[Lucky and Elizabeth]

I found this Mining Guide and it has helped me a lot so I wanted to share it with all of you.

A Bujo on Caithsith wrote this guide.

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This guide is simply a description of what I did in the process of becoming, 90 blacksmith, 59 cloth, 55 wood, 50 leather… and 46 gold.



Mining might be the single most easiest, and profitable way to make gil in ffxi. Pickaxes are dirt cheap and they can be obtained quick easily. If you are a new player, and have no gil… no problem… mining is the way to go. Even if you are not new, mining is such a good way to make money. First thing… where do u get pickaxes? Easy, pickaxes can be obtained by



Boytz: Bastok Mines

Numa: Port Bastok

Champalpieu: Upper Jeuno

Ostalie: South San d’oria

Upih Khachla: Windurst Waters



They are dirt cheap, although they break frequently, but the items you get from them are worth much more.



Areas:



The first area I suggest, is Zeruhn Mines. The entrance is located in Bastok Mines. In this area, you can obtain iron ore, silver ore, zinc ore, copper ore, tin ore, and darksteel ore. You will get many pebbles here, I just discarded all of them as they are useless, but if you want you can go around throwing them at mobs to raise your throwing skills, otherwise they are a waste of time. Where the money comes in is not simply selling every single ore you get in the AH, but making something out of them. Bring yourself a few stacks of fire crystals, and start off by making cheap ingots. The first ingots, would be copper ingots, bronze ingots and brass ingots. These can be made by…



Bronze Ingot(smithing cap lvl 3): Fire: Tin ore x1, Copper ore x3

Copper Ingot(goldsmithing cap lvl 4): Fire: Copper ore x4

Brass Ingot(goldsmithing cap lvl 9): Fire: Copper ore x3, Zinc ore x1



My suggestion, is stay here until you have all your crafts capped at these levels. If you are a beginner, know that crafting brass ingots will not occur right away as you are not close enough to the cap to successfully synth it without breaking it and wasting valuable dollars… so…. Save the ore or sell them until you are around level 4 goldsmithing and start crafting them. I suggest just selling the darksteel for now, as it will sell for a very hefty sum. This area is useful for low level synthing and that’s all. Sell all your ingots in stacks on ah, they are going for quite a bit lately.



Another area I suggest for low level synthing is Palborough Mines. In this area, you can find such ore as iron, tin, copper, silver, zinc and platinum. If you start here, you can do the same thing as Zeruhn Mines, the advantage is platinum ore sells for a little more. If you do not have at least a level 30 character though, I suggest just starting in Zeruhn mines as some of the mobs in this area will cream you.



The smart thing to do now, is not waste the money you have just made frivolously, but use it to bring the crafting skills up so that you can use some of the other ore, like tin, iron and silver to your advantage.



Tin Ingot(blacksmith cap lvl 15): Fire: Tin ore x4

Iron Ingot(blacksmith cap lvl 20): Fire: Iron ore x4

Silver Ingot(Goldsmithing cap lvl 20): Fire: Silver ore x4



Hey guess what, now you can make 6 different ingots, and they are all pretty much pure profit. If you decide that you don’t want to level your crafting anymore, you can continue mining in these areas and be quite wealthy rather fast.



What I did though, was took it further. I used the money I made from all of this, and I levelled my crafting even further. The next step, and you can use many guides to get you to these stages, including a blacksmith guide to level 91 that I created. If you did this, then you can now use the darksteel ore to make darksteel ingots.



Darksteel Ingot(smithing cap lvl 52): Fire: Darksteel ore x1, Iron ore x3



Other areas



There are so many areas in ffxi that you can mine in. Some of my favourite areas are Gusgen mines, oldton movalpolas, and ifrits cauldron.



For gusgen mines, you have to be at least level 50 to get absolutely no aggro other then the NM’s that spawn occasionally, and this are provides some of the best ore. I pretty much spend most of my time in Gusgen mines, as you can get your darksteel AND gold ore which either you can sell or make into ingots.



At oldton movalpolas, I suggest being level 51, at 50 you wont get most aggro but there is a bomb in one tunnel that is intimidated by you half the time, and will aggro you. There are moblin leadmen that are in the way of another area leading to one mining point, but by now you should know that there isn’t just one mining spot available at any given time but at least 2 ore 3. Therefore don’t worry about it. This area provides quite a bit of good ore including darksteel and platinum, and a bunch of moblin pieces which can be desynthed or sold on auction house for pure profit.



