High Steel Helm of Fending

Taken all the way down to base materials, one High Steel Helm of Fending is 3 crafting steps deep and needs 3 intermediates — High Steel Nugget ×2, Bloodhempen Cloth ×1 and Bloodhempen Yarn ×3 — which resolve to 4 distinct raw materials totalling 18 units, plus 14 crystals.

That bill outweighs 7,380 of the 13,602 recipes tracked here and 694 of the 1,441 Armorer ones, and 337 recipes nest deeper.

Only 5 of those crystals go into the final step; the other 9 are burned by the intermediates, so the real crystal cost is 6 Fire Crystal, 3 Ice Crystal, 3 Lightning Crystal and 1 other kind.

The chain crosses three disciplines — Armorer to Lv 61, Blacksmith to Lv 61 and Weaver to Lv 61 — 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, High Steel Nugget has the widest use: 133 recipes call for it, spanning seven of the eight crafting classes.