Start with basic ores. Once you get into higher ARR and onward crafting many intermediate products (ingots, etc) require multiple types of metal, one of which is usually something from the previous expansion. Once you can start mining CRYSTALS, not shards, go bonkers on those for a while. Crafters always need them and you can make good money selling in bulk. You may not get a whole lot of XP from them after a bit, but they're a solid source of regular income that you'll be able to tap into to buy periodic gear upgrades until you hit the collectible node tiers for scrips to get gear with.

If you're high enough rank in your GC, using the seals you get from ventures to buy the green company gathering XP buff scrolls will help a great deal. Once you have access to it (level 10?), the Diadem in the Foundation in Ishgard is great XP. I don't know how well that stuff sells for these days, but you can get some pretty cool mounts, emotes, and items with the Skybuilder Scrips you get. It can take a little while to get used to the arrangement of islands on the circuit, but once you do it's pretty smooth sailing.


Gathering in XIV is MUUUUUCCCCCH better than in WoW. Each type of material is found in a small area that has unique nodes for each player. No longer do you have to fly around the entire map and hope someone doesn't snatch the node before you. You'll be running in a pretty tight circuit hitting nodes that only you have access to.