In Ifrit’s Cauldron, I suggest having a sub whm with invisible and sneak, as you get aggro here even at level 75. So why go here? Well in this area, you can get Adaman ore, and orichalcum ore, two of the most expensive ore in ffxi. I haven’t gone here in awhile, but I did get quite good at it at one point. You can find maps on the internet that show you all the mining points in all the areas, use them and master the area as you can make quite a bit of cash here.

Finally, another area which I have only tried once myself is Newton Movalpolas. This area though, is death! The whole area is blocked off by big walls, that move with buttons. If you can figure this area out go for it, but you will get aggro at lvl 75 therefore you need sneak/invis… and therefore its hard. I wasn’t able to pull up any good ore, but you can get the newest ore, aluminum ore, which is use in blacksmithing and goldsmithing to make alumine/luisant gear… which is sweet gear. So guess what, the ore sells for tons.



Another important note, and I have said it before in my blacksmthing guide. If you have the cash, I suggest buying mining gear. Mining gear does absolutely nothing BUT increase your chance of obtaining rare ore. Take it from me, I have been doing this for the last 2 years, I have patterned the whole thing out. Its useful, yes, because you can leave an area with 4 darksteel ores, instead of 2 or 3.



Well you my knowledge on mining now, use it and you will make a bit of money. I have recently been accused of buying gil by a player on my server Caitsith, and I tell you the truth I have not bought gil once in my life. I can make a lot of cash fast, and I can use it to powerlevel synthing… so sue me!



Again, like I say in all my guides, my name is Bujo on Caitsith and I welcome all questions and I will assist anyone with whatever knowledge I have towards their success.

[Suichi]

Wow, great guide, very nice^^

I may actually pick up mining now.

[Avoklex]

Very nice. Concise and to the point.

[Neomage]

Another important note, and I have said it before in my blacksmthing guide. If you have the cash, I suggest buying mining gear. Mining gear does absolutely nothing BUT increase your chance of obtaining rare ore. Take it from me, I have been doing this for the last 2 years, I have patterned the whole thing out. Its useful, yes, because you can leave an area with 4 darksteel ores, instead of 2 or 3.

I was always under the impression that it decreased chances of pickaxes breaking, and did
NOT increase ore results.

[Meepster]

(hmmm) has anyone confirmed exactly what the mining gear does for you? Also i keep hearing that there is a "hidden" skill to this. Kind of like chocobo digging. is this true? and if so, do you have to start off in the lower areas to lv up your mining ability before you move up to the harder areas?

[devindh]

I've only been mining for several weeks but I can offer my opinions.

There is no hidden skill. The first few days I went mining I pulled platinum, gold and darksteel ore. If there was a hidden skill of sorts, I don't think I would have been able to do that. For a while I did think this was some sort of beginners luck but I still get a few of those ores from time to time.

I am not sure what all the field gear helps but for me the most obvious is that you use far less pickaxes because they simply don't break as much with the gear on. I haven't been able to get my hands on some gloves though (always sold out on titan), but I have and use the other three. I haven't been too many times without my gear so I can't say if it helps with the results or not.

[Icemage]

I did a lot of mining when I was levelling my base Blacksmith and Goldsmith skills.

- Field/Worker gear does NOT help the quality of your results. All it does, as mentioned, is appear to reduce the chance of breakage (this is particularly noticeable now ever since they changed the chance of pickaxe breakage on multiple "picks" at the same location a couple years ago).

- There is no "hidden skill". I got the same results mining at the start as I did when I stopped several months later.

- In some zones where colored stones can appear (red rock, blue rock, etc.), the color of the rock you pull will correspond to the current game day, so if you get a rock result on Earthsday, you'll get a yellow rock.

- You'll need some Alchemy skill if you want to desynthesize the moblin materials in Oldton Movalpolos.

- Moon phase does seem to affect mining results, as does day of week (aside from the colored rocks). Full Moons seem to give better overall results, and fewer breaks. New moons give more breaks, but also seem to yield slightly more rare ores (usually not enough to counter the loss in other categories, though). Darksday seems to have the same general effect as a New Moon - more breaks, slightly more rares.


