FFXIV Botanist Leveling Guide (L100 Dawntrail UPDATE) – Page 7 – FFXIV Guild (2024)

Your gear should look something like this (check below this table for the “optional” info). With the exception of the Off-hand – EVERYTHING SHOULD BE HQ!

Melding? You can technically downgrade all your Guerdons to III’s (but suffer a lower success chance). You can also downgrade SOME GUILES TO III’s – BUT I DO NOT KNOW THE MINIMUM THRESHOLDFOR EXACTLY 451 COLLECTABILITY!I experimented with these melds, and they’re slightly above the required power level. I cannot concretely tell you how many you can downgrade.

Other open and force melds? As long as you can hit 451+ with Single Mind, go for gathering. Perception has its uses too, but falls off considerably unless you can get enough to “double Single Mind”.

Optional – Gyuki Leather tier: If you’re leveling ALL THREE CLASSES (including fisher), then I would MAYBE invest in the HQ Gyuki Leather Jacket. I found it completely unnecessary. The non-chest pieces were also too negligible of an upgrade.

Optional – HQ High Steel Scythe: I thrived without it. The NQ from the BTN 63 Class Quest was enough. Obtaining this simply increases your gather chance. If you’re the type to grind (and can easily offset its costs) go for it.

Mountain Popoto is in Ruby Sea, Onokoro W. As for rewards, take the Kudzu Coat of Gathering, and you get a new main-hand Doman Iron Hatchet!

The Chest Piece (NQ Kudzu Coat of Gathering) is a welcome, albeit small, upgrade. I melded these with III’s, as they were too marginal an upgrade without even the cheapest of melds.

The NQ Doman Iron Scythe is only a hair’s breadth better than your current one (If you meld it) – Sell or use, doesn’t really matter.

If you are leveling the other DoH classes simultaneously, then get the Cap or Gloves next once you hit 65 quest on those.

Completing the quest gives you Endless Toil of the Pioneer, which instantly reveals all hidden items in older nodes! Interestingly, RAW TRIPHANE COLLECTIBLE is part of this! So you get an extra gather for it!

Again, the quests are in Idyllshire.

I got to 70 just using the NQ shirt from the class quest. But, getting an HQ Kudzu Coat of Gathering is obviously welcome. Needless to say the same applies leveling MIN.

HOWEVER IF YOU ARE LEVELING FISHER, this becomes more relevant as MISSED FISH are much more painful than MISSED MIN/BTN NODES.

If you’re leveling all 3, you may consider an investment for HQ:

• Kudzu Coat of Gathering
• Tigerskin Cap of Gathering
• Tigerskin Fingerless Gloves of Gathering

The other HQ pieces are COMPLETELY OPTIONAL.

As I typed above: “The NQ Doman Iron Pickaxe is only a hair’s breadth better than your current one (If you meld it) – Sell or use, doesn’t really matter.”

If you can afford the HQ, the only upside is higher % gathers. Luxury.

Same old story. NQ Doman Iron Scythe loses to HQ High Steel Scythe – HQ is purely luxury. Didn’t feel like I needed it at all.

Ephemeral Nodes are a pseudo unspoiled node that “recharge” as you farm nearby nodes. They are prime suspects for “Aetherial Reduction” items.

As to how they’re relevant to leveling, they are only good as supplemental “grinding” sections.

Treat them as you would any collectible – but instead of getting MORE of them, the goal is to get THE HIGHEST COLLECTABILITY.

Once harvested, right click on it and press “Aetherial Reduction“, to reap sweet rewards. High powered reductions result in much sought after Aethersands.

To be safe use a TRIPLE CYCLE OF: Discerning Eye > Methodical Appraisal. Then gather once.

If you CANNOT get “Level 5 Aetheric Reduction Power” with that, it devalues this method quite a bit, as the chances for Aethersand is much lower at 4.

Purely for making money along the way. Optional.

