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My experience as a miner
ananda
Member UncommonPosts: 45
I was going to post this in the beta forum, but the posting restrictions there turned me away lol.
I only got to beta in phase 3. In weekend 1, I tried the archer class first. After clearing the first area and got to level 15, I decided to stop and try the crafting and gathering classes. Leveling the botanist was deadly boring, I gave up at level 7 or so.
In weekend 2, I decided to do something different. The combat classes seems to have a lot more options to gain exp (plain mob grinding, FATEs, guildhest, etc), so I decided to just leave all the main quest EXP to the gathering class. I chose gladiator this time, and just filling in the first level of hunting log plus a few FATEs got me straight to level 10. The lvl 10 guild quest was a bit rough, because I was still wearing lvl 1 gear and had no potion, since the only quests I turned in up to that point was just the lvl 1 and lvl 5 gladiator quests.
So with all those quests, I was able to get miner up to level 10 as well very quickly. I could then level them up together as I go around questing. I would head out from quest hub as gladiator, do the quest objectives, change to miner, see if there's any gathering spots around, walk back and turn in the quests still as miner. It works fairly well, although extra the ability cooldown and starting from 0 GP a bit sucks (why are these restriction needed, btw?).
When I had to do the lvl 15 story quest, I ended up with lvl 13 gladiator and lvl 14 miner. After failing the quest, I decided I would need to be able to equip those lvl 15 gladiator gears I already got from quests, since they are a huge step up. Mob grinding solo seems very slow, and I don't have any FC yet so guildhest is also out. I decided to just spam FATEs around the Horizon area. While waiting for one to pop, I can go mining or use the mined materials to level my goldsmith.
All numbers below are from memory, so maybe they are slightly off. I think all classes require the same amount of EXP to level from 14 to 15, about 26k. For gladiator, lvl 9/10 FATE gives about 1.5k and the lvl 13 one 3k exp. In Horizon, I got about 3 lvl 9/10 fates then 1 lvl 13, so it took me about 15 FATES to get to lvl 15.
For miner, a non-HQ item gives about 40-50 exp base and about 200 when HQ. Taking into account failures and all the other randomness, I think I got on average 250 exp per node. I would need 100 nodes to get to lvl 15. I didn't actually got that far. Maybe I'm biased because I don't find the gathering activity fun (as compared to combat), but this feels much slower to me. And this is after dedicating all quest EXP to it, I woulnd't want to do this for 5 actual levels.
Crafting is a breeze compared to these, refining one raw jewel (which I can get 5-6 per mining node or 2 if I also mine the required crystal) gives me 700 exp, or more than 1k if got lucky with the quality enhancement. So it took no time at all to get even from 10 to 15.
tl;dr. leveling the gathering classes is too slow and boring, even after dedicating story quest EXP to it.
Comments
How exactly did you do quests as a miner when you can't even attack the monsters... ? Weel maybe you can attack them I don't know, but probably ''throw rock'' which does 1 dmg ??
I don't get your story lol
That...doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Even if it were intentional, like you say, players will work around it. For example, say only a few people actually went out and gathered on a server; they would be able to drive up the prices for people who would otherwise just buy crafting supplies or crafted gear...but the later group of people can theoretically get their money in more interesting ways than gathering while affording to bypass it, especially if the prices get so exorbitant that it's no longer even worth buying gear and better to just go out and find it or trade in-guild for it...
So effectively what you've said is that the devs are reserving gathering classes for masochists or people who for whatever reason enjoy an activity that would bore most...
I have no experience with ARR, but if what the OP says is true, it might be worth looking at how gathering can be made more fun, since the gathering is done by fully-fledged classes in this game, after all.
I did try to fight as a gathering class lol, trying to get FATE reward (you can auto-attack the monsters, btw, just right-click them). That didn't work out so well. The main-hand equipment does not have any additional dmg, and without any skills, you are not doing enough damage to get credit.
No, what I did was kill the mobs with my main class, but change class once the objectives are done turn the quests in as a miner.
He switched before turning the quest in to the npc. Not that complicated.