[Olbohn]

Ok, this isn't "exactly" your typical "How do I make money blah blah blah" but its headed is headed in that direction. Well, its like this, my Woodworking is 97 atm and lord save me, I have been looking at recipe after recipe after recipe, analyzing the FFxiah.com for months now. And, I can hardly make any profit at all.
Once in a while, I'll run into a recipe thats making good gil but boom 2 days later. The price drops on it significantly, and boom 2 weeks later I'm still stuck with a bunch of these items that I have to undercut to sell because everyone else is undercutting and all I'm doing is losing money putting it on the AH, not to mention I'm running out of slots. Sure, I probably made 20-40k profit but most likely from the time I spent gathering in the info, materials, room, etc etc the synth is dead. Now my point here is, not exactly "what" you make money with. Its more of "how" you do it. I recall a while back, I think a year or so ago. There was this one poster who was a major in Economics had really great methods for making gil off the AH (ie. methods to controlling supply of high demand items). Does anyone happen to remmeber this who this guy was?
Anyone good at economics wanna give a tip or two? I've already spent millions on this craft to get this high, please don't tell me I have to go farming or cut logs to make a profit, it just makes me sick knowing I wasted all that time/gil just to do what I could've done with Woodworking at 1.

[Eldarias]

I knew someone who made some nice gil HQing elemental staves, have you tried that?

[zhan]

Olbohn :
Now my point here is, not exactly "what" you make money with. Its more of "how" you do it. I recall a while back, I think a year or so ago.

Also, he would have to be 100 + 3 + 3 to get T2 on staves, doing staves at T1 is stupid.





And to answer the OP, people are stupid, and because people are stupid anything you craft that you think you'll make money on you most likely wont make money. T0s on a breakever/slight profit synth (Togi/Kabuto) will prob be your best bet, imo. I haven't ever messed with wood so I dont know much about the market, but I do know it's pretty much dead.

[.Sotek.]

Was that the one that got moved to flame wars then locked/deleted because the poster disagreed with a mod or something? >.>
I recall something about fixing the price at whatever you want to sell it at by buying out all the undercutters and selling them at your price. In theory it works, in practice I'm not so sure... Worked for me when synthing bolts was worth it...

I personally spend 1-2 hours farming synth items for Shihei and then end up making 18 toolbags (~60k). With all the extra black ink I end up making and selling I can just cancel out any cost I do have (something like 4k cost >.>).
They sell fast enough and there isn't a great deal of undercutting that I've seen...

[xurion]

I had a look at your server and found the following in less than 5 mins:

Demon Arrows - Profit through NQ, Tier 2 reachable from skill+ gear and support.

Kabura Arrows - Profit through NQ.

Ebony Lumber - Loss of minimal gil on NQ, Tier 2 already reached.

Mahogany Lumber - Same as Ebony, but Tier 3 reachable with gear/support.

I'm not listing any more because FFXIAH has what you need - do your research.

[Olbohn]

Thanks Xurion, but I've done all those items already.

Demon Arrows - they're alright, but if you notice there are 14 stacks in there, normally 6 stacks sell a day. Chances are, someone is going to undercut from my experience. Followed by more undercutting, thats why I steered away from this synth for the time being.

Kabura Arrows - I've also looked at this already, but it requires at subcraft of Bonecraft 53. Which I don't have, now should I level that bonecraft just for this one synth? You tell me, thats why I"m here asking.

Ebony Lumber - ah yes this isn't so bad. And yes, I've been through this synth also. The problem with this synth, is its not dependable at all. Right now I could make some decent gil, 20k maybe by synthing a stack of lumber. But, what then? Theres only 14 logs in stock, and chances are, once I buy 12 when I get close to that 12 people would raise the prices on the log. And my profit will decrease as it goes. Also, this synth isn't dependable, because I've tried this for over a month and waiting for X amount of logs to be in the AH, for this X amount of price for me not to decrease in profit. Just isn't reliable for me to make gil. Thats what? 20k profit every week if I watch the AH acoordingly? There just isn't enough supply for this synth to be worthwhile.

