_____ _____ ________________ \\\\\\ ////// |||||||||||||||||| \\\\\\ ////// |||||||||||||||||| \\\\\\ ////// |||| ____ _____ _ _ ____\\_///// ____ ____ _ | _ _____ ____ ____ _ _ ( ___)(__ __)( ) ( )( )( )/// ( ___)( )( )|( )(__ __)( )( ___)( ) ( ) ( )_ ( ) ( )( )( () )( )// ( )_ ( () )( )( ) ( ) ( () )( )__ ( )_( ) ( __) ( ) ( ( ) )( __ )( )/ ( __) ( __ )( ( ) ) ( ) ( __ )(___ )(__ __) ( ) _( )_ ( )( )( )( )( )__ ( ) ( )( )( )( ) ( ) ( )( ) __( ) ( ) (_) (_____)(_) (_)(_)(_)(____) (_) (_)(_)(_)|(_) (_) (_)(_)(____) (_) /////\\\\\ |||| //////\\\\\\ |||| ////// Cooking Skill Gain_Guide|______ /////John Collins - deathbeforelife||||| ////// \\\\\\ |||||||||||||||||| ~~~ Table of Contents 1) Introduction 2) Version History 3) Skill Gain Theory 4) The Guild, The Shop, The Imaging, The Exams 5) Favored Recipes 5a) 0 - 10 5b) 10 - 20 5c) 20 - 30 5d) 30 - 40 5e) 40 - 50 6) Ingredient Shopping Locations 7) Contact 8) Usage 9) Credit 10) Thanks ~~~ (1) Introduction ~~~ The purpose of this guide is to help beginning cookers level their skill. The recipes listed here are not the only way to cooking greatness, but they aim to level you with the least amount of lost gil, balanced with conservation of time. I do not guarantee any finite cost for this guide, as supplies and products vary in price from server to server, day to day. Any recipes which are expected to give you a good enough profit to be noticed will be marked with (!). To get from section-to-section, search for the section number within parentheses. These are unique within the document. IE, if there were a section 31, you would search for the string "(31)". Of course, we all know there is no Section 31. On a side note, this is the first guide I have written, despite having been a reader of GameFAQs since it first opened its electronic doors. Some of you know me from the message boards as deathbeforelife. Even fewer of you know me as Willian of the Quetzalcoatl server. Most of you probably have no idea who the hell I am. So... fair warning. This is probably poorly written, as it is a first attempt. If you see anything that really annoys you, send me an email with "your guide sucks" in the title. If you have anything to add to the guide, throw it my way, and I'll probably put it in here eventually, when I get around to updating the guide. It's time for me to shut up now and get to guiding you. Not that any of you are actually reading this anyway. ~~~ (2) Version History ~~~ 0.52 - 06/20/2004 Initial Version Basic Information Recipes up to level 52 ~~~ (3) Skill Gain Theory ~~~ The most important factor in skill gain is level of recipe. For best results, I have found that cooking 5-7 levels above your current skill with guild support is optimal. You will still have failures, but not many, and you will receive good skill-ups. I pick a recipe which is 5-7 levels above me, get three to five stacks of ingredients, and cook like mad. This way, you can get away with only paying for support twice. If a recipe is losing gil and you can safely switch to another which is 5-7 levels above you, switch, but if the recipe is breaking even, or even making gil, I suggest cooking to the cap, since such recipes aren't very common. The second factor in leveling any skill is day of the week versus crystal used. Cooking on the day of the week which is the same as the crystal used will produce less failure, but lower skill gains. This is good if you are tight on cash, and patient. Cooking on the day of the week which is strong against the crystal used will produce higher failure rate, but higher skill gain. If you have spare gil, don't mind failure, and want to level in the least amount of synths, this is the way to go. Of course, if you are really in a hurry, like I was, you won't pay attention to the day of the week at all, and synth when you have time. Water > Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth > Lightning > Water Light and Dark are opposites, and are strong against each other. ~~~ (4) The Guild, The Shop, The Imaging, The Exams ~~~ The cooking guild is located in Windurst Waters. The main NPCs you will be interacting with are Kopopo, who runs the Guild Shop, Kipo-opo, who gives out Advanced Imaging, and Piketo-Puketo, who will sign you up to join the guild, and also handles testing to break the next level cap. The shop is in the hut on the right, and the imaging and testing NPCs are in the hut on the left. The shop sells cooking supplies from 05:00 to 20:00, on all days except Darksday, when it is closed. The guild has a limited stock of each item, and the price is based on how many were