Before hopping on Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn‘s gathering wagon, ask yourselves whether you like farming or not. Are you the type of player who can mindlessly click your mouse while staring at the monitor like a zombie for hours? If that applies to you, then hop on– let’s start a gathering class.
Disclaimer: This is not a detailed guide of how you should level your class, you can find those guides from many other sites in our Ultimate Linkage guide. This article will, however, give you some ideas about what to expect when you level your gathering classes, based solely on my experience and opinion.
1. Choosing Your Gathering Class:
If you are a crafter and just want to gather your own materials, read my tips on getting start with crafting, and skip this first section. If you’re just seeking some extra gil without having to level a crafting class or simply want to test out a gathering class, read on.
There are three gathering classes: Miner, Botanist and Fisher. Out of the three, Mining and Botany are pretty much the same. You get a Gathering Log that gives you list of items you can gather and the location for those items. It’s almost always guaranteed that you will get the item you want from Mining and Botany, except for seeds and soil.
Fishing, however, is a totally different class from the other two. You need to discover the Fishing Log yourself, and you need the right kind of bait at the right time, in the right weather, etc. It isn’t guaranteed to always catch the type of fish you want– or even any fish at all.
However, Fishing is much faster to level than Mining and Botany, and it’s the perfect class to play with Pokemon. Put on your headphones and let the sound guide your fingers while you choose which move your Pokemon would use to be the best most sadistic trainer in the game. Perfect. (Warning: don’t play Pokemon when you need to gather a fish that can only be obtained through Mooch)
Here’s where you’ll need to go after choosing your class:
- Miner: Ul’dah, Steps of Thal.
- Botanist: Gridania, Old Gridania.
- Fisher: Limsa Lominsa, Lower Decks.
2. Level Up Your Gatherer:
For Fishers, the best way to level is to just go fish. You can also do Levequests if it’s convenient for you. Keep this list handy. If you happen to get a few of the fish that are in the list, trade them in for Levequests. You can also try and discover all of the fish and fill in the Fishing Log, but if you’re lazy and don’t want to fish up just any fish, what I personally do is fish only those that can be sold for a high price on the Market Board. Keep this Fishing Log handy as a reference. It lists the location of each fish and the bait needed.
For Miner and Botanist, the fastest way to level is to do Levequests since gathering items is rather time consuming and doesn’t give much EXP in return. Some items aren’t even worth gathering because they’re not in demand whatsoever. Your best bet is to do Levequest while gathering only those items that can be sold for a good price.
Also, don’t wait until level 50 to do all the class quests at once. They’re worth decent chunks of EXP as you level.
Don’t forget to take some gathering food with you. Not only does food give you 3% bonus EXP, you also get bonus stats from them:
- Gathering: Gathering increases your chances of obtaining items. To be used if your gathering chance is a bit shy from 100% (with or without Sharp Vision or Field Mastery I, II, III).
- Perception: Affects your chances of obtaining HQ items. I find this the best food for Fisher since HQ fish give a lot more EXP than normal fish.
- GP: gives you more GP, really useful when doing Levequest where time is your friend.
3. Gearing Up Your Gathering Classes:
Most gathering gear comes from Leatherworking, but it’s okay if you don’t have a Leatherworker. All class quests give you new main-hand/off-hand equipment and other pieces of new gear. You should change your gear every 10 levels, especially as a Miner and Botanist, otherwise it becomes more difficult to level. If you have a bit of gil, get yourself HQ gathering gear. If not, just get normal quality ones. Remember, the Market Board is your friend, not a monster that sucks gil out of you (although it has done that to me).
4. Make the Market Board Your Friend:
It is much easier to make gil out of gathering now than when 2.0 just came out. At the start of FFXIV:ARR, the number of bots and gil sellers flooding the Market Board with items was insane, making it impossible for any hardworking gatherer to sell their items. But thanks to the anti-cheating campaign, there are not many bots anymore, increasing the prices of shards and crafting materials by 200% or even 300% (on Behemoth at least).
As mentioned in my earlier guide, Shards, Crystals, Clusters, Logs, Ores, Alumen, Cotton Bolls, Flax, etc. are things that you can almost always count on to sell when it comes to making money. For Fishers, there are some fish that are used in crafting recipes that you can obtain at low level. Look for those (for example: Princess Trout (lvl 5) for Fish Oil, Navigator’s Dagger (lvl 18) for Dagger’s Soup…).
And don’t forget the rules for playing with the Market Board. Whether crafting or gathering, those rules apply for everything that goes on the Market Board.
5. Level 50 Gathering:
At level 50, the first thing you want to do is get your level 50 gear and start going bankrupt enhancing it with materia. You can get the main hand from the respective lvl 50 class quest. When you have enough materials to gather 2 star items, you can start gathering up for your new main-hand and headgear from the NPCs in Revenant’s Toll (or if you think you’re hardcore enough, try to get the main-hand from Discipline of the Land achievements).
Level 50 gathering is a little different for Miner and Botanist. All the star items are from unspoiled nodes that only appear at a certain time, so using the Eorzea clock really helps. This clock also lets you keep track of the fishing time.
Here’s a handy trick for Miners and Botanists: If you only want one type of item from unspoiled nodes, don’t use Toil of the Mountaineer/Toil of the Pioneer. Find out which slot the item you need is (the Eorzea clock has the slot info) and hit it to reveal the item. Use King’s Yield II/Blessed Harvest II or Unearth II/Leaf Turn II if you want HQ. Enjoy the benefit of the extra 300 CP.
Enjoy gathering. If you get any rare pets from the treasure maps, share them with me lucky you! ;D.
Image credit: Official Lodestone blog
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