FFXIV Desynthesis Guide - Get The Most Valuable Components

Final Fantasy XIV Desynthesis Guide

Desynthesis in Final Fantasy XIV is a crucial part of many crafting professions. It allows you to break down items and get its components – the crafting materials, instead. This is a very useful and profitable in-game mechanic, but to fully take advantage of it, you’re going to need some initial knowledge. That’s why you’re reading this FFXIV Desynthesis guide.

Desynthesis in FFXIV

Desynthesis is an extra skill available for all Disciples of Hand. Some of the rewards that you can get for deconstructing an item are basic crafting materials, elemental shards, material, demimateria, and Gil. It’s a great option to get rich in FFXIV, but leveling it up efficiently might be a bit difficult and take some time or Gil investment.

To unlock Desythesis you’re going to have to get one crafting class to level 30 and go to Syntgoht in Ul’dah, to complete a quest called Gone to Pieces (it has a requirement of finishing Life, Materia and Everything earlier). Both of those quests are pretty straightforward and easy. You only have to do this quest once on a single character. After that, every Disciple of Hand you develop will automatically get access to the ability when they hit level 30.

To break down an item, you simply have to select the correct item and click on the “Desynthesis” tab. Then the Desynthesis screen will pop up and you will see some information there. It will show you the item’s name and icon, the class that’s required to break it down to components, your success rate if you were to make an attempt and finally, on the right you will see your Desynthesis skill level on the class you are piloting at the moment. It’s really simple and intuitive.

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Desynthesis on different classes

This is probably the only thing in FFXIV that you can’t max out for every class on a single character. The Desynthesis skill cap for a single Disciple of Hand class is 380, but at the same time there’s a combined cap for all the crafting classes, that’s 1160. As you can see, you can only max out this skill on three crafting classes.

Meanwhile, there are eight Disciples of Hand in Final Fantasy XIV: alchemist (ALC), armorer (ARM), blacksmith (BSM), carpenter (CRP), culinarian (CUL), goldsmith (GSM), leatherworker (LTW) and weaver (WVR). When you level Desynthesis and try to push over the combined cap, you will lose a skill point in another class.

We’re not going to talk all the optimal desynth items for every class since it changes too dynamically, but some of the most widely recommended ones are Plumed Steel Hatchet and Muthrite Pugiones for blacksmiths, Brass Ring of Crafting and Aged Ring for goldsmiths, Aetherial Wheels for alchemists and Bridesmaid’s Sandals for leatherworkers. They’re only viable in certain level thresholds, you generally don’t want to desynth anything that’s below 50% success rate, but at the same time if you have 100% then your experience gains might become really low.

Mechanics of breaking down items

You’re going to need a high level of this skill to desynth more advanced items and they can provide you with the best components. It’s important to always look at the item level because it doesn’t have to be the same as the character level required to wear it. For example, some weapons and pieces of armor available for 50 level characters, can have the item level of 90, 100 or even more! In fact, the Desynthesis calculates a hidden value called rlvl, but in the vast majority of cases it’s the same as item level, there are only a few exceptions.

Desynthesis has a success ratio which is calculated from your Desynthesis skill level and the level of the item you want to break down. When those values are identical, you get a 50% success ratio. Every time you try to desynth an item, it’s going to be destroyed. If your attempt was successful, you’re going to earn exp and some components, if you fail you lose the item and get nothing to show for it.

In most cases, a single level difference equals 2% of the success rate, which means that surpassing the item level with your Desynthesis level by 5, will result in an extra 10% chance. This value might vary on extremely low (it’s more forgiving here) and extremely high (the punishments might be harder) levels.

Breaking down items is the only way to level up your Desynthesis skill. There are no special quests to accelerate the process, but the ability itself has no Crafting Points cost and no cooldown. The difficult part is obtaining enough items to deconstruct. To check which crafting class can desynth a certain item, you just have to look at the class that can craft and/or repairs it, it’s going to be the same one.

If you want to power level Desynthesis as fast as possible, you’re going to need some initial capital, but if you’re lucky you might even make some money while doing that. The quickest way is browsing the market and buying cheap items for your class to break down. You will often be able to find some items that are not expensive at all, but actually have some valuable components – these are the ones you should always go for. The good news is that due to lack of any time-gating, you can easily max out Desynthesis during a single day if you’re only able to get enough items.

The item and component prices will vary on different servers, after new patches and can be influenced by plenty of other factors. To make money off of Desynthesis you’re probably going to have to know a thing or two about your server’s economy, it’s not the most beginner-friendly activity in FFXIV.

