MithraPride

This is a beginner's guide to the Disciplines of the Land and of the Hand in FFXIV.

Part 1: Introduction (This part!)
Part 2: Disciples of the Land (Gathering)
Part 3: Disciples of the Hand (Crafting)
Part 4: Advanced Concepts

Most of this guide is from personal experience, in the FFXIV Beta and since the game launched on 9/22/10. It's about 70% personal experience, and 30% information pulled from the beta website/player forums/other crafters, and now includes confirmed information from Square itself. If you do spot any inaccuracies, let me know and I'll update this. I'm also always looking for feedback to improve the guide!

***BEFORE YOU START, AN IMPORTANT NOTE***

You WILL suck at rank 1. To paraphrase another crafter, a rank 1 Culinarian could burn water in a microwave. When you are starting out, you WILL fail at even easy synths or you'll have more trouble gathering. Botany and Mining are still fairly doable at rank 1 and level up quickly; Fishing and the crafting disciplines are downright vicious at the lower ranks and don't really improve until rank 5+. It took me a ridiculous amount of time to get Fishing to rank 2 in Closed Beta (~10 min. in between successful fishing attempts) but as I gained ranks it got easier.

The point: don't give up if you have a rough start - it gets easier. Yes, I know the recipe list says it's a rank 0 recipe and you're rank 2 or 3, but you are still going to fail some synths until you outlevel it a bit more and can possibly pick up some better tools. Similarly, Rank 10 levequests will blow up in your face until you have a couple of levels over them.

Changelog/version history:
-Updated 10/1, confirmation from Square and info from the first week of live release
-Updated 9/15, info on crafting results from Amiricle. Thanks!
-Updated, rewrite for grammatical clarity/some confirmed data 9/13/2010
-Updated, more info on crafting/stability!, 9/7/2010
-Updated, added part 3 and 4, 8/25/2010
-First posted, Beta Phase 3, 8/21/2010

Part 2: Disciples of the Land

Currently there are three Disciple of the Land classes: Botanist, Miner, and Fisher. The botanist harvests from trees and grasses, the miner gathers from mining nodes and rock quarries, and the fisher fishes. Each class has a different set of main and off-hand tools, and their abilities have different names, but they all follow the same basic mechanics.

First, of course, you need to have the right tool equipped. It might seem obvious, but I failed my first fishing levequest because I didn't have any bait or a lure on me. Miners and botanists can equip their tool in their main hand; fishers need their rod, and you equip bait in your pouch slot.

I'll assume you can find a harvest node and start fishing/mining/logging - for brevity I'll skip to the part where you actually have to deal with mechanics.

The first thing the game will ask you to do is to aim your harvesting: with fishing, you select the "depth" of your lure, with botany you select the location of your chopping niche, and with mining you select a spot on the exposed rock. Despite the different names, though, it's all the same mechanic - the game gives you a slider, and the slider position determines what possible loot you're aiming for. A higher rank, higher Perception, and certain class traits will make the aim more precise, allowing you to repeat your results from a harvesting node. After selecting the starting point, you advance to the mini-game.

*Extra Step!* If you are a fishercat, you'll have to select "Wait" or "Jig". Basically, just hit "Wait" until you get a bite, then jig the line and move on to the next step:

The mini-game is kind of a version of hot or cold. Miners are given a set of concentric circles with a ring expanding and contracting inside of them, botanists have a ~135 degree wedge with an arrow moving up and down, and fishers have a ~90 degree wedge and a floating dot that moves left and right. After you get the target moving, hitting the enter key will stop it, and the game will tell you if you're on target, getting closer, or getting farther away. Each swing will subtract an amount from the Durability bar at the bottom of the target; hitting zero durability will cause you to harvest nothing for that attempt. I highly recommend using the keyboard; the mouse lag is significant enough to affect your aim.

