Updated October 11, 2026
Quick answer: Desynthesis makes gil by buying an item cheaply, breaking it down, and selling the materials for more than you paid. It pays when the expected value of the mats (given random yields and your desynth level) beats the item's cost plus tax. Some gear and furnishings reliably break into pricey materials. Those are the ones to target.
Desynthesis destroys an item and gives you materials back. Most players use it to clean out the armoury chest. Done properly, it's manufacturing in reverse: you buy a cheap finished item because its parts sell for more than it does.
Desynthesis unlocks with a short quest once one of your Disciples of the Hand reaches level 30. From then on, each crafting class has its own desynthesis skill level.
Each class can only break down the kinds of items it makes. Your Armorer's skill has nothing to do with your Alchemist's. Three rules matter for profit:
The item is gone either wayA failed attempt still destroys it. There's no undo and no "take a look first".
Skill vs item level decides resultsItems well above your skill give worse and fewer returns. Skill climbs fastest on items near your level.
Output is randomEach item has a pool of possible materials. You get a draw from that pool, not the whole list.
Because the output is a draw, single attempts tell you nothing. What matters is the expected value over a batch:
The 0.95 is the market board's 5% tax on whatever you sell afterwards.
The "average value of a draw" is the part people skip. They see one expensive material in the result list and assume that's the payout. It isn't.
If a source yields one of four materials and only one is valuable, your expected return is roughly a quarter of that headline number.
Three kinds, most reliable first:
Gear you got for freeDungeon drops, quest rewards, gear you outleveled. It cost you nothing, so any material at all is profit.
Cheap gear whose materials are in demandThe classic trade: an unwanted old piece made from something current crafters still use up.
Items priced below their partsRare and usually temporary. It's why you re-check prices instead of running yesterday's list.
Our desynthesis tool covers 1,851 marketable source items and the materials each one can return, priced live against your world. You see the spread before you destroy anything.
There's no velocity filter on this screen, so filter by eye. A good starting point: skip rows under ×3, and skip sources whose units/day badge reads under 1.
The × number uses the best possible result, so treat it as a ceiling. Each row lists the top results with their values, and a trailing … means the pool has more. With four possible results, roughly ×4 is where the average draw breaks even. That's why ×3 is a sensible place to start looking, not a place to stop.
Two more checks before you buy a stack. The units/day badge on each row is for the source item, so it tells you whether you can actually buy enough of it. Then think about selling: yields only count materials that are trading, but don't list more than about a day's worth of any one of them.
Filter thinking from the main gil guide applies here too: a good margin is only gil if it sells.
Early skill levels are where people lose money. Low-level items return low-value materials no matter what.
When it sells fine as-isCheck the board first. Glamour pieces are often worth more whole than in pieces.
When the gear is better as sealsSpare gear can go to Grand Company Expert Delivery instead. Each piece can only go one way, so compare first.
When the materials don't moveA pile of unsellable mats is worse than the gil you started with, because now it's taking up retainer space too.
Put this into practice with live market-board prices for your world:
DesynthesisBuy cheap, break down, sell the materials.Open → NPC ↔ market flipsVendor items priced against the board, both directions.Open → Crafting profit calculatorThe same materials, used the other way: craft and sell.Open →Price desynthesis on your world → Crafting for profit →
More guides: every gil method · crafting for profit · GC seals · crafting leves
XIV Profitability is a free, fan-made tool. Not affiliated with Square Enix. Prices via Universalis. FINAL FANTASY XIV © SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD.