, the required subcrafts are Alchemy 51 and Leathercraft 40. Now, most Goldsmithers have their Alchemy to 60 in preparation for making Cursed gear, however, not many Goldsmithers have their Leathercraft up.

And so, when Nappycat told me of the synth, I set about powerleveling my Leathercraft to the point where making Hosodachis was practical. It wasn't particularly difficult, mostly because I already had Leathercraft 20 to start, and I had plenty of Dark Crystals left over from growing Platinum Nuggets, not to mention that I only needed to make Parchment (which I can send to Nappycat to make Piccolos +1 and split the profits), and Ram Leather, which is profitable in itself.

At Leathercraft 32, Nappycat started bugging me to sign a Hosodachi for him, despite my concerns that my Leathercraft was not high enough. He assured me though, that one could not fail by using an HQ crystal, although that claim was quickly put to rest when I broke two of them trying to make a Hosodachi. >_<

After a few more levels of Ram Leather though, I had reached Leathercraft 35, and could now feasibly synthesise a Hosodachi with advanced Leathercraft imagery. I ended up making five Hosodachis in total, failing once more in between. Four were sold to the Auction House, and the last, I signed and gave to Nappycat. All in all, the four sold Hosodachis gave me a nice 128k profit. Unfortunately, I didn't get any Goldsmithing skillups- only +0.3 Leathercraft. >_<

Unfortunately, it seems that other people have started to catch onto things. I was trying to keep things on the low-down on the Hosodachis, for fear of people flooding the market, although that hope seems short-lived. Last I checked, there were five Hosodachis up on sale, and goodness knows if they will sell quickly, or if people will start undercutting the price down.

In other news, I decided to sell two stacks of Platinum Ingots in preparation for the Hydro Patas stage, and have already started stockpiling up Bone Patas at roughly 4-5k each. Unfortunately, I forgot to keep track of how many Patas I bought, so I don't think I can keep track of a running total. Besides, the last two runs of Platinum Ingots have shown me that the prices can vary wildly, even within levels, and so, it's really not practical to try and keep a running total as an account of how expensive, or costly Goldsmithing is.

My purchases did not go unnoticed. ^^

I've recently been contacted by an aspiring Bonecrafter, who has offered to sell me the Bone Patas that me crafts up for just 3.5k each. Not only does that settle my supply of Bone Patas, it also saves me an estimated 180k when skilling the Hydro Patas stage, or Goldsmithing 64-67! Not bad of a find, I must say! ^^

Soon, when I return home, I will be able to start up another round of gardening, and maybe create a fifth mule in order to accomodate a full sixty pots, or exactly five stacks of Tree Cuttings. At least that will make the purchases easier. The resulting Nuggets should give me about +1.5 skill levels, or put me at Goldsmithing 63.9 or so, from which I can easily churn out the last 0.1 from materials bought from the AH. Then, gardening will turn to means to sustaining my Goldsmithing. Hopefully, all goes well from there. ^^

It's also starting to alarm me just how fast certain people can level up this craft. Over on the Killing Ifrit forums, there is an aspiring Goldsmither by the name of Navia, who has been taking an active role, participating and sharing her experiences Goldsmithing with the forums.

However, I couldn't help but notice that Navia is now Goldsmithing 75.3, but only started roughly three months ago! Compare that to myself, who has been working on Goldsmithing for the past year, and I can't help but feel a little bit envious, although to be fair, Navia's been working a lot harder at Goldsmithing than I. I wonder what level I would be at right now, had I been as diligent as she?

Back on the skilling treadmill...

2005-08-14T22:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my plants finally reached maturity. I harvested all 40 pots on Iceday, Waxing Crescent (29%), and got a pretty decent harvest in the end: 26 chunks of Rock Salt, 69 Dark Crystals, and 196 Platinum Nuggets, or just over 16 full stacks of the stuff.

I've also been stockpiling a few more Platinum Ores, and actually overshot. >_< I only need thirty-two Platinum Ores to support all the Nuggets, but when I went over to my mule to count, I had at least fifty-one stocked up. >_< Anyway, my last "in between" purchase was another thirteen Platinum Ores for 502,823 gil.

A quick breakdown tells me that the Tree Cuttings cost exactly 500,000 gil, while the Platinum Nuggets, at their current price of 80,000 gil a stack, bring in 1,306,667 gil, or 806,667 gil profit. Not as large as my last harvest, but the price of Tree Cuttings have since risen (while the price of Platinum Nuggets fell ; ;).

Armed with Nuggets and Ores, it was time to synth!

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 61.4
Skillup synth: Platinum Ingot (cap 64)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Shaded Spectacles, Vulcan's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Windsday, First Quarter Moon (45%)

61.4
9:00 Success.
9:13 Success.
9:40 Failed- lost 1 Platinum Ore, 2 Platinum Nuggets.
9:52 Success.
10:07 Success.
10:22 Success, +0.1!

61.5

10:41 Success.
10:55 Success, +0.1!

61.6
12:46 Success.
13:04 Failed- lost 1 Platinum Nugget.
13:19 Success, +0.1!

61.7
13:33 Success.

13:56 Success.
16:33 Success, +0.1!

61.8
16:47 Success.
17:03 Success.
17:17 Success.
17:31 Success.
17:54 Success.
18:07 Success.
18:20 Success, +0.1!

61.9

18:35 Success, +0.1!

Which brings me to...

YAY! /cheer /joy ^^

To keep the level gap constant, I took off my Shaded Spectacles at this point.

62.0
21:20 Success, +0.1!

62.1
21:33 Failed- lost 1 Platinum Ore, 4 Platinum Nuggets.
23:03 Success.
23:19 Success.
23:33 Success.
23:50 Success.

It now changed to Iceday, First Quarter Moon (48%).

00:26 Success.
00:58 Success.
01:13 Success.
01:26 Success, +0.1!

62.2
01:39 Failed- lost 1 Platinum Nugget.
01:52 Success, +0.1!

62.3
04:42 Success.
04:57 Success, +0.1!

And there you have it. A full 36 synths later, I got +1.0 skill gains. Quite good, if you were to ask me. ^^

Calculating costs, I used up 200 Platinum Nuggets, 34 Platinum Ores, and 36 Fire Crystals. Current prices are:

Fire Crystal (12): 4000 gil
Platinum Ore (1): 40,000 gil
Platinum Nugget (12): 80,000 gil
=====================================
Total cost: 2,705,333 gil

I made 32 Platinum Ingots, or at current prices of 1 million gil per stack, I got back 2,666,667 gil. Which means I actually lost money on that skillup session! Guess those breaks really did make a difference after all! >_<

Still, 38,666 gil for +1.0? Yeah, I'd take that. ^^I am however, fast approaching a problem. It seems that there are multiple Goldsmithers at my level now, and not enough demand for full stacks of Platinum Ingots. In face, even singles don't move that quickly, and there are already plenty up on the AH. The problem is that I now have just over seven million gil locked up in Platinum Ingot form, and I need to somehow sell them, so I can buy more Tree Cutings to grow the next batch of Nuggets! Hopefully all will turn out well in the end...hopefully. >_<

Maybe I ought to try and strike up a private deal with some of the higher-level Goldsmithers?

Summary:
Today's accounts: -502,823 gil
Amount invested from 60.0: 6,283,063 gil.
Overall cost of 60.0~61.0: +54,044 gil.
Overall cost from 61.0~62.0: +32,667 gil.
Overall cost from 62.0~: -38,000 gil.

Stockpiling.

2005-08-04T10:35:00.000-07:00

My plants are growing fine, and with a little luck, I should be feeding their first crystal tonight. In the meantime, I've been leveling up my other crafts, and have also been stockpiling Platinum Ores in anticipation of this upcoming harvest. Bought eleven Platinum Ores today, at 43k each, except for one which I managed to get at 42k. ^^

I think my mule has at least thirty Platinum Ores on her now, so I'm not sure if I should continue to stockpile. I'm also debating if I should sell some of my Ingots, since I will need the money, but Nynaeve told me of a new way to skillup Goldsmithing that does not involve Platinum, so is a very welcome change. Unfortunately, I can't really mention it right now, since it's pretty much her secret, but I'll write about it once Nynaeve and I are done. ^^

Summary:
Today's accounts: -472,000 gil
Amount invested from 60.0: 5,780,240 gil.
Overall cost of 60.0~61.0: +54,044 gil.
Overall cost from 61.0~: +33,333 gil.

Ready to continue.

2005-08-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

Wow. Between fixing my computer, and a two-week long holiday to Japan, add in another weekend visit to family, and that is one heck of a long time I have not updated this blog!

Fortunately, it seems that now, at least I'll be able to log on consistently at least once a day to check in on any plants for the next two weeks, and with that in mind, I set about to start my second round of gardening.

The break really did put the brakes on the skilling though. In the time I've been away, I should be almost done with my fifth harvest by now, although as it stands, I'm about the start my second. Shame, really- I'd probably be closing the 60s, and probably have my apron by now. Ah well, C'est la vie?

Platinum has taken somewhat of a dip, falling to 40k-45k each, which did not bode well for the multiples of Platinum Ores I had stored on my mule. >_< More alarming, there are an increasing number of stacks of Platinum Ingots up on the AH for sale, and given the trends, it looks like they are coming from people who are also skilling up on Platinum Ingots like I.

While I personally do not plan to sell my Platinum Ingots to the AH, I realise that this is something I am going to have to do anyway. From my last skillup session, it seems that from 61.4 to 64.0 (when they cap), I will need to make another nine stacks of Platinum Ingots, or have another 9 million stored up on my mule. Unfortunately, my current balance is just over three million gil, so at some point, something will have to give way, and I imagine that I will have to release some stacks in order to continue.

Of course, that all depends on how rich my harvests are. I suppose if they are large enough, I can afford to sell a stack to recuperate the losses, and then keep the extra Ingots as profit. That ought to work, I guess.

Anyway, I managed to swipe off six Tree Cuttings (singles) off the AH at 8k each. Stacks are now going for 130k per stack, which I ended up buying three of, and I had a few leftover Cuttings from the last gardening session. In total, I spent 438k on Tree Cuttings today. I also picked up a single Platinum Ore for the low, low price of 36k, although unfortuantely, no more were selling at that price. >_<

It has also come to my attention that I did not record when I planted my last batch of plants, nor keep track of when I fed them, etc. So in lieu of that, I'll make a note of that now, just in case it turns out to be fruitful later in the future.

Gardening Session #2:
Planted: Lightningday, Waning Gibbous (93%)

There we go. Now to wait another twelve days before harvesting, and hopefully, I'll be into Level 62 at the end of it all! ^^

Summary:
Today's accounts: -474,000 gil
Amount invested from 60.0: 5,308,240 gil.
Overall cost of 60.0~61.0: +54,044 gil.
Overall cost from 61.0~: +33,333 gil.

A commision!

2005-07-14T22:07:00.000-07:00

As strange as it may sound, I was actually approached today by a friend, Fishura, who needed a Platinum Ingot to work on his RDM JSE. Quite literally, I walked into the AH in Port Jeuno, /waved to Fishura, who happened to be there, and he basically said, "Ah, perfect timing," much to my surprise.

I told Fishura what I needed to make a Platinum Ingot, and he went ahead and bought a stack of Platinum Nuggets and a Platinum Ore, which puzzled me, since this was a whole 20k more expensive than just buying one off the AH! He said it'd take too long to buy the Nuggets off the AH one at a time, so >_<.

I didn't take the specific time into account, but I know it was in the last few hours of Earthsday, since I was kinda trying to hurry Fishura up before it turned over to Watersday, and I would have greater chance of breaking his materials.

As it turned out, the first attempt failed, and fortunately, only four Platinum Nuggets were lost. The second time went fine though, and Fishura let me keep the leftover Nuggets.

This got me wanting to skillup again, and so, while I normally wouldn't do this, bear in mind that I had been gone from the game for a month, and in addition to that, because I will be going on holiday tomorrow, I have not been able to grow any Platinum Nuggets for my consumption. And so, I decided to satisfy my impulse for skilling, and bought five stacks of Platinum Nuggets off the AH for 349k total. In combination with the extra stack of Platinum Nuggets I had from the last skillup session, I now had just enough to last exactly twelve synths- enough to quell my need to skill, and not so much so as to break my walletaru. >_<

I also incidentally, picked up one more Platinum Ore off a random mining trip to Oldton Movalpolos, but due to my philosophy behind farming materials to "save" costs, (it doesn't save you anything), I'll count it as though I bought it off the AH.

The starting conditions for this skillup session were:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 61.0
Skillup synth: Platinum Ingot (cap 64)
Imagery Support: None
Equipment of note: Shaded Spectacles, Vulcan's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire
Moon phase: Windsday, Waxing Crescent (17%)

61.0
06:10 Success.
06:23 Success.
06:36 Success, +0.1!

