Smithing Guide by Godofgods

Category:Smithing
Smithing guide 
1-60 
by Godofgods <Odin> 
The following guide is what worked best for me. I'm currently 60 on Smithing. I hate farming materials, so this guide will mostly be focused on easily farmable materials or materials bought from NPCs/AH. All my research was done either on ffxiah.com or San d'Oria/Bastok AH. Also all prices listed were current prices at the time I leveled this craft. (Early 2009)
NOTE: I cant say it enough; Alway check prices on your server before doing a synth!!
== Smithing Tips ==
1. Ctownwoody: As always, be sure to check Ctown's guide. One of the best Smithing guides on here. Check his Smithing guide here - I also used the same format from his guide. 
2. The Mining Myth - Most people consider mining to either be a great savior or a great waste. They can be both. Sometimes mining can pay off, but be careful! The main source of money in mining is selling what you get. Smithing is based on improving the ingredients. EX if you mine 10k worth if materials, use it in syths and make an item worth 8k, then you did not just save yourself 8k. You lost 2k. If you can sell what you mine for more than the item you want to synth, then do that! 
3. Profit - Smithing is not a profitable synth to level. A lot of times you're simply fighting to break even. However it’s used as a sub-craft in most other crafts so you eventually have to level it. Guaranteed, there are a select few synths that you can profit a little bit on. 
4. Camp AH - Simple enough. If the AH doesn't have what you need at any given moment, wait and keep a close eye on it. With it being difficult to break even at times, you don't want to over pay for jacked up items. Also keep in mind, there are two main smithing guilds. One is in Sandy and one is in Bastok. (Al Zabi to, but shouldn't need to go their). So if an item is not on one AH, check the other two! 
5. Think for yourself! - Don't always assume what is in a guide will automatically work for you. Research the items, cost, and availability on your server and see what will or will not work for you!!! 
6. Basic FYI, if you haven't realized yet, the more room in your Gobbiebag the better. 
7. Sub-crafts - Strangely enough for a craft that is a very common sub-craft, leveling this does not require many. The most common one is Leather crafting up to 12. However it gets their gradually so you can start with a very low level and still succeed. (I personally started at 2) There is one optional synth towards the end that requires woodworking 60-62. But it can be avoided. And there is one bridge synth of alchemy 49.
== Guide ==
Note: any synth that you can use to level, and then use the resulting item to level again is a great plan!
==== 0-10 ====
*Bronze Ingot (2)-Fire Crystal, Copper Ore x3, Tin Ore - Well.. gotta start somewhere lol. These can be a bit profitable at times. Most high level people or none crafters don't want to bother making these for their needs. That's where you come in! Copper Ore runs 9 gil at sandy guild, and Tin Ore 30 gil = 57gil + crystal. 
NOTE Taking a profitable synth well past cap is a good way to get funding for upcoming levels. (And believe me, you'll need it.)
*Bronze Sheet (4)-Fire Crystal, Bronze Ingot - Make some more ingots or use any left over. Add a fire crystal and you're set. Simple. These however don't sell very often, but that's of no concern because you need them for the next synth.
*Bronze Scales (10)-Wind Crystal, Bronze Sheet - Bronze sheets cost 150 gil at sandy guild. OR make your own ingot for 57 gil. Add some crystals and you’ve got your scales! Unfortunately, these don’t sell well at all and only NPC for 26-27 gil. Considering whets to come, that loss is nothing! Besides, sell a stack of ingots, and your money is back! :p - Take this to cap.
TEST ITEM: Xiphos(8): Fire Crystal, Giant Femur, Bronze Ingot x2 - Craft one or buy one, doesn’t matter. A bonecraft subskill of 2. Not a big issue, but might cause trouble.
==== 11-20 ====
*Bronze Bolt Heads (14)-Wind Crystal, Bronze Ingot - Again, very simple. Enjoy it while you can. Once again these don’t sell well, even if you have woodworking and can make them into arrows. Sells to an NPC for 1 gil however. The loss is minimal though. Especially considering the long chain starting next. 
NOTE From this point on smithing will start become very expensive. I’ll try to focus on synths that will ultimately result in getting most of your gil back. You might want to take a look at the streatch rangeing from Iron ingots below to the Cuisses (35) to get an idea of whats ahead. 
*Iron Ingot (20)-Fire Crystal, Iron Ore x4 - Welcome to Iron.. and please except my condolences... Iron Ore cost 675 each at either guild. And the ingot cost 2700. But right now you need the skill form making them. Take these to cap and hold onto them.