Leveling up Desynthesis is somewhat similar to grinding experience from killing monsters. You perform a repeatable task until your level is too high, the rewards become negligible and you have to go to a different location, or in this case start desynthing different, higher-level items, because when your skill level is heavily surpassing the items you break down, the exp gains become really weak. You still get the materials, so desynthing for money remains an option, but if the experience is what you’re after, you should move to more advanced items.

Increasing the success chance

If you want to get really good exp gains, but you don’t want to lose too many items to failed desynth attempts, you can use some of the ways to increase your success ratio. Firstly there are some consumables that can grant you a buff called “Careful Desynthesis”. For each stack of it, you get an extra 3,75% chance to succeed.

Bacon Broth – a meal that’s crafted by culinarians. NQ gives you 1 stack of the bonus, HQ grants 2 of them. Lasts 30 minutes.

Tinker’s Calm – a potion created by alchemists. NQ grants you 3 stacks of Careful Desynthesis, HQ provides you with 4, which is an extra 15%. It lasts 10 minutes.

You can use two of those consumables together and the bonuses will add up, if both of them are high quality, you’ll get extra 22,25% increased success ratio, which is a lot.

The other way of increasing the desynth chance is melding materia into the items that you’re going to break down. The grade and quality of materia don’t matter, even the lowest level, cheapest ones will always increase the chance by 5% for every unit of materia, so make sure you meld some of it into those items if you can.

Finally, the Aetherial items have an increased chance of being successfully desynthed. The numbers depend on the item’s bonus stats.

Desynthesis rewards

There plenty of different components that you can get when you desynth an item. Every time you succeed you have a chance of getting some elemental shards/crystals/clusters that are part of the item’s recipe (even the non-craftable items have recipes, they’re just hidden). You also get a chance to get a single type of other materials that are part of the recipe.

Moreover, there’s a possibility of getting demimateria. All items have a chance of providing you with some Clear Demimateria, most of the items can also grant you Battlecraft or Fieldcraft Demimateria. The combat gear can drop battlecraft, crafting and gathering equipment may give some fieldcraft – no surprises there.

If a recipe includes high-quality components, you only have around 20% chance of actually getting HQ and 80% of obtaining the normal quality material.

In the end, you can get demimateria, multiple elemental shards/crystals/clusters and one random type of another component. That’s why it’s optimal to desynth items consisting of one material only since you’re not going to get all the different ones anyway. Another thing you’ll get after a successful attempt is a fraction of the skill point that will be permanently added to your character.

Demimateria

As we already mentioned, one of the rewards that you can get for your desynths is demimateria. There are several kinds of it and most of them are really valuable for crafting. Desytnhesis is the main source of demimateria in FFXIV, but there are some kinds that can be acquired from other sources. It’s also the main reason anyone even starts getting into Desynthesis, since getting a little bit lucky with demimateria rewards is the most likely way of getting rich through this skill.

The only one that is no use for creating items is Clear Demimateria, but getting it is still not a tragedy because you’ll be able to sell it for a decent price to an NPC merchant.

Clear Demimateria I – can be sold for 200 Gil

Clear Demimateria II – can be sold for 1000 Gil

Clear Demimateria III – can be sold for 5000 Gil

Then there are the most common kinds of demimateria used for constructing items: battlecraft, that’s used for items that provide combat stats and fieldcraft, that can become a part of crafting or gathering equipment as well as furniture.

Battlecraft Demimateria I – used exclusively for jewelry for level 50 characters

Battlecraft Demimateria II  - can be used in crafting jewelry and some armors for level 50 characters

Battlecraft Demimateria III – can be used for multiple weapons and armors for level 50 and 60 characters

Fieldcraft Demimateria I – used for furniture and jewelry for crafters and gatherers

Fieldcraft Demimateria II – can be used for handbook, multiple cosmetics, and furniture

Fieldcraft Demimateria III – mostly used to create powerful crafting and gathering gear, but also some furniture. Another way of getting it is trading with Talan in Revenant’s Toll. He will give you this demimateria for any of those items: Reinforced Spruce Plywood, Balanced Darksteel Hook, Reinforced Darksteel Wire, Calibrated Rose Gold Cog, Water-hardened Hippogryph Strap,  Intricate Silver Brocade, Concentrated Spirits of Salt or Rich Tomato Relish.

Then there are some of the types associated with specific item lines:

Demimateria of Crags – used to craft Tremor weapons

Demimateria of the Inferno – used to craft Inferno weapons

Demimateria of the Vortex – used to craft Vortex weapons

Demimog Demimateria - used to craft Moggle weapons

And finally, there are some more rare and powerful ones, used to craft some of the most desired items in the game:

Demicrystal – can be used to craft multiple weapons for level 60 characters

Kingcraft Demimateria – used to craft equipment for level 70 crafters and gatherers, can be obtained for trading 50 Yellow Crafter Scrips

Mastercraft Demimateria – also used for crafting gear for level 70 Disciples of Hand and Disciples of Land

Choosing the right class to level Desynthesis

There’s no universal answer to this question because Final Fantasy XIV undergoes various balance changes with subsequent patches. They not only influence the combat power of different jobs, but also the in-game economy.

In general jewelry, armor pieces are easier to obtain than weapons, so if you’re looking for relatively easy leveling as high as possible, you might consider going for a weaver, leatherworker, goldsmith or armorer. They can get really good desynth rewards and a lot of demimateria. The drawback is that most of the players think this way, so you’re going to have a huge competition in the market. In general cloth and leather armors drop more frequently than the heavier ones, so if this is an important factor for you, consider going for the leatherworker or weaver.

Culinarian is probably the most unique and at the same time the cheapest example. You can level Desynthesis on this class very easily, by breaking down fish that you can easily buy on the market. Almost every player who’s leveling up fishing will catch tons of the unnecessary ones along the way. The bad part is that you can’t get demimateria from fish. You can get it from some other culinarian items to desynth, but it will be more difficult and expensive. At the same time, fish can provide you with some valuable materials.

Leveling Desynthesis on alchemist, blacksmith or carpenter might be more difficult, but with less competition, you might get some components (including demimateria) that will be extremely valuable on the market. These are some of the more high risk, high reward choices.

If you level up Desynthesis on a certain class and later decide that it was a bad decision, you can use the proper handbook “… for Beginners” to reset it back to 1.

Tips for Desynthesis

It’s really worth to desynth single ingredient items, they will often have the biggest chance to bring a lot of profit. If an item consists of 3 units of the same material you have a chance of getting 1, 2 or 3 pieces of that material. If an item consists of 1 unit each of three different components, you will only have a chance of getting one. That doesn’t mean that you should never desynth items that have multiple components, in some situations, it might be beneficial, but in most cases, it’s less economically efficient.

To get the most valuable components and demimateria you’re sometimes going to have to desynth really powerful items, like your dungeon drops and some strong gear that you might find on the market. When breaking down an expensive item, you should always use the available methods to decrease the failure possibility: we recommend using the consumables and materia melds.

Getting Desynthesis doesn’t necessarily have to mean power leveling it as soon as possible and investing lots of Gil. You can just do the quest when you get to level 30 as any Disciple of Hand and only break down the items that you can’t sell for a reasonable price and are completely redundant to you. It’s no commitment whatsoever and yet, slowly but surely, you will get some levels as the game progresses.

Remember that you can always desynth the items that you crafted yourself. Unlike in many other MMORPGs, in Final Fantasy XIV, there are no penalties for that. Of course, you won’t really make Gil by doing that. It’s just an option to pull yourself through a few levels if you struggle to find good items to break down. Desynthing items bought from an NPC vendor is another option if you can afford to spend some Gil.

When a new patch is introduced and new items can be found in the game, you will be unable to desynth them. It’s not going to stay like that forever though. After a couple of patches, they should get enabled for this purpose. It’s a good idea to keep track of this kind of stuff, for example by reading patch notes.

Final Fantasy XIV

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. It got re-released in its current form in 2013. It is the second representative of that genre in this cherished series. FF14 combines a fascinating storyline and lore with a very complex game structure, allowing players for plenty of horizontal progressions – allowing players to level up every class and job in the game on a single character.

Players can travel through the magical continent of Eorzea and see its numerous beautiful regions. Another interesting feature is an advanced, player-driven economic system with eight crafting and three gathering classes that all are connected with each other. There are also plenty of raids and dungeons to go for.

At the same time, the endgame has a lot of optional activities focused on collectible items and cosmetics. Players can buy housing and furnish their apartments and homes using multiple crafting professions. They can also collect glamour items that allow them to change the looks of their characters.

Final Fantasy XIV created a loyal, friendly and helpful community of players who are very welcoming and nice. Try out one of the most beautiful MMORPGs and enjoy a plethora of various action-packed or relaxing activities.