61.1
06:50 Success.
07:02 Success.
07:16 Success, +0.1!

61.2
07:39 Success.
08:00 Success, +0.1!

61.3
08:14 Success.
09:52 Failed- lost 3 Platinum Nuggets.
10:06 Success, +0.1!

61.4
10:19 Success.

And then my twelve synths was up. Too bad for the break, otherwise I would've had a very nice stack to add to my mule's collection, but since I had nine loose Ingots in Storage, I just shipped one over and the stack was complete. ^^

Over the course of today, including Fishura's synths, I used up a total of 14 Fire Crystals, 79 Platinum Nuggets, and 12 Platinum Ores. Current AH prices for these are:

Fire Crystals: 5k/stk
Platinum Ore: 50k/ea
Platinum Nuggets (12): 70k

Doing the math, that's 1,066,667 gil out to make a total of twelve Platinum Ingots, or one stack, which sells for 1.1m at the moment, leading to a 33,333 gil profit (although 20k of this would normally get taxed if I chose to sell to AH). However, of all this, I only actually spent 399k on my own ingredients.

The skillup rate seems to be fairly consistent, skilling up once every three synths. It shouldn't be too much longer before I hit 62, although I'll get around to that once I get back from my trip. ^^

Summary:
Today's accounts: +33,333 gil
Amount invested from 60.0: 4,834,240 gil.
Overall cost from 60.0: +54,044 gil.
Overall cost from 61.0: +33,333 gil.

A very rich mule...

2005-07-13T03:48:00.000-07:00

Picked up another fifteen Platinum Ores today, bringing the total count up to 34 Platinum Ores all stored up, waiting for me to use them. If the last level was any indication, I almost have enough Platinum Ores to last me one whole level of skillups, which is something I'd very much like. ^^

One of the perks of doing this though, is that I'm in the ironic situation where my mule holds a whole lot more cash than my main character, well, assuming I were to liquidate the Platinum I've stored there.

Currently, that all amounts up to four stacks of Platinum, and thirty-four Platinum Ores, bringin my mule's value in Platinum alone to be roughly 6.1 million gil! Compare that to my main character, which has just 3.5 million, although granted, the spells and gear tip the scales back in favour of the main. Kinda scary to think that my mule's Platinum could almost buy a second set of HQ staves though...

I'm also debating whether to grow my nuggets, or just buy them off the AH and get through the Platinum Ingot stage faster. I've calculated things, and at current AH prices, I make about 60k profit per stack of Platinum Ingots, so just a straight conversion from ingredients to Ingots is certainly possible. I'm personally more worried about a definite oversupply of Platinum that's going on. I certainly don't remember Platinum Ores being this easy to collect, whereas now, I can easily walk up to the AH and come back with an armful of Ores, whereas before, I had to camp the AH for days on end to get my Ores, one by one. I wonder...

Summary:
Today's accounts: -750,000 gil.
Amount invested from 60.0: 4,485,240 gil.
Overall cost from 60.0: +54,044 gil.

Shopping for Platinum

2005-07-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

I think I'll try to fit in one more round of Platinum Ingots. That should leave me at Goldsmithing 62, five levels below the Hydro Patas cap. From then, I can alternative between Hydro Patas and more Platinum Ingots, until 67. It also gives Sanzou (who I asked) some time to get his Bonecraft up to the point where he can make Hydro Patas for me (he's Bonecraft 54 right now). ^^

So I buckled down and bought up some Platinum Ores at their new (increased) price, and wasn'taru very happy about it! >_< I managed to scrape a few (5) for 49k, but the rest (14 of them) were all at 50k each, for a total of 945k spent. ; ; This had bettaru be worth it! >_<

Summary:
Today's accounts: -945,000 gil.
Amount invested from 60.0: 3,735,240 gil.
Overall cost from 60.0: +54,044 gil.

Economic changes.

2005-07-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

I'm back! It took just over a month, but now my computer is (hopefully) fixed, and it's time to get on with things. ^^

Having being gone for such a time period, the prices would've almost certainly changed, and so, one of the first things I did upon logging back in was to look up the price of my materials. When I left, Platinum Ores were going for 20-22k, so I expected something around 25-30k to be the current going rate. Unfortunately...

As some would put it, "orz".

Stacks of Platinum Ingots have also risen a little bit, to just under 1.2m/stk, but there are plenty of stacks up on the AH now, which is certainly puzzling, given the sudden influx of Goldsmithers skilling up on them. What's more worrying is that these Goldsmithers are all around my level, and there aren't enough higher level Goldsmithers who could buy the Platinum Ingots, so I'm expecting a price war shortly. /sigh...

Anyway, as I'm going off on a holiday in a few days, I won't be able to grow any Platinum Nuggets. However, what I figure I will do is try to get my synths in order, and hunt around for that niche in the market where I can turn over a good profit. Mythril Ingots are starting to get rather tedious. ^^

There also needs to be some reconsideration as to what the skillup on as well. Given that Platinum Ores have now doubled in price, with 74k/stk Nuggets, you are putting 87k on the line per synth. Let's assume out of every twelve synths, ten of them succeed. That's still a 174k loss.

Now, if I were to compare that figure to Hydro Patas, the Patas might now be the more economical route to go. However, I need to first figure out where I'm going to get all the Bone Patas from, and compare prices before deciding what to do.

Summary:
Today's accounts: +0 gil.
Amount invested from 60.0: 2,790,240 gil.
Overall cost from 60.0: +54,044 gil.

Skill, skill, skill! ^^

2005-06-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

With my plants grown and harvested, now began the long process of arranging all my mules to enable easy transfer of both Platinum Ores and Platinum Ingots to my main character. Once that was done, it was time for the first skillup session of this journaru! /cheer

Quick recap on stuff before I proceed:

Starting Goldsmithing skill: 60.1
Skillup synth: Platinum Ingot (cap 64)
Imagery Support: Advanced
Equipment of note: Shaded Spectacles, Vulcan's Staff
Direction: North
Location: Mog House
Moghancement: Powerful Fire

And so, I began! I recorded the time in which I made the synths as well- long time periods obviously mean that either I had to mule, or run off to grab Advanced Imagery again, or my computer crashed. >_<

Moon phase: Lightsday, Full Moon (100%)

60.1
05:45 Success.
05:55 Success.
06:07 Success, +0.1!

60.2
06:20 Success, +0.1!

60.3
06:32 Success.
06:49 Success.
07:02 Success.
09:32 Success.
09:44 Success.
09:57 Success.
10:09 Success.

