If you asked me a few years ago whether or not I would be writing guides on Crafting and Gathering, I’d probably tell you no. For years I was a casual Crafter and Gatherer who mostly used them to complete Tribal Quests/Beast Tribes just so I could repair my Gear in dungeons since I constantly forgot.
I’m honestly surprised that I always had my Crafters and Gatherers maxed out in every expansion since I never wanted to try to make Gil while using them. However, it makes sense as I’ve never been very obsessive about making Gil unless I really want a registerable collectable.
Realistically over the last few months, all I’ve been doing is Crafting and Gathering, especially since I got sucked into the endless cycle of acquiring every single Splenderous Tool in order to be able to guarantee Expert Crafts.
While I was completing my Splenderous Crafter Tools I thought it might also be useful to get the Gatherer Tools, even though they aren’t as useful for the resources I’m gathering.
Nonetheless, the goal of getting all my Splenderous Relic Tools had me doing a good deal of research and trials on how I could maximize my efforts gathering Collectables, not only for the resources you need to collect in order to claim the Tool upgrades but for the Gatherer Scrips required to initially purchase the base Tools. Much like you, I was most frustrated with the little amount of GP I always seemed to have, especially when I needed to do resource farming loops and couldn’t put GP on my Gear due to the necessary breakpoint stats.
I can’t say I’ve always been the most optimal when it comes to Gathering, being someone who used to avoid using Cordials and never used Materia in his Gatherer’s sets, but those days have changed. Honestly, they’ve changed so much that I can imagine myself maximizing my Gathering and Crafting throughout all of Dawntrail, which will be the first expansion I immediately work towards these goals.
To do so, especially in regards to Gathering, we must answer the age-old question of whether you can regenerate GP faster while Gathering. So let’s get to chatting!
Note: If you have any questions about FFXIV that you want me to cover feel free to leave them in a comment below, you can also ask me while I am streaming on Twitch, YouTube or in our community discord.
WHAT IS GP IN FFXIV?
GP or Gathering Points are a substat in FFXIV that act in a similar fashion as Mana Points. Although players will be able to gather resources without utilizing any GP, players must use their GP in order to use abilities that improve the amount of resources they can yield from a Node or allow a player to harvest resources they would otherwise not be able to due to their Gear’s iLvl being too low.
Players have a set amount of GP based on the level of their Gatherers, being Miners, Fishers and Botanists though this can be increased with Gear, Materia as well as food.
While at first GP may not appear to be an important stat to have as realistically a player will be able to endlessly loop nodes, it can significantly reduce the amount of time a player spends Gathering as players can stack multiple Gathering abilities in order to get up to 6 times the resources, though players can get even more out of nodes if there is a hidden Boon that is associated with GP as these can provide you with up to two extra Integrity.
Typically I will use around 700-900 GP per node, depending on what resource I am gathering and thus I try to maximize how much GP I have and I will cover the tips and tricks I have when it comes to managing GP.
SO CAN I REGEN GP FASTER IN FFXIV?
The answer to this is a bit convoluted, though the simplest of answers is “no, you cannot regenerate GP Faster in FFXIV.” Now, the reason it’s convoluted is that there are several things a player can do to raise the speed in which they regenerate GP and players will also passively gain Traits that will provide them with more GP regeneration as they level up their Gatherers.
Essentially all players have the same amount of GP regeneration no matter how much base GP they have as they level or on their Gear. This is realistically very slow and takes about 2 seconds per tick. The reason for this is due to the fact that the regeneration rate is based
At Level 70 players gain Enhanced GP Regeneration. This provides players with 1 GP extra when they are regenerating by standing still.
At Level 80 players gain Enhanced GP Regeneration II. This provides players with a total of 2 GP extra when they are regenerating by standing still and provides 1 GP extra when harvesting a node.
At Level 83 players gain Enhanced GP Regeneration III. This provides players with a total of 3 GP extra when they are regenerating by standing still and provides 1 when hitting a node.
