Miner Class Discussion Thread

[Jamison]

I picked up mining a few days ago due to noticing in order to take GS up you'll need it or a large amount of gil to buy all the ore you'll need leveling. My God is it boring. It's worse than crafting since you actually have to pay attention somewhat and can't totally watch tv as you do it. It does however supply you with a good amount of mats for leveling gs/bs/armorer so I'm fairly happy. Now for a rather nub question(but seriously dont' feel like looking through 14 pages of this thread to find the answer), I'm currently at rank 12 (targeting limonite/iron) on level 2 nodes. What rank do you guys usually hit level 3 nodes? I know you get lay of the land 3 at 18 and that's the easiest way to go but is it better to go before hand and try? I currently need iron for bs/armorer and would like some silver for GS. Also doing the level 3 nodes would put me nearby rank 20 camps so that I could do behests every hour to get some easy sp.

If you don't skimp on gear, 18 (when you get Lay of the Land) is a fine time to change grades. Ideally, with the right gear, you should get 4 hits at that rank. Some might suggest trying to do 18 & 19 at grade 2, because you'll get a lot more hits per node... but since your goal is specific mats I think you'd be happier moving up at 18. The danger of trying to move up before then is that it can be very difficult sometimes to find nodes.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

Thanks for the input. I'll wait till 18 then. I have 30 leather so all my gear is taken care of. I'll have to look up loot tables to see what nodes actually offer. I've been getting more and more iron as of late which is nice.

[Kyroc]

The easiest way I found doing it was just to follow another miner around. You wont get as many hits at the node as someone that is in range so you will always finish at the node before them. And once you have your 3 nodes, you can just run between them on your own until it collapses.

I tried grinding grade 5 in Iron Lake last night because I am so close to 38 now (10k to go woohoo) but it was too annoying trying to find the nodes without Lay of the Land and there was no one else mining there so I ended up going back to grade 4. In some ways it is faster to gain skill in your correct grade range because even tho you get less per success, you get more hits at the node which means less travel time. You can also do leve's for the next grade once you hit the x5 of each tier (15, 25 etc).

Pro tip: Iron and Limonite are abundant in Limsa, if your after Silver, Tranquil (grade 3) is great and you also get lots of Zinc

[Sephiroth]

I was around Halatali doing leves this morning and saw a grade 5 node. I got two hits at the node and the first attempt hit gold ore. Surprisingly I got a second hit at it but I managed to break it due to being tired and bad aim. Second attempt at the node I dug up gold sand. Now if only I could find the nodes, I'd happily mine there with two attempts per node if it meant more gold per hour than Nophica. I tried to find another node but failed.

[Clydey]

I gave up on mining after the November patch that took silver needles from us. I was happily mining silver and synthing it as I got it, but that patch changed goldsmithing in the high 30s+ and I no longer needed silver. I figured I'd try avoid skilling on electrum so I didn't push my miner to grade 5 like I should have. It became apparent by 43 gold that I'd need to skill on electrum to get to 50 but by then it was too late to catch up mining without stopping gold. Not something I want to do as I'd like to stay in the top ten on my server.

My god that was a long story lol. But yeah I'd say 99% of my mining SP since 25 has come from mining leves. I get the most gold sand that way because all 3 nodes in Thanlan and Shroud promising points leve have gold sand.

I buy any gold ore I see for 10k but I avoid buying gold sand because the loss on NPCing rings is too high. I may start however just to get 50 then make the gil back selling sand to others.

Maybe I'll try hit Halatali and see how it goes for sand. Depends how easy the nodes are to spot without scanner. Quite easy if someone else is mining there at the time I guess.

Edit: I don't think we'll be making gold nuggets for a while. The way I see it is:

Copper Ring/Earring: R8/R8
Brass Ring/Earring: R18/R18
Silver Ring/Earring: R28/R28
Electrum Ring/Earring: R48/R38
Mythril Ring/Earring: R48/R48
Gold Ring/Earring: R58/R58
Platinum Ring/Earring: R68/R68

Notice how electrum ring is 20 higher than the previous ring while the earring isn't. It's clear that's an error and will be adjusted when SE gets round to fixing jewellery. I think we can expect tier 3 gem rings at some point using mythril too.