Getting fed up of not skilling up, I decided to take off my Shades at this point. >_<

11:21 Success.
11:34 Success, +0.1!

Seemed to work. ^^

60.4
14:06 Success.
14:19 Success. +0.1!

60.5
14:32 Success.
14:48 Failed- lost 1 Platinum Ore, 1 Platinum Nugget.
15:01 Success.
15:13 Success.
20:42 Success.
20:55 Success.
22:10 Success, +0.1!

60.6
22:22 Success, +0.1

60.7
22:35 Success.
22:47 Success.
23:00 Success, +0.1!

60.8
23:12 Success. +0.1!

It now turned to Darksday, Full Moon (98%).

60.9
01:40 Success.
01:52 Success.
02:05 Success.
03:24 Success, +0.1!

DING! Goldsmithing 61! /cheer ^^

I was out of Platinum Ores at this point, as well as both the Bastok and Jeuno AH'es, so I was forced to stop here. Good timing though, I must say. ^^

So, in summary, I used up 181 Platinum Nuggets, or 15 stacks and 1 single; 31 Platinum Ores, and 31 Fire Crystals. Given the current AH prices of the ingredients,

Fire Crystals: 5k/stk
Platinum Ore: 25k/ea
Platinum Nuggets (1): 9k
Platinum Nuggets (12): 100k

My ingredients for this skillup session cost me a grand total of 2,297,756 gil, also including the four times I had to go grab Advanced Imagery support (210 gil/ea).

In return, I made 30 Platinum Ingots, which sell for 80k/ea, or 960k/stk and so, the resulting Ingots are worth 2.4 million gil!

Hence, this skillup session made me 102,244 gil! In actuality, I made a whole lot more than that, since I grew my own Platinum Nuggets, so my actual profit, were I to sell the Ingots would be closer to 1.3 million gil! Skillup and profit? {Yes, please!} /grin

I have some observations, however. The skillup rate averaged just a little bit over 3 synths per +0.1, which feels about the same as in the 50s. I guess 40 synths per level is a fairly safe estimate. So far, I have 57 Platinum Ingots stored away (very nice to know these are currently worth 4.56 million gil. ^^), which I am saving to convert into Platinum Rings for the 64-70 skillups.

However, based on current estimates, I will need to make 240 rings, or will need some forty stacks of Platinum Ingots! I barely have five stacks, let alone forty! orz...

To relieve pressure on the Platinum Ingots, I may look into making some Hydro Patas, although to get the better prices, I'd better start hunting for an aspiring Boneworker looking to skillup off Bone Patas...Hmmm...

Summary:
Today's accounts: +102,244 gil.
Amount invested from 60.0: 2,790,240 gil.
Overall cost from 60.0: +54,044 gil.

One more thing of note: I am sending my computer in for repairs, and as such, won't be playing for a little over a month from now. >_< As such, I will freeze the day count in the titles to more accurately portray the amount of time spent on Goldsmithing. I guess I might write up a new entry, just as a commentary every now and then though. ^^

It has also since come to my attention that, while I have made 54k profit skilling from 60-61 assuming I bought and resold to AH, the cost to list two and a half stacks of Platinum Ingots would total roughly 50k. So it was pretty much breakeven. >_<

Harvest Day!

2005-06-03T15:52:00.000-07:00

My plants have finally grown! As a summary, I planted my plants on Earthsday, fed them on Earthsday, fed them again on Lightsday (I usually try feeding them on Darksday the second time), and finally harvested them on Earthsday. Or at least, I tried to harvest them on Earthsday, but the connection crashed on me, and I only managed to harvest thirty pots in time.

By the time I got to harvets the last ten pots, it had turned to Watersday. >_<

Anyway, here are the results from this harvest. Once again, keep in mind that I planted 40 pots worth of Tree Cuttings.

Pots: 40
Rock Salt: 27
Dark Crystals: 54
Platinum Nuggets: 187

That amounts to 4 stacks of Dark Crystals, with 6 extra crystals, and 15 stacks of Platinum Nuggets, with 7 extra. Assuming current prices at 4k/stk of Dark Crystals, and 110k/stk of Platinum Nuggets, the total yield was worth roughly 1.74 million gil, or about 1.22 million gil profit. Very nice indeed!

However, the price of Platinum has continued to grow, mostly because of renewed interest in skilling up. Platinum Ores now regularly go for 25k/ea at both the Jeuno and Bastok AH'es, and as mentioned earlier, the Nuggets go for 110k/stk. That sets the production cost for one Platinum Ingot to be 80k/synth, and the Ingot sells for 70k/ea on the AH, for 10k loss/synth.

Amazing isn't it? What was once profitable has now been turned into a loss. This isn't the only recipe that comes to mind- Combat Caster's Boomerangs +1 were also profitable, until that, too, was ruined. I think it's back to a profitable synth now though. At least, the last time I checked, the profit margin per synth was still the same, although it's been a while since then.

Summary:
Today's accounts: +0 gil.
Amount invested from 60.0: 2,789,400 gil.
Overall cost from 60.0: -48,200 gil.

Market Update.

2005-05-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

As my plants approach maturation, I've been slowly accumulating the Platinum Ore required to make the Ingots. Prices have been slowly rising as of late, partially due to a recent push by several aspiring Goldsmithers to synth up Platinum, and Platinum now consistently trades for 22-25k each on the Jeuno AH.

During this time, I've managed to snag up a total of sixteen Platinum Ores, all for a grand total of 350,200 gil, or just about 22k each, so I'm fine with that. My plants have also reached the point where I have fertilized them twice, and have spent 40k in Light Crystals (8 stacks) feeding my plants.

Prices are steadily rising though. In addition to Platinum Ore prices going up, Platinum Nuggets have been skyrocketing as of late, too. What used to be an easy 50-60k/stk, has recently shot up to 110k/stack! That puts the cost of synthing a Platinum Ingot to be roughly 80k per Ingot, and with current prices, that's 10k loss/synth. Shocking that this was a profitable synth just a few weeks ago! >_<

Actually, the price of Platinum Ingots have also risen. They used to be just 50k/ea. when I first started making them, and have since risen to 70k/ea. Incidentally, they also sell at the same rate in stacks, at 840k/stk. of Platinum Ingots. Good thing too, since for a while, I was getting scared Gold Ingots would cost the same as Platinum. >_<

Anyway, I've also noticed that the price of stacks of Tree Cuttings have fallen to 100k/stk on Odin. Assuming nine mules, and a harvest of 3 stacks per 10 pots, with just some simple staggering, you are perfectly set up to rake in 1 million gil a week just gardening Platinum Ingots. Not bad, eh? I think I might pick up a few more stacks of cuttings in the near future, or at least, once my plants approach harvest day. ^^

Summary:
Today's accounts: -390,200 gil.
Amount invested from 60.0: 2,789,400 gil.
Overall cost from 60.0: -48,200 gil.

