Final Fantasy 14 Crafting Guide
For many, crafting (also called synthesis) is a complete mystery for players of Final Fantasy 14. It is not clearly explained by any in-game tutorial, so it is not surprising that people have a lot of trouble learning how to craft!
In this Final Fantasy 14 Crafting Guide, I will deconstruct the mystery behind crafting, including what all the options mean, what they are best for, how to craft for leveling and how to make high-quality items. Here are the parts to the guide:
- FF14 Crafting Strategies and Tips – Learn what each crafting option does and what it is best used for, as well as what colors and sparks indicate.
- How to Craft High-Quality Items – This is how you make real gil from crafting.
- How to Craft and How to Perform Local Leves – Covered in detail below.
Final Fantasy 14 Crafting Guide – How to Craft
Any player can start crafting in Final Fantasy simply by equipping a crafting tool in their main weapon slot. In every main city (Ul’dah, Gridania, Limsa Lominsa), you can find these items for just a few hundred gil off of various vendors throughout the town.
Just check around at the main groups of shops (marked on the map) and it will not take you more than a few minutes to find the item you are looking for.
In order to craft though, you will need to equip the tool specific to the recipe you want to craft. For example, if you are interested in Alchemy, you have to equip a Weathered Alembic as your main hand weapon before you can actually start making Alchemy recipes.
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Once you have your weapon equipped, bring up the main menu (hit the “home” key on your keyboard) and then you should see a new option entitled “Synthesis”.
When you hit the “synthesis” tab, your character will engage in synthesis mode, which will bring up a small menu where you can select ingredients. You do not have to select shards or crystals, but rather just put the ingredients in the ingredients area. After putting your ingredients in, hit okay and you will get an option for any possible item that uses those ingredients. Hit okay to get started.
With local leves it is a bit different, and I have described that process below. Once you actually start crafting, you will want to read the FF14 Crafting Strategy article to learn what each crafting option does (normal, bold, and rapid), what they are bested used for, and what quality and durability scores indicate.
Final Fantasy 14 Crafting Guide – Local Leves
The easiest way to get started is to do Local Leves, which are issued by at the same place you get normal quests, from the NPC next to the normal Regional Leve (combat) quest giver. Be sure to select leves for the quests of your specific craft and leves that are actually in range of your level (within 5 levels unless you have great gear or are very experienced).
Once you have a leve, about half require you to go to a camp out in zone or talk to a person in town to get materials, which you then craft and turn in. Others give you the materials right away, which you can craft and then go turn in.
Regardless, if you are not sure where to go to begin, hit the menu key and bring up your quest journal. Select local leves, then select the quest you want. Select map, and then the NPC in question will be shown on the map. Talk to that NPC to get started.
Once you have the materials, when you bring up the synthesis menu and start crafting, you can hit the “leve items” (or something like that) option, which will bring up a separate menu. You can then select the leve you want and the items you need will automatically populate, and then you can start crafting. The items that populate for local leves are not your own materials, but are free, so do not worry about that.
Whether you are crafting for a leve or crafting your own items, once you get started, it can be a little confusing. Be sure to check out our Final Fantasy 14 Crafting Strategies article to discover what each color means, what each crafting option is best for, and everything else that you should know about crafting. Also, you can pick up a full 1-50 crafting guide for each craft in game by using the Chrono Guide:
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