So yeah point being, I don't think there will be a need for gold nuggets until SE raise the rank cap.

Bit too much goldsmithing talk there lol.

Yeah, for Goldsmithing you really need to mine and have another miner getting sand for you. I had ol' Jamison supplying me with sand (for a good price) on top of what I was mining. That's the only way you're going to grind goldsmith quickly. I hit 50 two weeks ago and I doubt I'll do another DoH for a while. On the plus side, if you can get goldsmithing to 50 since the silver nerf, other DoH jobs will be a breeze.

Also, I could probably supply you with Haltall gold sand locations. There are two nodes, usually to the west of the gate. One is always to the west, but the other is sometimes slightly east or north east. For the reset node, you can aim for silver sand. Worked a treat for me.

Ideally, I'd put the node locations on a map, but I don't have the time just now.

[Clydey]

I was around Halatali doing leves this morning and saw a grade 5 node. I got two hits at the node and the first attempt hit gold ore. Surprisingly I got a second hit at it but I managed to break it due to being tired and bad aim. Second attempt at the node I dug up gold sand. Now if only I could find the nodes, I'd happily mine there with two attempts per node if it meant more gold per hour than Nophica. I tried to find another node but failed.

Bear with me. I'll mark the gold sand nodes on a map for you.

Ok, here's a crappy little map I came up with. I just shoved it in paint and inserted some ugly dots to pin point the location of gold sand nodes (there are 2). I've also marked one location in red, which I believe is another node point. I did this from memory, so I may have forgotten 1 or 2.

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/8822/goldsand.jpg

[Sephiroth]

Thanks. I'll have a look at it next week. I'm out of town from tomorrow and tonight is going to be quite busy. To be honest though I'm probably going to hit 50 by the end of January so I'm not going to do much serious mining. I have the mats to take me half way into 48. It's just that last SP will be horrible because electrum rings will be terrible SP. I've been keeping all my tier 2 gems for 49 to make the grind a bit easier. Unfortunately I plan to take CRP to 50 next, which is going to require at least access to tier 4 trees. I'm 15 already so it's not a huge pain I guess.

[Jamison]

ol' Jamison

[Sephiroth]

It seems when you're geared properly you can get three hits at grade 5 at 33. When you're not geared properly it's only two. Here was me thinking gear was useless after digging up gold no problem at grade 4 in my battle gear lol.

[Purplenv]

Gear is never useless.

Example, I carry a Linen Coatee, and a Tarred Leather Jerkin with me untill recently.
When harvesting grade 5 at R44, swapping to the Coatee would net me an additional swing per node, since the coatee has output stat in place of the gathering on the Jerkin.

Now at 46/47 ranks, I just use the Jerkin, as I get the 6th swing, without needing the extra output.
Likely come rank 50, I'll need to swap back to the coatee to get a 7th hit on grade 5.

So far, a guildee has figured that it wil be impossible with current gear, to get an 8th swing on grade 5 nodes, with anything short of a +3 tool.

[Jamison]

Gear is never useless.

Example, I carry a Linen Coatee, and a Tarred Leather Jerkin with me untill recently.
When harvesting grade 5 at R44, swapping to the Coatee would net me an additional swing per node, since the coatee has output stat in place of the gathering on the Jerkin.

Now at 46/47 ranks, I just use the Jerkin, as I get the 6th swing, without needing the extra output.
Likely come rank 50, I'll need to swap back to the coatee to get a 7th hit on grade 5.

So far, a guildee has figured that it wil be impossible with current gear, to get an 8th swing on grade 5 nodes, with anything short of a +3 tool.

I haven't even begun to do the math myself, but someone on my server has said it is possible with food. I'm not sure what, if any, version of an HQ dolabra he's using.

[Purplenv]

True, output food would likely do it, with a HQ tool as well.

A lot of hassle just to get 1 more hit, which would net a very minimal decrease to the amount of running around.

