A little disappointed in high-level botany

I never levelled botany to make money, I plan on taking all jobs to 50 and I like the idea of gathering the materials for my other jobs myself. That being said, I'm surprised at how useless all but the Crawler Cocoons and Vampire Plants are. I'm sure prices fluctuate on every server, but every single item available to farm at level 50 BOT is worth less than 700g at HQ and that's only the two items previously mentioned.

Obviously prices are determined by the community and what people are willing to spend on them but clearly the demand is severely lower than the supply. Whatever recipes require high level gathering materials, clearly have very little value or don't require enough of said gathering materials. Knowing this, it's a little disheartening to know that a level 50 job I have is more or less useless aside from the needs of my own jobs. It also gives me little faith in the idea of leveling mining as well due to the fact that it probably isn't much different at level 50.

I haven't reached level 50 yet. I'm leveling kind of slow believe it or not even after the update. I'm working on my achievements for my gold axe! Anyways, I've read that at level 50 the only things worth farming are those said items and stuff commonly used in the leves such as flax and certain logs. Doesn't seem like much money is to be made from a gathering job but I enjoy it for now and will find stuff to attempt to make money on. Also, I've read that a lot of money can be made from shards and crystals but that's kind of lame to have such a high level gathering job and go for level 25 items. :/

The problem is over saturation of the market. This is something SE wanted to prevent but it happened anyway due to poor planning. Getting 3-5 items per node swing at lvl 50 is WAY too much. Basically the demand for these materials by crafters is vastly overshadowed by the supply from Gatherers (both MIN and BTN). SE has said they will make more recipes for the lower level material gathers but I for one hope they add a lot more for the higher levels as well with more items needed for one craft. Crawler cocoons are the best as OP mentioned and you only need 4 for one lvl 50 craft. 4 cocoons is nothing when I can get 25 from one node, and that's just one person. 25 cocoons times all these gatherers results in a filled up market board. Naturally you could go the other route for 15 NQ and 3HQ (potential for more) but either way results in way too many items and too low of a demand.

Here is an idea.... How about use these mats in gear that lvl 50's might actually wear... and the demand for them will go up. If these mats were used in recipes to make gear that players would wear at lvl 50, ppl would want, and buy them.

Want to know what mats to sell for massive profit? Just look for the nodes and mobs with teleporting bots flying around them.

You're doing it wrong.

Most of the profit is not on the 50 items. Find an item that is used in a craft and gather the hell out of it. Culinarian items are amazing to gather since they actively need materials.

Vampire plants have a value? I thought it was just crawler cocoons and spruce logs.

The lvl 50 star items and clusters. Only one node spawns on the map? at mor?

I was expecting you just run from tree to tree etc to get items. however the current system is v bad. You have to wait around for a node to spawn. There's no point when you can run a dungeon and r 30k rather than wait how long to a node that will give a few clusters or whatever.

How do you get 25 from 1 node?

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Originally Posted by Dean86

How do you get 25 from 1 node?

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Swing once to unlock the slotted item. Then use Yield+2 ability (ex. King's Yield II). This makes every hit after give you 5 items instead of 3. 5 hits times 5 items per equals 25 items total.

What do you expect with the level of difficulty of gathering( EZ MODE) being so low. this is whats expected to happen. like you were saying about high supply and low demand for gathering mats, this also means level of difficulty leveling gathering class vs reward is changing as well. when more people are lvl 50 your skills are worth less and so are the items.
As it looks right now it seems like square is saying gathering is only gonna be a means to an end.

if you want more return probably gonna have to take crafting up for your gathering. just gathering is only gonna get worse IMO

SE needs to adjust crafting classes to improve the miner/botanist jobs. At the moment we gather too much items noone really needs. Crafting classes level damn fast due to the triple turn in leves. Crafted armor is almost useless at lower levels and still only need a few materials. I almost have 4 crafting classes at 50 now and my miner and botanist didn't really level along the way. Since XP gain is alot lower and my crafting classes didn't really need that much items. I gathered all materials for my 50 carpenter and weaver and my botanist is still only level 42. There could also be repeatable quests that require gatherers to get some items. For example mine 50 mythril ores and get some extra XP. This way the items wouldn't land on the market boards. I still hope that player housing will add tons of recipes for crafters. But somehow I still doubt that SE is that smart.