A pair of a pair of Cuisses.

2005-05-24T15:12:00.000-07:00

While I wasn't actively trying to skillup today, it just so happened that yesterday's GP item (for a Goldsmithing Craftsman) was a pair of Mythril Cuisses. I would only need two pairs to satisfy my daily limit of GP, and I headed down to try and find a pair at the Jeuno AH, since they go for roughly 5k each there. Unfortunately, Jeuno was out of stock, and the other AH that had them (Bastok), demanded prices that was just too high for my liking.

I was desynthing Mythril Earrings up in Rabao earlier today, and was getting some very good results. On a Darksday, Full Moon, facing SW and armed with my Jupiter's Staff and powerful Moghancement: Desynthesis, I successfully desynthed 36 Mythril Earrings into 30 Mythril Ingots.

Treating one Mythril Ingot at 7,500 gil each, I spent 10k in crystals, 149040 gil in Mythril Earrings, for 225k worth of Mythril Ingots, or 65,960 gil profit, which is pretty good considering I was only desynthing for about half an hour! ^^

I sold two stacks on the AH for profit, and converted the 4 of my spare Ingots to Sheets to make the Cuisses. With my desynth rate, one of the Ingots was valued at roughly 5,300 gil each. Combined with half a stack of Fire Crystals (4k/stk) and two Ram Leathers (2k/ea), I spent 27,200 gil attempting to synth up two Mythril Cuisses.

Alas, even on Darksday with no shades, I did not get any skillups. I think this was probably due to me being so close to the cap (only 0.9 levels), but the main goal here was GP, not a skillup, so I'm okay with that. Then again, I did have a chance to skillup, so I felt inclined to add these costs to the running totals.

Note that since both Cuisses were handed in for GP, they were essentially 100% loss, at least financially. On the bright side, I have accumulated roughly 56k GP, only short of 44k GP and 8 Goldsmithing levels until I get my apron! ^^

Finally, I've also been picking up the odd Platinum Ore here and there. Prices of Platinum have been rising lately. Ores have gone up 2k, and hover at the Jeuno AH for roughly 22k/ea. The Ingots are on a rise, having gone up 10k/ea, or 120k/stk. I believe the going price now is 70k/ea and 840k/stk, which is quite a lot of money!

Anyway, I only managed to pick up five chunks of Platinum over the past few days, for 106k total. Bastok has plenty in stock for 25k/ea, but I don't really want to buy from there, although I certainly will if I hit a shortage. After all, the 3k difference in price is rather negligible in the greater scheme of things. ^^

Summary:
Today's accounts: -133,200 gil.
Amount invested from 60.0: 2,399,200 gil.
Overall cost from 60.0: -48,200 gil.

Sowing Seeds

2005-05-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

My synth of choice from here on will be Platinum Ingots, until the cap at Goldsmithing 64. Platinum Ingots have multiple different synths, but only one is actually practical- the one that takes one Platinum Ore and six Platinum Nuggets.

Currently, Platinum Nuggets go for 70k/stk, and the Ores for about 22k/ea. The finished Platinum Ingot fetches roughly 60k/ea, so this is pretty much a breakeven synth.

However, the material costs can be reduced by a significant amount if the Platinum Nuggets are instead grown, which was my plan for the past month, and will be my plan for the upcoming future.

To grow Platinum Nuggets, I have three mules, each with ten Brass Flowerpots, along with my own Mog House, so that makes forty Brass Flowerpots total. Platinum Nuggets are grown from Tree Cuttings. I check once daily (actually nightly), before I go to sleep. The growth period lasts roughly twelve (12) earth days. Three days into growth, I fertilize all the Tree Cuttings with a Light Crystal the first time it asks, roughly three days after planting, and once more again after six days.

While I have not really experimented with different combinations to find the optimal time, I generally prefer to stay away from Lightsday, if at all possible. I don't pay attention to what day I examine the plants on, however, I've had reasonable success with planting on Earthsday, feeding on Earthsday, then Darksday, then finally harvesting on Earthsday. On average, I can expect to get about 4 Platinum Nuggets per pot, although this is just an average figure.

Tree Cuttings are, at the moment, 110-115k per stack, or 9k each at the Jeuno Auction House. I bought three stacks at 115k/stk, and five single Cuttings at 9k each today, and planted them. Twelve days later, I should be ready to make another entry. ^^

Summary:
Spent today: 390,000 gil.
Amount invested from 60.0: 2,266,000 gil.
Amount lost from 60.0: 21,000 gil.

It starts.

2005-05-20T22:38:00.000-07:00

Today was the day I dinged Goldsmithing 60. After many attempts at trying to get that elusive level, detailed on my other blog, I actually overshot by 0.1, and went from Goldsmithing 59.9 to Goldsmithing 60.1, so I guess I'll have to count that into things. ^^

>

So, just what is this blog all about, anyway?

This particular blog will be dedicated, whole-heartedly, to my experiences Goldsmithing in the post-60 world. Actually getting to Goldsmithing 60 is no easy task, but it's certainly do-able. However, the is very little actual information about just what Goldsmithing past 60 is like. As such, I decided to keep a journal of sorts, to hopefully provide an insight into what the hardest craft in the game is like, and also perhaps, to deter the crafting newbies who still think they can powerlevel their way to Goldsmithing 70 on 5 million gil. >_<

A bit about myself first though.

How did you start Goldsmithing?
Before I got into crafting and all that jazz, I used to mine in Gusgen to support my main job (which was at the time, White Mage). Eventually, I decided to pick up both Smithing and Goldsmithing to help out with my mining, since it would be very useful if I could convert the ores I mined up into Ingots to prolong my mining trips. So, I worked my way up to Smithing 22, where I could make Iron Sheets, and Goldsmithing 20, where I could make Silver Ingots. It wasn't exactly easy going, but I found myself liking the ability to now bring like, eight stacks of pickaxes and three stacks of Fire Crystals to Gusgen, and stay there for a real long time without having to leave due to a full inventory.

