A Miner's Guide (FFXIV)  

Have you been turned down by the sword? Does magic simply not suffice? Or have you gotten tired of paying your hard earned gil to get materials for your crafting? Whatever the reason, you've ended up interested in mining. This guide is meant to help you get started.

For the most part, this will be a work-in-progress, mostly because we are still in beta for Final Fantasy XIV and because even after the retail version, Square-Enix will likely add content to the class. However, it doesn't mean that the information presented in here is wrong or dated, it's just that we are working with what it's available at the moment.

Contents [hide]

The Role of the Miner Abilities Mining spots Ore spots Quarry spots Mining (mini-game) Approach Ore Depth Hammer Away Hot & Cold Final thoughts...

The Role of the Miner

I'm pretty sure that you have a good idea of what a miner is, and it's not my intention to copy-paste the information on the class description or the official site, but rather give a more player-oriented perspective.

So what is a miner? A miner is one of the three Disciple of the Land classes whose sole purpose is to gather materials, which, unless this game dictates otherwise, will be one of the principal sources of gil. Material collection requires the use of a Pick (primary) and Sledgehammer (secondary) on mountains, cliffs, and cave walls to obtain different types of rocks, metal ores, sands, and even small insects.

Abilities

Abilities, Descriptions, and Rank

Mining spots

The game presents two type of spots, ore spots and quarry spots.

Ore spots

Ore spots are usually on the outside (this may not be a rule but so far is what experience dictates) and require a pick to be mined but the most important, it's that these points engage you in a mini-game (described below) whit a success rate based on a combination of luck and skill.

These spots additionally are flagged with a difficulty level with determinate not only the number of types that you may attempt to mine from them but also the chance to obtain the item from them.

Quarry spots

The second type of spots seem to appear be only inside caves and require the quarry hammer in order to mine from them, and there is (at least in beta) no mini-game associated with them, once the option is selected from the menu you character will bash it with the sledgehammer and obtain the item merely based on luck.

Mining spots: Ore (top right) and Quarry (bottom left)

Mining (mini-game)

One of the new features presented in this game is that gatherers classes are required to interact in order to retrieve materials, in the case of miners each time you engage an Ore spot (the one which requires the pick) you will be presented with the following mini-game:

Approach

Mining spots are not targetable, in fact unless you are equipped with the proper tool for that spot it will be impossible to mine from it, once you have the tool, a "!" (exclamation mark icon) will appear in the top of the screen giving you access to the point from the menu, the word "Mine" (for ore spots) or "Quarry" (for quarry spots) will appear above the usual commands.

Ore Depth

After you have started, the mining menu will come up, it will display the level of the spot and a vertical bar to choose where to begin, the placement seem to be random but each "height" have a different difficulty changing sightly the speed at what the strength meter (keep reading) charges.

Moreover, subsequent attempts on the same spot increase the difficulty, hence it's usually better to change the position on each attempt.

Choose where to start mining.

Hammer Away

Once the place to start has been selected, the interface will change and a strength meter (the circular shaped meter shown in the pictures below) will appear, it will fill gradually from the center to the edge, and then depletes from edge to center, the speed at which this happens depends on the difficulty of the spot, increasing as it becomes harder.

It may be stopped at anytime with the confirmation button. The position of the meter will determinate the strength used to hit the mining spot after which a message from the game will confirm how close or far you were from succeeding on extracting the piece. Depending on your success will be how much the blue bar marked "Remainder" will be depleted. As long as this bar is not empty you may keep hammering the spot.

The strength is determinate by the size of the orange circle

Hot & Cold

Every spot has a "Hot Zone" that you must hit in order to retrieve the material, and the only way to reach that zone, is to hit with the exact amount of strength. After each attempt the game will return a message to help you calibrate your strength, the description below show the zones and messages associated with them:

"You feel nothing promising", the farthest possible place either because you are hitting it too strong or too week, marked on blue.

"You feel something promising", It's closer but still far away from the spot, marked on green.

"You are close to something, but cannot yet extract it." You have found the right spot but you need to hit it again in order to receive the item(s). Strike again, aiming to hit exactly where you did when you got this message. (You can usually afford to miss a tiny bit either way, but the goal is to hit the same spot.)

"You obtain rewarded-item", You hit the "Hot Zone", so far the general consensus is that your skill and the level of the mining spot will determinate the size of this area.

To hit "Hot Zone" you must calibrate your strength with each attempt.

Additionally after your first attempt, the message "You feel nothing promising" will be replaced by "You are getting farther from the mark" in case your subsequent attempt get farther from the "Hot Zone", as well the message "You feel something promising" will be replaced by "You are getting closer to the mark" in case your subsequent attempt get closer to the "Hot Zone"

Final thoughts...

This class will more likely become the source of materials, for Goldsmiths, Armorers and Smiths, with a random item here and there for other purpose (like Little Worm for fishing), and eventually the base for a good part of the equipment used by DoW and DoM, which constitute a wide range of... customers!

As more information, becomes available, it will be added to the guide, as well as materials, equipment or any other interesting piece of advice.

Final Fantasy XIV Wikibase™