Crafting and guildleves are the only things you can do at this moment in the game other than exping and it seems that everybody is crafting like 80% of the time.
The whole economy of FFXIV I believe is about crystal, shards and materials right now (there isn't much else to buy really).

I've been crafting a lot too lately, this crafting system is a lot differente from the FFXI one and I like it a lot more. In the old FF crafting was all about luck (for skillpoints and for HQ) and a lot of money to skillup (I remember losing 1m a level to skillup goldsmith from 60 to 70 >.>) In FFXIV there is almost no luck involved and skilling up, at least in the lower-middle levels, dosen't require almost any money investment if you farm your own crystal and shards....it just takes a loooooooot of time XD




For skilling I almost always just use Standard synth and have always Preserve (r10 alchemy) and Tender Touch (r10 carpenter) equipped, get them asap they are very helpful.
If you are going for HQ equip Masterpiece (r10 clothcraft) and try to bold when orb is red for max quality gain. HQ items are still quite random, I've seen 500+ quality without an HQ and HQ another one with 30 quality.
Get all the higher localleves you can, to me it seems that the city where the guild is will have more and higher ones.



CRAFTERS GEAR

I haven't seen a guide for crafting gear around so here's one XD

For crafting equip you want to look for these stats: Control, Craftsmanship and Magic Craftsmanship
Control: SE stated that this impacts the likelihood of elemental sparking occurring during synthesis.
Craftsmanship affects the success rate and amount of progress with synthesis actions on standard syntheses. Some syntheses are magical in nature, these syntheses use Magic Craftsmanship instead.


Head:
Rank1 Weathered Beret (+1 Mag Craft, +1 Control)
Rank1 Weathered Spectacles (+2 Mag Craft)
Rank3 Hempen Scarf (+1 Mag Craft)
Rank4 Hempen Beret (+2 Mag Craft, +1 Control)
Rank6 Hempen Hat (+3 Mag Craft, +1 Control)
Rank11 Cotton Coif (+4 Control)
Rank11 Copper Spectacles (+5 Mag Craft)
Rank14 Cotton Beret (+5 Mag Craft, +4 Control)
Rank16 Bronze Magnifiers (+7 Mag Craft)
Rank21 Canvas Coif (+6 Control)
Rank21 Brass Spectacles (+8 Mag Craft)
Rank24 Canvas Beret (+8 Mag Craft, +6 Control)
Rank26 Iron Magnifiers (+10 Mag Craft)
Rank26 Canvas Hat (+9 Mag Craft, +5 Control)
Rank31 Velveteen Coif (+9 Control)
Rank31 Silver Spectacles (+12 Mag Craft)
Rank34 Velveteen Beret (+10 Mag Craft, +8 Control)
Rank35 Iron Sallet (+8 Control)
Rank36 Silver Magnifiers (+13 Mag Craft)
Rank36 Velveteen Hat (+13 Mag Craft, +7 Control)
Rank38 Velveteen Turban (+12 Mag Craft)
Rank45 Iron Assault Sallet (+10 Control)

Body:
Rank1 Hempen Half-robe (+1 Mag Craft)
Rank4 Hempen Gown (+3 Craft, +1 Mag Craft)
Rank6 Hempen Robe (+4 Craft, +2 Mag Craft)
Rank6 Hempen Doublet (+5 Craft, +1 Mag Craft)
Rank8 Hempen Shirt (+5 Craft)
Rank10 Frayed Cotton Doublet Vest (+6 Craft)
Rank11 Cotton Dalmatica (+3 Mag Craft)
Rank14 Cotton Doublet Vest (+7 Craft)
Rank14 Cotton Gown (+8 Craft, +3 Mag Craft)
Rank16 Cotton Robe (+7 Craft, +5 Mag Craft)
Rank16 Cotton Doublet (+10 Craft, +3 Mag Craft)
Rank16 Stained Chef's Apron (+3 Craft, +5 Control)
Rank18 Cotton Shirt (+9 Craft)
Rank21 Canvas Dalmatica (+5 Mag Craft)
Rank24 Canvas Gown (+12 Craft, +5 Mag Craft)
Rank24 Canvas Doublet Vest (+12 Craft)
Rank26 Canvas Robe (+11 Craft, +7 Mag Craft)
Rank26 Canvas Doublet (+15 Craft, +5 Mag Craft)
Rank27 Dodoskin Jerkin (+5 Mag Craft)
Rank30 Vintage Doublet Vest (+14 Craft)
Rank34 Velveteen Gown (+17 Craft, +7 Mag Craft)
Rank34 Velveteen Doublet Vest (+16 Craft)
Rank36 Velveteen Robe (+15 Craft, +9 Mag Craft)
Rank36 Vintage Chef's Apron (+6 Craft, +11 Control)
Rank37 Leather Jerkin (+6 Mag Craft)
Rank38 Velveteen Shirt (+17 Craft)
Rank45 Harrier's Jacket (+6 Mag Craft)
Rank47 Tarred Leather Jerkin (+8 Mag Craft)

