Haha I sold my stacks for 6k apiece in Jeuno...I win at teh intarnets ^^. Nah, I just think ninjas are lazy on Unicorn and don't feel like crafting them themselves and just buy them for whatever. Works for me though ^^
Tsurara (Ice Pillars) are the best way to level alchemy if you don't want to spend alot of gil on Animal Glue materials. Animal Glue definately helps later for crafting Enchanted weapons, but you need skills in Smithing and Goldsmithing.
Used in casting Hyoton (Releasing Ice) Ice damage, resistance to Fire weakened. Ichi 15 / Ni 40
Useful for leveling Ninjutsu and costs next to nothing if you synth it.
Leveled Alchemy from 0-6 this way. Craft on Iceday or Windsday.
Both Rock Salt and Distilled Water can be bought from Raimbroy's Grocery in Southern Sandy for about 10-15 gil. Only cost here is the Ice Crystals. If your 30+ just kill Gigas in Qufim or save the crystals while you're there if you plan on getting Ninja.
These are used for the Hyoton Ninja spells. Ichi@ lv 15? and Ni@ lvl 40. I found these an excellent way to raise NIN magic for cheap. And to clarify the spell does Ice damage to target, and weakens it to Fire.
I've made 510 of these so far, in less that an hour. I'm level 5 Alchemy and started from 0. Only failed once or twice - and btw, I didn't lose 1 synth during Iceday
First i was lvl 1 in alchemy and got adv. imagery and bought a stack of ice crystals for 1.2k in Bastok on Titan, then a stack of rock salt for 500 and went to the Bats Lair and got 2 stacks of distilled water for 12 gil each. I only failed twice out of twelve attempts. Sold a stack back for 1.3k and got 1.4k for em. Not bad, if u wanna lvl up your skill. I only got to 1.9 alchemy lvl on Iceday, so i'd say try it on Windsday for more skill up.
Making profit by farming crystals and crafting doesn't make crafting profitable. You make money by farming. You still lose money by using the crystals to craft, you just never see the money, so it doesn't seem as bad to most people.
Oh and also. If you don't fail it takes 9.9 cristals per stack of ice crystals so it takes about 1.15k of crystals to synth a stack (acording to your data)
First off it is better to buy the rock salt from cooking guild or the region vendor for Volbow(click on rock salt here and the page will show the vendors for each city depending on the conquest at that moment around 15-20gil each), and 2nd, a stack of crystals would make 120 of them w/ no breaks of course, and they sell as 99 a stack so you would have 21 left over for a new stack, so there isnt a loss if you do it that way. Just letting you know that there is a way to make them w/ little or no loss.
Also, i think they sell for 10 gil each, so you could possibly sell for 1.3k if you're the patient type, but i would rather sell them for 1.2k instantly and keep going. 1k is nothing to cry about.
On Leviathan you can buy ice crystals/clusters (don't remember which) fairly cheap in San d'Oria, something like 900-1k per stack/cluster, then go to Raimbroy's in Southern San d'Oria and get the water and salt cheap (especially if you have high fame), synth, then sell the stacks of material at the Auction House. That's the way I did it, and made a nice profit. Including losses due to failed synths, I'd say I got at least double my money back. Pricing and demand may be different on your server, and maybe on mine by now, but between being a fisher, and the amount of money I made making these, Alchemy has turned out to be quite profitable.
this is what i did to raise alcamy (level 15 now) to level 5~. i bought the crystals and water...then i would go exp in quiefom(sp?) off the crabs. (this is only if your level 22~25).
That takes too long, just buy the rock salt from sandy or volbow vendor. I wouldn't depend on xping in Qufim Island to lvl up Alchemy to 6 (if that makes sense).
Lots of people have mentioned this, but I figured i'd just go ahead and reiterate... bought 8 stacks of ice crystals, 16 stacks of water, and 8 stacks of rock salt. Sold results back to the vendor, and only took about a 2-300 gil loss + loss of failures. by the time I'd synthed all of those, I was capped at level 6.
Now i'm off to fish up a **** load of yellow globes for alch 6-12^^. 1/5 of the way to silver bullets!
the point of clusters, i have found is that.. you can farm clusters... versus you have to get xp to gain crystals... plus clusters are used in some recipes
When synthing try and stay within 5 lvl's of lvl cap (4 if possible), synth on the day of the crystal (ice crystal = iceday), DON'T synth on opposite day of crystal used (ice/lightning), and always use adv. synth support when possible. This will increase ur chance of success, minimize ur losses when you fail and maximize ur chance of high quility synth (also known as + synth item).
This is not necessarily the best way of achieving skill-ups; this is most definitely not the way to go about doing HI-Q synths.
However, you are correct. Using a the crystal on the same day does lessen the chances of losing a synth, and therefore the crystal and/or items. And there is no excuse for ever not having adv. synth when leveling crafting, except if you like to throw money away. The only exception I have noticed this with is in regards to dark crystals; synthing dark crystals on darksday will for the most part result in a lot of broken crystals. There are plenty of guides out there, and on allakazham, regarding synthing days, moon cycles and whatnot. I would suggest browsing through them. Some are accurate, some are not; however as long as it makes you happy, thats all that matters.
A few things to keep in mind: You may want to reach a bit( do synths that are 7-9 levels higher than you) if you find that the materials are significantly cheaper. Synthing with dark/light crystals more often than not leads to quicker skillups due to their elemental attributes(it's pretty much the same rate regardless of the day, except as noted above).
So to paraphrase: Crafting w/crystal on crystal days increases success rate. Lowers skillup. Crafting w/crystal on non-crystal days has average success rate, average skillup. Crafting w/crystal on weak-crystal days has lowered success rate; high skillup.
General strategy: On reaches, craft on crystal day. On nears, craft on weak day/darksday.
And there is no excuse for ever not having adv. synth when leveling crafting, except if you like to throw money away.
If you get faster skillups i wouldn't call it throwing money away.
I notice the fastest skillup rate when about levels from the cap, and i think its because its hard enough to get good skillups from it, yet its still in the 5 lvl gap range to be able to get skillups on broken synths. I believe this because the closer you get to lvl caps the less/smaller skillups you get (not just synthing) and support gives +1/2 (reg/adv) to your skill (you can try this by trying a synth 1/2 above the 5 lvl gap and you can get skillups from breaks)
Of course if im ever outside the 5 lvl gap, i always use support.
I also find myself away from the guilds a lot of times (my mules or their delivery/sending boxes are always packed).
Of course i can't prove that you get faster skillups when not using adv. support, but you can't prove its the same (well we both could prove one right and one wrong, or possibly both wrong, but it would take massloads of time/gil)
This is a really good way to build up Alchemy since when u get 99 of these u can sell it for around 1k so u will only be losing some gil and as much as others.