The person described by the OP doesn't sound like a bot, unless the "staring" was consistently for a long time at each node.

If you're after rare items like seeds and maps, then you just check nodes without swinging (this should only take a couple of seconds). After a third node is checked, the first one respawns. So if three nodes spawn particularly close to each other, you just cycle through checking those three, and only swing if the item you're after pops up.
If you don't want to waste GP, then you also pop a ward whenever you have 400 GP back. Especially if these are Lv.50 shard / crystal / carbonized matter nodes. Whether you're a crafter or just selling, most crystals are worth a fair amount.

If they were a dumb bot though, then they'd possibly spend a long time at each node, clicking on each normally-empty slot.
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I've seen and reported some really dumb, obvious-bots, and honestly.. none of them have been banned. Both RMTs and regular players.

Like, I haven't seen this one in a while, but for a month or so, I saw these guys camping the G3 Thanalan Soil nodes. They'd hit the unspoiled node for their soil, then stand there with their picks out like retards for the full 9 minutes until the node expires on its own. You could argue that they were just afk, but immediately after the node expired, they'd move a few steps over to some default location. Then just repeat this for the rest of the day.

The people who used that bot eventually switched over to a less obvious one, where they'd actually teleport from town, run to the node, swing, and then teleport/return back to town. Otherwise, miners all day staring at the aetheryte in town.

Last time I saw them, and at least one guy from another FC, I'd see them come as a mini-mob on their mounts, then stop on the exact same spot. Wait for the node. Run towards the node at the exact same time and on the same path. Do their business. Leave.

Nowadays, since I don't need gardening stuff anymore, but I need clusters, I'll see bots walking the -entire- path between nodes, stealthed.

And then back when Novus was new, people botted FATEs all night to get alexandrite. Then botted them again for lights when Nexus came out.

Another guy I saw in N.Thanalan once was trying to bot kills all night to spiritbond, but it was obviously broken by the time I saw him because he only had like 2-3k HP from all of his gear being broken, and he'd repeatedly run up to something like a basilisk to try to kill it.. then run away because he'd be almost dead. Basilisk would still have half of its health. Run back out once he's at full HP again, repeat.

I've seen small people bot FATEs too, even with sprout icons over their heads. And you can tell they're bots once you see them run whenever their target uses any skill, regardless of where an AoE ground marker is facing, or even when there is no marker. Like a monster's casting to heal itself, and the bots run away... Furthermore, they only pay attention to their target's skill usage. So even if other people point their monster's (or five monsters') AoEs at the bot, the bot won't run. And if the bot dies, they just run back out and continue.

Personally, until I hear that some of these bots actually get banned, or SE comes out and gives some sort of guideline on how to definitely get these bots banned, I'm not going to bother reporting anymore.