I always felt they should make the difficulty of gathering -shards- equal to the level of the node you find the shard in, rather than having 100% chance Wind Shards in a level 30 node that give 1 experience when you gather them.

That way, when levelling your gathering you can simply gather one of each of your gathering log for bonus xp and then farm SHARDS that level from an appropriate levelled node to level up your gathering. This would make gathering much more profitable when levelling, and have the added benefit of making the shard market less run by bots and more in the hands of the players (and should hopefully lower costs of shards all round).

Right now farming level 1 shards is the quickest and easiest way for gatherers to earn money but it doesnt benefit their class/level in any way.

I may be doing something wrong, but it certainly feels lately like items I farm are almost useless. Normally, I farm items lower than my actual so I don't level too fast and work on my achievements but I find an item that sells decently. I'm still trying to get rid of items from 10 levels ago. Something tells me it has something to do with the way crafting jobs level. As it is, most people create one item and spam a leve until level 50. This makes other items totally useless unless someone is going for a specific synth.

The problem isn't DoL gathering too many materials per swing, nor is it DoH not requiring enough materials. The real issue is that there are thousands of gilsellers botting all levels of gathering points via teleportation hacks, flooding the markets on all servers constantly and incredibly quickly. Nothing is currently stopping the gilsellers from doing this. Sure, the level 1 "spammer characters" in town may be getting banned regularly, but the ones gathering the materials to get the gil to sell are freely able to work without any risk, as they use the public Market Boards to gather their gil; and obviously SE can't ban the buyers of their materials.

I guarantee you if SE actually took care of the bots on a daily basis (as opposed to apparently never) the market would be demanding all materials like crazy. Take this opportunity to level a DoH, because once (if) SE actually gets off their ass and starts banning on a regular basis, prices for materials will skyrocket.

its not about prices, its about how often that item is selled

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Originally Posted by KariArisu

Culinarian items are amazing to gather since they actively need materials.

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Absolutely. Culinarians have it rough because each recipe needs heaps of different things... but there's a Repeatable L30 Leve for them that asks for a craft that only has one ingredient. I've been harvesting that for about twenty minutes a day, and selling the ingredients in the exact stack size required to turn it in once, and they are going like hotcakes.

If you want to profit you need to learn where the demand is, not whinge about the supply.

Miner is a tad better. They gather the mats for GSM stuff (many of which are made rather frequently), BSM (majority of the crafting weapons) and ARM (nobody really cares), the Alumen/Black Alumen that a LTW needs for every piece of leather, and the Effervescent Water that is used to make Twinthread and Natron (used to make Felt).

The two biggest things that hold Botany back is that other than Crawler Cacoons, the high level Weaver stuff (Fleece/Snurble Tufts) is monster drops rather than gathered - and the gathered parts they do need come from Mining (see above). Flax seems to sell okay (on my server) but it's not much above the price of average miner stuff. The other big issue is Carpenter. Sure you can get Spruce Logs, but Carpenters can make a grand total of 7 items (not counting mat items like Spruce Logs) at 50. That's the item level 55 and 70 stuff put together. Rosewood is also not nearly as useful as Electrum/Cobalt is.

Once housing/furniture is in though, Carpentry (and some others, guessing Weaver for stuff like bed sheets/drapes/couch cushions/etc.) should have an explosion of recipes which may bring Botany up to the level of Mining, depending on demand. Likely won't be until individual housing (estimated for 6 months or so after FC housing last I heard) though, as many FCs will probably have people to gather the mats to outfit their FC house without needing to touch the market boards.

On top of that, the 2 star CLN foods aren't even worth making at the moment over lower tier food as current stats/gear won't hit the caps that the food can give (with a lower %), so those mats are a bit of a deadend too. Vampire Plant only sells because it's used to make the weapon that WHM needs for their Relic Quest (Thavnarian Mistletoe and Trillium Bulb being the other two that aren't just bought from a vendor). Alchemist gets the mats to make the Grimoires for SCH/SMN from, you guessed it, Mining.

Agreed, compared to 50 mining where you can get darksteel ore and gold ore Botanist doesn't have as much going for it.