bought in recent days. If more are bought, the price goes up, but if days go by and less are bought, the price will drop. The guild also has a maximum quantity it can hold of any given item, so you can only sell back so many in any given day. Imaging Support comes from more than one NPC in the guild, but you want to pay Kipo-opo for Advanced Imaging Support. It raises your skill more than the free versions. It costs 30 gil, plus 30 more for each 10 levels you have in cooking. The cost is really worth it, because the cost of multiple failed synths can really destroy your gil supply. Each round of support should last you around 18 synths, so if you have three stacks of supplies, you should be able to get away with two rounds of support. Every ten levels of skill, you need to take a test to be able to raise your skill higher. You may take the test two levels early, and I suggest you take it as soon as you can. To pass the test, you must bring Piketo-Puketo a certain dish. You don't have to cook it your self, you may bring one from the auction house, but that wouldn't have the same feeling of achievement, now would it? Each time you break a level cap, your rank in the guild increases, and you get a new title next to your level. Below is a list of items you must cook for the next rank. Level 0: Amateur - N/A Level 10: Recruit - Salmon Sub Earth Crystal Black Bread Apple Vinegar La Theine Cabbage Mithran Tomato Smoked Salmon Crying Mustard Level 20: Initiate - Pea Soup Fire Crystal Distilled Water Blue Peas x 3 Wild Onion Dried Marjoram Level 30: Novice - Vegetable Gruel Fire Crystal Distilled Water Tarutaru Rice Frost Turnip Chamomile Batagreens Rarab Tail Level 40: Apprentice - Meat Mithkabob Fire Crystal Wild Onion Kazham Pepper Cockatrice Meat Mhaura Garlic Level 50: Journeyman - Apple Pie Fire Crystal Pie Dough Bird Egg/Lizard Egg Faerie Apple Cinnamon Maple Sugar ~~~ (5) Preferred Recipes Recipes marked with ** denote recipes supplied by others, and are not my own suggestion. Many of them may be as good or better than the path that I took, this is just to give credit where it is due. For many levels, multiple options exist. The level ranges listed are not firm, but I do not recommend starting before the minimum listed. You may do so, but you will fail more frequently than I would prefer myself. In most cases, the upper limit is not where you should stop, but rather where you must stop, as it is the skill cap. I will mention in the description of the recipe if I believe you shouldn't continue crafting to the cap. I will try to explain the pros and cons of each option as best I can, but every thing I say may not be true on your server. Before you pick a single recipe to cook, check the auction house. You should consider the price of ingredients which you must buy there, along with the going rate of the product of your synthesis. Also, note the speed at which the products sell, as well as how many are already for sale. If they sell one or two a day, and there are already ten on the auction block, you may want to consider selling back to an NPC for a loss, or picking another recipe. I have tried to pick recipes which sell back well at the least loss, but this isn't possible at every single level, especially the first few. ~~~ (5a) 0 - 10 Lost of choices, none very good. Don't get discouraged, the largest loss comes from the first five or six levels. I personally leveled on carrot broth, pebble soup, boiled crayfish, then sliced sardines. I believe that carrot broth might want to be replaced by hard-boiled egg. Check the auction house on your server and decide for yourself. Before level 5 it is not required that you get travel to Windurst, but after that, you should most certainly go to the guild and seek support to get the most out of your cooking. If you do travel to the guild, you can start the first few recipes at level 0. ~~~ 0 - 3 Carrot Broth (yield 4) Water Crystal San d'Orian Carrot x 4 pros - Uses Water Crystal - Supplies can be bought from vendors - No Imaging required cons - Loss of gil - Sells slowly at AH plan - Sell back to vendor and cut your losses. Might sell at AH, but very slowly, and not for very much. 0 - 4 Hard-boiled Egg ** Fire Crystal Bird/Lizard Egg Distilled Water pros - Sells back to AH at lower gil loss than Carrot Broth - No Imaging required cons - Uses Fire Crystal - Supplies must be bought from auction house or farmed plan - Sell back to Auction House. Not really sure about the cap on this. 2 - 5 Pebble Soup ** Fire Crystal Distilled Water Flint Stone x 3 pros - Easy to farm flint stones - Water is cheap - No Imaging Required - Leads well into Sliced Sardine cons - Uses Fire Crystal - Does not stack - Does not sell back well at AH plan - Sell back to NPCs 2 - 6 Grilled Hare ** Fire Crystal Hare Meat Dried Marjoram pros - Good to use yourself, if you are a starting melee - Very easy to farm meat cons - Uses Fire Crystal - Does not stack plan - Sell back if they sell well, or eat them yourself. 