Lo, as I’m finally exploring crafting and gathering in FFXIV, I’m ready to share my leveling tricks. As in every game, my brain is constantly working on optimizing routes and ways on the way the top and corresponding grinds.
Mind you, I’m in my 30-40-ies with crafting/gathering jobs yet, but as I’m doing it on several alts and have trodden a path, there’s a lot to share. Let’s roll!
Jack of All Trades
If, like me, you have come from another MMO and hoped to level a couple of most interesting professions, for instance, a blacksmith and a miner to support it, surely you can… if you have a zillion gold/gil in your pockets.
FFXIV’s crafting professions are insanely demanding on each other. This works very well for fantasy and realism – for example, if you make a salad, you need many ingredients for it, not just an apple, or a couple of daggers would require lumber for hilts beside metal ingots, or you need lumber/rubber to add as soles (!) for leather boots.
Of course, you can use a local auction/market board to buy the lacking mats from other players, but believe me, you’ll need tons, and you gold will fly away so rapidly that you find yourself broke too soon. So, the best way to level your crafting and save all the gold in the world – is to provide fully for yourself, and level everything.
Level Them Simultaneously
Once you start crafting and gathering, your bag space will end in a matter of minutes – as you require tons of different mats. Tip: keep professions on roughly the same level, drag the rest up with every 5-10 levels. This will allow to use more or less same groups of mats, and sell those from lower levels that you don’t need anymore.
I advise to level all gathering 5-10 levels ahead of crafting. This way you’ll already have batches of mats when you start crafting, and will quickly collect those that you need, as you will get more mats from the very same nodes that you outleveled.
Also, when you level professions simultaneously, you can get rid of old gear from your armory chest, not to stockpile it there.
Buy from Guild Vendors
Every crafting quest hub (guild) has a shop guy near its entrance, and up to level 15-20 you may not even need gathering/market board: they have all that you need right here, and even if they don’t – other profession shops will (that’s why it’s important to explore all professions at once). The prices are insanely low, so if you haven’t even gathered anything, they got you covered.
Use First-Time Bonus
When you craft or gather an item for the first time, you get a huge XP bonus: extra 4 times of the XP of the object you’ve crafted/gathered. For example, you get your normal 900 XP for crafting some pants, and you will get around 4000 extra if you never crafted them before.
So: I say it’s the most efficient way to level. Works best with professions that make gear and weapons: you can craft almost everything within 5-level range with the very same mats (like type of metal, wood, cloth or leather), getting 5x times XP from every next item.
Tip: try to make the best of it according to profession level. Obviously, if you need 15000 points for the next level, crafting an item that will bring you 3k will benefit you better today than when you will need 65000. If you keep up to date, you will need only around 6-8 crafts to cover a full level, not 20-25.
Grind Mats, Not Items
First-time bonus is a huge help, but you still have to grind crafting a bit.
The best road map for every 5 levels: complete your next profession quest (that’s almost a complete level), grind mats for the next batch (for example, make a 99 stack of walnut lumber from logs), do all available crafts for the first time bonus, then grind more mats. Even if you don’t need them for your current profession, other professions will! And crafted mats sell faster and better at an auction than anything else – at least in the beginner levels.
Use Crafting/Gathering Logs and Item Tips
FFXIV has very well thought-out crafting and gathering logs: you don’t need extra internet browsing to get all the vital information. Right-clicking on any mat in the interface or in your bags allows to learn the exact location where to find it, and for what recipes it can be used. Especially useful when gathering: nothing is totally useless, of course, but you can decide whether you need this mat soon, or it can be vendored for now to save some bag space, or not gathered at all.
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Well, that would be all for tonight that I’m using myself and would like to share. Hopefully you find it useful too :)
Gnomecore 
I hope you’ve come across Grand Company supply missions:
https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Grand_Company#Supply_and_Provision_Missions
They’re useful all the way to 90, and the item you hand in doesn’t have to be crafted by you.
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Not yet, thank you! And I plan to see and use all those moogle home, Ishgard restoration and other quests that I unlocked with DoW/DoM classes ) Yet my focus is getting alts to 50 first. No rush at all, enjoying the journey.
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