Disciples of the Hand Basics of Crafting

[Reya]

quoted from ffxiv core Hope this helps!

Commands

Standard: Success results in about +20 progress, -5 durability, failure results in about 10 progress, -10 durability.

Rapid: Success results in about +30 progress, -5 durability, failure results in about 10 progress, -10 durability

Bold: Success results in about 10 progress, -10 durability, failure results in about 5 progress, -15 durability.

I didn't include the quality numbers but Bold gives the most quality, Rapid the least, and Standard gives average.

While your first goal is to complete the recipe successfully, you also want the quality as high as possible. I have not experienced this myself, but I believe the higher the quality above 100, the higher chance you get multiple of the crafted item, or a +1 crafted item.


Orb Colors

You must also keep an eye on the color of the orb during synthesis and choose an appropriate action. These are the following orb colors:

White: The synthesis always starts out this way. Gives the highest chance for success.

Yellow: Also seems to be good chance for success.

Red: Initially I thought this was a bad chance for success, but I've succeeded often with standard on red, so I'm not sure what the difference between the colors is.

Multicolored: Average chance of success.

The "Wait" command gives you a chance of changing the orb color. The first time costs -1 durability, then -2 durability, and so on. Ideally you would like it to change to a white or yellow, but most of the time it'll stay or change to multicolored. I usually use Wait once if its multicolored as the chance of a better color for 1 durability seems worth it. I always use Wait if the orb is red.

I have also heard that using the forge at the blacksmith's or armorer's guild, or the forge at a camp if you're another craft, can increase chances of success. Note that this also seems to reduce to chance of getting exp.


Stability

Another thing you must keep in mind is that the synthesis can become unstable or chaotic. There are always two "elements" associated with synthesis, and you may get a message saying "The harnessed Wind/Fire/Lightning element becomes unstable!" You will get a visual indicator of lightning around the orb. Nothing bad happens yet, but at that point you have a chance of the synthesis going chaotic, which results in massive loss of durability and quality. The synthesis seems to become unstable and chaotic more often when you use rapid or bold, so they should be used carefully . Using standard tends to stabilize the element, giving you a message like "The harnessed Wind Element stabilizes" and the visual indicator will go away. It's usually safe to use rapid or bold at least once at the beginning of the synthesis or after it stabilizes. I've also seen the message, "You've stopped the degradation of the Wind Element," but I'm not clear on what this means.


Leveling up

Getting experience after crafting seems to be random, but has a higher percentage if your successfully complete the synthesis. Therefore, you want to use a recipe lower than the rank you are at. It is my guess that your chance of exp decreases as the distance between your rank and the rank of your recipe becomes greater. For example, I've used a rank 1 recipe to get to rank 8, but I've noticed less chance of exp even on success so I probably need to switch to a rank 5 recipe. I am unsure whether quality plays a part in exp. Ideally you want to use a recipe that uses cheap goods from an npc and a low amount of crystals. I've also noticed that sometimes you get exp but not the message for it, so use the menu to check if that's the case. Here are two sources for recipes:

http://socsclan.com/

http://www.ffxivorig...aft-recipes-83/

Use this to check what items the vendors sell:

https://dev-na.ffxiv...r=201871&page=1


Equipment

There's a lot of equipment pieces that have bonuses to crafting stats. Most of these are from the canvas set from level 20 levequests.


Unanswered Questions

What are the differences between the red and yellow vs white orb colors?

For blacksmith and armorer, does using a guild crafting facility give a higher rate of success, or is it only a requirement for certain recipes? If so, is there a difference between using Common, Guild, and Master forge? Does using a forge lower chance of getting exp?

Does using the offhand crafting tool give a higher rate of success for certain recipes? The stat "mg crafting" on the offhand tool is 9, compared to 7 on the main hand.

How does quality affect chance of crafting exp?

What do sparks flying around the synthesis mean?


That's all I have for now. Thanks to everyone that answered my questions about crafting. I play as "Haineko Momoshiro" on the Ultimecia server. I can't make new topics on the official forum, so if you're reading this please make a topic with the same title and link to here if it hasn't already been done. If I have explained something inaccurately, or you can shed more light on the topic, please post.

 

[Uzor]

Having experimented a lot with it, I've noticed the following as well:

1) Some recipes has a different chance of success with off-hand and main-hand tools.
2) Red and Yellow doesn't seem to affect the overall success rate of various crafting types. Instead, it seem to be more specialized - Yellow seem to increase Bold success rate, Red seem to increase Standard success rate, while White is neutral.
3) When an element becomes destabilized, you can use "Wait" to increase your chance of it stabilizing.
4) If you fail several times, the item will start sending out sparks. This generally seem to reduce the ammount of progress an item recieve if you fail, while it seem to increase the durability loss. It also seem to increase the risk of the element destabilizing.

 

[Reya]

How do you know what tool to use when you craft? I have been just using my main the entire time. @_@

 

[Uzor]

Well, from what I noticed it seem to be somewhat logical. Armorsmithing and Blacksmithing for example, seem to favor main hand when you smelt ores to nuggets, or nuggets to ingots, or when makign ingots in to squares etc. And also when making heavy equipment, swords etc. While Off- Hand seem to be favored when making parts, such as Rivets, Buckles, Sleeves, Chainmail Rings etc.

I'm not sure how sword parts for Blacksmithing go. The logical thing would be that the blade is mainhand favored, while the production of the sword itself (when you put the Bronze Gladii Blade together with the Aldgoat Horn Grip etc.) should technically be best used with a file or both). I've mainly experimented with Armorer though, so I'm not sure. I'm sure it'll be figured out eventually.

 

[Reya]

That makes sense !