Okay, I hate to say this, butHIGH QUALITY L67 Doman Steel Hatchet is MANDATORY.

Yes, I know some of you are itching to say “I got to 70 without it!”, but of course! I can get to 70 too, even if I had a 1% node success rate gather! It will simply take 99 times longer.

Now, just so you don’t feel so bad. Cheap meld it with Guerdon III, and then OVERMELD it with ANY (even non gathering) materia. So by the time you hit 70 you can convert it to materia.

Nanoriso!? Where can I gather Nanoriso!?!? Nanoriso is in Ruby Sea – Rasen Kaikyo (same node as Ruby Tide Kelp – it’s underwater).I suspect they will edit the quest marker in the coming patches because it’s very unintuitive.

Rewards: You get Bountiful Harvest II, and a choice of Gathering Materia V. I chose Perception, but choose whichever you like, and an NQ Doman Steel Scythe.

HQ Doman Steel Scythe is entirely optional. If you can muscle through 80%+~ success rates, it’s fine.

Either way, it’s time to finally retire your HQ High Steel Scythe (it was the only “mandatory” off-hand upgrade in this entire guide). The NQ Doman Steel Scythe free from your class quest completely smashes the stats on your previous HQ.

Ephemeral Nodes are a pseudo unspoiled node that “recharge” as you farm nearby nodes. They are prime suspects for “Aetherial Reduction” items.

As to how they’re relevant to leveling, they are only good as supplemental “grinding” sections.

Treat them as you would any collectible – but instead of getting MORE of them, the goal is to get THE HIGHEST COLLECTABILITY.

Once harvested, right click on it and press “Aetherial Reduction“, to reap sweet rewards. High powered reductions result in much sought after Aethersands.

To be safe use a TRIPLE CYCLE OF: Discerning Eye > Methodical Appraisal. Then gather once.

If you CANNOT get “Level 5 Aetheric Reduction Power” with that, it devalues this method quite a bit, as the chances for Aethersand is much lower at 4.

Purely for making money along the way. Optional.

I put the info in the previous tiers notes, but it bears repeating here. Summary is:

Nanoriso!? Where can I gather Nanoriso!?!? Nanoriso is in Ruby Sea – Rasen Kaikyo (same node as Ruby Tide Kelp – it’s underwater).

HQ Doman Steel Scythe is entirely optional.

I know you’ve heard the story before, but yeah, again, completely optional. I’ll say it again “These upgrades are more value if you are leveling FISHER as well since a missed node from MIN or BTN is much less painful than a missed fish”.

Even then, only the Shirt > Helm > Gloves are truly valuable. For reference, here are the names:

• Marid Leather Bolero of Gathering
• Serge Turban of Gathering (not to be confused with Serge Hood)
• Marid Leather Gloves of Gathering

Farm Rhalgr’s Streak (SLOT 1) – the same node as Jhammel Ginger. It’s an unspoiled node that spawns inTHE LOCHS 4AM OR 4PM (nearest aetheryte is Porta Praetoria)

The NQ pile is no problem. Ensure it by using Toil of the Pioneer and Ageless Words to get it in a single spawn of the node.

Apparently I’m crazy and only NQ is needed?

5 HQ Rhalgr’s Streak? Eh, this can be annoying.

The sure way is to bait out Brunt Force on the node. For this to be consistent, you need to have as many gathering attempts as possible, AND a high success rate (you can’t break the chain).

Something like:
Hit to Reveal
Field Mastery (Level depending on how sure you want to be)
Gather until chain 4 (using Ageless Words to ensure and/or extend it)
Brunt Force then Gather as much as you can.

I do not recommend “Leaf Turn + Nophica’s Counsel + Prune” type rotations as they’re prone to RNG. While you MAY save time by 1 trip, you may also extend your trips by 10.

The rewards are a bunch of good materia, plus enhanced GP Regeneration trait. SO DON’T SKIP OUT ON THIS QUEST.