FFXIV – Crafting My Way Back Into It

I’m getting back into the swing of FFXIV with my slightly embarrassing, adorable Miqu’te that looks a bit like a porcelain doll in the game.

Rather than jumping back on the gear treadmill, I’ve spent most of my time on relaxing activities like gathering and crafting. Unlike most MMOs, those things are quite engaging in FFXIV and there are a whopping eight crafting and three gathering classes to level, so there is plenty to do. (By which I mean it would be impossible for me to max them all out without spending the rest of my life in the game.)

If I were to be honest I’d have to say I’m a bit scared to go back to instances. Even though FFXIV combat isn’t super complicated, rotations are complex enough that people will probably notice if you’re doing it wrong and I don’t particularly enjoy looking like a moron in PUGs. So I’m breaking myself back into combat slowly.

Therefore I’m putting off going into any of the new dungeons. In fact, I never did most of the “old” level 50 dungeons. Amdapor Keep is the only level 50 dungeon I’ve ever done because it’s part of the Relic quest line. So The Wanderer’s Palace, Pharos Sirius, Copperbell Mines (Hard), Haukke Manor (Hard), The Lost City of Amdapor, Halatali (Hard), Brayflox’s Longstop (Hard), and The Stone Vigil (Hard) are all unknown to me. Not to mention trials Ultima’s Bane and all of the Extremes. And Syrcus Tower, and any of the Binding Coil Turns. So yeah, that’s a lot of content left for me to work through, some of which will be impossible without a guild. I’ll probably start with Syrcus Tower, since it’s easier to hide your screw-ups within a 24-man raid. :)

I started the Atma quest line to upgrade my Relic bow, but I feel pretty confident that I’ll never ever finish it in a million years. I haven’t seen a single Atma FATE yet, and somehow I need to find twelve of them, and then there’s a ridiculous amount of grinding for books after that. I can see where it would be gratifying to complete that, but it’s so far distant right now that it might as well be on the moon.

One of the great things about returning to FFXIV after a long absence is the tremendous amount of rest XP you have built up, and the 100 “leve” quest allowances saved up. In a surprisingly short amount of time, I leveled Miner from 40 to 50 to go along with the previously-held 50 Botanist. Then I discovered ffxivclock.com, a site which lets you know when you can go gather those level 50 resources from “unspoiled” nodes. I’ve been gathering up bunches of Crystal Clusters and selling them for mad cash. Well, more cash than I normally get, at least. For some reason, Fire Clusters are in great demand. (I have no clue what you even make with them, but people seem to like buying them.)

I had already made it to 50 in Carpenter, but I discovered that I hadn’t finished the Carpenter class quests. I was still on the level 45 quest. So I finished that one, which was pretty tedious, and then I did the level 50 quest, which was also tedious. And expensive, since I failed to craft the HQ Crab Bow on the first try, which destroyed the one expensive HQ Red Coral I bought, so I ended up just buying the damn bow for a ridiculous price but anything was better than risking another failed crafting attempt. Crafting can get pretty complicated in FFXIV. At least gathering the ingredients.

Currently I’m working on getting to 50 Weaver. After that I’ll work on Leatherworker. That will let me craft my own gear for Miner and Botanist so I can gather even more stuff to sell for mad cash. It will take a long time though since I’ve already used up all of my rest XP and most of my leve allowances. By the time I get those to 50 I probably will have already bought all the gear I need.