TEST ITEM: Aspis: Fire Crystal, Ash Lumber, Bronze Sheet x2 - Make or buy, whichever is cheaper.
==== 21-30====
*Iron Sheet (22)-Fire Crystal, Iron Ingot - Use all them Iron Ingots you just made here. Take to cap, absolutely. This is a profitable synth for a very important reason. Iron Sheets are the most commonly used item in smithing and you will go through a ton of them. If you have enough patience to make enough for your own uses plus some for the Ah then by all means go for it. Again though, hold on to these for another synth.
*Iron Scales (26)-Wind Crystal, Iron Sheet - Noticing a simple pattern yet? I sure hope so. Unload the sheets, and take this to cap. And of course, hold on to them.
*Steel Bullet (30)-Fire Crystal, Steel Ingot, Firesand - Alchemy 49 as a MAIN craft. A slight twist. It will still level up smithing just the same though. This is primarily a bridge synth. You can’t make Steel Ingots yet so you'll have to check the AH. And they’re not cheap at all. Since you'll need Alchemy for this, you can make your own firesand if it’s cheaper than the AH. These are very common bullets. Check the price their going for and the price of the materials to determine the max you should spend on the ingots. Try not to spend too much.
NOTE If you dont have alch, youll probably want to find another bridge here. 26 to 35 is quite a jump to make, even with advanced imagin support. 
TEST ITEM: Bilbo: Fire Crystal, Silver Ingot, Iron Ingot- Goldsmithing 7 sub-craft, so you’ll probably just buy one.
==== 31-40 ====
*Iron Cuisses (35)-Earth Crystal, Iron Scales x2, Cotton Thread, Leather Trousers - Leathercraft 5 subskill. Time to use those scales now. The important thing here is not only the smithing skill but the leathercraft skill if you don’t already have it. While the obvious is important, make sure you cap on leathercraft lol. You can also check out Iron Greaves. Same basic recipe but cap is 36 
The gil sum up for Iron. For twelve Iron Cuisses, you'll need 24 Iron Scales (two per synth). One ingot + crystals = one Iron Scales 2700*24=64,800 A stack of Cotton Thread runs about 3-6k = 67,800-70,800 + crystal. Trousers run 482 in sandy *12=5,784. In total, assuming no failures, equals 73,584-76,584 per 12 Cuisses. (I told ya it would start getting expencive. But it takes u from ~14 to 35)
These NPC for up to 5800gil or 6200 from the guild itself. *12 = 69,600 - 74,400 So it’s roughly a break-even synth. Just takes a while to get there.
TEST ITEM War Pick: Fire Crystal, Steel Ingot, Ash Lumber - Woodworking 6 sub-craft. Buy or make, whatever is cheaper.
==== 41-50 ====
*Iron Mittens (41)-Earth Crystal, Iron Sheet, Lizard Skin - Leathercraft 10 as a sub-craft. This is why getting level 5 was so important before. And the same thing applies, you’ll need to get it to 10 on this synth as well. If you farm the Lizard Skin it'll be a break-even synth, otherwise you’ll lose the cost of the skin. NPC these to the Bastok guild. Perhaps your first time there is you've been operating in sandy :p 
*Iron Subligar (45)-Earth Crystal, Iron Sheet, Lizard Skin, Cotton Cloth - Leathercraft 12. I would strongly suggest turning in a test item to the tanners’ guild in sandy to get past level 10 Leathercraft. A stack of Iron Sheets will run 32,400 if you make them. Lizard Skin 4-5k and Cotton Cloth 8-9k = 44,400~46,400. These NPC for 3000-3200 = 38,400. A little bit of a loss if you don’t farm anything. But still not that bad if you didn’t.
TEST ITEM: Mythril Pick: Fire Crystal, Mythril Ingot, Elm Lumber - Make or buy, as always.
 NOTE: With the release of abyssea, prices have changed on these dramatically. Always be sure to check your severs prices before starting anything. 
==== 51-60 ====
NOTE Now it starts to get very, very expensive. Loss or profit will determine entirely on your fail rate. (Which I don’t find appealing, especially since mine was high at this point) This is also the start of very few alternatives in synthing options, unless your will to lose a LOT of gil.