Now, if they add rare node spawns or something like that, where you get like 1 harvest attempt to get rare items, then all effort can be put forth to hit the output hardcap, but for now, I'll just run around a very small amount more, then worry about high rank output food.

[Jamison]

True, output food would likely do it, with a HQ tool as well.

A lot of hassle just to get 1 more hit, which would net a very minimal decrease to the amount of running around.

Now, if they add rare node spawns or something like that, where you get like 1 harvest attempt to get rare items, then all effort can be put forth to hit the output hardcap, but for now, I'll just run around a very small amount more, then worry about high rank output food.

Agreed... I have some of the optional +output gear, and to be honest, I very rarely found it worthwhile.

[Sephiroth]

Anyone want to post their SP findings on mining since patch? I find I'm getting a little less, R34 on grade 4.

Edit: Nevermind it seems about the same. It's just I saw a couple down to about 90 and I don't remember seeing that pre-patch at 34.

[Purplenv]

R48 on grade 4 was lower.
R48 on grade 5 was unchanged.
at R48 there was no way to test hitting an overlevel node.

[Kyroc]

At rank 40 on Grade 5 I was getting 200-210 with favor for the 3 promising point leve, prepatch I was getting 150-160. On the HQ items with favor I got 760-790, prepatch was around 550.

I was only on for an hour since the patch so haven't had a chance to try regular mining

[Sephiroth]

Rank 34 hitting a grade 5 node:

You gain 229 mining skill points.
You gain 881 experience points.
You gain 211 mining skill points.
You gain 881 experience points.
You gain 204 mining skill points.
You gain 881 experience points.
You gain 209 mining skill points.
You gain 881 experience points.
You gain 118 mining skill points.
You gain 109 mining skill points.

The last two hits were fails but that's more SP than I get succeeding on a grade 4. Ridiculous.

You gain 306 botany skill points.
You gain 1200 experience points.
You gain 293 botany skill points.
You gain 1200 experience points.

Rank 15 hitting a grade 5 node.

That was two separate nodes for each test by the way, I don't get that many hits at those ranks.

[Purplenv]

So just to be clear, each sample should be divided into two sections, for each node that you tried?

I don't see the problem.
Does 3 hits netting 650 SP on nodes that you can't find easily, and have a higher chance of failure on, provide some unballanced benefit compared to >500 SP per node on grade 4, with reasonable success rate, and easy relocation to new node spawns when things move around?
Plus, from my PoV, even prior to the SP changes I would have reasonably argued that moving to the next grade of nodes at rank 35, is appropriate, considering that the leves become available at that rank, and the only issue with that being the locating of nodes. Now with a lot more people running around at higher grades, it is a lot more likely to find someone to follow to nodes.
(The availability of Coatee's for a higher output build also makes this a reality)

IMO, one hit will always be the minimum, so a R15 on grade 5 netting 300 SP is fine, since they will never succeed vs the harder materials, and running around with 1 hit per node, is most deffinitely not efficient SP, even if it was even slightly higher.

[Sephiroth]

Yeah I wasn't planning to do any serious grade 5 mining or botany at my ranks. I was just running around the Treespeak area and came across four nodes within like 70 yalms, two mining and two botany. So I hit them to see what the SP would be. A grade 5 node would give me about 130 pre-patch.

I think if you're going to hit grade 5 before you can scan it Treespeak is probably the place to do it because the narrow paths make finding the nodes a lot easier than somewhere like Thanalan. I had three mining node locations but I got bored rather quickly and went exploring.

[Purplenv]

Treespeak is pretty great for grinding Mining and Botany as Grade 5 levels, all at the same time.

At this point, I will just mindlessly run the ring, which will normally have 2 oak trees, and 3 mining nodes (I reffer to the 3 nodes as the Garnet, Jade or Mythril node, based on their look list).
Additionally, then there is a fourth mining node that spawns relatively close, but generally closer to the Aeth. crystal, (Peridot loot list).
If OH nodes are also of interest, there is also a quarry node, and harvesting (scythe) nodes close by.

So, with very little effort and running around there are no less then 8 various nodes in the relatively compact area.

Only major obsticle that comes up is the Gob NM spawn.