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Originally Posted by roohan

.... At the moment we gather too much items noone really needs....

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Do a bit of research on the market boards, find out what people DO want, sell it in 9s or 18s or 36s, not 99s.

That solves one problem, there are others....

It's simple, just replace Fleece with Silk(havent seen this thing in game yet, while Silk is one of the most high quality textile in the world), make Silk gathered from some bushes and all the problems about high level Botanist plus Karakul campfest will be solved.

Bit I highly doubt SE would take that way.

Warning: Wall of Text

I came into 2.0 with a level 50 botanist and miner and after focusing on gathering HQ materials for the first few weeks following Early Access, I proceeded to cap all of my crafts to make use of my materials.

I would like to clarify a few misconceptions in this thread before they snowball any further so please bare with me here...

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Originally Posted by Aronos

That being said, I'm surprised at how useless all but the Crawler Cocoons and Vampire Plants are. I'm sure prices fluctuate on every server, but every single item available to farm at level 50 BOT is worth less than 700g at HQ and that's only the two items previously mentioned.

Obviously prices are determined by the community and what people are willing to spend on them but clearly the demand is severely lower than the supply. Whatever recipes require high level gathering materials, clearly have very little value or don't require enough of said gathering materials.

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First of all, level 50 items are FAR FROM USELESS. Let me just go down the list here starting with the Clusters.

Clusters are used for making Two Star recipes, especially water and fire clusters which require one of each for every two star food recipe. Grade 4 carbonized matter is always in high demand by those seeking to tempt their luck with forbidden melds. Spruce logs are used to make all of the crafting offhand tools. Prickly Pineapple is used to make Pineapple Ponzecake (1 per cake) and Pineapple Juice (4 per juice). Dzemael Tomatos are used in Bouillabaise, a lvl 50 crafting food of great use. Black Truffles are used to make Risotto (another two star food) and the Crawler Cocoons are used in nearly every high level non food crafting recipe worth making. In fact, vampire plant, thavnarian mistletoe, trillium/bulb and honey lemons are the least used of all, however even they can find their use.

What's true is that prices are indeed determined by supply and demand. However, as a culinarian and gatherer, I resort to buying these items (generally NQ) off of the AH en masse, because I cannot gather as much as I can cook. For example, Prickly Pineapple: I can craft 160 an hour into 40 Pineapple Juices yet, even with Kings Yield II, I can only harvest 35 an hour. The price has thus risen on my server from 100gil to 350gil per pineapple juice. Now, even this is quite low, and if you are on a non legacy server prices may be even lower. However, I can assure you that the low price is not due to theserecipes not requiring enough of each material but rather that these resulting consumable foods have very little use in game at the moment.

The real problem is that two star foods such as pineapple ponzecake, black truffle risotto, finger sandwiches, etc. cannot be fully capitalized upon for lack of better gear with higher stats. If you do the math, even with HQ food, as it currently stands, you cannot gain the maximum allowable stats granted by these foods because there is no gear yet in game capable of giving such high stats as to make the percentages given by the food better than their lower level counterparts.

For Example: HQ mulled Tea gives Piety 5% (Max 14) Vitality 4% (Max 15) and Spell Speed 2% (Max 10), while HQ Pineapple Juice gives Piety 4% (Max 17) Vitality 3% (Max 19) and Spell Speed 2% (Max 11). Now take a look at my i90 whm stats (allagan tunic, gloves, belt, necklace, af+1 boots, legs, ring): Spell Speed 422. Piety 384. Vitality 381 (currently specced into vit). Even with 30 bonus stat points into vitality, I would not get more than 10 or 11 points of vitality from the 3% juice, however I can get all 15 from the 4% tea. Same with piety and spell speed. And I'm wearing REALLY good gear. This is true for almost all of the food. Unless you are on a legacy server where people have an excess of gil to spend wantonly on high level food, you are not likely to sell many of these for the time being, thus crafters dont bother making as many as they do the lower recipes which literally fly off the shelves.

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Originally Posted by Kherza

The problem is over saturation of the market. This is something SE wanted to prevent but it happened anyway due to poor planning. Getting 3-5 items per node swing at lvl 50 is WAY too much. Basically the demand for these materials by crafters is vastly overshadowed by the supply from Gatherers (both MIN and BTN).

