Steel Falchion

Taken all the way down to base materials, one Steel Falchion is 2 crafting steps deep and needs 3 intermediates — Steel Ingot ×2, Siltstone Whetstone ×1 and Walnut Lumber ×1 — which resolve to 4 distinct raw materials totalling 11 units, plus 15 crystals.

That bill outweighs 5,999 of the 13,602 recipes tracked here and 661 of the 1,932 Blacksmith ones, and 4,464 recipes nest deeper.

Only 6 of those crystals go into the final step; the other 9 are burned by the intermediates, so the real crystal cost is 7 Fire Shard, 5 Wind Shard and 3 Earth Shard.

The chain crosses three disciplines — Blacksmith to Lv 31, Goldsmith to Lv 30 and Carpenter to Lv 25 — so no single class can finish it unaided.

All 4 raw materials are gathered, and not one of their spots is timed, so nothing in the tree waits on the Eorzean clock.

Of the intermediates, Walnut Lumber has the widest use: 128 recipes call for it, spanning eight of the eight crafting classes.