FFXIV Carpenter Guide - Bows, Staves, Spears and Much More!

FFXIV Carpenter Guide

Carpenter is one of the FFXIV crafting classes. This Disciple of Hand works with all kinds of timber to create various wooden items and components. They can craft bows, staves, polearms, wooden shields, furniture objects, crafting tools for other classes, fishing poles, materials and more. In this FFXIV Carpenter Guide, we have collected all the necessary information you need to know.

As far as the synergy with other classes and jobs go, a carpenter can obviously gain a lot from having a botanist on the same character. This gathering class can harvest all Eorzean plants, including numerous trees that can be used as raw material for carpenters.

On the other hand, plenty of jobs and classes can use the equipment crafted by carpenters. Archer and bard can wield a bow, while conjurer and the white mage can use a staff or a cane. Lancer and dragoon will fight with lance or spear. As far as other crafters go – goldsmith will use a grinding wheel and weaver a spinning wheel. Carpenters can also create clogs for Disciples of Hand and fishing rods for fishers. That being said, archer and lancer have the most to gain from the carpentry craft.

Table of Contents:

Carpenter Class Quests

Basics of Crafting

Carpenter Development

Carpenter Leveling & Class Quests

Leveling after level 50

...and after level 60

Final Fantasy XIV

List of Carpenter Class Quests

The Carpenter’s Guild is located in Gridania and the tools they use are saw and claw hammer. To become a carpenter, as it is with any other profession, you have to hit level 10 on your combat class first. After that, you can accepts the quest Way of the Carpenter and start advancing this class.

The remaining class quests and the items necessary to complete them are:

As a general rule of thumb, it’s a good idea to prepare and craft the items for future class quests beforehand. Of course, it’s not always possible, but if it is and you can do it without great effort, you definitely should.

If for some reason you’re struggling with getting materials or even crafting one of the quest items, you can always buy it from other players. Constructing these items by yourself provides you with some additional exp, so we strongly recommend doing that, but you can keep in mind that it’s not mandatory – the same goes for all the other quests related to crafting stuff.

Basics of crafting

As we already established, a carpenter is one of the Disciples of Hand. They all use the same attributes and resources, the only difference are the materials and final products of their work. That being said, to learn how to properly use the carpenter, you need to understand some important concepts.

Carpentry attributes and resources

As it is with every FFXIV crafter, the carpenter has to manage these three things:

Craftsmanship – the most basic attribute, it increases the crafting progress you can generate using your skills

Control – the attribute responsible for crafting high-quality items, increases the efficiency of skills that fill the quality bar

Crafting Points (often abbreviated to CP) – the resource used on performing crafting actions, you’re going to need a lot of them for the longer, more difficult crafting attempts

Crafting screen

After choosing Synthesize on an item in your Crafting Log, you will open the crafting screen. It’s important to understand the meaning of the respective values shown in that dialogue box.

Progression Bar – it shows how close you are to successfully crafting the item. Filling this bar will result in completing the process

Quality Bar – filling it increases your chance of synthesizing a high-quality item, you can automatically fill a part of it using HQ materials. There’s a percentage value below it which shows how likely is it to get an HQ product at a certain moment. It gets replaced with collectability when trying to craft collectibles.

Durability – with every skill that increases progression or quality, this value will drop. When it gets to 0, you will fail the crafting attempt

Condition – high condition increases the power of quality increasing skills. It changes after every crafting action. There are four possibilities: excellent, good, normal and poor.

Crucial carpenter skills

All the skills that you’ll be using for crafting are either going to fill the progress bar, fill the quality bar, restore the item’s durability or empower your other abilities in some way. Here are a few examples of useful crafting skills that carpenter can access:

Basic Synthesis – level 1 crafting ability, increases progress with 90% chance of success, costs no CP, on later levels you unlock more advanced versions of it

Basic Touch – level 5 skill that increases the item’s quality with a 70% success ratio, costs 18 CP, also has stronger versions later

Master’s Mend – level 7 action that restores 30 durability for 94 CP, has a more powerful iteration on a later level

Steady Hand – level 9 skill that increases success chance for the next 5 actions by 20% for 22 CP

Furthermore, if it’s possible you should definitely get the Hasty Touch cross-class skill from the culinarian, it allows for increased quality for no CP cost. Another ability that you will definitely use a lot is unlocked at level 50 and it’s called Collectable Synthesis, but we’re going to talk more about that later.