Of course, the question still remains as to why I stuck with Goldsmithing. Actually, it was all rather simple. Around this time, my good friend (irl) Glueforever had some spare change on him, so he decided to pick up a craft as well, and after chatting about it briefly, he settled upon Smithing. I felt having two Smithers was rather redundant, and so, I shifted focus onto my other craft, which was Goldsmithing. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. >_<

How have you been funding Goldsmithing?
I've been paying for Goldsmithing, and my other expenditures through numerous means. Initially, as mentioned above, I mined for my money, and in retrospect, I continued to mine for quite a lot while skilling up. The Chinese 24/7 miners hadn't infiltrated the mines yet, so I was actually quite happy mining, as opposed to now, where a mining trip in Gusgen mines is just going to drive me up the wall due to a common lack of courtesy. Thank goodness I started crafting. I remember mining Ifrit's Cauldron when I wanted help funding my Goldsmithing through the Mythril Stage, but after that, I have little recollection as to what I actually did for money.

I figure a lot of it had to do with actually trying to save money at certain points, for example, I would camp the AH for 1k pieces of Mythril, while my friends would buy stacks of Mythril Beastcoins for 20k instead of 12k if bought my singles, or would go and buy 2k Mythril Ores in Bastok, rather than the 1k Mythril Ore in Jeuno when it was up. Little things like that add up, I suppose. It certainly served me well through the Mythril Stage, as for each point, I was coming out with a net profit (well, not including breaks), even though it did take quite a while.

Now, my main job (now Black Mage) is level 75, and although I do not participate in HNM, and am not part of any HNMLS, I have two main sources of income. The major contributor is this Kindred Seals linkshell/business that I run, where I and a group of friends ferry paying clients through the Operation Desert Swarm KS30 battle for a cut in their drops. This has proven to be very profitable, mostly because we send 30 people over the course of a night's work. Do the math from there. ^^

The other way I generate money is through desynthesis. I have 28 Tarutaru Stools in my Mog House, which gives me a powerful Moghancement: Desynthesis, with Lightning energy, and when I bring myself around to it, I hoof myself (and anything between 5-10 stacks of Lightning Crystals) up to Rabao, and sit myself in front of Scampblix, who would probably recognise my grandchildren by looks if he were actually a player-controlled character.

With max San d'Oria fame, one Mythril Earring costs me 4,140 gil (which, by the way, is cheaper than the Jeuno NPC price). When I desynth, I treat the value of one Mythril Ingot to be 7,500 gil (or 90k for the stack), and calculate my profits that way. Desynthing is really inconsistent business though. I've had times where I've broken even in an hour, to profits of up to 180k/hr. Not surprisingly, my average income from doing this is about 90-100k/hr, which is still pretty good considering the amount of effort I have to put in, compared to, say people who farm for their gil.

So, how's this going to work?
Like any other blog, this will be a platform where I get to share my thoughts and opinions with others who may be interested, or at least curious as to what crafting is like. It would also provide a more personal feel, which is something a lot of guides out there lack, which is understandable, since they are trying to compress information down into bite-sized chunks. That's perfectly okay. They are not a blog, and this is not a guide. So for those of you who thought they could pick a skillup path from this, "HAH!" ^^

Of course, astute readers of this journal will probably have some of their research done for them, but in the spirit of what this journal is trying to do, I can live with that. Just as long as people don't try to sabotage me based off information provided here. >_<

So here's how this is going to work. You will have the obligatory speil up top, and then later, I get to go technical with figures, and shopping lists, and the works. That will provide a look into the cashflow involved with this craft, and also give an idea as to how much this craft really costs, although chances are, by the time you read this and follow what I have done, the prices would've changed. >_< There will be two daily costs that I will provide. One will detail the actual amount I have spent. This will give you an idea of how much money one is likely to need before embarking on Goldsmithing 60+. The other figure will assume I purchased everything from the AH, and sold back to the AH, or NPC'ed, giving a rough figure on how much it will cost powerleveled. I am fully prepared to keep a track of my sanity, which I am sure will be inversely proportional to this amount. Anyway, the groundrules...

My current stats
Here are the notable crafts I have leveled up so far:

Goldsmithing 60
Smithing 60
Alchemy 60

I have some materials saved up from before I dinged 60, so for now, I will assume I just bought them off the AH, and stored them. I have roughly 5.5 million gil on hand at the time of writing, as well.

For the record, I have with me 27 Platinum Ingots (60k/ea), 6 Platinum Nuggets (70k/stk), and ten Platinum Ores (20k/ea) so that totals up to an initial sink of 1,855,000 gil.

Given my (somewhat) unfortunate skilling past 60.0, I will also count that one Mythril Cuisses into the figures. I literally powerleveled that Cuisses, buying the materials off the AH, and desynthing it (and losing it ; ;).

So, my first +0.1 into the post Goldsmithing 60 world cost me 21,000 gil. >_<

The running totals:
Amount invested from 60.0: 1,876,000 gil
Overall cost from 60.0: 21,000 gil

For the aspiring Goldsmithers.

2005-05-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

While this journal is written with the Goldsmithing 60+ person in mind, I understand that there are many people out there who are interested in leveling up Goldsmithing on their own, and would like a skillup path, or guide, so to speak. With that, I quickly penned up a guide which I posted in my linkshell's forums, which I have provided below:

Goldsmithing 0-60 on Odin (Last revised: 6th June 2005)
As unlikely as it may seem, Goldsmithing was my first main craft, although I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into at the time. Now that I have finally reached Goldsmithing 60, it’s time to pen up another guide, as several LS members have expressed a need/interest at leveling up Goldsmithing, at least to a certain extent.

Skilling philosophy
I personally hate throwing (large) amounts of money away. Unlike most others who play FF, I had very little patience when it comes to farming, etc, and so I did not actually have my first million gil until I hit BLM75, whereas I hear of people farming up millions in their 50s. Then again, I was also spending money on Goldsmithing at the time...>_<

As such, there are synths I have not included below. However, the synths I have included are written/chosen with a more cost-effective route in mind. Of course, the tradeoff is that you will probably take a long time skilling up. That being said, my patience only goes so far, and there were times I did a more time-efficient synth, at the expense of my poor walletaru...; ;

A quick word on notation:
I will enclose skill levels in brackets, which are either curved or square. A curved bracket is meant as a guideline (so there’s some leeway), while a square bracket is much more definite, and is usually used to describe a cap, or an usually large skill-gap, or the existence of a much better recipe.

Some examples:

(55-58) Darksteel Bolt Heads
Start from around 55, and skillup until around 58 (even though the cap is actually higher than this.)

