So you want to start the road of crafting and syntetisis....

I must warn you that is a LONG Road ahead, and if you don't go on material hunt, long travels for the best price this is not for you, neither if you have heart problems or are pregnant, and you must be this tall to enter...

First, you don't want to get overwhelmed. Start off slow, pick one guild and stick with it for a while. At first crafting is an expensive practice, but think about all the Gil you will make when you become an expert. So don't get discouraged!

Anyways, back to picking your guild. You can choose from Blacksmith, Goldsmith, Carpenter, Alchemist, BoneCraft, Leathersmith, Taylor, Cooking, or Fisherman. Many people say the fishermen's guild is not good for anything but they do give discounts to members on all the supplies. All the guilds have members who are willing to help new recruits. Just talk to them, you would be amazed how much you will learn.

Now that you have chosen a profession, it is now time to learn some of the basics, for that you need to seek the Grand Master of the profession of your choice. Name in Parethesis is where the guild are located.

Alchemy (Bastok)

A guild which plays mainly with chemicals and potion types with odd ingredients. Main focus on guild is medicine and special potions, but it also makes special weapons.
Although compound skill is not really needed, woodwork, a black smith, and gold smith skill are a great plus for bows, arrows and bullet type synthesizing.

Black Smith (Bastok / 8-23hours, San D'oria, Mhaura / 8-23hours)

Main focus on ore, metal material, etc. Creates many types of weapons and armors for usage in battle field.
Woodwork, gold smith, and leather works compounding skills are great plus for this guild.

Bone Worker (Windurst - holiday on Wind)

Woodworking is the skillcraft of choice for many rangers and ninjas, for very good reasons. The ability to produce the ammunition you will shoot off to no end at a cost less than you can purchase it from your local AH is the only thing that prevents most rangers from endless farming simply for a few hours of play time. Ninjas use ninja tools to almost the same extent, and boy, if there aren't scalpers in most AH's trying to make money on stacks of Shihei.

But what most people don't realize is the sheer practicality of making these items in the field. Lets look at an example dear to my heart, Bone Arrows - I prefer the Earth crystal recipe, more on that later.

Bone Arrows - (9)
1 - Bone Arrowhead - Stacks to 12
1 - Arrowwood Lumber - Stacks to 12
1 - Yagudo Fletching - Stacks to 12

Produces 33 Bone Arrows normally per craft, so you're looking at 4x99 stacks of arrows from 3 stacks of components. A single Exceptional craft offsets this balance, and allows for 5 Stacks from 3 components.

Now of course, this difference is small, but in the long run - as with everything else - it all adds up.

Of course, there is always the price consideration too -
Bone Arrowheads - 300/Stack of 12
Arrowwood Lumber - 500/ Stack (Avg between Hiked AH cost, Guild Cost, and Merchant Cost)
Yagudo Fletching - 200-750

Now, about those pesky crystals. There are 3 major crystals to lvl Woodworking to 29 - Fire, FIRE, and FIRE!!! (Just Kidding)

Wind - Use this to make lumber from logs, and to make most 'Carved' synths.
Earth - This is used to combine items, ie - Arrows and Bolts - These are the synths you should pay attention to most. Often, in the first lvls, the difference between a 500 gil stack of earth crystals and a 2k stack of wind crystals can change your plan entirely.
Lightning - Used to make Maple Sugar, the Bane of existence.

The auction system in FFXI can be, at the very least, a little confusing. I know when I first looked at it, I couldn't make heads or tales of it. With this guide, you'll understand the system in no time. At first, the information before you can seem daunting. In reality, its very simple. It's just placed in an inefficient, linear fashion. This is because of the game's design to work with a gamepad, for the PlayStation 2.


Shopping

When you first approach an AH (Auction House), You'll find a lot of people standing around, and have a hard time getting access. The best thing I've found to work was to simply go to first-person view and approach the AH window. Press F8, which targets the closest NPC target. This targets the Auction Counter, which then gives you access to the auctions when you hit Enter.

To start shopping, you just hit Bid. From there, you select which category you wish to view, and work your way through the sub-categories till you reach the item listing. Once you get to the list, you'll notice a lot of items listed. The Auction system lists every conceivable item. It's a nice way to see everything in the game if you have the patience to browse.

Some of the items will have a number in brackets at the far right of the listing. This number shows how many of that particular item are available to buy from players. If you see a number between the name of the item, and the number in brackets, this means the item is sold as a stack. For example, if you were shopping for Wooden Arrows, you could see this:

Wooden Arrows [3]
Wooden Arrows 99 [12]

About this guide
I decided to write this guide in order to help people considering making white mage their main job, or those wanting to make it a sub-job. I also hope it will provide tips for more experienced white mages. Please keep in mind that this entire guide is made up through my own experiences and opinions, so what you take to heart and ignore is completely up to you. It's my first guide, and I'm really scatter-brained, so I hope that it helps you and you can make some sense out of it.

White Mage basics
For race, I suggest either being Taru or Elvaan. The choice you are making is between MP and HP. As a Taru you will have over twice the MP than an Elvaan would at later levels, and vice versa. The easiest way to make the decision is to decide whether or not you will be a mage your entire life. If you plan on becoming a bard or beast master, I strongly suggest Elvaan. For MP-reliant classes like straight white mage or summoner, I would suggest Taru Taru. Either way you will still make a good white mage. It's all up to you!!

I have seen a lot of white mages who feel that using smaller cures is a good thing. Through my own experience, this not only generates more hate but robs you of a good deal of MP.

Some warriors will start telling you to use smaller cures, because sometimes with the bigger cures you gain more instant-hate. Well, they're warriors! Just ask them to let you do your job, and usually they get the idea.

Now, first, let's take this simple. Cure I hits for a max of 30, that I have seen. Cure II will heal for up to 90. Cure III will, I assume, heal for up to 180. However at level 31 I haven't managed to do a maximum heal with it.