Carpenter development

Most of the crafting and gathering classes in Final Fantasy XIV rely heavily on Levequests as their main source of experience over long periods of the game. This also applies to carpenters.

Levequests are special repeatable tasks, unique for every profession. They always require turning in specific items. What they offer for that are really good experience rewards. Besides, the only alternative for crafters is grinding by synthesizing item after item. Those products that you can make on low levels are usually not that valuable and getting experience as quickly as possible is the priority for most players.

The only drawback is that they are kind of time-gated with the leve allowances. Your character can store up to 100 of them and every 12 hours you receive three of them. Taking a leve is charged with allowance cost. To optimize your gains you can choose the most efficient leves (which we will talk about in a moment) and only turn in HQ items. It makes the whole leveling process a bit more difficult and probably costs more Gil, but if you’re running out of allowances it’s something you can consider.

Early levels

The best thing to do in the early game is buying the Company-issue Engineering Scroll and craft as The best items that you haven’t crafted before, as possible. This should get you to level 15 really quickly, at which point you’re going to start doing leves.

In the meantime, you’re going to have to finish a couple of class quests. The level 1 task – My First Saw requires crafting Maple Lumber out of 1 Wind Shard and 3x Maple Log.

For the level 5 quest – To Be the Wood you have to craft 3x Square Maple Shield, for each one of them you will need 1 Wind Shard, 1 Ice Shard, 1 Maple Lumber and 2 Bronze Rivets.  The level 10 class quest – Supplies for the Sick requires 12x Ash Lumber. The recipe for it is 1 Wind Shard and 3 Ash Logs.

Level 15 task is called A Carpenter in Need and to complete it you’ll have to turn in two items. The first one is an Ash Shortbow that consists of 1 Wind Shard, 1 Ice Shard, 1 Ash Lumber, 1 Ash Branch and 1 Hempen Yarn. The second one is a Feathered Harpoon and the recipe for it includes 1 Wind Shard, 1 Ice Shard, 1 Ash Lumber, 1 Soiled Femur, 1 Crow Feather and 1 Animal Glue.

Carpenter Levelquests and Class Quests

Now we’re going to talk about the carpenter’s progression, the class quests as well as the optimal Levequests that can get you to high levels in the fastest possible way.

Level 15-20

The level 20 carpenter class quest is called The Lance’s Lesson. To be able to complete it you will either need to use NPC Materia Melder or you can unlock Materia melding which you can do by doing a level 19 quest called Waking the Spirit (we recommend the latter).

The item you have to synthesize is an Iron Lance and it consists of 1 Wind Shard, 1 Ice Shard, 2 Iron Ingots, 1 Elm Lumber and 1 Hard Leather. After crafting it, you’ll have to imbue Tier I Materia into it.  

As for Levequests, the best option is cycling through Driving Up the Wall and Bowing to Necessity. For the former you’ll be crafting Elm Lumber out of 1 Wind Shard and 3 Elm Logs, the latter requires Ash Shortbow that’s made of 1 Wind Shard, 1 Ice Shard, 1 Ash Lumber, 1 Ash Branch and 1 Hempen Yarn. If you prefer saving some more allowances for later, you can just keep going through the Crafting Log or grind some items (Elm Lumber is definitely a good idea).

Level 20-25

The next class quest – A Crisis of Confidence requires crafting HQ Walnut Lumber the ingredients are 2 Wind Shards and 3 Walnut Logs. At this point crafting high quality might a difficult for you. You should probably wait with trying to get this item until level 25 and make sure that your gear is up to date. Using HQ components might be a good way around it, but they might not be that easy to get. At level 21 you’ll unlock the skill called Great Strides, it can be really helpful with crafting HQ items.