Mahogany lumber - Same pretty much applies here from what I said about Ebony. And yes, I've done this synth too. I've been watching so many Woodworking synths I can tell you its history from last month. A stack of lumber on this use to be 70k approximately last month. But as you know it, extra supply results in undercutting. So I also wanted to steer away from this synth for a while untill prices stablized a little bit, which it seem to have but still, just not dependable like Ebony.

I really appreciate the research you did Xurion, but unfortunately, I've already done the research on these. Like I've said, I've been through pretty much every single recipe in Woodworking and it everything just seems so dead. Heck, what pushed me to start a topic was, when I use to synth the Demon arrows for my Ranger. If you look at the demon arrowheads, they're about 70k right now right? Well, about a month ago they were only 50k a stack until I came into the picture. And whats sickening is, the Demon arrowheads were only being sold by this one person for quite some time. So he therefore could manipulate the prices to his advantage pretty easily since he was the only supplier and there was a high demand. What was disturbing was, he could easily make 1.5k profit per synth NQ, HQ perhaps 2-3k. I saw that synth and my jaw just dropped. I don't do research on other synths, but by looking at this one synth's profit just made me go "Wtf". Thats the equivalent to a Kabura Arrows, without a subcraft of 53, and a much better HQ rate seeing as it only takes a 63 skill level to make. Now, just wtf I take one min to look at another synth and bam I find a recipe thats so damn profitable. Can I do that with Woodworking? I've been trying as hard as I can, now I'm asking what you do?

As for Sotek, I've heard of that method where you can make a decent profit by making expendible items at a lower cost then the normal synth costs to increase your overall profit. Except, like I mentioned on my original's post regarding farming if its possible? I really want to try avoid doing that. :no

[ManEatingTaru]

Lemme start off by saying I'm no WW but if you really wanna make money and are serious about your craft you should have all subs leveled for it. With all subs leveled you have no restrictions as what you can make that is inside the relam of WW, so yes, level BC and any other craft this requires....youve made it this far, dont stop now

By the way, trying HQing elemental staves. Grow your own ore and have a GS cut them for you, don't lose much gil and you make a profit (assuming you HQ it).

[Olbohn]

Leveling subs does sound like a common sense thing to do but, how about you be a bit more specific? Which crafts? and I mean, I don't want to end up leveling bonecraft that high if its just one synth. You never know, what if that synth dies? My sub craft of bonecraft goes along with it? I have actually been working on my subs, so far my Smithing is 30 and damn, just makes me so sick that I thought I was nearing the end of the tunnel on crafting losses and close to crafting profit. I guess time to save up money for subs and hopefully I make it back someday?

Also, Thanks Zhan, I'll definitely put Kabuto on my list once I have the funds to keep it going. As for Togi, I might have to consider leveling leather for that.

[Lothiriel]

Choco dig or go logging for your own raw materials?

Truth is profit margins are razor thin on almost any craftable item anymore. If you can make 10-20k profit per AH slot you are doing pretty well for yourself.

[Auraeon]

Warp Cudgels.


Make your own Ethereal Lumber, buy Oak logs from Al Zahbi Woodworking NPC right outside of the AH area, up the stairs, or from AH if its cheaper(sometimes it is.)

Buying stacks of anima seems like a large price when looking at them, but you get 99 synths per single stack (3 different animas needed to make Ethereal Lumber, you also need the key item Wood Ensorcellment.)

In the end, you pay less than 10k to make a Warp Cudgel (2-5k with HQ's on the Oak Lumber to make the Ethereal Lumber) and they sell from anywhere between 13 to 25k (prices from Levithan before I deactivated my account.)

Easy to make millions of gil in overall profit from one stack of each typeof anima needed (wind, dark and ice.)

If you can't find anima on AH, you'll have to farm the memories in promys which can be done on the first floor, then find an alchemist to craft them into anima for you, or wait until there are some on AH. Once you have a stack of each of the three types of anima needed, it lasts a long time (because they each stack to 99.)

Hope this helped. Enjoy!


**edit**

Warp Cudgels also sell very fast.