Though these amounts in theory don’t sound like much, especially when you take into account that regeneration takes 2 seconds, they are quite impactful especially when you’re completing high amounts of resource runs.
Typically I don’t use Hi-Cordial when I am doing regular resource runs and this is for two reasons, I only use my abilities on nodes that have Boons and the amount of GP you get back for harvesting a node is generally enough to refill your GP by the time the next Boon appears in a node. This is especially true if players are using the automatic harvest option and is generally faster than waiting for your natural regeneration.
Now, on the rare chance that I don’t have enough GP for a node I’ve clicked on, I will often go toward the nearest node to auto-farm it especially if I need less than 50 GP to activate my ability. At the maximum, players will be able to get 6 GP back for every swing meaning that they will be able to get back 30 GP per node. The few seconds it will take to walk to that node will typically cover the remaining GP you need as you get about 9 GP every 2 seconds at maximum.
This is hella min-maxxy when you are trying to save resources or don’t have alternate ways of getting your GP up, but as I said it isn’t often that I need to do this.
Players should note that all nodes in the overworld come in pairs of two. Typically only one has a Boon attached to it, though sometimes both have Boons and sometimes neither have Boons. If I don’t have full GP, I will always harvest the node with no Boons first and then harvest the one with Boons to try to ensure I have enough GP to use the ability that guarantees the most resources.
HOW TO MAXIMIZE YOUR GP
As there is no way to actually increase your GP regeneration players will have to find ways to improve the amount of GP they have and use items to replenish their GP. The following are all the ways you can do this and I will cover which I use and when I use them.
ALWAYS HAVE CORDIAL AND/OR HI-CORDIAL
I typically have both Hi-Cordial and regular Cordial on me at all times. While Hi-Cordial is the better of the two and the one I would recommend you always have and use, it is a bit harder to come by as it requires players to purchase it from unique Vendors.
Though Hi-Cordial is relatively easy to farm in high quantities, Cordial can be Crafted or even purchased off the Marketboard for relatively inexpensive as most players don’t rely on it.
Hi-Cordial will provide players with 400 GP with a cooldown of 3 minutes, while Cordial (at normal quality) will provide 300 GP with a cooldown of 4 minutes. Although a high-quality Cordial provides a bit more GP and reduces the cooldown by a bit, I don’t recommend trying to get your hands on them unless you are crafting your own Cordial or normal quality and high quality are the same price on the Marketboard and that is your main source of the resource.
So when do I use the different types of Cordial? I personally use Hi-Cordial when I’m farming nodes that appear in quick succession or am farming things like Relic Tools to take advantage of the cooldown period.
I have to admit that farming my Relic Tools was the most boring content I have ever completed, but when I learned how to min-max the amount of time it took to harvest these collectables using my Gear, fully upgraded Tool ended up taking me a few hours at most when I used Hi-Cordial off cooldown.
I have to admit that I am a bit precious when it comes to utilizing Hi-Cordial and will alternatively use Cordial when I have downtime between nodes, particularly timed ones like the ones that provide Gatherers’ Scrips. This is for two reasons, these nodes typically take 5-minutes to spawn and I somehow always have at least 500 Cordial on me at all times and haven’t been bothered to sell them. I will say, if I’m farming the lower-tier Scrips from multiple nodes I will always use Hi-Cordial since the amount of Scrips you get outbalances the amount that you gain from each node.
Hi-Cordial will be a player’s go-to for the majority of resource collecting and I wouldn’t try to actively farm regular Cordial and simply buy it off the Marketboard if you don’t have Hi-Cordial or ways of getting it.
USE FOOD WHEN NECESSARY
Gathering Food is typically ignored by most players and for a long time I would simply quick sell them to get them out of my inventory. As the majority of time in FFXIV is spent gathering these days, I actually hold onto all of these foods and pop them anytime I am going to be gathering for extended periods of time.