Crawler cocoons are the best as OP mentioned and you only need 4 for one lvl 50 craft. 4 cocoons is nothing when I can get 25 from one node, and that's just one person. 25 cocoons times all these gatherers results in a filled up market board. Naturally you could go the other route for 15 NQ and 3HQ (potential for more) but either way results in way too many items and too low of a demand.

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This is a slightly inaccurate statement. If you scroll up and read through my pineapple predicament you will understand what the problem is, and I can assure you it is not over supply. All of the items used in food recipes are consumable. Meaning, once you eat it - it's gone forever! The problem is, there is currently little incentive for people to eat that food. Also, the reason crawler cocoons, gold ore and darksteel ore are in such high demand is because these are used in practically every high level crafting recipe, such as all of the crafting, gathering, and battle classes ilvl 55 gear. This gear can, in turn, be spiritbound and converted in to Tier IV materia, taking even this non consumable crafted gear out of circulation, which creates even greater demand.

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Originally Posted by ntall1

Here is an idea.... How about use these mats in gear that lvl 50's might actually wear... and the demand for them will go up. If these mats were used in recipes to make gear that players would wear at lvl 50, ppl would want, and buy them.

Want to know what mats to sell for massive profit? Just look for the nodes and mobs with teleporting bots flying around them.

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These mats are sed in gear that level 50's might wear. Reason people don't buy them is because either the foods are not worth the stats, or in the case of crawler cocoons and militia gear, people haven't quite yet figured out just how fast you can spiritbond gear and what the rates are. I wont give away my secrets but I'll just say that I can convert HQ militia gear into Tier IV materia at a rate of at least 2 tier IV materia per hour, possibly more (I've gotten 3 tier IV in a row on one occasion). Once people figure out how to effectively spiritbind gear, you will see demand for these items increase.

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Originally Posted by KariArisu

You're doing it wrong.

Most of the profit is not on the 50 items. Find an item that is used in a craft and gather the hell out of it. Culinarian items are amazing to gather since they actively need materials.

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To be fair, most of the profits are not in gathering. period. If you want to get rich, you had better start leveling all of your crafting classes and make something useful out of those precious materials of yours. A smart crafter can HQ a recipe with NQ materials and wont even bother buying HQ materials off the market wards.

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Originally Posted by Vortok

Miner is a tad better. They gather the mats for GSM stuff (many of which are made rather frequently), BSM (majority of the crafting weapons) and ARM (nobody really cares), the Alumen/Black Alumen that a LTW needs for every piece of leather, and the Effervescent Water that is used to make Twinthread and Natron (used to make Felt).

The two biggest things that hold Botany back is that other than Crawler Cacoons, the high level Weaver stuff (Fleece/Snurble Tufts) is monster drops rather than gathered - and the gathered parts they do need come from Mining (see above). Flax seems to sell okay (on my server) but it's not much above the price of average miner stuff. The other big issue is Carpenter. Sure you can get Spruce Logs, but Carpenters can make a grand total of 7 items (not counting mat items like Spruce Logs) at 50. That's the item level 55 and 70 stuff put together. Rosewood is also not nearly as useful as Electrum/Cobalt is.

Once housing/furniture is in though, Carpentry (and some others, guessing Weaver for stuff like bed sheets/drapes/couch cushions/etc.) should have an explosion of recipes which may bring Botany up to the level of Mining, depending on demand. Likely won't be until individual housing (estimated for 6 months or so after FC housing last I heard) though, as many FCs will probably have people to gather the mats to outfit their FC house without needing to touch the market boards.

On top of that, the 2 star CLN foods aren't even worth making at the moment over lower tier food as current stats/gear won't hit the caps that the food can give (with a lower %), so those mats are a bit of a deadend too. Vampire Plant only sells because it's used to make the weapon that WHM needs for their Relic Quest (Thavnarian Mistletoe and Trillium Bulb being the other two that aren't just bought from a vendor). Alchemist gets the mats to make the Grimoires for SCH/SMN from, you guessed it, Mining.

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^Two stars for him. He gets it.