The Walnut Lumber is also the objective of a good Levequest in this tier – it’s called Wall Not Found. Other good options are Militia on My Mind and Grinding It Out. The first one requires another item you already crafted – Iron Lance. For the second one, you have to turn in a Mudstone Grinding Wheel.

Level 25-30

Level 30 carpenter quest is called Between Captain and Conjurer and it requires HQ Walnut Cane. The recipe for it is: 3 Wind Shards, 2 Ice Shards, 1 Walnut Lumber, and 1 Growth Formula Beta.

This tier offers another leve that requires Walnut Lumber. This one is called Armoires of the Rich and Famous. Another great option is Storm of Swords that needs you to synthesize Elm Macuahuitl. It’s an Aztec inspired weapon for gladiator and paladin. To craft it, you will need 3 Wind Shards, 2 Ice Shards, 2x Elm Lumber, and 4x Obsidian.

Level 30-35

The next class quest is called Growing Apart and its objective is to bring HQ Oak Longbow. Recipe for it includes 4 Wind Shards, 3 Ice Shards, 1 Oak Lumber, 2 Oak Branches, 1 Steel Ingot and 1 Linen Yarn.

You can actually craft a number of them, because you can also turn them in for a really good leve, called The Lone Bowman. The other good option is to Knock on Wood that requires crafting Walnut Macuahuitl.

Level 35-40

To continue your class progression you’ll need an HQ Oak Composite Bow. It’s crafted from 5 Wind Shards, 4 Ice Shards, 3x Oak Lumber, 1 Beast Sinew, and 1 Aldgoat Horn. Also, at level 37 you’ll get access to a situational powerful and cheap crafting skill – Brand of Wind. Use it when creating items with wind affinity.

Now let’s take a look at the best leves in this tier. Flintstone Fight is another task that asks for crafting Walnut Macuahuitl. Grippy When Wet is probably the easiest one because its objective Is Mythril Cavalry Bow. The biggest reward for a single item is given by Stay on Target which requires turning in Yarzonshell Harpoon.

Level 40-45

Level 45 carpenter quest is called Gone till the Sixth Astral Moon and requires synthesizing three high-quality items. Cobalt Halberd consists of 5 Wind Shards, 5 Ice Shards, 1 Oak Lumber, 1 Cobalt Ingot, 1 Silver Ingot, and 1 Boar Leather. To craft a Jade Crook you’ll need 5 Wind Shards, 5 Ice Shards, 1 Jadeite, 1 Mahogany Lumber, 1 Spoken Blood and 1 Horn Glue. Finally, the recipe for Yew Longbow is: 6 Wind Shards, 5 Ice Shards, 2 Yew Branches, 1 Rosewood Lumber, 1 Raptor Sinew and 1 Clove Oil.

As for the Levequests, there are really no bad ones in this tier. Three of them include past or current class quest items. For the biggest gain choose either the triple turn-in Spin It Like You Mean It that requires Mahogany Spinning Wheels or the single Arsenal of Theocracy for which you have to craft Cobalt Halberd, but the other ones are good too.

Level 45-50

Saving Captain Gairhard which is the level 50 class quest also requires turning in two HQ items. The Rosewood Lumber is made from 6 Wind Shards and 3 Rosewood Logs. At the same time, the recipe for Crab Bow consists of 6 Wind Shards, 6 Ice Shards, 1 Oak Composite Bow, 1 Green Megalocrab Shell, 1 Aldgoat Horn and 1 Red Coral. After crafting it, you will have to imbue the bow with Savage Aim Materia III.

You Do the Heavy Lifting is probably the best leve in this tier, because it requires crafting Mahogany Lumber. Other ones worth considering are Clogs of War and Bowing to Great Power. The objective of the former is Mahogany Patterns and to complete the latter you’ll have to turn in Yew Longbow.