Legs:
Rank1 Weathered Chausses (+1 Craft)
Rank4 Hempen Chausses (+2 Craft)
Rank6 Hempen Slops (+3 Craft)
Rank14 Cotton Chausses (+4 Craft)
Rank16 Cotton Slops (+5 Craft)
Rank24 Canvas Chausses (+6 Craft)
Rank26 Canvas Slops (+8 Craft)
Rank34 Velveteen Chausses (+9 Craft)
Rank38 Velveteen Sarouel (+8 Craft)

Hands:
Rank1 Weathered Smithy's Gloves (+1 Control)
Rank4 Hempen Halfgloves (+2 Control)
Rank6 Smithy's Gloves (+3 Control)
Rank14 Cotton Halfgloves (+5 Control)
Rank24 Canvas Halfgloves (+8 Control)
Rank26 Leather Smithy's Gloves (+8 Control)
Rank28 Fingerless Leather Gloves (+8 Control)
Rank34 Velveteen Halfgloves (+11 Control)
Rank36 Thick Smithy's Gloves (+11 Control)
Rank38 Fingerless Toadskin Gloves (+10 Control)

Feet:
Rank4 Lauan Pattens (+1 Mag Craft)
Rank8 Lauan Clogs (+2 Craft)
Rank14 Maple Pattens (+4 Mag Craft)
Rank8 Willow Clogs (+3 Craft)
Rank24 Elm Pattens (+6 Mag Craft)
Rank28 Elm Clogs (+5 Craft)
Rank34 Ash Pattens (+8 mag Craft)

Waist:
Rank6 Rope Belt (+1 Control)
Rank16 Frayed Chef's Belt (+6 Mag Craft)
Rank16 Leather Tool Belt (+4 Control)
Rank36 Velveteen Rope Belt (+6 Control)
Rank36 Vintage Chef's Belt (+12 Mag Craft)
Rank38 Velveteen Longsash (+7 Control)
Rank46 Boarskin Tool Belt (+11 Control)
Rank48 Tarred Velveteen Longsash (+9 Control)

p.s. Each piece can have his favored classes, check if your crafting job is included.

I skipped the ones that are useless imo but if I missed something important let me know XD

Hello folks! XD
Dunno if someone will still read this, long time passed since I quit FFXI and stop posting here.
But here I am again starting this new adventure...

Actually I started playing like 10 days ago but I wasn't really entusiastic and wasn't sure if I would continue my blog for this game.



The game is in his childhood right now (not much more of a beta really) and there are a lot of things that just don't work well.

First of all grinding: apart of SP gain being broken right now, there is almost no strategy in EXP parties, the combat system is quite boring and most classes lack a sense of identity right now.
The battle system itself don't require a lot of skill and no exp loss for KO don't encourage people for actually play better either.



Another thing that I really hate is the repair system, not the fact that items lose durability it self, I can live with that, but the whole system is damn stupid. Don't even know where to start here...the fact that you need to check all your gear to see wich one actually needs repair or the fact that the NPC wont repair your jewelry or stopping exping for repair is slow and will reset my countdown for stuff like tranquillity...this really need a lot of work SE.

Other stuff that needs a lot of work is the storyline and the retainer system of course.



But after all I'm liking this game, the last update made me more optimistic for the future a lot of these issues can and probably will be adjusted by SE in the next months. Graphically the game is really stunning and I think it has a lot of potencial but I honestly don't know if it will ever match the success FFXI had, for me at least.

I've tried a lot of other MMORPG after FFXI (wow, aion, lotr, ecc) and noone really got me like FFXI did.
Playing those games I had the feeling that they were all easy compared to FFXI, they didn't gave me the same motivation or satisfaction for reaching a goal.

In my opinion the difference is that FFXI was for dedicated players and it needed skill and strategy to play correctly, FF was for pro players! even at low level partying at the dunes you needed a balanced party where every single member was important, you needed some sort of skill for stuff like Skillchains and MagicBurst, you needed strategy for stuff like first voke > SATA and so on.
All these things made the game so much challenging and every quest/mission/boss you beat gaved you the feeling that you really accomplished something.

That is what I loved of FFXI and that I don't fell for FFXIV right now, I really hope that SE will prove me wrong here, guess I will just have to wait and see XD

Got it like 5 min into Dyna Xarca XD
After this not much else dropped tho, I think only 5 AF total.


The day before I finally got my first Homam piece (feet), still missing legs but there is a lot of people waiting for those...




Monday we had a couple of Ouryu planned and while waiting for people to gather I farmed a Giant Scale from Riverne B wyverns, so after Ouryu I went to Monarch Linn to try a couple of fights.

