What's the most efficient way to get Level X Gathering Materia?

[JamieRose]

Farming purple scrips?
Farming cowries?
Buying them off the MB?

These all seem burdensome or expensive. =(

[Alien_Gamer]

Scrips are fast and easy to get, easily the best for small amounts. Cowries are horrible. Mb is the best if you want a lot immediately.

It's always a trade off, do you want to spend time or money.

[Frizze]

Literally the most efficient? Dont be poor and just buy them. Boom, you instantly have all that you need. No time, no effort. But i imagine if this actually gets traction, the real answer will be spiritbonding. Get a manual, get a potion, hit the legendary nodes. They should be bonding very quickly. Extract, rinse, repeat. Infinite materia.

[ForteNightshade]

For your initial set, purple scrips are you best bet. Once you can actually hit Legendary nodes, just to that for a week or so and you'll be swimming in Gather materia from spirit-bonding.

[Deveryn]

When you get to doing legendary nodes, make sure you have a spiritbond buff running, either from a potion or FC buff. Go for +durability instead of yield bonuses. Spiritbond is based on each hit, not how many you get per hit. With base melds, you'll be ready to extract around every 5 nodes.

[Raraka]

Get your stats up to the point where you can gather the current Legendary nodes, this is the hard/expensive part

After you get to that point, start chugging down Spiritbound potions and gather legendary nodes

You will spiritbond gear at least once an hour. From there, its up to how much time you want to spend gathering to farm those materias

And to answer your question more directly:
Gathering current Legendary nodes with Spiritbond potions/FC action is the fastest way to farm gatherer materia

[JamieRose]

Thanks for the advice. <3

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Farming purple scrips?
Farming cowries?
Buying them off the MB?

These all seem burdensome or expensive. =(

Scrips is probably the easiest way, and if you pop a spiritbond potion and use a spiritbond scroll (obtainable from Squadron missions) whenever you gather the most current max difficulty gatherables, you can get some easy materia rather quickly that way too (and sell off the mats if you don't need them).

If you want super low effort just do the weekly custom deliveries for gathering and make sure it has the bonus so you get the extra scrips. Turn those in for materia and don't bother until next week when custom deliveries reset. It won't let you get a ton max rank materia fast, but it will let you get some consistently every week with minimal effort.

Honestly I hate doing gathering collectibles so I use my custom deliveries each week for gathering scrips and craft collectible turn ins for crafting scrips. I also have gotten have my squadron members to get "chance to bring back gathering scrips" perks. It's only white scrips so I can't use them to buy the max rank materia, but I can use them to buy the next rank down which is the ones I tend to burn through the most when pentamelding so every lil bit the squadron brings back helps me avoid having to farm gathering collectibles myself.

[Liam_Harper]

Scrips are definitely not the easiest. You want a 560 gathering set since this spiritbonds faster. Meld as much perception as you can to try and reach the 3600 requirement (You can use 590 scrip tools and perception food to make this cheaper). Pentameld the rest of your slots with the cheapest low grade materia you can find (this increases Spiritbond rate). Use a Superior Spiritbond Potion (you just need +5 to cap it, any more isn't necessary).

Aim for max gathering attempts on Legendary nodes, using Ageless Words/Solid Reason + Wise to the World.
You can follow this route for the current Legendary nodes.

BTN 12:00 (Thavnair, Yedlihmad/ Palaka's Stand)
MIN 12:00 - Garlemald - Camp Broken Glass
MIN 2:00 - The Moon - Sinus Lacrimarium
BTN 2:00 (Elpis, The Twelve Wonders)
BTN 4:00 (Labyrinthos, The Archeion)
MIN 4:00 - Elpis - Poiton Oikos
BTN 6:00 - Elpis - Anagorisis
MIN 6:00 (Garlemald, Tertium)
MIN 8:00 (Moon, Bestway Burrow)
BTN 8:00 - Thavnair - Palaka's Stand
MIN 10:00 (Labyrinthos, Aporia)
BTN 10:00 - Ultima Thule - Abode of the Ea

Keep in mind all the gathering bots do this too, so while gathering materia shot up at the start of the patch, prices are crashing again and likely to continue doing so. It might be more worthwhile to buy some.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Use a Superior Spiritbond Potion (you just need +5 to cap it, any more isn't necessary).

Is there a source for your claim that the cap is +5? Cause I immediately have to wonder why the devs would make the high quality Spiritbond Potions give +6 if the cap is +5...