FFXIV Botanist Leveling Guide (L100 Dawntrail UPDATE) – Page 6 – FFXIV Guild (2024)

If you’re wearing anything LESS than or maybe EQUAL TO “Serpentskin Tier” from 3.x, you’re gonna have a bad time. The Stormblood Botanist Collectibles are near impossible without a super RNG rotation, and generally not worth your time.

To know for sure, you can try the “collectible practice node”, which is found in The Fringes, East End. Try to get 450 collectability on Gyr Abanian Wheat! If you can do it consistently, great! That means you can skip these little advice boxes.

The REAL TEST is trying it on the actual unspoiled node – use the “minimum 400 GP rotation” in the next box. If you cannot gather with that… I’m sorry.

If you’ve forgotten, you must visit and REVEAL the item on your first visit to any node, including unspoiled ones. So you’re likely gonna try these on your second time around.

Minimum 400 GP Pleb Rotation:
Hit the correct slot to reveal:
Collector’s Glove
Utmost Caution > Methodical Appraisal
Utmost Caution > Methodical Appraisal
Methodical Appraisal until you reach anything higher than 450
Collect what’s left… get sad when you miss.

600 GP? Try the “good ol feel your way first” rotation:
Hit the correct slot to reveal:
Collector’s Glove
Discerning Eye > Methodical Appraisal
Discerning Eye > Methodical Appraisal
Discerning Eye > Methodical Appraisal
Collect

Smashed the node with 500+? Try getting another hit in…

+1 Collect Rotation
Hit the correct slot to reveal
Collector’s Glove
Discerning Eye > Methodical Appraisal
Discerning Eye > Methodical Appraisal
Single Mind > Methodical Appraisal
Collect

Hopefully, the above helps you out. Personally, I don’t care for RNG rotations (so I won’t be listing them here) this early on. If you have to heavily rely on RNG to “maybe” succeed only to see “You obtain nothing.” is not for me.

It will get progressively better at 61, 62, and 63 with a little investment into gear. At 62 or 63 you should be “near full power” and leveling will be WAY FASTER from that point on.

I’ll post the gear update a little bit down there at the 61 section, where the upgrades begin.

GC Submissions: are thankfully not too expensive or difficult for 60~ Botanist. Gather them yourself as long as you have a decent chance at HQ’ing. If they’re within your budget – buy ‘em. No matter what you do, don’t let this just EXPIRE… submit NQ’s if you MUST!!!!!

L60 BTN Levequests: Take the levequests from Kugane, smash ‘em and repeat. Generally speaking, you can avoid the “Gather 40” leves as they’re the most time consuming, and give the least EXP. (Avoid the levequests with the Lalafell Merchant leve plate). For most, this is the best solution to get out of this hell ASAP.

Straight up grinding: The best (“ONLY”) Stormblood Botanist nodes to grind in this scenario are found in The Fringes – East End. It contains Gyr Abanian Wheat (many Culinarians use this to spam a certain levequest), and Bloodhemp, which is mainly used in 60-62 Weaver recipes.

Use up your Commercial Survival Manuals in stretches of grinding (60 to 61 is a prime use). Sometimes people hold on to these waaaay too long.

Eat food +3% EXP and + Stats: (primarily GP!), You can buy Trappers Quiche cheap in Ishgard, or check the Gathering food from the Kugane Culinarian (X:12 Y:12~).

Buy Cordials. They reduce the wait time for GP by quite a bit! Market Board or from your Grand Company supplier.

Again, for those with bad gear – this grind heavy road to 61 is the absolute best time to use your Commercial Survival Manuals!

Get HQ gear! Buy NQ only if you are broke! Reduce cheap melds to III as well.

Cheap melds can be anything, really. Read the box below for some more insights.

As you can see, majority of these come out at 61. This list is roughly based on “power”. As you can see, not all slots are equal! In terms of L61 items the Chest piece is godlike compared to the Hat and Gloves. Boots and legs are “okay”, while belt gives a trash amount of stats.

I recommend getting all of ‘em still, but if you can only upgrade certain pieces at a time, it’s worth noting WHICH ONES ARE BETTER.

Melding? Just please be “wary” of how much Perception you need to hit the minimum appraisal ratings. Feel free to force meld III’s, or change it up regarding your needs. This is what I melded as they were cheap, but served me very well in the many levels to come.

The BARE MINIMUM: If you’re noticing that you get like, 445 appraisal rating – DON’T BE AFRAID TO CHEAPLY OVER MELD or eat Perception food. Don’t just GIVE UP!!!! However, my upgrade path and cheap melds gave me little problems.

However, you ain’t out of the woods yet. Without the Main Hand or Offhand, collectibles might be rough. Remember the practice node!

You gain EXP and get a NQ High Steel Scythe for your troubles. You can buy / craft an HQ Scythe if you like, but I didn’t need it (I used exactly the gear in the earlier table).

Where’s the Botanist Class Quests in Stormblood? They should be in Idyllshire. If you haven’t done them in a while, check in with Fufucha in Old Gridania Botanists’ Guild!

Upon completing BTN 63 class quest: You unlock Leaf Turn III, which gives you a scaling HQ bonus depending on Perception (relative to the node requirements, I feel). It’s amazing for gathering the old school nodes (or any node you severely overgear).

Once your Botanist levels to 63, you open up the Gyuki Leather tier accessories.With these, you will be at a base value of 650~ GP! Hopefully most of your problems vanish at this point.

Notably with 650 GP You can add Field Mastery I to your Collectible gathering!

I CHEAP MELDED PERCEPTION PRIORITY because you’re going to enter a new tier of collectibles soon. Feel free to overmeld ANY III’s. You might be better off leaving them open, and melding whatever it is to cover your weak points.