Weaving 101

Welcome to my Weaving 101 course! Here I will explain recipes and which recipes to start with to get maximum experience points at a low cost. Now I believe that in order to start as a crafter, you need to start as a Disciple of War. Makes no sense huh? I'll explain shortly.

All crafters need two important items - Crystals and Crystal Shards. These are randomly obtained through fighting outside monsters, mining, and Guildleves. I believe that in order to have an effective start at crafting, it is best to begin as a Disciple of War to obtain as many Crystals and Shards as possible. Do a few Guildleve quests and grind for a bit to get some items to sell, money for materials, and the necessary Crystals and Shards. Once you are satisfied (or bored) with what you have accomplished on your DoW, find a Rusty Needle or Bronze Needle. You should also try to find a Maple Spinning Wheel. These two items are your bread and butter for becoming a Weaver.


 * Now I've noticed that the Weaver's Guild is located in Ul'Dah, a location where very few monsters drop Wind or Lightning Shards. This poses a serious threat to your Weaving career and it is recommended that if you do decide to become a Weaver, you travel to Limsa Lominsa and kill monsters there. The drops rates for Wind and Lightning shards are much greater from certain monsters located in Limsa Lominsa. Once you have around 100+ of Wind Shards and Earth Shards, its safe to return to Ul'Dah and use the Weaver's Guild clothshop to enhance your success rate and hence, your skill point accumulation.***

Q: So now I have these items- Now what?

A: Okay equip them duh! Now I'll list a few easy recipes to build up your skill level as a Weaver.

Open Beta has now released so I've edited this section to talk about where to locate your supplies. Square Enix sort of screwed up prices on many items so Moko Grass is extremely expensive. However, if your starting city has a shop that sells Hempen Yarn or Hempen Cloth you should be in good shape. Hempen Yarn is pretty cheap and you could use it to make Hempen Cloth. However I've began to notice that making Hempen Cloth is outrageously difficult to do for me. Makes no sense since I can make a Rank 14 requirement piece of armor with ease. Perhaps this is some sort of bug or maybe that required training is more important for some items than others.

Your best bet is to try to make Hempen Cloth so that you can save some gil. Once you are satisfied with the amount of cloths you have you can move on to bigger and better things. Currently on Besaid, I managed to sell a Hempen Turban for 2,000 Gil, a Hempen Halfgloves for 1,500 Gil, and a Hempen Cowl for 18,000 Gil. Considering the cost of making these items are about half of what I sold them for, its a pretty great way to make some cash (if you succeed lol).

NOTE: You can also change the color of these items by making the appropriate colored piece of Hempen Cloth. I do not recommend this unless you want to wear the piece yourself to look different. The reason I say this is because if you fail, the dyes you acquired will have gone to waste. If someone requests it however, thats okay. Just charge a little more for it because some items are difficult as it is to make, making your chances of success that much more difficult.

Starting Recipes:

I listed these recipes first because they yielded the most experience/skill points to me. On top of that most of these items sell fairly quickly since most characters don't have either a head piece or a hand piece when they start the game. They did infact lower the amount of experience points received from these items. However, you still receive around 200-300 skill points and around 500-700 experience points per synthesis. Failing, it seems, yields much less skill points in the Open Beta (around 20-50 skill points =[).

Make as many of these items as you can and try to see what your server is selling them for. I've heard of many people complaining about the market wards and retainers, however on Besaid in Ul'Dah, an area that is extremely crowded now, the First Ward on the list has very few retainers and I sold my gear over night with ease. Its great to wake up and walk to your retainer to see that the giant bazaar icon over their head is gone. Pretty good feeling to know that your hard work payed off, literally.

I hope this guide has proven somewhat useful. Credits to www.ffxivorigin.com and http://www.ffxivrecipes.info/ for recipe listings. Stay tuned for my next entries on Crafting/Battle guides. Good luck!