With mining or botany, the game will tell you either "You feel nothing" or "You feel you are close to something" on your first hit; if it tells you you are close, hit the same spot again. If it tells you there is nothing, then hit a new area - the game will tell you that you are either getting closer or farther away, until you do hit it. I have found that the best way is to place your first hit in the middle; if it comes up nothing, go either halfway up/out or halfway down/in, and follow the directions until you strike gold!

Fishing is a little different; rather than feeling you are close/closer/farther from an item, it'll tell you if you're wining or if the fish is getting away. It's the same basic principle though, after you hook the fish - hot or cold with different messages.
--
Wotonito from Eorzeapedia did a good writeup on fishing: (http://www.eorzeapedia.com/forums/viewt ... =21&t=5930)
Fishing radarshaped-thingy-whateveryoucallitwiththedotonit is like this \1|2|3|4|5/
I Wait once then Jig, and keep trying until I get something on the hook, then if the first dot was on 4, and I get a bite, I go to either 5 or 3, If I go to 5 and it says "the fish is taking line" then I go to 3, skipping 4, it should say "You take in line." If you don't catch the fish, Then go closer to 2.

"You take in a great deal of line" Very close, but not spot on.
"The fish has tired" Put the dot in the Exact same spot, or as close as possible.

Remainder seems to drop the further away your dot is from the fish, if you put dot on 3 and the fish is at 5 and you put the dot on 2, chances are you just lost the fish, but if its at 4, the remainder should drop anywhere from 2-4, if you lost 2, only go to the barrier between 3-4, and you'll catch it, but if you lost 3, go to the middle of 4, lost 4, near the end of 4. The rank of the fish compared to your fishing rank also determines how much is lost, So you should try to learn how strong the fish are in your area.
--

The secondary harvesting (spearfishing with a gig, harvesting grass with a scythe, or gathering rock from a quarry point) is much easier: just select the command from the menu, and you're done!

Also, note that each harvesting node is PER PLAYER - it doesn't matter if you're the only one at a node or if a hundred players get there first, you can still use your full number of harvest attempts on it.

Part 3: Disciples of the Hand - the Art of Crafting

Although there are quite a few DoH classes, they all follow the same procedure when it comes to actually making items. Just like with the DoL classes, you gain levels in each craft independently, and you have to have the right tool equipped in your main hand to synthesize items for that craft.

BEFORE you start your first synth, you should read through the mechanics to know what you're doing. You have a limited amount of time to select each action, and being put on a timer when I'm not entirely sure what's going on leaves me flustered.

As mentioned, the first thing to note is the timer bar; it starts at full, and rapidly empties. Once it begins ticking down, you have about 5 seconds to choose an action. If it empties out, you automatically perform the "Wait" action, BUT it has an increased durability cost. It is always preferable to select an action, even 'wait', over letting the bar run out.

Next, the synthesis status bar will show you three things: the completion/progress percentage, the durability of your materials, and the current quality score of your synth. The durability is like the HP of your synthesis; your goal is to get the progress bar to 100% before you run out of durability. Quality does not matter at lower levels; just completing the synth is tough enough at rank 1. When you get better at crafting, a higher quality will get you a bonus reward on leve quests, and higher quality has a higher chance of producing a +1/+2/+3 item. (From Amiricle: Quality does NOT matter for mass produced synths; with them, having a higher durability at the end will get you better results.) Per Square-Enix, getting a HQ result with your main hand tool can produce a +1/+2 item, while getting HQ with an offhand tool is more likely to provide a higher yield.

There is also a fourth stat that does NOT have a numerical display: the stability of your synthesis. This is represented by the glow effect of your synth. All synths start with a white glow, which is completely stable. As you perform actions, the stability will change - a a solid colored glow indicates some instability, and if the glow is flashing multiple colours it is highly unstable. An unstable synth will reduce the success rates of your synthesis actions, and this has been confirmed by Square-Enix. Waiting can increase stability, and in some cases I've had critical successes help my stability as well. Finally, it is also possible to gain elemental instability - when an element in your synth becomes unstable durability costs are significantly increased, and there's a chance your synth can become chaotic and more or less explode. Elemental instability is represented by a coloured aura/ribbon around your glow.

