Iron Shortsword

Taken all the way down to base materials, one Iron Shortsword is 2 crafting steps deep and needs 3 intermediates — Iron Ingot ×2, Aldgoat Leather ×1 and Elm Lumber ×1 — which resolve to 4 distinct raw materials totaling 11 units, plus 7 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 3 of those crystals go into the final step; the other 4 are burned by the intermediates, so the real crystal cost is 4 Fire Shard, 2 Earth Shard and 1 Wind Shard.

The chain crosses three disciplines — Blacksmith to Lv 22, Leatherworker to Lv 17 and Carpenter to Lv 16 — so no single class can finish it unaided.

3 of the 4 raw materials match a gathering node, none of them timed; the other 1 comes from vendors, drops or content this site does not track.

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