4 - 6 Boiled Crayfish Fire Crystal Crayfish Distilled Water Rock Salt pros - Crayfish easy to fish, and will level your fishing skill - Water + Salt cheap to buy cons - Uses Fire Crystal - Sells back very poorly - Potential HUGE loss of gil plan - Pretty bad... Consider using Grilled Hare instead. Check your AH, though, it might sell okay on your server. 5 - 11 Sliced Sardine (yield 2) Wind Crystal Bastore Sardine pros - Yields 2 - Uses only one ingredient - Sells back fairly well, at no loss, or even some gain cons - Uses Wind Crystal plan - Cook as many as you can. Take this to level 11, as you can gain skill with your only loss being from failures. Don't forget to take the exam before you hit 10. ~~~ (5b) 10 - 20 Here you will probably lose more gil. This is the last stage where this will really happen, though, so hang in there. Again, before you level, check the auction house and pick an appropriate recipe. ~~~ 11 - 16 Roast Mushroom ** Fire Crystal Rock Salt Dance/Sleep/Woozyshroom x 2 pros - Can get you to 16 with fewer failures than butter cons - Uses Fire Crystal - Mushrooms expensive, unless you are high enough to farm them - Sells back for much less than the cost of just the mushrooms plan - I don't really like these, but see how they sell on your server. If you can get away with little/no loss, consider it. 11 - 20 Selbina Butter (yield 4) Ice Crystal Selbina Milk Rock Salt pros - You will need butter for Pie Dough - You can put the butter into baked popotos - Sells back okay - High-yield synth cons - You will fail a LOT if you start at 11 plan - I have level 11 as the minimum, because I don't like any other recipes here. I have level 20 as the maximum, because that's where it caps. I took Butter up to level 16, and cooked popotos up to 20. If you need gil, sell it back to the Auction House. If you have space and gil, go ahead and keep this stuff for pie crust. If you can make a profit or come close to breaking even at the AH, consider taking this all the way to 20. 16 - 22 Baked Popoto Fire Crystal Selbina Butter Popoto pros - You already have butter lying around - Popotos are cheap, and can be picked up from the guild - Seem to sell back well cons - Uses Fire Crystals - Not as useful as butter - Sells back for less than cost of just the Fire Crystals plan - Not all that great, but you should already have butter. Seemed to level me quickly. Sell back to AH. I wouldn't take this past 20. ~~~ (5c) 20 - 30 Huzzah! You can level all the way to 29, and make quite a bit of gil quickly. After hitting 29, I started cooking Pineapple Juice, which is now the favorite drink of my RDM. These levels are where cooking really turns around, now that you can actually make gil, and cook useful items. ~~~ 20 - 29 Insect Balls (Insect Paste) (yield 12) (!) Earth Crystal Little Worm Millioncorn Distilled Water pros - Uses Earth Crystals - VERY cheap to make - Failure won't cost you much - Supplies can be bought from vendors - Each synth makes a stack - Sells back quickly - Sells back at a HUGE gain cons - By the time I've been logged in for an hour, I have had at least 3 /tells from friends asking to cook more paste. plan - Wow. Cook these, and you will make back every single gil you have invested and more. Failures won't cost you much at all, so go ahead and cook them early. Get naked, buy lots of supplies. Cook until you are full, and walk out to Windurst Woods. Stick them in your bazaar at less than Auction House prices, and they should sell out quickly. I sold mine for dirt-cheap, 15 gil each, just enough to cover the cost of cooking, so I could get back and cook some more. I went from 20 to 29 in 2 hours this way, and made a few friends. I still cook for these friends, and sell them paste at a reduced cost. ~~~ (5d) 30 - 40 You will either lose gil in the beginning, or go slowly. Your choice. I prefer to go quickly, because Pet Food Delta will make excellent gil WITHOUT using the Auction House. You can't do that every day. Until you hit level 39. Then you can. I guess I lied. ~~~ 29 - 34 Black Bread (yield 4) Fire Crystal Rye Flour Distilled Water Rock Salt pros - Fairly cheap to make - Sells back to guild - Very little loss cons - Uses Fire Crystal - Slight