The actual crafting commands (at the start) are Standard Synthesis, Rapid Synthesis, Bold Synthesis, and Wait. A successful Standard synthesis will add 10% - 20% progress, 10 - 20 quality, and cost 5 - 10 durability. A Rapid synthesis will give you more progress and less quality, while a Bold synthesis will give you less progress and significantly more quality, but it also costs a lot more durability. In all cases, failing a synthesis action can still move the progress bar a small amount and possibly give a little quality, but it will cost a significant chunk of durability, and can frequently result in only lost durability and no progress. There are also critical successes, where you can gain quite a bit of quality and progress and loose very little/no durability. Waiting has no impact on progress or quality, and will cost 1 durability per successive wait. The first wait action will cost 1, the second 2, etc. Waiting more than three or four times will really eat into your durability, but it can be worth it if you manage to wait your synth back to White stability from flashing/elementally unstable.

Standard has the highest success rate. Rapid is second, and Bold is by far the hardest to use successfully, and Bold also costs more durability and causes more instability. In short, unless you know what you're doing, stay away from using Bold.

When you complete a synth (reach 100% progress with more than 0 durability left) you will be able to Finish the synth and collect the finished item; sometimes you will also be able to "Touch Up" your work. When you are close to having an HQ item but don't make the roll, using Touch Up will give you another chance for it to be HQ (at the cost of durability). Be careful with it, since you can wreck your synth (going to zero durability). (Touch Up info from Amiricle)

Using HQ mats (Copper Nugget +1, etc) will increase your starting durability and cause a huge boost in the starting quality, and according to Square-Enix they will not increase the difficulty of a synthesis. However, quality gained throughout the synth process does impact success rates, meaning a synth can get harder to finish if you shove the quality up too high at the start.

Finally, most guildleves give you enough materials that you can botch one attempt and still succeed at the leve. Therefore, if you're just starting, figuring it out, or are moving onto a new and tricky recipe, it could be worth it to alternate synthing attempts. For example, if there are two goldsmithing leves available, I'd do the first one and switch to the second if I botch a synthesis, so that I can have an extra attempt and gain more practice and class XP without failing the whole leve. Also, you can use a workshop (either at the main guild house or at a camp) to obtain synthesis support, and have a higher chance of succeeding. It DOES cost money, though.

SPECULATION
A few people have theorized that elemental resistances can help prevent elemental instability in a craft; if you notice one element that keeps going unstable, try raising your resistance to said element and see if it changes. Again, I haven't been able to properly test this yet. However, I have fairly uniform elemental resistances (I've been raising them equally after putting Wind ahead of the others by ~10 points) and have not had elemental instability happen once.

Statistics:
I'm fairly certain that the Control statistic affects durability and stability loss. Craftsmanship seems to impact success rates and possible quality gains, while Magic Craftmanship seems to be related to elemental stability. I'm not 100% certain on all of these, though.
I'm also not sure if stats have a uniform effect across all craft disciplines (IE, X points of Strength will increase Craftsmanship by X, X points of Dexterity give X Control) or if each craft is related to a primary stat (IE, Blacksmithing success rates go up by 1% for every X Strength). It HAS been confirmed that stats have an impact on crafting, and other crafters I've talked to have seen a definite correlation between increased Strength and increased success as a blacksmith. I haven't been able to test this yet - I have a big list of things to test.

Part 4: Advanced Topics

Now that you've got some dirt on your hands and are the proud owner of, well, who knows... maybe a lump of copper ore, a handful of feathers, or a fancy new shield you just crafted, what do you do with it?

Obviously, if it's an upgrade to your current gear or could be made to make an upgrade, you can use it. Alternatively, you can sell it, and this last section of the guide will cover some basic economics to help you make the most of your time and effort!

First: nothing is free! Even if you go out and personally harvest a stack of ore and spend zero gil on said ore, it certainly wasn't free and that needs to be taken into account when you decide how to dispose of it. There are two things you need to be aware of: the opportunity cost, and the market value. The market value is probably the easiest - how much is this ore selling for? The opportunity cost is what you could have been doing instead of harvesting.

