Miner Class Discussion Thread

[Sendordm]

Thanks for the input! I've got very limited playtime so Nophica's Wells was working for me due to the level 30 leve's being out there anyway. I guess I'll stay there till I go crazy and need a change of scenery.

[goodr]

Any sign of crystals yet? What about more than 3 of a particular shard? Lately I've been spamming time in lower grade water to try to get shards faster.

[vegetaa]

Are there pieces of gear you think are very useful for mining (I'm P27 and R20) ?

[Jamison]

Any sign of crystals yet? What about more than 3 of a particular shard? Lately I've been spamming time in lower grade water to try to get shards faster.

None. There's more detailed info about it in the first post.

Are there pieces of gear you think are very useful for mining (I'm P27 and R20) ?

You're looking for the following stats on gear: Gathering, Output and Perception. Most of this gear tends to be 15-17/25-27/35-37/etc. Mostly each slot only has a particular stat. Headpieces have perception, feet have output -- point being you don't have to pick which you want, you'll want to get one piece for every slot.

At your level, I'd go ahead and jump to the r25-27 items: Assault Sallet, Dodoskin Jerkin, Dodoskin Armguards, Dodoskin Culottes, Dodoskin Workboots and Dodoskin Field Belt. There are some alterntives to these, you can search Zam for items in a particular slot for MIN that have the stat you are looking for.

[Zisa]

A belt seems like the hardest thing to find.. I've been trying to get one for a few weeks, but I have never found one for sale. I know they are out there, though, because I have seen a few people wearing them. If anyone on Palamecia happens to read this and has one for sale, I'll buy it in a heartbeat

Edit: And just a few minutes after making this post, I see a retainer with a Voyager's Belt... for 999,999,999. Damn it.

[Manako]

I was lucky and got canvas sash as a rank 20 leve reward, seems like the mining leve equip rewards are always good for mining.

[vegetaa]

[...]I'd go ahead and jump to the r25-27 items: Assault Sallet, Dodoskin Jerkin, Dodoskin Armguards, Dodoskin Culottes, Dodoskin Workboots and Dodoskin Field Belt.[...]

Thanks ! On Selbina it's pretty tough to find any gear above 20, so it's gonna be tough...

[Leelya]

Thanks ! On Selbina it's pretty tough to find any gear above 20, so it's gonna be tough...

Ul'dah >> Tanners Ward.

Your problem has been solved.

I also have a Safari belt I'd part with for 150k too. It's opt. rank is 37.

[Jamison]

Hit 35 today and grabbed leves from Gridania. They are at Treespeak, north of Emerald Moss. I haven't done them yet because I had to get to work. One came with 1900 guild marks, which I was able to up to 3100 with four 2-star exchanges.

This makes me wonder if there will be any Grade 5 full camps, or if like Grade 4, they are all auxiliary aetherytes.

[Sephiroth]

I can say grade 5 nodes exist near Camp Iron Lake in La Noscea, but I can't tell you anything about other regions. My guess would be camp Blue Frog or Broken Water in Thanalan and either Nine Ivies or Crimson Bark in Shroud. Which one would be whichever aetheryte is the same rank as Iron Lake I guess. If I were to hunt grade five I'd go look at nodes in Nine Ivies and Blue Frog first.

[Leelya]

I can say grade 5 nodes exist near Camp Iron Lake in La Noscea, but I can't tell you anything about other regions. My guess would be camp Blue Frog or Broken Water in Thanalan and either Nine Ivies or Crimson Bark in Shroud. Which one would be whichever aetheryte is the same rank as Iron Lake I guess. If I were to hunt grade five I'd go look at nodes in Nine Ivies and Blue Frog first.

If I remember correctly tank 5 mining point for Thanalan region is Halatali.

[Jamison]

Mining Treespeak wasn't bad, no aggro, no problems getting to nodes. To correct what I posted earlier, the guild marks got boosted to 3400 with four 2-star leve exchanges. The HQ Obsidian leve did have points near/at aggro from Black Efts, which has the potential to be a problem... I was somewhat fortunate to get in and out while they were on the other side of the area. Didn't find anything new. Literally the only items I came across were obsidian and the same raw gems as were in grade 4.

[Null]

Anybody having any issues today? Was mining and harvesting then suddenly it said I couldn't obtain items cause my bag was full. But I had 40 space open. Then I couldn't mine or chop anything after. Gave me the message as if I had already done something at those spots. Despite not being there before. Did this for 4 mining areas and 5 trees.

[Jamison]

Anybody having any issues today? Was mining and harvesting then suddenly it said I couldn't obtain items cause my bag was full. But I had 40 space open. Then I couldn't mine or chop anything after. Gave me the message as if I had already done something at those spots. Despite not being there before. Did this for 4 mining areas and 5 trees.