First I tried the ENM level 50 "Bugards in the sky", since I read that he is suscettible to Bind, Gravity and Sleep I thought it could be soloable...not quite.

He have quite some HP for the level he is, my tier2 nukes where taking off only 3% of his HP, also Bind and Gravity weren't landing constantly, and at about 60% he started to resist to everything. He dosn't have much accurancy tho, I think i NIN could solo this since he can make melee, magic and ranged damage at will.




After I tried the "Uninvited guest" BC level 75. This went much better, the Mammet is immune to gravity and build resist to Bind quite quickly but with wyrmals is quite easy to kite around.
During mage mode I didn't silence him and just outrun his spells giving me some time to rebuff, used Bind only a couple of times while he was in sword mode since he attacks really fast then.
Nukes do only 50% damage but he have really little HP, about 5k I think.

Reward was the XP paper...

Yesterday I tryed to solo farm Macha's Coat and other stuff in Salvage Arrapago. Used the DC trick to enter solo, many thanks to Ladybaby, Boya, Grissom, Anemis and Atomar that helped me XD

Cells from the first chest weren't very good, got MP Ranged VIT and DEX for the random ones. MP was very useful tho and would have probably farmed one on the first floor if I wouldn't have got it but since I had I went directly to the second floor.


2° Floor

In this floor I did only the QQA (for Ares body 35). He usually runs to the teleport and warp away when aggroed but running out of range when he cast spells will make him come back at you. He have only 6k HP, never casted any GA spells (only poisonga once) and never came in melee range so it was very easy to kill.
Didn't drop ares body but got Leg/Feet Cell giving me access to +movement speed for the rest of the run, no INT cell tho.




3° Floor

Went directly to the QQTH at the North teleport. This NM is a little more tricky cause he likes to run away but if you stay at the northen part of the room near the fake door he will come back soon without ever going yellow. Pulled with a nuke and then casted Bio3 while he was running away.
Everytime he came back in the room I did Nuke > DOT > Ustu:Ni > NUke alternating Bio3 and Poison2 for every cycle. Always facing the wall to avoid getting terrorized by Faze. No drop of course >.>




4° Floor

The QQTH on this floor is a little more difficult cause from my experince he runs away less frequently and I had to kite him around the teleport most of the time, still quite easy. At this point I also had plenty of Temp items from chest of previous NMs allowing me to never run out of MP, for the last 20% I just used a fanatic Drink and nuked him to death. No drop again...I'm 0/7 total on Macha Coat can't complain yet I guess.




5° Floor

Once reached this floor I went directly to open the door for the last teleport in order to pop the QQA. Then I went back to kill him, same strategy as the one on floor 2, this one casted GAs 2-3 times but I always had space to run out of range.



After this last QQ was dead I had still pleanty of time and didn't know what to do exactly, I farmed a couple of gears trying to get Morri Legs 15 and then went to try solo the Archaic Chariot just for fun =P
I pulled him in the teleport room and kited there. Without Gravity I found him quite hard to kite cause he likes to cut throw the teleport to come to you but he loses aggro sometimes allowing you to cast a free nuke. I died around 70% for some stupid mistakes and decided to give up cause it was quite late but I'm sure that he is soloable too if you have enought time.



All the QQ NMs are quite easy and I can solo them in about 30 mins total, the MP cell from first chest probably speeded things up and if I had dropped a INT cell from a QQ would have been even more simple. The lack of TH is very noticable on cells drop, I usually see 4-5 cells drop from QQ Nms with TH while solo I had only 2-3 cell drop, the drop rate on lv35 armour is so shitty anyway that I don't know how much difference it would make.

I hope to keep doing this quite frequently the only problem is to always find 5 person to help me enter XD

Yesterday after Sea Farm I get teled to Altep and found Rapido running around so I gave it a try.
It was only the second time I've tryed him, the first time I fought it wasn't really prepared (no Def food and no darksteel gear) and got owned at about 60%.



This time I took my time to go back to Whitegate to prepare myself well with Tacos and all the -% phisical damage gear i have (-41% day/ -47% night) and the fight went much better. The pull was actually very long it took me about 30 mins just to link him with another Cactrot cause I just couldn't find him >.>

The fight itself it's not hard, Rapido attack speed is quite fast and can double attack but with a strong Slow2 and Para2 and some haste gear it's quite easy to tank, his attacks are quite weak too stoneskin can assorb 2-3 hits easily (4-5 hits in equip -% damage).
The only problem is staying concentrate for an hour without making mistakes.




Madthrasher Zradbodd

Also soloed this NM for one of the last missions of WOTG, he is a spellcaster mob so very easy to kite around the lake, only problem I had was with a couple of morborls aggro that I had to deal with.