How I maek money?

I've no idea how you're supposed to make money anymore. I went to Sea Serpent Grotto yesterday, because the fish guys there are supposed to drop coral fragments (which I want to try and craft some HQ coral gear) but I ended up with nothing but an inventory full of BRD songs after 90 mins. I tried a bit of fishing later, which got me level 10 and a Norg Shell which just about justified the trip but it's still lousy gil for the time spent down there.



I had someone attempt to craft me some darksteel mitts +1 as well, which has put me off getting anything HQ'd again instead of buying it from the AH.


Cost me over 280k in materials and a 50k tip I gave to the crafter, when I could have just bought them for 250k. On the plus side, I have about 200k in NQs leftover materials, assuming I can sell them for a reasonable price then the HQ cost me around 130k. Problem is it's going to be a looong time before I've got rid of all this crap.

So now I'm 1/16 on the hands, and 0/3 on the feet. I'm really not going to try and HQ the body because it's a 12k loss per NQ and -3% is good enough to spend and inventory space on.


Other fun things I did!


Took 1~2 hours to pop, I was very mad. 0/6? I'm not keeping track very well, but there's still the times where I've wasted hours camping the fuck and he's not popped.


Leveled BLU to 40, learnt Blank Gaze (Opo-Opos) and Uppercut (pictured). There's a couple more I need around this level, but most important (I think) would be MP drainkiss (leeches) because BLU sucks and needs something to help keep MP up.



Finally got enough Fields of Valor tabs from leveling BLU to try another bow. No such luck. 0/17

Need this god damn level cap to go up already so I can have an excuse to spam FoV.


Cannot unsee.

Synergy

I'm not into crafting. I'm not into augments particularily. I'm not into camping particular monsters for a small chance at getting claim/kill/drop. I'm not into gathering a group of people to take part in an activity that will soley benefit myself. Synergy is certainly a good choice of name for this system because it combines all of the above into one abhorrent monster of an activity.

It is with pleasure that we announce the arrival of the version update featuring the exciting new Synergy and Evolith systems. Get together with your craftiest friends to create heretofore unseen items and put the perfect finishing touches on your arms and armor, old and new alike!

Want to learn more? Peruse the details here.

Pros
- Exploding is funny
- There is a mithra in the preview pictures
- Thwack furnace (THIS IS HOW WE FIX PROBLEM IN RUSSIAN SPACE STATION!)

Cons
- Think about crafting, but the only materials you can synth with are exclusive NM drops
- Need friends (with skill in appropriate craft?) to help synth stuff
- No idea what gear you can actually synth yet, unlikely to be anything useful
- Augments likely to be lackluster and not worth the effort involved
- Going to Bastok sucks unless you have a home point there
- Claim usage of a synergy furnace. Idiotic idea, and you can't get a private furnace until you get level 5 synergy skill AND complete a quest.

Crafting and complaining

Having finally come the realisation that people might not want to fight over trash mobs so that they can advance, SE have allowed people to sell/buy the drops instead of doing away altogether with the mundane fetch quests. Of course this only means that people are going to spend time farming said items to sell to those who are too lazy/rich to do it themselves at inflated prices. Not to mention the now added fun of crafting thrown in so there's a chance you lose the items you just farmed in a failed synth!


Fortunately they're low enough level so that anyone with 0 skill can attempt to craft, but I still got skillups at 4 Alchemy. I was lucky enough not to break any synths, so I didn't have to go through farming again, and could sell the spares I got! I've made about 100k from this stuff, which is decent considering I didn't go out of my way.

Parchment turned out to be a rare commodity when I wanted it, with singles going for over 3k and no stacks on the AH. It's a level 31 leathercraft synth so I wasn't able to make my own. However, I found that you can get it from a level 2 desynth involving flutes (which are very cheap and easily obtainable from NPCs)

So I grabbed a stack of lightning crystals and fired Cuddles into action in Bastok's music shop. Hopefully I've got the worst of this expansion over with, and the rest is just NM fights/cutscenes.

Move over, boyahda tree?

Found a much better spot for skillups/latent breaks - upper delkfutts!


Mostly EP~DC mobs, but they aren't hard if you're on a half decent self-sufficient job (NIN, PLD/DNC, RDM, DRG/mage, etc). Plus you get a chance at doing Pallas or Alky for free bracelets! Pallas is a little harder, at least for DRG because he keeps calling a pet which does about the same damage and can interrupt you. Alky hits a little harder (and does mighty strikes) but is no problem for drg.

The downsides to this place are magic aggro around the middle, and there's nothing around Even Match level (unless you skillup on Alky) so you won't be able to cap skills here. Also bracelets have a low drop rate, and Pallas's aren't really worth very much anyway, not to mention you need the NM pop item to drop first from normal gigas. I'm probably only fond of the camp because Alky dropped for us, so that's 400k each as long as the price doesn't crash :x

Also, a crap ton of socks dropped, so I kept them for desynthing into wool thread, which can be quite profitable (<3 satchel)

...well, that is if you don't break 90% of your synths.


This is why I rage quit crafting. Desynths are often a nice way to make money back, but you fail a crapload more when your crafting skill goes above the skill cap for the desynth, which makes perfect sense. 7 fails in a row, and then only one NQ success should not be something that occurs on a recipe that is 20 levels below your current skill.

Augment attempts have been kicking me in the teeth since I got that free p.rope as well:


I don't know why they even allow some of this junk to exist. Surely they can at least tell when an item will be 100% useless?


Fishing on the other hand, has been kind to me. I've been going through 1~2 stacks of bait when I go to Jeuno for ACP keys if I have time, and before Limbus because I'm poor and need it to pay for my airship ticket. I got level 4~5 in one sitting!

The version update 'teaser' got my hopes up for fishing adjustments, but it's just a buff for the Ebisu rod, which is already the best rod available and extremely difficult to obtain anyway (think Lu Shangs +1). Also lolbells and some crappy JP equivalent of the cheese sandwich (I bet it will have more useful effects than the cheese sandwich, because SE are like that). This is looking to be the biggest let-down of a version update ever, unless they announce something insane on Monday. Don't hold your breath.