Leathercraft in the 50sFollow

My leathercraft mule is currently 45, and should be reaching the Ram Mantle cap soon. However, the leap from Ram Mantles (49) to Tiger Leather (61) is one I really would rather not take. I've been trying to find a decent bridge synth that won't totally break the bank but I've had no luck.

Should I just bite the bullet and synth some Raptor stuff, or is there something else I could possibly make to help me get close enough to the Tiger Leather cap? I prefer starting a new recepie at 6 levels below the cap (with skill under 60) to help maximize skill ups/minimize breaks and loss of mats but I'm having a really hard time finding anything useful to make in the 50s.

Any help/feedback is greatly appreciated.

I did Raptor Mantles (caps @ 53) as a bridge synth. I went from 49 to 51.6 or so with it (Believe I bought 4-6 stacks of raptor leather). You will lose money (I personally desythed and NPCed) but will recover nicely from the tiger leather. Even with the 10 level gap, tiger leather was so easy and profitable to synth, I found it well worth the early start.

You could also do Catoblepas Leather which caps at 58. Not that many people xp off of them anymore, but I still found hides on the AHs. I took it from level 49 to about 55 (with some support from the guild). Just have to basically NPC the leather for about 800ish gil.

Edited, Mar 11th 2009 5:23pm by Verr

Just camp the rams on thf :x Besides saving money there's the possibility you could get a viking shield! I lost gilz on raptor stuff of course, but made so much more back leveling on tiger leather from 51-60.

Edited, Mar 12th 2009 2:15am by Deadgye

Actually there is a very nice way to get around this, but it does take extra effort and may be too late.

When I was leveling my LC mule around that level, I remember bridging the gap to Tiger Leather with High Breath Mantles. I had saved up (and stored on another mule) all my Ram Mantles and started making Fragrant Ram Skins (and slapping myself for not having skilled up on these at level 30-36) to make High Breath Mantles. Only down point to this is that you either have to now an Alchemist or have Alchemy yourself up to the level needed to make the anima required (that, and you need to invest in the 40K GP key item 'Leather Ensorcellement').

Not only did this allow me to skill up three times on the precious ingredients (once making Ram Leather, once making Ram Mantles, once making High Breath Mantles), but it also allowed me to make profit all along, since HB Mantles sold decently fast on my server and for about sixfold the price any NPC would pay for the Ram Mantle. The market has changed a lot nowadays, but still HB Mantles are selling fast on my server (about 5 a day) and for about 6-7K a piece... a lot better than the ~1K you probably got for dumping your Ram Mantles to NPC.

High Breath Mantles cap at 52 (and I took it all the way to cap).

Another option might be farming Moblin Sheep Skins in Oldton Movalpolis (if you don't mind farming). It is a bitch to get sufficient skins to drop to level LC fast, but the advantage is other stuff drops there as well (mostly desynth gear to make various metal ingots, glass fiber and such). If you go this way you have the choice between turning skins into leather (cap @52) or wool (cap @54).

As a final remark: The Black Tiger Leather recipe isn't too bad. Skins can usually be bought cheap and aplenty from AH (currently 50+ for sale on Jeuno AH at 1K a piece on my server) and with a bit of luck you can break even selling the leather again. If you decide to go farm for the skins, Battalia Downs is a good place, especially if you have Widescan and Treasure Hunter (like RNG/THF, THF/RNG or BST/THF).

With Adv. Support I'd risk a 10 level gap making Leather over bridging the gap with expensive and perhaps hard to get Raptor stuff.

Well that would be why I didn't remember it. The only leathercraft gp things I decided to get were tanning and the +1 gloves. Since I was leveling leather up only for a subcraft I couldn't justify spending 40k GP on Leather Ensorcellement. :p

Well, I'm now at 58 and making Tiger Leathers with very few breaks, but I had something hilarious happen to me yesterday.

I was making the guild test item, a Raptor Jerkin, and it was also the first time I had synth'd anything in my Mog House. I had JUST hit 58 and had the materials for the synth ready in my Delivery Box. I didn't have Leathercraft advanced support or anything, didn't think I needed it.

I freaking HQ'd the synth. WTF Tier 0 HQ synth. Dino Jerkin, {Found it!}

I took a screenshot, and will post it later.

My first T0 HQ was on a rabbit mantle.

yeah....