Crafting: Gourmand Gratifier

Most of my "spare" time in the game over the past two months has been focused on increasing Qiara's cooking skills, building up Guild Points for Qiara, and raising Kiki's fishing skills. And hopefully make some gil in the process.

All of the coeurl subs that Qiara had made had finally sold off, so I moved her on to Tavnazian Salad and Flounder Meuniere to get her to 92 and 93, respectively. The salads were handy for making lots of tacos, both for sale and for Kiki. The Flounder Meuniere sell for a handsome profit, but they sell so rarely, it's not really worth putting them up on the AH. I sold a lot of them to NPCs for a smaller profit, to get some grocery money back for Quiznos, but since they can also turn up as Guild Point items, I've hung on to quite a few. Qiara had the ingredients on hand for a few tonosama rice balls, so she did 3 synths and got the .1 she need to push her to 93.

Next up was Black Curry, which caps at 94. Kiki had to do a bunch of ferry fishing to get the tuna Qiara needed, and got some noble ladies in the process. I also needed Grimmonites from Sea Serpent Grotto, which got me Bastore Bream and Nebimonites as well. Black Curry sells for a pretty good price, but it's quite slow unless it's that day's Guild Point item. I opted to sell a lot of them rather than save for Qiara's GP, since it's a poor gil/GP ratio.

One time when I was fishing on the ferry, Silverhook came along, with no WHMs camping for him. I decided to attack him (as PLD75/BLM35), but didn't buff up or switch out of my fishing gear first. That was kind of dumb, so I warped out before he killed me.

Fishing skillups have been reasonable, though really random. One day Kiki got 1.1 skill ups on fewer than 24 black sole catches, but then caught another two stacks without a single skillup. Kiki's at 73.5 now, and that should continue to increase as I need to have her catching Grimmonites and Black Sole on a regular basis, both for her own foods (Pescatora and Tavnazian Tacos mostly) and for selling as well.

Since Qiara got to 94, I've been having her make Rice Dumplings, which cap at 95. These also require Woodworking Level 15, so Qiara switched her focus to woodworking for a few days. She made lauan lumber, maple wands, workbenches, ash lumber, ash wands, and ash staves to get to 10, all while still in Windurst, with cheap wood available from NPCs. I typically would desynth all the items until the materials vanished, but the skill up rate on the desynths was worth it.

Qiara had to travel to San d'Oria to pass the exam at the guild, so I switched her to THF1 and walked there, taking the ferry from Mhaura to Selbina. I always enjoy the level 1 runs like that, but I was wishing I'd brought along prism powders in a couple of spots, just to save some time instead of waiting until I could safely get her past groups of goblins. Once she passed the test, she stayed in San d'Oria until she hit level 15, making mostly willow lumber, willow wands, and crossbow bolts of various types.

Another thing I need for Rice Dumplings is a steady supply of Coral Fungus. This is pretty easy to grow from Grain Seeds, so I had Kiki farming for them in La Thiene a couple times. This prompted my husband to remark that one can get a lot of Grain Seeds from harvesting, and that I'd need lots of fresh mugwort from 95 to 99 as it was. So I decided to have Grymalkyn start working as a harvester. She has lots of inventory space, and wouldn't get any aggro in Giddeus, plus she has clothcraft at 53 and can turn a lot of the raw harvesting materials into more salable goods. It made perfect sense, and my husband didn't seem to get mad at me for using poor Grymalkyn in that way, so all is good. I sent her the harvesting gear, had her buy stacks of sickles, and sent her off to Giddeus as a BST60/BLM22. She now stays there until her pockets are full, then heads back to Windurst to process/sell/distribute items as needed, then back off to Giddeus she goes.