Icemage

[Malevolent]

I wouldn't go as far as saying it just improves on breakages of HELM tools. I've pulled up more and better to rare ores with it on then i ever had...i owuld say it improves results of breaks and pulling up rare ores.

[Joran Dax]

Originally Posted by Icemage

- You'll need some Alchemy skill if you want to desynthesize the moblin materials in Oldton Movalpolos.

Not true. I Mine Oldton Frequently, and send all the Moblin Mail and Helms I get to my Goldsmithing mule. She has 55 Goldsmithing, and 0 Alchemy, and in the last grouping I pulled out 2 stacks of Brass Ingots, and 2 HQ3 Gold Ingots. To my knowledge, only the Moblin Mask requires Alchemy to desynth which is to be expected because it can yield Glass Fiber, but even then the Mask also has an individual synth for leatercrafters to get Sheep Leather from it.

[Lucky and Elizabeth]

Originally Posted by devindh

I've only been mining for several weeks but I can offer my opinions.

There is no hidden skill. The first few days I went mining I pulled platinum, gold and darksteel ore. If there was a hidden skill of sorts, I don't think I would have been able to do that. For a while I did think this was some sort of beginners luck but I still get a few of those ores from time to time.

I am not sure what all the field gear helps but for me the most obvious is that you use far less pickaxes because they simply don't break as much with the gear on. I haven't been able to get my hands on some gloves though (always sold out on titan), but I have and use the other three. I haven't been too many times without my gear so I can't say if it helps with the results or not.

Some times it is the luck of the draw.

I was mining and meet someone else, he was lv Tin Ingots and I was still on Copper and Broze. So I would give hiom all my Tin Ore if he gave me his Copper.

Then he dug up 2 Darksteels.

[Sashe]

I've been thinking about getting into mining as I'm trying to level goldsmithing and buying materials is really expensive. This really helps thanks :D

[Haggai]

Originally Posted by Icemage

- You'll need some Alchemy skill if you want to desynthesize the moblin materials in Oldton Movalpolos.

Originally Posted by Joran Dax

Not true. I Mine Oldton Frequently, and send all the Moblin Mail and Helms I get to my Goldsmithing mule. She has 55 Goldsmithing, and 0 Alchemy, and in the last grouping I pulled out 2 stacks of Brass Ingots, and 2 HQ3 Gold Ingots. To my knowledge, only the Moblin Mask requires Alchemy to desynth which is to be expected because it can yield Glass Fiber, but even then the Mask also has an individual synth for leatercrafters to get Sheep Leather from it.

I have 29 Alchemy, and 33 Clothcraft. I have no problems desynthing Moblin Armor (clothcraft), and Moblin Masks (alchemy). I still need some Goldsmithing levels before I can start on Helms and Mail. There is some money to be made in those. Good news is that I am skilling up my Goldsmithing in Oldton Movalpolos. You get plenty of Zinc Ore there and when I get full, I cast Escape and run down to Bastok and pound out the Brass Ingots. I did ingots to 9, sheets to 11, and I'm working on scales to 13. My biggest problem is that I've run out of Fire Crystals on my mule.

[Achaicus]

double post

[Achaicus]

Here are some my my assessments of mining based on my own experiences..

Field gear decreases the chance of breaking pickaxes and doesn't seem to increase the chance of getting ore or getting better ores.

Moon phase affects what you may get, but i am unsure if that or any other thing affects your chance of getting something or nothing - ie. chance of success.

I suspect that there is someting related to character level. I kinda think that there is something in the games software - a 'beginers luck' subroutine or something, but I think it is not really that big of a deal.

Also, the 'time-out' from an update from some time ago (that was meant to discourage rmt campers) seems to affect chance, so, I cast Escape, then do a shutdown from just outside (of Gusgen) then log back in again (after a drink of water & a stretch, lol).

I believe that mining is one of the hidden skills and that it levels VERY slowly. I get very much better results - success chance I mean - then when I started. I'm not sure how skill level (assuming there is such a thing) affects pickaxe breakage - I think not as nearly much as the field gear - if at all.

Though not the same subject, I think I discovered some of the workings of the game that somewhat relate (to the idea of character level & vicinity) because I got to the point where I could get the skull to drop the 1st time, every time for people in need of the sub-job quest. Now that my blm lvl has gone up a little, it is not as reliable as that. I tried not to be too insistent what people didn't want my help - but I just couldn't help laughing when they took (ahem) much more than, say, five or ten minutes