Iron Kite Shield

Taken all the way down to base materials, one Iron Kite Shield is 3 crafting steps deep and needs 3 intermediates — Iron Plate ×3, Iron Rivets ×1 and Iron Ingot ×7 — which resolve to 1 distinct raw material totalling 21 units, plus 16 crystals.

That bill outweighs 8,152 of the 13,602 recipes tracked here and 780 of the 1,441 Armorer ones, and 337 recipes nest deeper.

Only 5 of those crystals go into the final step; the other 11 are burned by the intermediates, so the real crystal cost is 8 Fire Shard, 6 Ice Shard and 2 Earth Shard.

The chain crosses two disciplines — Armorer to Lv 27 and Blacksmith to Lv 18 — so no single class can finish it unaided.

Its single raw material is gathered, and no spot for it is timed, so nothing in the tree waits on the Eorzean clock.

Of the intermediates, Iron Ingot has the widest use: 113 recipes call for it, spanning seven of the eight crafting classes.