For the most part, Gathering Food is going to be useless to players unless they are a late-game Crafter who needs to harvest the highest nodes and need more Perception or Gathering stats, but for the average player, much of your Gathering and Perception boons will be covered by your Gear alone.
Now, this doesn’t mean that food is completely pointless as players can get a significant amount of GP from them going as high as an extra 55 GP.
There is a bit of a catch to food though as even though the max can be 55, you may not hit this if the GP stats on your Gear are not high enough as you gain stats from food as a % of your current stats.
I don’t typically use Gathering Food unless I already have it in my inventory. You get quite a bit of it from side-questing and realistically I hit all of the breakpoints for any nodes I am regularly farming making the other stats that come from it less important to me. Though true, if you are spending a few hours a day gathering it may be worth stocking up on a few of the ones with the biggest GP boost, especially as there are some from previous expansions that are comparable to the newer foods making them less expensive on the Marketboard.
My biggest issue is that I CBA with crafting foods since they take so many ingredients and I am generally content with the amount of time it takes for me to harvest nodes, I will tell you how I manage to do that in the next section though.
OPTIMIZE YOUR GEAR WITH MATERIA
This is probably the most min-maxing I do when it comes to Gathering, but it makes sense for what I personally do.
Many of the Gathering sets have Materia slots in order for players to meld whatever stats they are lacking. Though generally, players will want to use these slots to maximize their Perception and Gathering in order to hit the most recent breakpoints in the game, this isn’t the type of Gathering I most often find myself doing.
Due to this, I have 3 different Gearsets at my disposal, though this is primarily because I have two Gathering Retainers. Essentially the gear that each of my Retainers have match different thresholds that I need in case I’m farming resources that require them.
Now, this is due to the fact that I use Scrip Gear when it comes to Gathering, but if I had Crafted Gatherer Gear they would be pentamelded to perfection, providing me with all the stats I needed at any given point.
While this is my goal in Dawntrail, I took a massive break from FFXIV to focus on other games on stream, essentially meaning that getting such Gear would have been pointless. That being said, most players will be in a similar boat as pentamelded Gear is typically only worth it when you devote the majority of your time to gathering and have endless hours to play the game. Otherwise, your best bet is to do one of the of the following options:
First, research the breakpoints of the resources you are Gathering. If you hit all of them with the base stats of your Gear, you will only “need” two sets. However, there are some really weird situations where some nodes in an expansion need Perception melded on and other times you need Gathering and even with Gear that is filled with Materia you don’t hit both breakpoints.
You have two options. Either you get one full set with all Gathering Materia, one set with Perception Materia and one with GP Materia that you can freely switch between (as I do) or you can see if the breakpoints you need can be obtained by using older Materia so you can meld and remove Materia based on the content you are doing.
As mentioned, since I have two Gathering Retainers I find having the three different Gear sets to be more optimal, however, this does mean a few things… it’s going to cost a lot of Scrips and I have to make sure my Retainers aren’t on Ventures or I have to recall them in order to swap Gear.
Luckily at this point, I don’t need to swap Gear often, but being that I’m an ADHD space case, I do find myself forgetting to switch our Gear sometimes resulting in me having to recall my Retainer. I will say, ideally, players will want to utilize lower-level Materia instead as with a high enough levelled Crafter you can more easily manage your stats than having to keep going back to your Retainer. I would use this method if I didn’t have Gatherer Retainers but since I do I feel like this is the better option.
Now, if you don’t need the highest Scrip Gear to meet your general breakpoints I would get a lower-tier one to put your GP melds on. This costs significantly less Scrips and will make it more worth it in the long run.
The same can be said about Retainer Ventures. If you’re not sending your Retainers on Ventures with the highest breakpoints for most yield simply give them worse Gear that is either less Gil or Scrips, because it’s not worth it otherwise.
Realistically both I and my Retainers have mismatched Gear. If there’s a piece of Gear that can only have one type of Materia Melded on it, I don’t own a second piece and now that I’m done with my Relic Tools I have no need for the Gathering stat meaning that I have one less Gearset I’d have to swap into.