Leveling Carpenter after level 50

Before Heavenward and later Stormblood expansions this would be the endgame. But the two big updates raised the level cap and gave some new options for progression. You could even argue that, if you have proper gear, leveling post 50 is actually easier than some of the earlier levels, thanks to the new sources of experience introduced to the game. These two features make Levequests obsolete. You can still do them if you really want, but they’re significantly worse than Beast Tribe Dailies and Scrip Turn-ins.

Moogles Daily Quests

The Moogles Beast Tribe Quests are a very cheap and simple way of getting loads of experience. They are a great way to level your crafters from 50 to 60 without spending too much Gil. The only problem is getting access to them.

To make the Moogles dailies available to your character, you first have to complete a chain of 20 side quests, starting with A Pebble for Your Thought and ending on Tricks and Stones. The quests are not hard to do, but the sheer amount of them may seem really repelling. We still recommend unlocking and doing them, since they can be really helpful.

Collectible Turn-ins

The second source of experience and rewards is strongly connected to a level 50 skill – Collectable Synthesis, but first, you’re going to have to complete a quest – luckily, this time it’s only one and it’s called Inscrutable Tastes.

After that, you’ll get access to Rowena’s Hosue of Splendors. Every day Rowena will have a new list of 20 items that she needs as collectibles. In return, she offers really valuable rewards composed of Gil, Experience, and Scrips (you can later exchange them for some extremely useful things).

The difference in crafting these items is using the Collectable Synthesis and instead of increasing the item’s quality, you will improve its collectability. Every item has three tiers and the higher tier you turn in, the better the rewards.

Class Quests

The level 53 carpenter quest is called A-hunting We Go and requires crafting HQ Holy Cedar Composite Bow. Its components are: 3 Wind Crystals, 3 Ice Crystals, 1 Holy Cedar Lumber, 1 Cedar Branch, 1 Rainbow Thread, 2 Mythrite Ingots and 1 Wyvern Leather.

On level 55 you will have to synthesize HQ Dark Chestnut Rod from 4 Wind Crystals, 3 Ice Crystals, 1 Dark Chestnut Lumber, Dark Chestnut Branch and 3 Growth Formulas Epsilon.

The next stop is on level 58 for the quest The Son Also Rises. The items to craft are 3x high-quality Birch Lumber for each of them you’ll need 5 Wind Crystals and 5 Birch Logs.

Level 60 quest is called More Fierce than Fire. Its objective is a high-quality Adamantite Trident. The necessary materials are 2 Wind Clusters, 1 Ice Cluster, 3 Adamantite Nuggets, 1 Birch Lumber, 1 Amphiptere Leather and 1 Scale Glue.

After level 60

The new features that are unlocked post-level 60 are really similar to the previous ones. You can unlock another set of Beast Tribe dailies. This time it’s Namazu Daily Quests and this time the quest chain necessary to unlock them is slightly shorter (12 quests, starting with Courage the Cowardly Lupin and ending on Something Fishy This Way Comes).

There’s also another venture for collectible turn-ins. It’s called M’Naago Custom Deliveries and you can unlock them by completing a quest None Forgotten, None Forsaken. The whole thing works similarly to Rowena’s.

Class Quests

The remaining carpenter class quests are The Game of Confidence, A Lesson in Listening, Live and Let Dine and finally Tea Party Rules. They all provide you with the special components for the necessary items and all need to have are 2 Wind Crystals and 1 Ice Crystal for each of the quests.

This is the end of the progression for now. At this moment you should focus on making some money from your crafting. As a carpenter, you also have a lot to say in crafting furniture, so you can use your newly acquired powers to improve your housing situation. You’re also able to create multiple powerful weapons and tools for many classes and jobs.

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn has been re-released in its improved form in 2013. The game’s developer and publisher is Square Enix.  It’s the second MMORPG in this cherished video game franchise.

Besides the wonderful main storyline, FFXIV offers its players great freedom in both the development of their characters as well as the way they want to enjoy the game. You can reach a max level of every class and job on a single character.

Besides numerous combat classes and jobs, there are also eight crafting and three gathering classes, that together have a huge impact on the heavily player-driven economy. Join the friendly community of players and see all the beautiful regions and locations that you can find in Eorzea!