As you can see I’m making progress training my Disciple of the Hand and Land jobs. It’s going pretty well. Sometimes I spend a little Gil on some items to avoid chasing around to mine or gather items, and sometimes I go out for a long Mining / Chopping session and then combine that with running around to fill in some of the Gathering logs. Mining and Botany were already open when I started, so they are a little ahead of the others. I tend to go to a capital city and then work there a while to level the jobs that are placed there. So Carpenter / Leatherworker in Gridania for a while, then off to Limsa for Blacksmith / Armorer. Tomorrow it will be Weaver / Alchemist turn in Ul’dah. I’m hoping I don’t find out later that Culinarian / Fishing is required for Facet armor.
Preparing to Craft
One of the big problems that took an hour or so was to clean out my inventory, armory and retainers to prepare to craft. After saving quite a few gear pieces, and other nonsense encountered while leveling, it was quite a chore to clean up to free up space for leveling nine crafting jobs at the same time.
Cleaning Out Retainers
The first picture below is part way through the process of cleaning out and selling junk and redundant gear. I wanted to save key gear – Ironworks / Scaven / 70+ gear from Shadowbringers, that I would be using for jobs as they level in the future.
I found a ton of low level Pots, Materia and redundant gear that I could sell.
One retainer keeps low level gear and gear for glamour, and the other retainer keeps gear for leveling.
But I was careful to keep all crafting gear. Thankfully, at least at the low levels, Crafting gear is only of two types – DoH and DoL, plus “Weapons” for each job.
The second picture shows the current state of my inventory, much intermediate and crafting mats, as well as low level Botany gear for my retainer as she levels. More on that later.
Leves for Leveling Gathering
As I mentioned before Leves are very interesting for leveling Gathering professions. They give a ton of XP, plus, they often give Ventures. I’m started to level one of my retainers using these ventures. You can by “Ventures” on the Mog Station, which I don’t find appealing, but getting Ventures for your retainers by doing Leves makes them free since you want to level your crafting anyway. Another interesting thing about the Leves is that you don’t need to worry about their exact Level. It’s ok to do a Leve when you are quite a way past the area. These Leves in Drybone are level 15, and at the time I was already at level 20 with the Mining Job. Not a problem, the Leve rewards scale and gave very nice XP, plus I could get ventures. I was able to repeat the Leve a couple of times, and even did a Leve for a battle job even tho my job was about 45. The reward I wanted was the venture of course. Leve’s don’t scale like Fates, but the Venture rewards can be well worth the time if you are in the area anyway.
Retainer Ventures
Here is my Retainer going out on another Venture to gather Oranges. I don’t need them, but at this point she’s leveling quite quickly. Each venture takes about an hour so I can check on her when I’m back in town anyway.
So I’m making good progress after two days on my way toward crafting Facet Gear.
:ww
Windy Weather 