It is also very important to know that some of the older Materia provide more stats than newer Materia. So sometimes using an older Materia is more beneficial especially because you can remove it at any point.
The following are the stats they provide for GP:
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia I | GP +1 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia II | GP +2 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia III | GP +3 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia IV | GP +4 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia V | GP +6 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia VII | GP +7 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia IX | GP +8 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia VI | GP +8 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia VIII | GP +9 |
| Gatherer’s Grasp Materia X | GP +10 |
At the time of publishing this article Gathering Grasp Materia IX and X only have a 40% chance to be recovered, so use them sparingly. The Perception and Gathering alternatives work similarly with the stats and ability to be removed at 100% guarantee.
WHAT IS THE HIGHEST AMOUNT OF GP YOU CAN HAVE ON YOUR GATHERER WITHOUT FOOD?
There are a few reasons why this is a question that goes unanswered on most reddit threads or players are seeing values that make no sense and they are:
- Each level of Gear has a maximum amount of GP that can be reached.
- Depending on a piece of Gear’s base GP value a player may or may not be able to hit cap using Materia (as Materia has limits)
- Though a player can Pentameld any stats they want on a piece of Gear they may use extra lower Materia to achieve their Perception and Gathering goals to save on cost.
- Most players don’t focus on GP melds as it is terribly niche and generally not worth it unless you are farming specific nodes.
Players can calulate the maximum amount of GP they can have on their Gear by opening the Melding menu and seeing how much of that stat is missing.
At level 90, which is the current maximum, a player can have a maximum of 928 GP without food.
With Scrip Gear or with Scrip Gear and a Gatherer’s Splenderous Tool (level 90 Relic) players can get a maximum of 916 GP as they will not be able to overmeld their Gear.
Unfortunately players cannot “dupe” the system by mixing and matching older pieces of Gear to get even higher GP as the caps are lower as item level goes down.
At best you can see if a Crafted Gatherer’s Accessory is selling for a reasonable price to min-max that, but this is generally not worth it, especially for a missing 12 GP.
CONCLUSION
So at the end of the day, while players may not be able to boost their passive GP regen, they will be able to combat this in several ways.
I personally use GP melded Gear and Hi-Cordial most frequently and rely on hitting nodes to regenerate GP instead of standing still as this tends to be faster.
If you’re really trying to maximize your output or are trying to hit breakpoints that require GP, I strongly advise that you get some HQ foods that focus on GP. Foods can vary drastically in price unfortunately and even doing a quick peruse on our current Marketboard situation I’m seeing ranges between 200 to 3,000. Though for me these prices are not worth it, they may be for you, especially if you want to spend the least time gathering as possible.
Before I end I want to quickly say, while the extra GP is nice on my GP melded Gear, past a certain point it just doesn’t matter anymore. The reason I began this specific journey was because I was getting less resources from nodes I was making the majority of my Gil from because I couldn’t use as many abilities as I previously did. While I have been able to regain my ability to complete these gathering rotations, I wasn’t able to go beyond them as no matter what there will always be a limit. Of course, this limit can be extended further with food, but realistically at a minimum players will need a minimum of 100 GP to activate an ability.
My biggest recommendation is to either have your GP sit at X00 when you start so you know how many starting abilities you can use or X76 so you can guarentee you reach the the threshold to use at least one more ability before you complete a node with no Boon. Everything elseis basically excess that is only useful if you are endlessly farming and just want to pad your GP. Quite frankly not a terrible idea, generally not useful for the majority of Gathering.
So I’m curious, what are your thoughts on the methods I recommend in optimizing your GP, do you think I’ve lost my mind with having so many Gear Sets? Are you considering pentamelding your next Gatherer Gear set when Dawntrail comes out or do you have any other GP tricks I forgot to mention or don’t know about? Let me know in the comments below!
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