[55-62] Darksteel Bolt Heads
Start these no sooner than 55, and stop once you hit 62 (which is the cap).I’ve also marked the synths I personally used to get to 60 with an asterisk (*).

Goldsmithing skillup path (Lite!):
[0-3] Copper Ingot*[3-9] Brass Ingot*
(6-11] Brass Sheet*

(10-13] Brass Scales*
(13-18] Silver Ingot (via Beastcoins)*
(15-20] Silver Ingot (via Ores)*
[20-24] Brass Hammer*
(22-27] Silver Hairpin*
(27-32] Silver Ring
[27-32] Silver Chain*

[32-38] Mythril Ingot (via Beastcoins)*
(35-40] Mythril Ingot (via Ores)*
(36-41] Mythril Sheet*

[41-47] Mythril Ring*
[41-49] Silver Bangles*
(47-51] Gold Ingot (via Beastcoins)*
(50-53] Gold Ingot (via Ores)*
(50-54] Gold Ingot (via Nuggets)*
(52-56] Combat Caster’s Boomerang +1*
(53-55) Gold Chain
[55-61] Mythril Cuisses*
[55-64] Platinum Ingot*

More Commentary:
So, what is Goldsmithing like? Make no mistake. Everything you have heard in the various tradeskill forums out there is true. Goldsmithing is the undisputed HNM of crafting. It is very expensive. It is estimated that the amount of money you spend to get to Goldsmithing 45 is enough to take both Woodworking and Alchemy to 60, and that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.^^

It is also the most lucrative of all the crafts out there. Only Goldsmithing, at Level 60, can effectively churn out 100k profit an hour crafting goods that have high demand, so sell quickly. In the very late stages, you will be dealing with money in amounts that most people only dream of dealing with, although this comes at a price. The disparity in price is so great, that coming from a Goldsmither’s point of view, leveling Smithing 60 (the second most expensive craft) was in fact very easy for me. You can literally laugh at all the Smithers in their late 40s complaining about putting 20k on the line to skillup on a Darksteel Ingot, while you put 40k on the line making a Gold Ingot at the same level! Darksteel Ingots don’t even take four Darksteel Ores to make!

I repeat: Goldsmithing is the most difficult, most challenging, most expensive craft in the game. Do not start this without giving it a good deal of thought, because without careful planning, Goldsmithing will eat you alive. As one saying goes, “a fool and his money are soon separated.”

Goldsmithing is very independent in the sense that one does not really need to level up any subcrafts along the way to make skilling easier. However, a few other crafts require a Goldsmithing subcraft, such as Clothcraft, for certain threads and Errant Gear, or Alchemy to HQ Bullets.

Finally, a disclaimer. Before proceeding with a recipe, even if recommended, please be sure to double check prices, and perhaps look for alternate recipes. The online economy is constantly in flux, and what might’ve worked for me, may no longer work anymore. For example, when I went through the Gold Nuggets stage Gold Nuggets were selling for 45k/stk. They are now (at the time of writing) 100k/stk. >_<

Amateur (0-10)

[0-3] Copper Ingot*
Fire Crystal
4x Copper Ore (Buy from the Smithing or Goldsmithing guild.)Sell results to AH for profit.

Note that the Smithing guild usually sells Copper Ores for a lower price, although Copper is so cheap, this shouldn’t really matter.

[3-9] Brass Ingot*
Fire Crystal
3x Copper Ore (Buy from guild.)
1x Zinc Ore (Buy from AH.)
Sell to AH for slight profit, or save for future synths.

(6-11] Brass Sheet*
Fire Crystal
1x Brass Ingot
Sell to AH or save for next synth.

Turn in a Copper Hairpin to rank up.

Recruit (10-20)

(10-13] Brass Scales*
Wind Crystal
1x Brass Sheet (Use results from earlier.)
Sell to AH or NPC for a loss.

(13-18] Silver Ingot*
Fire Crystal
4x Silver Beastcoin (Buy singles from AH, or steal off Beastmen.)
Sell results to AH for profit, or save for future synths.

As a general rule, Beastcoins are much more expensive when bought in stacks than singles, so you may have to camp the AH for a few days getting enough of these.

(15-20] Silver Ingot*
Fire Crystal
4x Silver Ore (Buy from AH or Goldsmithing Guild.)
Sell results to AH for profit, or save for future synths.

Turn in a Brass Hairpin to rank up.

Initiate (20-30)

[20-24] Brass Hammer*
Fire Crystal
1x Brass Ingot (Buy from AH in stacks, or make these yourself.)
1x Bronze Hammer (Buy from Ciqala, in Bastok Markets, (F-10).)
Sell results to AH or NPC for slight loss.

(22-27] Silver Hairpin*
Fire Crystal
1x Silver Ingot ((Buy from AH in stacks, or make these yourself.)
Sell to AH, Bazaar, or try desynthing these to recycle materials.

Note that now might be a good time to find a high-level Goldsmithing “buddy” to either desynth your Silver products for recycling ingredients, or buy them off you for his/her own desynths.

(27-32] Silver Ring
Fire Crystal
2x Silver Ingot (Buy from AH in stacks, or make these yourself.)
Sell to AH for loss, or try to desynth to recycle materials.

The reason why the resale price to the AH is so bad is because Fishermen can fish these up, and also because Gems by Kashaa in Lower Jeuno sells both Silver Earrings and Silver Rings for 1250 gil, which Goldsmithers use to desynth. You will suffer approximately 4-5k loss/synth with these if you choose to sell to the AH.

[27-32] Silver Chain*
Earth Crystal
2x Silver Ingot (Buy from AH in stacks, or make these yourself.)
Sell results in stacks to AH for loss.

These might be breakeven when sold individually, but they already sell bad enough in stacks, yet alone in singles. Compare with Silver Rings to decide which you prefer.

Turn in a Silver Hairpin to rank up.

Novice (30-40)

[32-38] Mythril Ingot*
Fire Crystal4x Mythril Beastcoin (Buy singles from the Jeuno AH, or steal off Beastmen.)
Sell to AH for profit, or save for future synths.

Welcome to the Mythril stage. Like Silver, Mythril Beastcoins are a lot more expensive in stacks than in singles. You can buy single Mythril Beastcoins in Jeuno for 1k apiece, although you may have to camp the AH for a bit (as usual). These are both in high demand by other goldsmithers, and by people looking to complete gobbiebags, so these will be your moneymaker for a while.

(35-40] Mythril Ingot*
Fire Crystal
4x Mythril Ore
Sell results to Jeuno AH for profit, or save for future synths.