Ohrly's been trying to grow Coral Fungus from the grain seeds, and gets quite a bit of Tarutaru rice in the process. This is always handy, since I tend to make/use/sell a lot of sushi, but more Coral Fungus would be nice too. Qiara is slowly making rice dumplings when she has the ingredients, but it will take me awhile to get her the last few points needed to hit 95. After that, it'll be years of Sweet Rice Cakes to take her to 99. I'm not sure I'll be able to get that last point to 100 though, unless I luck into a steady supply of dragon meat. :-)

In the meantime, I've been having Qiara turn in items for guild points when items are really cheap/easy to get, or if I have them on hand already, or have time to have her make them. The first 70,000 for her Chef's Hat didn't seem to take so long, and she got that just over a week ago. The 100,000 I need to her Chef's Apron seems to be a lot more daunting for some reason.

Crafting: Veteran Chef

I've been spending a lot of my "spare" time in-game working on Qiara's cooking skills, and it's been going rather smoothly. She made sole sushi until she was 84, started making Yellow Curry (85 cap), but that didn't sell terribly well, so I moved her over to Marron Glace (86 cap). It's really a very cheap synth, and sells quickly on the AH. Kiki made maple sugar from maple logs she bought at the Woodworking Guild in Al Zahbi, getting a lot of HQs in the process. Quiznos is the San d'Orian grocery boy, and buys whatever Qiara might need: Chestnuts, San d'Orian Grapes, La Thiene Cabbages, Selbina Milk.

I wanted Qiara to make some Pescatore for Kiki, so I spent a day running around everywhere, catching Gold Lobster in East Sarutabaruta, Grimmonites in Sea Serpent Grotto, and Sandfish in Rabao. I've also been keeping up with Black Sole fishing when I've got time before Dynamis or Limbus. Kiki's Fishing skill is 70.2 now as a result. I wish fishing skilled up as quickly as cooking has been for Qiara.

Tarutaru Rice prices went back up since my last crafting update, so I've had Ohrly busy growing a lot of it. I have about 8 stacks on hand for my next bout of sushi (Dorado Sushi caps at 93, so I should get busy catching Noble Ladies on the Ferry).

After capping on Marron Glace, I thought perhaps I could have Qiara start making Flint Caviar, which is made from Emperor Roe, which is made from Emperor Fish. So I headed to the Glacier to try fishing some up, but they were really hard to catch - using a stack of trout balls (they didn't bite on sliced carp), I hooked 8 of the fish, but could only reel in two of them. So the next plan was to make Coeurl Sautee (cap at 88), which I would then use to make Coeurl Subs (cap at 93).

Qiara had a lot of coeurl meat on hand, honey was cheap at the AH, grape juice is easy to make with a constant supply of grapes from San d'Oria. The biggest "trouble" was wild onions, but Kiki made several trips to the Outer Hurototo Ruins to beat up Goblin Thugs until she had a couple stacks to send Qiara, and repeated the process when those were gone. I ran out of meat before capping, and made one small trip to Zi'Tah to farm some more, but Ranzz and Lucrezia have been spending a lot of time killing Coeurls in the Labyrinth of Onzozo lately, and Ranzz sent me a few stacks of meat. By the time I had capped on the sautees, I had over 50 of them on hand.

Having reached 88, Qiara was ready for her next guild test. They wanted her to make a Seafood Stew, and all she needed was a Gold Lobster, so Kiki fished one up for her. Qiara made the stew, turned it in at the guild, and is now a Veteran in the guild. I really should start working on guild points and get her an apron and hat, but I'd rather just focus on leveling for the time being.

I laid in a good supply of white bread, la thiene cabbages, mithran tomatoes, crying mustard, and selbina butter, and Qiara made stack after stack of Coeurl Subs over the past week. I also threw in a few odd synths where I had the ingredients, just to see if she might get another skillup, such as Vampire Juice (handy for soloing WHM), and Rolanberry Pies (hit the cap of 90 for those on the three synths I had ingredients for).

I'll finish up all the Coeurl meat, since the subs sell relatively well (it will take me a long time to sell off all that I've made already, since I refuse to flood the market), but I'd also like to make a bunch of Tavnazian Salads, which cap at 92. Kiki uses about two stacks of tacos a week, and it would be nice to skill up while making some salads then turn them into tacos for Kiki. I'll have to do a bunch of fishing in the meantime, but a lot of it will have skillup potential, so it's all good.

