Crystals?

[RiversideGuy]

So I ran out of fire crystals and am out laboriously farming them. I know I can garden grow shards, can I grow crystals? AND for farming, does it make any difference where you go? Just happen to be in Elpis farming lvl 90 nodes, mostly because it's always light out!

[Jeeqbit]

You can buy crystals from the market board.

[RiversideGuy]

Sone mentioned doing maps as a way to get them… we had a group map night and I see they only give out water crystals, got a lot more of them than any other kind of crystals… any other activity that can give fire crystals?

[Eclipse12187]

Aetherial Reduction is another way to get crystals/clusters as well as the aethersands you’ll need for high end crafting.

[Canadane]

BTN/MIN retainers can get them for you as well.

[Kirika-]

You can grow shard, but not crystals or clusters.

The best manual method of farming crystals (and clusters) is via Aetherial Reduction of DoL collectables from Ephemeral Nodes. Normally if you use cordials and +GP buffs, you can pull several hundred during a node spawn window for the given node. Just check what crystal is available for the given Ephemeral Nodes as normal slot item, the Reducible items from that node will generally reduce to the same element crystal and cluster, or use https://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Ephemeral_Nodes. The nodes have a spawn timer "open" window in game of 4~6-ish EzT hours or about 12~18-ish minutes real time.
NOTE: Level 80+ Ephemeral Node Reducible Collectables produce less crystals than L60 ones, so older content is your friend for farming via this method.

The second best is using a combo of DoL skills to max the amount of shards/crystal/clusters (The Twelve's Bounty, The Giving Land, Bountiful Yield II, etc...) then hit nodes that have the elemental type you need. Due to the CD on one of the skills, plus GP regeneration timings, you do have one "big haul" off a node, followed by a few minutes of singles or small quantities. Generally, save your long CD skill, The Giving Land, for nodes that already have either a item amount buff or a number of hits buff to maximize the returns on that skill.
Also, pray to RNGesus for the highest item count procs.

Third best is, if you have plenty of Ventures, DoL retainers, and the ability to keep them in rotation of their gathering venture (sending them back out as soon as they finish the current venture), you will pull in 30 per retainer per venture every 40 minutes. The max amount of retainers currently in game is 10 per character, and if you have them as all Botany or Miner DoL jobs, you can pull 30 x 10 = 300 every 40 minutes.

[RiversideGuy]

Ah, just ran into an odd one... am already doing your second best! The "item amount buff" I assume is the percentage for another yield, I believe it was the replace for the chance at HQ, right? I am not talking about the number that appears ON the icon in the gathering dialog. Well, I had them yesterday (fwiw they were 90 nodes). Wanted to see if the level of the made meant anything so first hit a few much lower level ones. Noticed that while other items at the mode had such percentages, the crystals were blank. Thinking that MAYBE the node level meant something headed back to where I was farming yesterday and low and behold, same thing there. Something is going on here that am clueless about. My experience with this buff is that when farming half a dozen nodes, there is usually a good chance to hit one at 97% or 100% (right now I am running unmelded 90 crafted gear, getting my meld set up figured out).

Instead of continuing on while GL comes off CD I do other housekeepinmg stuff (like asking for help here!) or playing in Ariyala's site!

[Kirika-]

Ah, just ran into an odd one... am already doing your second best! The "item amount buff" I assume is the percentage for another yield, I believe it was the replace for the chance at HQ, right? I am not talking about the number that appears ON the icon in the gathering dialog. Well, I had them yesterday (fwiw they were 90 nodes). Wanted to see if the level of the made meant anything so first hit a few much lower level ones. Noticed that while other items at the mode had such percentages, the crystals were blank. Thinking that MAYBE the node level meant something headed back to where I was farming yesterday and low and behold, same thing there. Something is going on here that am clueless about. My experience with this buff is that when farming half a dozen nodes, there is usually a good chance to hit one at 97% or 100% (right now I am running unmelded 90 crafted gear, getting my meld set up figured out).

Instead of continuing on while GL comes off CD I do other housekeepinmg stuff (like asking for help here!) or playing in Ariyala's site!

Shards/Crystals/Clusters (and some other items from nodes) have a blank value for the old "chance at HQ" which is now the "chance for an extra one", thus any skill that effects an item in a node based on this chance will not work on "blanked" items, it just wastes GP.

For Shards/Crystals/Clusters, there are two specific skills for them that last for the duration of the node, The Twelve's Bounty and The Giving Land. The first one increases the items per hit by 1~3 depending on your stats, the other increase the items per hit by X=Random Amount, but has a 3m cool down.
In addition to those two, the Bountiful Yield skills increase items per hit by 1~3 depending on your stats, but you must use it for each hit. The Kings Yield skills increases items per hit and lasts for the duration of the node, but is GP costly.
Generally, however, after using GP for the two specific skills, you may not have enough to also stack the Kings Yield + Bountiful Yield for all the hits you will be making on the node.... I find it faster to just use The Twelve's Bounty and The Giving Land, plus chug cordials.

As for the various "buffs" a node has that effects the amount of items you get per hit or the amount of hits you get on the node, all clusters of nodes will normally have one with an extra hit (as in you can swing 5 times instead of just 4) and one with an extra item per hit (as in for each swing, you get 2 items instead of just one) at minimum. At random, you will get nodes with a larger number of hits buff or a larger amount of items per hit buff (or higher % chance on items with % chance). However, these generally are stat dependent in some way, such as maybe a xxx or higher GP total required, or +xxx Gathering or Perception required. If you do not meet the requirements, which will show on the node window and/or node target, then the effect doesn't apply.
Now, because of the stat requirements, it is actually easier to farm nodes much lower level than your gathering job, as they are scaled to have stat requirement for a gatherer at that node's level.
Crystal farming L90 nodes is less efficient than L60 nodes, as occasionally the L90 node's stat requirements exceed your stats, so you don't get the node's buff effect.

As I said, I generally save The Giving Land skill for a node with either + hits (best use) or + items per hit (second best use), as it has the higher GP cost plus the 3 minute cool down when doing just crystal node farming. Using it on a + node is more efficient use of the GP and the cool down timer.

[AnimaAnimus]

Min/Bot retainers can bring back 120 crystals, per retainer, every 40 minutes. Aetherial reduction is also a fantastic way to get a ton of crystals/clusters in a short amount of time. Going out and gathering them on regular nodes is frustratingly slow.