<Guide> How to Dig a Deeper Hole (Gathering 1-50)

Introduction
With the recent resurgence of newer players I've come to notice that a lot of players seem to be lost in terms of how to effectively level up a Gatherer. This can be either a lack of using their own abilities, using dated gear or simply doing the bare minimum on their Leves. The purpose of this guide is to show a much more effective path and economically sound method to leveling up a Gatherer class. Due to Fisher's resemblance more to the Crafting type Leves, and the random nature of fishing, it will have it's own section where as the general section will pertain to Mining and Botany.

Abilities
More important than anything else, a player needs to learn to utilize the skills that the class has to offer. Specifically, when trying to level up a class through Leves, you need to realize when a situation needs a Gathering buff and apply the correct amount in order to economically succeed in a timed environment without the use of Cordials.
- For example, Sharp Vision III may provide a better cost to bonus ratio than Sharp Vision II, but your GP regenerates at an especially slow rate, and a 50% bonus to gather something is more often overkill than not. Granted, Sharp Vision III is great when you need to discover an unidentified item and can pretty much guarantee most items.
- When gathering items outside of a Leve, it's important to utilize Unearth, as HQ items normally grant ~2-3 times more experience. HQ items also have a better sell price on the marketplace, and will help any crafting classes to craft HQ items more easily.
- Deep Vigor and Brunt Force are most useful in Leves since the nodes in them have 6 gathering attempts. They grant a 100% guaranteed attempt to obtain an HQ item (or NQ if HQ isn't available), but they require you to successfully gather 5 times in a row on the same node.

Finding Field Gear
While some may proclaim that constantly buying new gear for a gathering class at every opportunity is not economically sound, you are essentially taking a relentless RNG system and making it harder on yourself by doing so. Granted, there is one type of gear you can skip out on, and that is accessories. Accessories only grant GP in very meager amounts and really don't contribute to the overall effectiveness of a leveling gatherer. In fact, you might benefit more from putting on Strength or Intelligence buffing items as they can potentially be requirements for Stone/Tree Whisperer.
The way I assume most players obtain their Field gear is through either the Marketplace or through their own crafting. Both of these, while sometimes a valid source, can easily be trumped by NPC vendors. The trick to finding the right vendor to sell you the right range of gear is through your Leves. By going to the major city who has your most current leveling Leves and then traveling to the destination in the Leve, you can easily come across a Merchant & Mender NPC. These NPCs will sell you gear in the same level range as the Leves in that area (This also works for Disciple of War/Magic classes, though they also have Dungeons and Leves which reliably drop good gear).
While it's not as lucrative as it once was, you can still convert old Field Gear into Materia which can easily double or even quadruple the investment you put into the gear if you sell it on the marketplace and get the right type (Gatherer's Guerdon/Guile are the big ticket materia you want to get). This provides incentive to constantly replace gear that you've soulbonded to in order to get a chance at that return.

Leves
There are 3 types of Leves you will run into as a Miner or Botanist.

1. Benevolence & Piety: These are your Bread & Butter since they are Evaluation type leves. When you start these leves, always start with +2 difficulty, since this will make the more common item in the nodes the same evaluation quality as the rare item in addition to a small difficulty bonus. By maintaining good gear and using your abilities wisely, you can consistently get the 25% evaluation bonus and practically double your experience earnings. Piety's plate shows a Mi'quote over water and has 8 gathering points in comparison to Benevolence's 4 gathering points, which shows a woman in a white dress with a basket of flowers.
2. Candor: This is the only Gathering Leve with a fail state, and unfortunately, it can be rather easy to hit if your luck runs dry. This can also pointlessly drag on since even if you meet the requirement, you still have to empty out all of the nodes, and there is NO benefit for having more than the required amount. Because of this, it's important to know your limits when doing this leve, as making it too hard can easily lead to a failure. If you're geared, then a +2 or +3 difficulty should be rather reliable. Candor shows a King placing a crown atop his head.
3. Munificence: This is a potentially faster Candor leve that lacks a fail state. Unfortunately, it also seems to be placed quite often around hostile enemies that can force you to use Stealth. This becoming more of an issue than normal due to only one node spawning at a time. On the flip side, you can easily pump this up to +4 difficulty without worrying about a fail state. Munificence depicts a Lalafell carrying a large load of goods.

