Smithing 83+. Why so hard?

[Aysha]

You entirely ignored the "primary" option for acquisition, which would be actually going out and mining it. Which is still an option, regardless of whether it's an attractive one or not.

Yeah, if you don't mind 100+ broken pickaxes and 10+ hours of wasted time to get maybe a stack or two.

It would be literally faster to farm gil by some other method and buy it out of the AH for the ridiculous prices they want for it.

[Nyarlko]

Yeah, if you don't mind 100+ broken pickaxes and 10+ hours of wasted time to get maybe a stack or two.

It would be literally faster to farm gil by some other method and buy it out of the AH for the ridiculous prices they want for it.

Devs would say pretty much the same thing I did, though probably with more politic wording. XD

The only way to actually get Adaman Ore is by Mog Garden (rarely), or killing the Tortoises in Gustav, but that room is almost always camped to all crap and back, even on a lower pop server like Sylph.

Just couldn't resist pointing out that there is indeed another method, regardless of how enjoyable that method is to us. ^^;;
The handful of times I've bothered mining in the last couple years, I didn't really have much of an issue w/ broken picks, but always used the related gear. Have you tried doing that?