Crafting: Pamama au Lait and Sole Sushi

Over the past few weeks, I've been working on Qiara's cooking skill, getting her up to 82.6 from 77. I first made some Shallops Tropicale, since she had all the ingredients on hand, and it seems to be selling pretty well these days - decent profit even if you buy the ingredients on the AH. I then switched to Pamama au Lait, making enough to regen an army, but it's so cheap to make, and sells steadily for a profit, so it's not so bad, even as an unstackable item. It was especially handy when Windurst had control of Upper Elshimo, and Qiara could get the Pamamas herself. When she hit 78, I made a Whitefish Stew and turned it into the Guild to pass the test and become an Adept.

Since I knew Sole Sushi would be coming up quickly, I've started having Kiki fish for Black Sole in Port Jeuno. They're a lot easier to catch now than when I tried 30 levels ago, but if I'm not paying enough attention, I still time-out on them occasionally. I seem to get fewer skillups on the level 96 Black Sole (my fishing is at 69) than on the level 75 Kayabaligi, which feeds into my theory about skillups being better when you're close to the cap for a particular fish.

At current prices, it's still better for Qiara to make sushi out of the sole I catch, netting me about 25K for each stack of black sole I catch (two stacks of sole sushi), compared to 15-17K for the stack of sole itself. It's not too profitable to be making sushi if you have to buy your own fish though. I guess some of the anti-RMT measures have been working, since sole was much cheaper not that long ago. Tarutaru Rice isn't so costly on the AH anymore either - it's just a tiny bit more than it costs to buy from the Cooking Guild. I still should be growing my own though, since it's an easy crop to raise.

I had tried going to Oldton Movalpolis to catch Armored Pisces, which I could use for skilling up Bonecraft, but I can scarcely catch those any more. They must have changed how they fight, since I was able to catch them well enough ages ago.

I also entered the Fish Ranking Contest last month - they wanted the biggest Monke-Onke. I caught quite a few of them, and had one that was significantly bigger than the others. I turned that one in, and didn't try for another. However, I came in 24th, so it wasn't good enough.

Crafting: More Broken Rods

Moat carp: 2,457/10,000 (24.57%)

I got Kiki's woodworking up to 53. Levelled it to 50 on broken Fastwater Rods, which was a pretty slow process until I headed to the Lake in East Saru - broke rods quite fast there. It took about 18 repairs to get the 1.0 skillups I needed. Then I started in on scorpion arrows. I had a lot of breaks at first, but things improved each time I levelled up. Fortunately arrows are going for so much on the AH in Jeuno that I still made a profit, even with all the breakage. I know that won't be the case when I have to start in on Demon Arrows.

Index: Crafting and Fishing

This category is for Tsakiki's guild pursuits. She's striving to be an accomplished Fisherman and Woodworker, and has been working on leveling other crafts to support her woodworking. She's also leveled cooking in order to make Melon Juice for herself.

Fishing

11/2005: General Update
12/2005: Back to Qufim
01/2006: Guild Points and Gil
05/2006: City Fishing in the Expansion
10/2006: Time to Get Serious
11/2006: The Horror! The Horror!
11/2006: Craftsman Status
02/2007: Artisan and Apron
03/2007: Pamama au Lait and Sole Sushi

General Crafting

06/2006: Profiting While Skilling
06/2006: Other People Seem to Think We're Crazy

Woodworking

12/2004: I'm a Lumberjack and I'm OK...
03/2005: Breaking Rods
03/2005: More Broken Rods

Bonecraft

05/2006: 2 Years Later...
06/2006: Have Pickaxe, Will Travel
06/2006: Living off the Land
06/2006: No More!
07/2006: Beetle Arrowheads for Everyone!

Alchemy

Cooking

03/2007: Pamama au Lait and Sole Sushi
04/2007: Veteran Chef
07/2007: Gourmand Gratifier

Smithing

Goldsmithing