Like the Beastcoins, these can be purchased off the Jeuno AH for 1k each. Of course, if you are impatient, they go in the Bastok AH for up to 2k each, although that may be a little silly, since on a good day, the Goldsmithing Guild sells Mythril Ores for 1,500gil each. This is a nice stage to get used to taking your own time with synths.^^

(36-41] Mythril Sheet*
Fire Crystal
1x Mythril Ingot
Sell results to Jeuno AH for profit, or save for future synths (a long time in the future).

These usually go for profit if you were to buy stacks of Mythril Ingots straight off the AH, but they also move a lot slower than Mythril Ingots.

Turn in a Chain Gorget to rank up.

Apprentice (40-50)

[41-47] Mythril Ring*
Fire Crystal
2x Mythril Ingot (Make these yourself.)
Sell to AH for profit, depending on how you got your Mythril Ingots, or save for future synths.

Here’s the trick. Mythril Ingots cost 8k-9k on the AH, but only cost about 4.5k to make. The Rings sell to AH for about 14k, and they sell quickly. This is another exercise is patience, as you still turn a net profit if you make your own ingots, but suffer a loss if you bought them. Either way, you effectively lose 2k-3k/synth.

[41-49] Silver Bangles*
Fire Crystal
3x Silver Ingot (Make these yourself, or buy off the AH.)
Desynth to try and recycle materials.

Welcome to your first “hellish” synth. These have next-to-no resale value, so most people just desynth these in an attempt to recycle the Ingots. These are also an 8-level gap, so failures are high to begin with. I personally just used these to help bridge the gap between Mythril Rings and the next synth, from 47-49 or so.

However, these do have one advantage over Mythril Rings- the ingredients are cheaper. Here’s where you will face a dilemma that you will make over and over again later on. Take the guaranteed loss on a cheap synth, or try for smaller loss (or breakeven) on an expensive synth. It all depends on how well you can handle breaks.

It may be a good idea to start looking into furniture that will give you Moghancement: Fire, as synthesis materials will start to become very expensive.

(47-51] Gold Ingot*
Fire Crystal
4x Gold Beastcoin (Buy singles off the Jeuno AH, or steal off Beastmen.)
Sell to the AH for profit, or keep for future synths.

And now it’s Gold! Once again, the usual rules to Beastmen coins apply here. These can be bought off the Jeuno AH for about 10k/ea. Also note that I’ve shrunk the recommended margin down a little, since in comparison to your other synths, this synth is expensive. If you thought risking 18k on Mythril Rings was bad enough, you will typically risk 40k on this one. Breaks will hurt.

However, these are very nice profit, with a resale giving you about 10k profit at this time. Gold Ingots are a funny thing though, since sometimes they will actually be a breakeven or even a loss, and I haven’t the foggiest idea why.

Turn in a Mythril Ring to rank up.

Journeyman (50-60)

(50-53] Gold Ingot*
Fire Crystal
4x Gold Ore (Buy from AH)
Sell to the AH for profit, or keep for future synths.

At the time of writing, you can buy Gold Ores from the AH at about 10k each.

(50-54] Gold Ingot*
Fire Crystal
6x Gold Nugget (Buy from AH.)
1x Gold Ore (Buy from AH.)
Sell to AH, or keep for future synths.

Your profit/loss will all depend on how much the Gold Nuggets cost you. In my experience, these have been incredibly fickle, ranging from everything between 35k/stk to 100k/stk! I personally wouldn’t rely on this recipe, but keep it in mind just in case. Welcome to Goldsmithing in the 50s. This stage will take you a while.

(52-56] Combat Caster’s Boomerang +1*
Fire Crystal
1x Combat Caster’s Boomerang (Buy from AH, or with conquest points.)
1x Mythril Ingot (Make this yourself)
Sell results to AH for nice profit, unless someone wrecked the market.

Combat Caster’s Boomerangs can be purchased with 8000 Windurst Conquest Points with Rank 4. Sometimes you will find them on the AH though. These sell fairly slowly, at about one a day, so it is easy to flood these. Why anyone would want to flood these and destroy up to 15k profit is beyond me, but oh well. Take care with these!

(53-55] Gold Chain
Earth Crystal
2x Gold Ingot (Make these yourself)
Find a high level Leatherworking friend (see below).

For starters, my recommended start point is later than normal because these are expensive ingredients you're dealing with here, and you can easily cap Gold Ingots at 53 via Ores. That being said, these sell for a loss on the AH, however, if you can find a very good Leathercrafter friend (or are high in Leathercraft and are just leveling a subcraft), pass your Gold Chains to him/her so he can try to HQ some War Boots (cap Leathercraft 85).

Hopefully, with a few HQs, you can then split the profits, and bingo! Money! ^^

Note: Yay to Rubashov on the Alla forums for suggesting this! ^^

[55-61] Mythril Cuisses*
Fire Crystal
2x Mythril Sheet (Make these yourself)
1x Ram Leather (Buy from AH)
Sell to AH or NPC for about 15k loss, or desynth these to try and recycle materials.

Again, this is another of those “cheap, but guaranteed loss” synths versus “high risk, but potential profit” decisions. Your “high-risk” recipe would be Platinum Ingots...

[55-64] Platinum Ingot*
Fire Crystal
6x Platinum Nugget (Grow these- see below for details.)
1x Platinum Ore (Buy from AH)Sell results to AH for profit, or save for future synths if you are going past 60.

Unless you are feeling particularly rich, do not attempt this at Level 55 without your Shaded Spectacles and Powerful Moghancement: Fire, and even then, only on Firesday, Full Moon. Throw in a Fire Staff as well (I personally believe in Elemental Staves), and you will still break quite a bit at Level 55. Remember, this is a 9-level gap here. While other crafts have skillup paths that take you through 9-level gaps (like Woodworking), their materials are also a whole lot cheaper than yours!

Platinum Nuggets can be grown as follows: Brass Pot + Tree Cuttings + Light Crystal + Light Crystal. I don't know of any particular day where you have to plant, feed, and harvest, although I prefer to stay away from Light-based days. Growth time is approximately two real life weeks. Set up pots on mules if needed- it will take roughly 20 pots to produce enough Nuggets to complete a stack of these (including breaks).

If you choose to grow your Nuggets, this stage will take one or two months. On the plus side, you will make a lot of money doing so! ^^

Turn in a Mythril Gorget to rank up, if you are willing to brave on through Goldsmithing. {Congratulations!} on making it this far!