[Gil-Making Method] Karakul Farming

Ornery Karakul farming was once a mainstay of FFXIV money-making. These spherical sheep are the only common mob to drop Fleece, which Weavers need to make woolen and felt products. They are also the only common source of Karakul Skins, the main ingredient for making Lanolin.

Up until 5.3, Lanolin was useful as a trade-in for an Alchemy leve (“A Real Smooth Move”) that gave Pudding Flesh as a reward. No common overworld mobs dropped Pudding Flesh, so leves were the fastest and easiest way to get the stuff. The value of Pudding Flesh as an Alchemy reagent, along with the difficulty of getting it in other ways, propped up the price of Lanolin, and thus of Karakul Skins.

In 5.3, though, Pudding Flesh became available as a Grand Company Seal reward at 200 seals apiece. This effectively put a ceiling on the prices of Pudding Flesh, Lanolin, and ultimately Karakul Skins. Given that Karakul Skins sell for only a few gil, is it still worth farming Ornery Karakuls in Endwalker?

Yes, in some circumstances. Even with Karakul Skins effectively worthless, Fleece is valuable and abundant enough to make this method worth considering if you have:

• A L40+ Disciple of War or Disciple of Magic
• Market Board access
• Access to Coerthas Central Highlands*
• A flying mount (optional but helpful)

*This is technically a requirement, but few will be missing it at level 40. Unless you start in Limsa Lominsa and thoroughly avoid the main quest, it should be a non-issue.

Where are the Ornery Karakuls?

There are several Ornery Karakul spawn points in Coerthas Central Highlands. The best spawns for farming are clumped up in a few places near Camp Dragonhead:

In the map, I’ve identified three main farming candidates. There are other places to find Ornery Karakuls in the zone, but these three are the most efficient I’ve found.

• Region A is only feasible if you have a flying mount. There are 7 spawn points under the cliff east of the Gates of Judgement, and 6 more on top of the cliff overlooking Camp Dragonhead. Without a flying mount, it takes too long to travel between the cliff base and the clifftop.
• Region B is the next-best if it’s unoccupied, which is most of the time on my server. There are a total of 9 spawn points flanking the road south of Camp Dragonhead: 5 to the east and 4 to the west.
• Region C is a reasonable backup: 8 closely grouped spawn points north-northeast of Witchdrop.

In any of these three regions, it’s possible to kill all the Ornery Karakuls with a little time to spare before the first ones respawn. The timing on Region A is tightest, but if you have a flying mount, you also seriously outlevel the mobs, so the fast kills will balance out the extra travel time. The respawn timer seems to be just over 1 minute and (speculating here) looks like it starts when the corpse despawns, not when the mob dies. So the loop for any given region takes about 1:15, for a rate of about 48 loops per hour. Lowballing it a little, we can bag about 600 sheep per hour in Region A or about 400 sheep per hour in Region B.

What’s the Payout?

In testing out different spawn areas and farming loops, I killed 262 sheep and obtained:

• 413 Fleece ≈ 1.58 per sheep
• 74 Karakul Skin ≈ 0.28 per sheep

With our Region A numbers, this comes to 948 Fleece per hour; with the lower Region B yield, it’s 632 Fleece per hour. The Karakul Skins are not worth listing and should probably just be vendored.

Recently, on the North American market, Fleece has been selling pretty consistently for above 300 gil per basket. Thus, our take should be around 270k gil per hour with flying mount and 180k without.

Who Should Consider It?

This method is worth a go if you’re between level 40 and 60 on your main DoW/DoM job. It can be especially lucrative after level 50, but beyond level 60 it’s probably no longer competitive with other uses of your time. It’s fine-grained enough that you can safely queue for duties.

Summary

• Required: L40+ DoW/DoM, access to Coerthas Central Highlands, access to MB
• Preferred: L50+ DoW/DoM, “The Ultimate Weapon” completed (for flying mount)
• Market Dependency: Moderate
• Granularity: Fine
• Party: Solo
• Payout (as of 6.18): ~180k gil/hour in MB sales, up to ~280k/hour w/ flying mount

For more gil-making methods in FFXIV, check out The Big List.