Escutcheons

Background
Escutcheons are shields jointly developed by synthesis guilds and the inventor's coalition which draw forth the true craftsmanship skills of players.

Escutcheons are improved by meeting objectives laid out by each guild's guildmaster. Please be aware that this questline will not appear in your quests menu and, as such, the stages of it will appear on this page, rather than having their own pages in the wiki.
 * Players cannot forfeit their corresponding guild rank while the upgrade in is progress.
 * Completing the escutcheon upgrade process requires the player to see the questline out to its end; the questline will be rolled out in future version updates.

Obtaining the Starting Shield
Introduced in the February 2017 Version Update.
 * Ensure you are currently a member of the Guild you wish to work on the Escutcheon for and that you have attained the rank of Expert or higher in that Guild's skill. These are for crafting guilds only, so Fishing is not applicable.
 * Speak to Mewk Chorosap in Port Jeuno (G-8) to obtain the starting shield, an Aspis.

Increasing Craftsmanship to 100.00%

 * Show the shield to your Guild Master at the indicated Craftsman's Guild.
 * At this point, it would be remiss if I didn't highlight the fact that you should continue to try to meet the guild's daily requested items to gain Guild Points, as you will be spending a vast amount of them in a later stage.
 * Equip your shield and check it. On the second page of its details you will see that it is marked with a "Synthesis success rate" penalty. Optionally, it may also be marked with a "For craftsmanship upgrade:" condition.
 * As you successfully synthesize recipes of the Aspis' particular craft, the Synthesis success rate will decrease every time you pass a multiple of 3.33 craftsmanship (rounded to 10s) all the way to 100%.
 * Also, the For craftsmanship upgrade: condition will change, disappear, appear or stay the same. Because of this it is worth checking the Aspis again after every successful synthesis.
 * To begin with, there will be failures aplenty, so be sure to choose recipes that have cheap materials and/or result in materials for additional recipes. You gain no bonus to craftsmanship gain for synthesizing higher level recipes, so choose your synths wisely.
 * Your guildmaster will have warned you not to repeat the same recipe too often, lest the craftsmanship increases you achieve dwindle to none. However, this threshold is certainly above seven repeats of the same recipe.
 * Each successful synthesis will add between 0.1 and 0.67 to your Aspis' craftsmanship, dependent on the level of success. HQ results grant the 0.5 to 0.67 gains, though they are keyed to the HQ animations, so can be attained even if the recipe you've synthesized doesn't have a different HQ result.
 * Meeting the upgrade criteria on the synth will double the value of the result, so can massively speed up the process in both time and resources.

It will probably take between 150-200 synths to reach 100.00%, dependent on how many times you meet these criteria, so ensure your Ephemeral Moogle is well-stocked in advance!

Obtain the Craftsman's Crystal

 * Trade your aspis to your Guild Master. In return, they will let you know the recipe for upgrading escutcheons:
 * 1x (Elemental) Crystal
 * 1x (Craftsman's) Aspis
 * 1x Craftsman's Crystal: (Craft)
 * 2x Mythril Screws: (Craft)
 * 1x Camphor: (Craft)
 * You'll receive the Craftsman's Crystal there and then, and your aspis' Craftsmanship will drop to 66.66% - worry not though, there is no need to increase it back to 100.00% unless you lose your Craftsman's Crystal.



Obtaining Crafter Points

 * Elsewhere at the guild you'll find the individual responsible for awarding and exchanging Crafter Points (CP) who will now offer a couple of new options when you speak to them, where before they were only selling crafting kits.


 * Checking these NPCs will show you that in order to obtain the 2x Mythril Screws and 1x Camphor you require, you will need to earn a total of 11,000CP.
 * It's important to notice the difference between the Crafting Sets (crafted by you and handed in for CP) and the Crafting Kits, which can be bought from NPCs for gil.
 * To earn CP, you must complete the recipes for Crafting Sets. These recipes can be checked at these NPCs, but are the ingredients for the item their respective Kits produce with one difference - instead of being crafted with a regular elemental crystal, they are crafted with Analysis Crystals.
 * Analysis Crystals can be purchased from the Guild Representative, alongside other GP items at a rate of 5,400GP for a stack of 12.
 * Dependent on the level of the Crafting Set you choose to complete, you may need around twenty stacks of Analysis Crystals to earn enough CP for the upgrade items you require. That's around 1,080,000GP, so maintaining daily hand-ins whenever possible is a must.
 * It is not recommended that you have your aspis equipped during this stage.
 * By performing a synthesis with an Analysis Crystal, you are undertaking a 'quality value' synthesis. The Crafting Set you create will be attributed with a value based on how successfully it was crafted. This value varies from synth to synth, but falls within a general boundary:
 * As you will likely be crafting around 200+ of these, you should take the time initially to calculate which level recipe will award you with the greatest number of points per gil cost to you. For example, the level 60-64 clothcraft set has a current cost value of 4,692 on my server, and averages a return of 49CP per synth.  That works out at 1CP = 96gil, which in turn means the cost of this stage is over 1,000,000gil.
 * Ensure your Ephemeral Moogle is restocked with crystals!
 * If gil is of no concern to you, simply craft the highest tier Crafting Sets.
 * Trade completed crafting sets to the pertinent NPC in the table above to receive Craftsman Points equal to the quality value.
 * * Delivered equipment sets may be purchased as synthesis kits from the corresponding NPC at next day at or after 10:00 a.m. (Vana'diel time)
 * * Purchasing a synthesis kit requires a synthesis skill level equal to or greater than that of the kit.