Quick Guide: Aetherial Reduction and Why You Should Be Doing It

[HakuroDK]

Hey folks! Burning Passion here and I come to you with a quick guide on Aetherial Reduction and why, if you are a crafter or a gatherer, you should be taking full advantage of this system.

First of all, what in the name of the Twelve is Aetherial Reduction?

Aetherial Reduction is a process of taking certain specific collectibles and reducing them down into elemental Crystals, Clusters, and even valuable Aethersand!

NOTE: Only certain gathering classes can use Aetherial Reduction for certain elements.

Miner: Fire, Lightning
Botanist: Wind, Earth
Fisher: Water, Ice

That's great and all, but why should I care about Aetherial Reduction?

Good question! I find that, by using Aetherial Reduction, you can actually get anywhere between 800-1000 Crystals of a single element in a matter of minutes! If you consistently get to a rarity of 2 or greater (Collectibility of about 300+, iirc), you also get about that many Clusters as well. If you can get rarity to 3 or greater, that will give you a chance of getting Duskborne Aethersand, which is used in a lot of CUL and ALC recipes. Dawnborne Aethersand, which is used in a lot of recipes across all crafting classes, starts having a chance to appear once you get rarity to 5 or greater. Finally, a gathering-specific aethersand will appear if you manage to get a full 8/8 rarity! Landborne Aethersand for Miner, Leafborne Aethersand for Botanist, and Seaborne Aethersand for Fisher. Each of these is used to craft endgame crafting gear!

The crystal and cluster yield sound absolutely insane! How do I get in on this?

Well for starters, you have to get a gatherer to Level 56 and talk to an NPC in Mor Dhona to start a quest that will take you to Mutamix's camp. Once there, another NPC will unlock Aetherial Reduction. From there, you can start your Aetherial Reduction journey!

Help! I can't use Aetherial Reduction on these collectibles I got! What am I doing wrong?

Well that's the rub. Not all collectibles can be disassembled under Aetherial Reduction. Only items acquired from Ephemeral Nodes or specific kinds of fish can be broken down.

You can get a full list of Ephemeral Nodes here: http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Ephemeral_Nodes

As for the fish, I have been trying to maintain a thread on this very subject here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...eduction-Tread

I should make a note here. The higher the level of the collectible, (Lv56/58/60), the more yield you get. So you should always focus on the highest level Aetherial Reduction you can do and don't waste so much GP trying to get a high rarity on a lower level collectible.

Hey, that's weird! The Ephemeral Node only popped once! Is it supposed to do that?

Actually, there's a trick to getting it to spawn multiple times in its window!

First of all, when the window opens, the Ephemeral Node automatically becomes visible. But once you exhaust it, it vanishes.

How you get it to respawn within the window is you tag a node(start to gather at a node and then leave the node). Then, you'll notice that most nodes are grouped in pairs of two. You will want to tag another node in a different pair than the one you just tagged. Once you tag them both (or exhaust them both if that's what you want to do), the Ephemeral node should respawn, and it should continue to respawn this way until the window closes.


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Thanks for checking out this guide! If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them!

[Magistrella]

Soooo

If you get 4 items with 1 collectability level 60 you get 4 items worth of 50 crystals+? >.>

b/c that would be like, awesome :x

[HakuroDK]

Soooo

If you get 4 items with 1 collectability level 60 you get 4 items worth of 50 crystals+? >.>

b/c that would be like, awesome :x

If you want to get four level 60 items with a rarity of 1/8, you will get anywhere between 40 and 65 crystals PER item. Though if I'm being honest? Definitely try to get rarity to at LEAST 2/8 so you can get just as many clusters at the same time.

[Magistrella]

If you want to get four level 60 items with a rarity of 1/8, you will get anywhere between 40 and 65 crystals PER item. Though if I'm being honest? Definitely try to get rarity to at LEAST 2/8 so you can get just as many clusters at the same time.

Just got 1.2k lightning crystals in 15 RL minutes <.<

Clusters aren't needed (im only gathering what im lacking), I was just hoping for a way to refill my crystals as i need insane amounts of them for airship materials - thanks for the guide, you made my retainers's lives way less painfull, they dont need to do hundreds of ventures for crystals now ^^

[HakuroDK]

Just got 1.2k lightning crystals in 15 RL minutes <.<

Clusters aren't needed (im only gathering what im lacking), I was just hoping for a way to refill my crystals as i need insane amounts of them for airship materials - thanks for the guide, you made my retainers's lives way less painfull, they dont need to do hundreds of ventures for crystals now ^^

Thank you very much for the kind words and I'm glad you got such a high yield! This is the sheer, awesome power of Aetherial Reduction!

[harm]

How you get it to respawn within the window is you tag a node(start to gather at a node and then leave the node). Then, you'll notice that most nodes are grouped in pairs of two. You will want to tag another node in a different pair than the one you just tagged. Once you tag them both (or exhaust them both if that's what you want to do), the Ephemeral node should respawn, and it should continue to respawn this way until the window closes.


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Thanks for checking out this guide! If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them![/QUOTE]

I tried tagging nodes the way you explained but the ephemeral node wont respawn. Do you know if something changed or maybe I'm just missing something lol

[Roth_Trailfinder]

HW nodes spawn in three sets of two, and the Ephemeral node as a set of one. That means, there are FOUR sets, with SEVEN NODES divided fairly evenly among them.

If you do anything with one of those four sets, then go and touch (open without gathering, gather one item, or completely empty) ONE node from each of TWO OTHER SETS then the first set respawns.

If it helps you to think of it this way, ARR nodes were four sets of one each. Hit one node, then a second, then a third, and the first would respawn. In HW, it only takes one of the set to count as hitting that set, even though the set has another node associated with it.