Hello All.

I started FFXIV as Botanist. I really enjoyed providing mats for my linkshell, hawking my goods in the Market Wards and working my way up the Grade levels.

Unfortunately, when I got to Grade 5 I discovered that... not only was there no more grades to SP from, and I would have to crawl along on 60 and 70 SP hits all the way to 50, but there was nothing left to gather so, why bother? Grade 5 was the exact same as Grade 4. I was so discouraged that I quit for a while hoping that something helpful would be released soon.

In the meantime, botany, particularly high ranking botany, has grown more and more useless. People only want certain items to skill their trades off of any more and they are easily attainable at rank 30 or 36 and in grade 4 or lower. So I've found myself NPCing the vast majority of what I find. No one needs me any more because if they want an item they can just go out and get it themselves as a mob drop. OR the items are so out-of-demand that they are sold for less than 100 gil in the Market Wards. The only thing I can really make money off of now is NPCing logs or making the occasional repair (as few people carry many branches around).

Now, with the change in the leves system, I'll be getting less SP than ever. It used to be Leves could be useful by using Sweat of Brow, but with the Leves now rewarding SP at the completion of the leve, Sweat of Brow will now be of no help and Botanists will get less SP on leves than before.

Please devs, I know that you're thinking of getting some sort of "Materia" system to upgrade gear and updating maps. But releasing a Grade 6 would be more beneficial. A lot of my loot from gathering benefits Culinarians. If you could do something to make Culinarian useful, that would be a HUGE help for Botanist. Adding more leves for Botanists to do (only two for town makes it hard for them to do).

But without anything else coming down the pipeline any time soon... I'm burying my hatchet. Could someone at least toss a Botanist a kind word?

Thanks