Hypothetical example: a stack of copper ore sells for 1,000 gil. If you could earn 1,000 gil in half an hour of combat leve quests, but it takes you an hour to farm a stack of ore, then that ore cost you 1,000 gil (the 2,000 you could have made minus the 1,000 it is worth). In abstract, the opportunity cost is easy to explain. In practice however, there are a lot of little factors that go into it - what other things you could be doing, the relative level of fun you're having vs. those other actions, the future benefit of levelling a craft/mining skill, etc. and etc. Really, just be aware of the fact that even if you go out and pull a chunk of ore out of the ground, it was not free and it did cost you something to get - your time and effort. If it's free, then your time and your effort are worth nothing.

Second: skill is important, and skilling up is an investment. Even if you lose money making an item, it could be worth it because it helps you reach the next level of skill and opens up more profitable item recipes. Keep it limited, though; either have a big pile you're willing to waste, or limit your for-loss synths to what you can recoup in a day or two of other activities. If you run completely out of money, it's harder to finance your other activities (IE, make sure you can always afford the repairs and consumables you need to farm up the gil to continue levelling a craft)

Third: If you get serious about a craft, keep an eye on your market. If you're making bronze gladiuses, and three other blacksmiths start making the same thing, try to find another item you can sell. If the market value of something you're making drops too low for it to be worth making, take the items you have off the market and wait for it to go back up (or dump them ASAP and move on to something else if you don't think the price will come back). If you see a sudden flood in the market (maybe another crafter is skilling up on 20 of a given item) and the price dips below what it would cost you to make the item, you might consider buying up the below-cost gear and selling it once the price returns to a profitable margin. Also, know what guilds are in which city. The Leatherworker's guild is in Gridania, so it is reasonable to assume there will be a higher demand there for any leather not sold by an NPC, and for the shards/crystals used in leatherworking synths.

Fourth: Thanks to the repair and durability system, the base materials used for repairs will always be in demand. End-game base materials will have the most demand once people get there, since there won't be upgrades, but any level of equipment where people are using the same equipment for an extended period will generate demand. Sometimes, it'll be more profitable to sell the base mats than to craft them into something. For example, a lot of the (currently in Open Beta) high end armour uses iron rings for repairs. An armorsmith can make the iron rings to use in another synth to make armour, or they can sell them to other players looking for the repair mats.

Finally, and this is just my gut reaction, I think Ul'dah will turn into a commerce hub. The city is halfway between Limsa Lamosa and Gridania, so it is easier to get to and it is also very well laid out and easy to get around in, much like Ironforge or Undercity in WoW. Finally, from a lore/RP standpoint, Ul'dah is already the big commerce hub. Even though I'm starting in a different city, I'm going to try and put my retainer in Ul'dah.

Addendum: Class Ranks/Skills
(I would like to thank Isania for helping to contribute; she helped list/verify a lot of these)
(Also, lists of skills by class are available at http://ffxiv.yg.com and this guide will focus more on analysis than just listing)

Disciples of the Hand:
Many of the class skills for the crafters follow similar themes. They all get their first skill at Rank 10, most get a skill to stabilize elements at 20, an 'eluder' skill at 30, and something to increase the effect of a stat at 40. Since there are 8 crafting classes and only six elements/stats there isn't an exact 1:1 matchup. The skills in between have various effects on the other synthesis commands, and (when equipped to your synthesis action bar) they have a chance of showing up in your synthesis command window each round. (So if I really want to use "Ingenuity" but it's not on my action list, I can either "Wait" or use another synthesis action, and when the window comes back up for my next action there's a chance that it will be there)
Further, most synthesis skills will list a type of item they are most effective with (they do more for you while you're making that type of item). The types of items are finished items, parts, mass production, and enhanced items.
Finished Items - Anything that can be used or equipped
Parts - Anything used to make another synth
Mass Production - A recipie that results in multiple items
Enchanced Items - Not 100% sure on this, but probably a +1/+2/+3 item.
(I'm still a tad sketchy on what exactly falls into each category and how they overlap, but it makes sense that something can be both a part and mass produced, or finished and enhanced, etc.)

