So after spending 2 days on level 50 mining I am starting to question whether the sanity invested in this discipline is even remotely worth it. The major problem is that nearly all of the options for a level 50 pales in profit power next to any random with the latest rank of stone whisperer farming lightning shards in Southern Than.

The problem is that if I were to park myself at Southern Than and farm, the only two unspoiled nodes that would actually be worth the effort to teleport/run towards are the darksteel and gold ores. Darksteel is questionable since the prices are already dropping and the liquidity of this commodity is wonky. Gold ore is solid and is the only node that is not making me completely regret leveling mining. The rest of the nodes are a joke, Gold sand (and Astral Rock) sells less than mythril ore, clusters have the liquidity of dry turd, and G4 carbonised matter only sells when selling in very small amounts (retainer space is something high level gatherers are very short on). The pet would of been nice if it was untradeable and a unique mining perk but since it is not it sells for disgustingly cheap and the top tier mining pet has now less rarity than the wayward chocobo.

Now the interesting thing is that there are only a handful of level 50 miners on this realm (that are active for all I know) since the same ones appears at every unspoiled gold ore node, I can only imagine how prices fare when more miners reach level 50.

TLDR; Effort and reward should have a positive correlation, why does this correlation flatline to nearly zero after you pick up stone whisperer IV.