Had that happen while trying to get items off my retainer... looks like maybe a general server issue and not something specific to mining.

[Jamison]

Tracked some numbers a little more carefully this morning.

• It was about 21-22 hours after I stopped mining yesterday, 24 hours after I *started* mining yesterday. (Went slower than normal).
• I got one single one-hit fail on limonite at 12.5k skill, 19th node, 114 gathers, ~110 successful gathers.
• I got consecutive (4 of 6) one-hit fails at 14.7k skill, 23rd node, 138 gathers, ~130 successful gathers.
• (Both "successful gathers" have the one-hit fails factored in).

If this truly is a GATHERING fatigue (which it almost certainly is) the more successful you are the quicker you'd hit it, right? I tend to hit it closer to 15k (rather than the 20k most people report) and I'm not really sure how to account for that. Could the quantity of items have an impact, or is it just the number of successful mining attempts?

[Purrrfect]

Does anyone else have problems using the abilities after the timer runs out? It will say "X cannot be used now" and I have to press it a few times before it works. It's like the timer on the server for your ability isn't in synch with the timer on your screen and the one on your screen ends a few seconds too soon.

I asked in ls about this and the only person who said anything only said they got it during mining. I get this shit on every job. Died a few times cuz my whole chat screen was "Skull Sunder cannot be used now." ><

btw nice work Jamison

[Jamison]

More numbers:

Hit moderate gathering fatigue (50%+ one-hit fails) at/around 13.6k skill, 25 nodes, 150 gathers, ~135 successful gathers. This was about 28 hours after I last finished mining. There was one leve done in between, but I believe we're thinking leves don't add to fatigue?

The one thing I focused on today was predicting which item it would be, and adjusting my initial strike accordingly. Not trying to boast, but it worked *really* well. I cleared 10 nodes for 5,500 skill in 30 minutes at Camp Glory. So that's 11k/hour, which I know can vary as your skill gained goes down and/or output goes up. I was able to get the item with just one single attempt a lot of the time, which just made the grind that much more efficient.

I've seen this talked about before, but never touched on it myself: a particular node seems to always have the same subset of items available from the entire zone. Even when they moved (I don't have a huge sample, but the ones I tracked today agreed with this) the subset of items stayed exactly the same. In my situation today, I knew which node had silver ore, while the other two I was going between had iron ore and sand. Silver tended to always be around 25% on the circle, iron around 70%. So, I changed my initial strike to the area most likely to be a success. I'd say about 80% of the time the ore was in the expected spot, and 20% it was somewhere else. Even though that's not a perfect strategy, it is still playing the numbers as best as is possible in my favor. The other lesson learned is that if you are targeting a specific item, once you find the node(s) that have what you want, hit them up as often as possible; even if that isn't the absolute closest node to your current location.

I realize I'm being a bit OCD about this stuff, and many won't find it worth the effort to squeeze out maximum SP/hour, but I do enjoy finding ways to maximize efficiency. Having it take only about 1:15 to finish my gathering for the day is a pretty good feeling.

Edit: For anyone wondering about the predicting the item part, any given item will always start with the exact same remainder bar before your first hit. While this will change slightly depending on rank and stats, it's possible (easy, even) to learn how much remainder any given item will start with. Some items will have similar remainders, some will have the exact same. Regardless, that gives you valuable information about where to make your first strike. If you are tracking what nodes have what items, you'll pretty much know exactly what the item is, and where you should hit.

[Sephiroth]

Yeah when I mine I care more about the items than the SP rate. I've been targetting the two zinc nodes around Camp Tranquil plus one other. The zinc nodes are far apart but worth it if you're a GSM doing brass rings. I need to figure out the place to be for silver now.

I'm too lazy to try guessing what item I'm going to hit. Might worry about that later on (grade 4) when SP requirements start to suck.

[Zisa]

I can confirm just about everything in your post for botany as well. Each node (or tree in my case) will always have the exact same items as the last time you attempted it. When it moves, the node that replaces it will have whatever item the previous one had. Each item has a set remainder it starts at, although the amount of hits it takes to get the item or deplete the remainder changes as you level up. It is pretty easy for me to predict what item I'm about to get as soon as I see the remainder bar (although some items share the same opening remainders).

About the amount of xp/gathers it normally takes before hitting this gathering fatigue, it also seems like the gathering you use your offhand tool for (it's harvesting for botanists, I don't know what it is for miners) also counts toward the fatigue, and they are worth about half of the xp of normal gathers. I know another factor (for botanists at least) is the Sweat of Brow ability, which doubles the amount of skill points you get for each attempt, successful or not, which may be why they are around 20k before they notice the fatigue.

[Sephiroth]

Wow, I didn't know Sweat of Brow was that good. Maybe I should take BTN to 25 to get it for my MIN. Lots of effort though, my BTN is only 15 now.