*Darksteel Ingot (52)-Fire Crystal, Darksteel Ore, Iron Ore x3 - Some people call this synth the 'License to print gil' ... I believe they have a license to be an idiot. I absolutely hate this synth, and any synth involving darksteel while leveling. So naturally theirs a fair amount in this section -_- ; Darksteel Ore runs around 7k each, Iron Ore 675 each = ~9k per synth. A stack of these can sell up to 120k. 9k*12=108,300.
Statistically it is a very profitable synth, and it can be. The problem here is the fail rate. If you fail and lose one darksteel ore, that’s an immediate 7~9k loss. Plus you can’t sell it. So you're basically down to break even if you fail 1 out of 12. Fail 2 and your losing money in a big way. So I really don’t care for it.
*Gorget (53)-Fire Crystal, Iron Sheet, Sheep Leather - A decent alternative, though a bit of a stretch from Iron Subligar (45). The sheet is 2700+crystal*12= 32,400 stack of sheep leather around 8k = ~40k. These only NPC at Bastok and for about 2300. 27,600 for 12. There are however two good things about this synth. One, if you fail a synth, you’re not losing anyway near as much as the darksteel ingots. Two; they sell fairly well on Jeuno AH sometimes up to a few a day for around 5k each. Between the two, you can come out of this at break-even. (Or profit if you wait long enough)
This is where you get lucky. At least from my point of view. I searched all the recipes on wiki in this range, looked over every guide made, and came up short. Either the materials needed were extremely rare, or a synth was at a major loss that I simply wasn’t going to do. I spent about 2 weeks searching before I found this grrrrrreat! synth.
*Steel Ingot (56) - Fire Crystal, Djinn Ash, Iron Sandx4 - Hope you’re in the mood to travel some. The ash can be farmed or bought on AH for ~15k a stack. The sand you can buy in Norg for 436 each. That’s about 36k for a single stack. But they sold for 45k. o.o Just what you need. Especially if you had a bad day on the 1st few synths. And can also prepare you for the next ones.
NOTE: I am deeply saddened to say that on a lot of servers this item has lost a lot of its value. A blow to crafters everwhere. /cry
*Darksteel Bolt Heads (62) - Wind Crystal, Darksteel Ingot - This might not even be a option for most people. The bolt heads stack to 99 and each synth yields 6 heads. that's 16.5 (17) ingots to make a stack. Average ingot is 10-12k * 17 = 170k - 204k to make a stack. The stack sells on ah for 90k. 0.o I still don’t get that one. woodworking will allow you to turn the heads into usable (and sellable) bolts. Keep in mind, farming for this synth will help. Lumber is available at sandy guild. Check prices on your server, chances are youll skip this/
*Nodowa (66)-Earth Crystal, Silk Thread, Iron Sheet - If you actually took a look at the cap first you’ll notice quite a jump. In fact a bit too far of a jump for me, which is why I resorted to the darksteel bolts above. If you’re taking these on from 56 then Adv Sup. is a must. +1 equip will help out to. Do everything you can to minimize failing and loss of materials. You can NPC them to Silver Owl of the Tenshodo in Port Bastok for about 2900. NPC to Ghebi Damomohe in Lower Jeuno-Neptune's Spire for about 2700 
NOTE: I was able to do this synth fairly successfully at 57+3(ad synth sup) Which is good because those darksteel bolts took forever. 
NOTE: Now that you might need to fully cap on these, its probably a worth while investment to get the smithing KI sheeting. It only cost 10k guild points, and will allow you to make 6 sheets per synth. A DRASTIC reduction of time and crystals opposed to doing them one by one. 
Congratulations on reaching 60!! Definitely a hard earned rode. 
==== 60-70 ====
Well... that didnt last long. Because now the sub craft has been changed to reach caps of 70! So buckle up. 10 more levels to go!
Fourtionitly its a rather small section. The Nodowa's listed in 50-60 as a way to finish, are probably still a good bet to cap on for 60-70.
*Nodowa (66)-Earth Crystal, Silk Thread, Iron Sheet - Listed again. They should be a lot easier to get from 60-66 then it was trying to cap to 60. The level gap is a bit closer now which should help reduce fail rates.
*Darksteel Pick (73) - Fire Crystal, Elm Lumber, Darksteel Ingot - With the level of this synth you can see why I suggested capping on the last one. Now normaly i avoid synths with darksteel ingots because they end up lossing you a lot of gill. But this one can NPC for around 12k. Depending on the price of mets, you might even make some back. And it caps you out to 70. Win-Win. 
Feel free to post any comments or suggestions in the talk page, I try to check them often.
Hope this guide helped!!
~ Godofgods ~