Can You Spare a Dolabra
Location
Required Items
Rewards
What the allowance actually buys
One allowance here buys 40,640 EXP, which places it 5th of the 6 Lv 30 Blacksmith tradecraft leves that record EXP. The best of them, The Naked Blade, returns 67,730 EXP for the same allowance, 67% more.
Across that rung the return runs from 31,330 EXP to 67,730 EXP per allowance — 4 distinct figures spanning 116%, so the wrong pick leaves 36,400 EXP of the allowance unspent.
On whether to wait: the best Lv 35 Blacksmith tradecraft leve returns 72,600 EXP per allowance, 7% more than the best on this rung, while the Lv 25 rung behind tops out at 47,200 EXP.
At Lv 30 this data holds 52 leves paying EXP across 2 categories: the 48 Tradecraft ones average 44,832 EXP per allowance, the 4 Fieldcraft ones 275,323 EXP, which puts this leve 9% below its own category's average.
Steel Dolabra ×1 is a Lv 33 Blacksmith recipe, 3 steps deep through 6 intermediates, costing 16 units of raw material and 22 crystals.
Handing that in returns 2,540 EXP and 17 gil for every unit of raw material the order swallows, and the tree needs Armorer, Blacksmith, Carpenter and Weaver.
The record carries a repeats value of 2. This site reads that as 2 further turn-ins on the same leve — an assumption, because the source data defines no meaning for the field — which would put the ceiling at 121,920 EXP and 795 gil for the 1 allowance it costs, or 121,920 EXP per allowance.