FFXIV: Soul of the Carpenter
What does an elephant (mount) have to do with woodworking? Absolutely nothing. I just thought that was a neat shot from the newest Beast Tribe quests, and didn’t have anything better to head up this post! 🙂
Carpenter Life
After finishing yesterday’s post, I had convinced myself that switching to the Carpenter specialty was something I really wanted to do. So, I went and purchased Carpenter Mastery Book V, and still had enough scrips left over to pick up a Soul of the Crafter to make the switch. It was easy to choose which crafting job to drop.
Back when I first chose Goldsmith as a specialty, I was thinking this was the job to be to craft accessories. Then, it turned out that it was Carpenter who made accessories for crafters and gatherers. I was put out, but didn’t want to spend the scrips to make the switch.
I’ve just been having so much fun crafting things for the house, on top of the fact the accessories I need remain in the Carpenter’s range, that I decided this was the time to make the change. I’m happy for it… now I just need to level my Carpenter and get that geared up!
Last night, I sat down and powered through my Carpenter job quests. I still hadn’t finished the last one from Heavensward (that’s probably true for most of my crafting jobs).
While I loathed crafting job quests up until level 60, I adore the direction they took them in Stormblood. Taking a hint from the Moogle crafting quests, they no longer force you to struggle to scrape together all the materials to make a high quality item for a turn-in. Usually, I just bought it off the market board to save myself the pain.
Instead, they request a special job quest item (you can’t buy on the market board), and provide you the material to make it. If you fail to make the item, you don’t lose the material. It’s so much better.
Not to mention, the experience and skills they give you is really worth stopping to do the new quests. Previously, I’d skip all the crafting job quests and come back to them later because they just weren’t worth it.
Finishing my job quests last night pushed me to level 67 Carpenter! If I’m diligent, I can probably hit level 70 by the end of the week.
Botanist Progress
Meanwhile, I’ve also been focusing on getting gathering scrips from the weekly turn-in. First, I upgraded the axe I bought from last week…
Then, I had enough left over to start to buy some of the other Yellow Scrip gear. Now, in the past, I’ve never done this because I’m not keen on toting around 3 sets of gear for 3 gathering jobs. At this point, however, I have a bit of room in my inventory, thanks to the Glamour Commode, so I decided to go for it.
This was just with minimal effort — I haven’t farmed scrips or anything at all. I should be able to finish up the chest and hat next week, and maybe upgrade something else. We’ll see!
Understanding the Collectable Rotation
Most of this is in part thanks to me finally making sense of the gatherer’s collectable rotation. I’ve struggled with this since collectables were a thing, and never quite understood what I was doing wrong.
Here’s the rotation I’ve been using this week, and now that I get it, I can reliably gather the quality of collectables I need!
All guides I’ve read for rotations have always said “Use Impulsive Appraisal, and if Discerning Eye procs, do this….” And that was my problem.
When things proc in battle, usually the skill on your bar lights up, letting you know. Therefore, I associate the word “proc” with a lit-up skill on my bar.
Discerning Eye is a skill on my bar. I was waiting for it to light up. It never did.
That’s because, in this case, you actually get a Discerning Eye BUFF on your buff bar. This is what was meant by “proc.” All this time, I’ve been waiting to see a skill light up on my bar, and never knew I should have actually been looking for a buff! :'(
By chance, last night, I happened to glance up and see the buff while gathering. Suddenly, it all fell in place, and I figured out that one little thing I’ve been missing. Just like that, I’ve been able to consistently gather quality level collectables.
I probably should have watched a video instead. That would have cleared it all up. Oh well.