Fisher
As stated above, Fisher is a completely different beast to tackle than the other gathering classes, and the rewards for leveling it can be somewhat dismal compared to the time and effort that it requires. Culinarian is the sole class that heavily relies on this gathering profession, and if you're looking for something with real end-game benefits, then you should probably be looking elsewhere. On the flip side, fishing is rather enjoyable in comparison to Mining and Botany, and can practically be considered it's own game with the depth of lures, fishing holes, and time/weather sensitive fish.

Gearing Up
It's much more important to gear your Fisher class and keep it geared, since a lot of fish simply won't show up if you don't have the stats (or won't show up reliably, turning a 10 minute task into a 10 hour one). Using relevant food is also a way to boost your stats in your favor in order to hook the fish that you want. HQ fish are exceptionally desired in this profession since it's integral to the Leve turn-ins and having an abysmal perception stat can literally gate off the fish that you can catch. It should also be noted that pre-50 Fishers have NO use for GP, and therefore shouldn't even think about buying accessories unless they're looking into melding them.

Leves, Leves, Leves
It should be stated that you can quite literally level up this class without ever casting a line in the water. This is made possible by the crafting type leves available to the Fisher, which requires items that can easily be purchased at the Marketplace. There are two basic types of Leves available to them:

1. Concord: This leve consists of the player simply obtaining a single fish for an NPC. If the fish is HQ, then they will receive double the experience & gil. It is possible for the NPC to request 3 fish at a time, and in order to get the full bonus, you have to submit 3 HQ fish. Concord shows a fisherman on the coastline holding up a fish by the hook.
2. Sincerity: This leve always requires the player to submit 3 fish in order to complete it. If you submit 3 HQ fish, then you will receive double the experience & gil. Additionally, if you submit HQ fish, then you can submit up to 2 more times on the same leve allowance. Submitting 9 HQ fish total will net you 6x the base experience & gil for the leve. As such, many players can abuse this leve by buying excessive amounts of a particular fish in HQ and repeating a specific quest for massive amounts of experience in a very short amount of time. Sincerity depicts 2 men bartering over a gun with a red-dotted white sheet in the background.

Bait & Lures
Bait & Lures are even more important than gear since lures will often favor certain types of fish over others when Casting. While Bait is "one use, one catch," you can catch multiple fish off of the same lure, and as such I would recommend only buying 2 of a particular lure at the most since losing your lure is rare and typically only happens if you fail to catch a fish. Some fish have better rates with bait than lure, so studying up on the fish can be to your benefit time-wise.

Experience & You
Knowing the best way to abuse experience bonuses is the best way to succeed in the game. Here's a list of things you can do to beef up your bonuses:

• Rested Exp: Take advantage of Inns and sanctuaries whenever you're not playing, as Rested experience grants a flat 50% bonus to all experience gained through gathering.
• Food: Not only is food essential for the stat bonuses, but another flat 3% bonus to all experience can be gained.
• Free Company: Free Companies, if they're a high enough rank, can activate an action which increases all Gathering experience by 10%
• Grand Company: Grand Companies sell Company-issue Survival Manuals, which can grant a 50% gathering boost for 3 hours (up to 40,000 experience).
• Friendship Circlet: If you recruit a friend or are recruited yourself, you'll find yourself in the possession of a Friendship Circlet. This item takes up the head slot, and increases all experience that a class would earn by 20% while they are level 25 and below.
• HQ: When gathering an HQ item, you will be granted ~2-3 times the normal experience of that item.
• check the item level: Not every item is made equal, and when farming items outside of leves, it's important to try and always farm the highest level item in the node unless you're trying to obtain a certain one for other reasons. Higher level items have higher base experience tied to them.

Conclusion
Am I missing something? Got your own tips for leveling up Gathering that isn't on this guide? Let me know in the comments below and I'll add you & your advice to the category it fits under or under the conclusion if it doesn't necessarily fit a category.

Crafting 1-50 Guide

Awesome tips!

I've not spent a whole lot of time doing gathering leves, and the ones I did do seemed like too much of a pain for the gain. I'll try them again with your tips in mind, and perhaps they'll seem more productive.

Thanks! :-)

Do not waste your precious leves on fishing. You will level up really quick by just fishing. Can even sell leve fish and make some profit :)