Some questions from a minor miner!

[Klumps]

Well, I did my first day of mining yesterday. 5 stacks of pickaxes brought me 2 gold ore, 2 darksteel ore, 18 iron ore, and miscellaneous other junk, which brought me a tidy profit. Considering I need to make about 300k gil to buy a piece of level 34 armor (and another 300k later on for a piece of level 40 armor), profit is what I need.

So, without further ado:

1) Where can I buy pickaxes from a NPC vendor? I know you can, I've seen them before, but it was months ago, and I can't remember. Fwiw, I figured they'd be at the blacksmith guild, so I showed up bright and early there at 8:00 a.m. gametime. Nada.

2) Is field gear really worth it? As you see from above, I went through a TON of pickaxes to get what I got. I think it was really backhanded of S-E to make pickaxes break more often, and then introduce a new set of crafted gear that brings you back to where you were originally.

[snoop1050]

boytz knicknacks - bastok
tuamila's saundries - sandoria
ensasa's catalyst shop - windhurst
for pick axe's they sell for about 206

and about the gear.
the only peice i have bought is the workers gloves and they seem to have made a difference to my logging i get more elm logs with them than i used to.
i never mined before without them but in 2 stacks of pick axes in yughott grotto i got about 10x iron ore ,1x gold ore and lots of the crap stuff.
so i would say its worth buying the clothes that improves mining.

[Kurgan]

Where were you mining at? Looks like you turned up a nice selection of ores.

[DavisMarkin]

I really need to know where you were mining. I just got done mining through 2 and a half stacks of pickaxes, and got nothing but copper, tin, iron (about 6 total), and pebbles. (I was in Ghelspa, Yughott Grotto, the long section)

[snoop1050]

i imagine she was mining in gusgen mines at konchstat highlands.
some bloke in the darksteel forge in bastok gives a quest where he wants 2 x darkstell ore and suggests you goto gusgen mines where theres suposed to be better ore.