Gil loss when sold back to vendor - Flour does not stack, so you will need to be quite naked plan - I took this to 33, myself, where I switched to the lucrative Pet Food Delta. You will lose some gil, but you should have enough left over from Insect Paste. This will get you to pet food quickly, though, so keep at it. Get naked, grab 3 stacks of non-flour supplies, and head to the guild. Grab as many flour as you can fit while still keeping one open slot, get your support, and start synthing. Sell those back to the guild, grab more flour, repeat. You can cap yourself on these fairly quickly and only losing a couple thousand gil. 29 - 35 Meat Ball pros - Uses Earth Crystal - Uses cheap ingredients - Caps one higher than bread, so gain will be quicker - Can make a slight profit - High yield cons - Sells back very slowly at Auction House plan - I think that Black Bread is better, because you can get to Pet Food Delta quicker by skipping the Auction House, and that is where you really make gil. Check how it sells at your Auction House before doing this. 33-39 Pet Food Delta (yield 6) (!) Earth Crystal Land Crab Meat Bird Egg* Distilled Water Rye Flour *WARNING! Unlike many other recipes, Lizard Egg WILL NOT WORK. pros - Uses Earth Crystal - Excellent money-maker - Sells back to NPCs at a huge profit - High yield cons - Land Crab Meat hard to find sometimes. plan - Buy as much Land Crab Meat as you can, it sells fast. Go cook, and take your Pet Food to Timbre Timber's, right outside the guild. On Quetzalcoatl, Land Crab Meat goes ~3200/stack, and the rest of the supplies are less than 2k total. With zero fame (poor me) it sells back 87 gil each. A stack of supplies makes 6 stacks of food, with zero failures. That's 6264 gil. That's a 1000 gil profit, without selling at the auction house. Even with a failure, you still make a profit. When I do this in San d'Oria, it sells for 97 gil. That's 6984, for a fairly quick profit of over 1500 gil. Buying out all of the supplies in Bastok, Windurst and San d'Oria using my mule and a chocobo, I can make 15-20 stacks of this a night, for a good profit of about 20,000 gil over 3-4 hours. A good break from farming. ~~~ (5e) 40 - 50 Starts out slow again, but picks up quickly. You will be stockpiling future supplies, then making good gil. These are fun levels, IMO. ~~~ 39 - 42 Pie Dough (yield 4) Water Crystal Selbina Butter Rock Salt San d'Orian Flour pros - Uses Water Crystal - Finally uses left-over butter - Used to make pies. I like pie. cons - Won't make you much gil at all plan - I cooked five stacks of supplies, making 20 stacks of dough. Now I won't be needing any more dough for quite a while. I kept it for pie. 42 - 46 Pickled Herring (yield 4) (!) Ice Crystal Nosteau Herring Rock Salt Dried Marjoram pros - Some supplies are very cheap from vendors - Sells back at a HUGE profit - High yield - Not much else to cook at these levels cons - Sells back relatively slowly - Herring is expensive plan - Well... it sells back slowly, but if you are patient, you can make a LOT of gil off of this. I wouldn't suggest having it be your main income like Pet Food or Insect Paste may be, but it's a good stepping stone up to Crayfish Balls. I would cook this for one stack, try to sell them, and see how it goes. If it goes well, do it again. If not, you might consider skipping to crayfish balls a little early. 42 - 48 Apple Pie pros - Good to use yourself if you are a mage - Sells back fast cons - Uses Fire Crystals - Uses expensive ingredients - Failure is potentially very expensive plan - I don't like cooking pie for leveling purposes here, because failure is potentially costly. If Pickled Herring can work for you, it is a much better option. 45 - 52 Crayfish Ball (yield 12) (!) Earth Crystal Crayfish x3* Distilled Water San d'Orian Flour *You can use a Gold Lobster instead. You can stab yourself in the eye with a spork, too. Neither are recommended. pros - Same concept as Insect Paste cons - Sells back slightly slower plan - Cook these suckers to 52. They fish up Nebimonites, which are used in the process of shihei. Blink-tanks can't ninj without the stuff, so the demand is fairly high. Good money maker-over all. ~~~ (6) Ingredient Shopping Locations Again, these are just the ingredients you will need to level cooking using the recipes in this guide. Before buying from shops, check the Auction House prices. They might be lower on your server. I am listing only the Windurst locations, as that is where you should be when cooking for skill gain. I am avoiding regional Vendors for now. I might list them in a later