Stabilization skills (level 20): These skills increase your synth's stability. If a synth becomes unstable, you will get a message about "the harnessed lightning element has become unstable!" or etc. depending on the synth. The following skills can instantly counter that (although performing a successful standard synth action also has a chance of stabilizing elements)
Alchemist - NONE, gets "Creative Urge" instead - increases the success rate of next action
Armorer - Earth
Blacksmith - Fire
Carpenter - NONE, gets "Improvise" - temporarily reduces the effects of destabilized elements
Culinarian - Water
Goldsmith - Ice
Leatherworker - Lightning
Weaver - Wind

Eluder (L30): This skill will cause enemies of the given type to ignore you. Not so usefull in cities, but good for traveling between camps or gathering.
Alchemist - Forgekin
Armorer - Spoken
Blacksmith - Soulkin
Carpenter - Cloudkin
Culinarian - Vilekin
Goldsmith - Voidsent
Leatherworker - Scalekin
Weaver - Ashkin
Miner - Beastkin
Botanist - Seedkin
Fisher - Wavekin
(The Disciples of the Land also get their Eluder skill at level 30)

Stat boost (L40): This "increases the influence" of a given stat. At the moment I (and the general community) are unsure exactly how stats influence crafting to begin with, but here you go.
Alchemist - INT
Armorer - VIT
Blacksmith - STR
Carpenter - NONE - Gets "Comfort Zone" - temporarily reduces risk
Culinarian - PIE ( )
Goldsmith - DEX
Leatherworker - NONE - gets "Supplement" - temporarily use your offhand tool
Weaver - MND

Keep in mind you can only equip a limited number of actions to your bar, so you will need to tailor your synthesis bars to what you're making (the typical elements, if you're making parts or finished items, etc) to get the most benefit.

Disciples of the Land: Skills
The DoL skills are very similar (if not identical) across all three classes; at level one each class gets a skill (Arbor Call/Gulleye/Lay of the Land) that locates nearby harvest nodes, and another at level 3 (Triangulate/Dowse/Prospect) that locates multiple nodes and gives a speed boost if they are far away. These two skills get upgraded (Arbor Call II, Arbor Call III, etc) to find better/higher grade nodes as you level.

At level 10, each class gets a skill that makes it easier to aim (need to test/verify), and at 30 an Eluder skill (see the list above, under Crafting). At 15, they all get a trait that increases the chance of finding rare items. Also, Miners get a skill to increase the number of items harvested per yield, Fishers get a skill to increase the remainder of a location (so they have more attempts to 'win'), and Botanists get a skill to increase the amount of skill points you get per gathering attempt. (Bolded for emphasis if you missed it; even with it only applying to DoL classes, that is NICE!)

They also have a wide range of skills that can be purchased with marks at any level, as long as you have the marks. Each class gets: two skills that boost crystal drop rates, two skills that temporarily increase a stat, a skill that increases the chance to get a high quality drop, a skill that reduces the remainder decay rate (so you have more attempts per harvest), and a unique skill.
These skills all say that they require you to have a Disciple of Land class active, so I doubt you can equip stat boosts to a DoW/DoM class. But, it's worth testing! (Also: I need to test (or have someone else test) stacking the skills to boost rare/HQ drop rates. Are the three HQ rate boosts exclusive to their class? If they stack, is it additive, multiplicative, or with diminishing returns?)

Botanists - Earth and Lightning crystal drop rates, increases to STR and INT, and a skill to "increase the breadth of your aim"
Miner - Fire and Ice crystal drop rates, increases for VIT and MND, and a skill to "increase the accuracy of your aim"
Fisher - Wind and Water crystal drop rates, increases in DEX and PIE, and a skill to increase the chance of obtaining crystals