Final Fantasy 14 crafting guide

Crafting in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is a great way to obtain items and earn experience points, but getting started can be tricky. We've told you what we think of the game in our Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn review, but now we're going to get down the nitty gritty of synthesizing items. It's a matter of obtaining crafting tools, learning to use them, and finding ingredients. We're going to show you how it's done.

Table of Contents

• Obtaining Crafting Tools
• Obtaining Ingredients and Leveling Up Your Crafting Skills

Obtaining Crafting Tools

Before you can begin crafting, you must obtain the tools necessary for that craft. Just as you would join a guild for a class or job, you can obtain crafting tools for the appropriate role at the crafting guild. For more description of the guilds themselves, see our Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn classes and jobs guide. The locations are as follows:

• Alchemist: Ul'Dah, upper level
• Armorer: south Limsa Lominsa, Lower Decks
• Blacksmith: south Limsa Lominsa, Upper Decks
• Botanist: west Old Gridania
• Carpenter: central New Gridania
• Culinarian: north Limsa Lominsa, Upper Decks
• Fisher: southwest Limsa Lominsa, Lower Decks
• Goldsmith: south Ul'Dah
• Leatherworker: east Old Gridania
• Miner: south Ul'Dah
• Weaver: southeast Ul'Dah

You'll need to complete your class' Level 10 quest before you can join any crafting guild, but we recommend waiting until completing your Level 15 quest. This unlocks airship travel, and the guilds are spread out throughout the game's major cities. Trust us, you'll want to try more than one crafting path.

With tools obtained, simply equip them to become that class. To switch back to your starting class, simply return to that former weapon.

Obtaining Crafting Ingredients

After gathering tools, you're going to need actual ingredients to go into these crafts. As mentioned in the Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn classes and jobs guide, Botanists, Fishers, and Miners are strictly meant to gather materials. For other crafts, gathering may not be so straightforward.

Ingredients drop from enemies fairly often, but your best bet is complete guildleves. Don't let the term frighten you - a guildleve is simply a quest given to you by your respective guild. Doing these quests will earn you materials as quest rewards. By the same token, many non-guild quests offer a choice of reward at completion. Often, one of these choices is a material. If crafting is your goal, choose that material. They are usually quite specific and hard to obtain otherwise.

Leveling Up Your Crafting Skills

Leveling your crafting skills can be done three ways. The first is with simple grinding. The more materials you gather and turn into items, the more experience you'll earn. It's simple and it works, but it's boring.

The more enjoyable way to level your skills is again through guildleves. These are actual quests, but on top of that, they offer a lot of experience upon completion.

Finally, you can go through the game's Crafting Log and make items on the list. The more you make, both overall and uniquely, the more the experience will flow. In the same vein, using high level abilities or crafting HQ items will net you much more experience than a typical synthesis. But be aware that both of these options take more resources and have a greater chance of failure.