version, in their own section. Apple Vinegar - Guild Shop Bastore Sardine - Auction House, or fish yourself Batagreens - Guild Shop Bird Egg – Auction House Black Bread – Guild Shop Blue Peas – Auction House Chamomile - Upih Khachla Windurst Waters Goods Shop Cinnamon - Guild Shop Cockatrice Meat - Guild Shop (probably MUCH cheaper at AH) Crayfish - Auction House, or fish yourself Crying Mustard - Guild Shop Danceshroom - Auction House, or farm from Funguars Distilled Water – Vendor in Timbre Timber’s in Windurst Waters Dried Marjoram – Guild Shop Upih Khachla Windurst Waters Goods Shop Faerie Apple - Guild Shop Flint Stones - Auction House, or farm from Worms Frost Turnip - Guild Shop Hare Meat – Auction House, or farm from bunnies Kazham Pepper - Guild Shop La Theine Cabbage - Guild Shop Land Crab Meat - Auction House Little Worm – Ensasa Windurst Waters Goods Shop Babubu in Port Windurst (fishing guild) Lizard Egg – Auction House Maple Sugar - Auction House Mhaura Garlic - Guild Shop Mithran Tomato - Guild Shop Millioncorn – Guild shop, but check Auction House price, too. Nosteau Herring - Auction House Pie Dough – Make it yourself Popoto – Guild Shop Upih Khachla Windurst Waters Goods Shop Rarab Tail - Guild Shop Rock Salt - Guild Shop Rye Flour – Guild shop DOES NOT STACK San d’Orian Carrot – Aveline in Rambiroy’s, Southern San d’Oria San d'Orian Flour – Guild shop DOES NOT STACK Selbina Butter – Make it yourself Selbina Milk – Guild Shop Sleepshroom - Auction House, or farm from Funguars Smoked Salmon - Guild Shop Tarutaru Rice - Guild Shop Wild Onion - Auction House, or farm from Goblin Thugs Woozyshroom - Auction House, or farm from Funguars ~~~ (7) Contact I accept all complaints/corrections/praise/compliments/questions, but I do not tolerate whining or rudeness. Those won't get you very far. You can e-mail me at bmpguy1234 at hotmail. I would spell it out, but I'm tired of spam, and I know there's little programs running out there to strip email addresses out of documents like these. If you are going to e-mail me, put COOKING GUIDE in the title near the beginning. MSNIM: same as above AIM: LOTFofHRD I am rarely on this, as I am more frequently on my work AIM, which I would rather not put here. If you really, really want to AIM me, send me an email with your AIM, and I'll IM you. If none of those work for you, I'm at the GameFAQs message boards most weekdays during the day-time, but very rarely at night or on weekends. ~~~ (8) Usage As of now, this guide is only allowed to be stored at GameFAQs. www.gamefaqs.com If you wish to use this guide on your site for some reason, e-mail me first. You may print this out, but please keep it all in one piece, unedited. I, along with those who submitted their own recipes, have spent quite a bit of time on this FAQ. I'm not going to hunt you down myself if you don't follow these rules, but I might send Escape after you, and he has sharp little taruteeth. ~~~ (9) Credit 90% of what I know about cooking has come from Tuku of Quezalcoatl. He is a linkshell member, and a great friend. He gave me much advice throughout my cooking career. From the GameFAQs message boards, the following users submitted recipes: Escovarks - Roast Mushrooms RedTail - Hard-boiled Eggs Cactusjack1999 - Pebble Soup Unshanna - Grilled Hare From the GameFAQs message boards, the following users submitted vendors: uselessend - Ensasa/Upih Khachla From the GameFAQs message boards, the following users submitted corrections: uselessend - Pointed out I forgot Rye Flour in Pet Food Delta Brady Official FFXI Guide - Most of my recipes which didn't come from Tuku. ffxi.allakhazam.com - Some skill caps, and the recipe for Crayfish Balls ~~~ (10) Thanks First and foremost, thanks to Ranting Nord/Escape for getting me interested in this game. I wouldn't have played it at all without you drooling over it in front of me at Best Buy. Thanks to my misspelled linkshell, KnightsWhoSayNei, for your support, with advice, guidance, crystals, and countless other things. As to not play favorites, I will put them in alphabetical order. Aurbis Auro Aurogan Beelzebud Escape Heavytoker Jagula Kaytlin Larana (I suppose you, too...) Marik Morphious Mosomoto Naruna Nerevar Serametheus Shaggendragon Tuku Xanta And all the new people. And the ones I forgot. Thanks to all who have submitted additions/corrections. Your names are under credits, and I'm sure you know who you are. Thanks CJayC, for keeping GameFAQs free to the public. Thanks Squeenix, for not screwing up this game like so many other MMORPGs. And... thanks to everybody else who I forgot. ~~~