Gathering Melding and Best in Slot Gear Meldsets For FFXIV Dawntrail Patch 7.1
This guide will cover the various endgame best in slot gathering meld sets you can consider for endgame DoL classes, depending on your goals, as well as advice on how to meld your gathering classes for specific purposes. There are also a number of relevant breakpoints that are listed and discussed.
Gathering Melding and BIS (Best-in-Slot) Meldsets For Dawntrail 7.1
Once you hit level 100, you will need to start looking into gearing your classes so you can gather from endgame legendary nodes.
Gathering works on fairly strict breakpoints, meaning you hit X stat and then get Y bonus with no benefit for any number in-between. That means you have to plan your melds carefully to get the benefits you want, but you can also save money and time by not having wasted melds that grant no benefit.
This means if you do not gather very often, you may simply only need scrip gear or cheap melds. However, if you want better yields, you will want to aim for better melds. Crafted gear is almost always better than scrip gear, even with cheap melds, but especially with heavy overmelding. Generally speaking, crafted with the best melds can get almost double the yield compared to scrip.
How to Farm Gathering Materia
The best way to farm grade XI and XII DoL materia is from spiritbonding. For lower grades, you will need to scrip farm, purchase from the market, or simply replace lower grades with the high-grade materia you have farmed from spiritbonding.
Using Level 90 Relics at Level 100
The Level 90 Splendorous Tools can be incredibly useful for collectables (not legendary nodes) even at level 100. This is due to the unique effect these tools have, "Increases the chance to trigger Collector's Intuition by 20% when gathering collectables".
This is because your stats using i720 melded gear are high enough that you do not miss out on any breakpoints for the collectables you want to gather. The following collectables can be gathered more efficiently using your Lv90 relics:
- Any Collectable from older expansions.
- All Ephemerals.
- All Purple Scrip collectables.
- All Orange Scrip collectables (only high-tier set).
More specifically, the High Tier set caps all collectables but requires Turali Pineapple Ponzecake for glv690/700 nodes which are the highest ilv ephemerals and orange scrip nodes.
The Mid Tier set can not effectively use the relics on orange scrip nodes however it can effectively use the relics for every other collectable in the game too. The Mid Tier set needs Turali Pineapple Ponzecake for glv690 nodes.
Both the High Tier and Mid Tier sets do not need food for anything glv680 and below which is the highest level purple scrip items.
Patch 7.1 Dawntrail Gathering Meldsets
Below you will find our 3 main meldsets. High Tier, Mid Tier and budget.
Note that Fishing classes do not need to meld their tools and would be fine with a GP materia only. This can change when big fish are added in future patches, but currently they do not need the gathering.
High-Tier Gathering Melds for 7.1
This is our main "Best in Slot" set at the moment which with the whole set lasting until 7.3 (barring any minor adjustments to be optimal in future patches say for Cosmic Exploration).
The best food is currently Nasi Goreng due to giving GP allowing you to perform the 1000GP collectable rotation for collectable nodes, and simply more GP to gain yield with on Legendary nodes. This is because this meld sets hits the current nodes breakpoints without issue. The best food for legendary nodes will change with the nodes added in 7.2.
Benefits Include:
- Able to easily hit the all Node Bonuses on current Legendary nodes.
- Futureproofed around minimum perception calculations for future updates.
- Planned around calculated breakpoints for patch 7.2 and 7.3's legendary nodes where possible to calculate. For example it ensures you cap collectable skills for patch 7.3's aethersand.
- Enough GP to allow you to perform the 1000GP collectable rotation with Nasi and additional GP gained when hitting the node.
- Planned with big fish in mind with plenty of gathering to ensure minimums are hit.
Downsides:
- More expensive than the Mid Tier set for very little benefit at the moment.
- Unable to hit Bountiful Yield 2 +3 breakpoint (5593 Gathering) on glv700 nodes instead opting for more perception.
Currently, Etro has not been updated for 7.1. Here is a Teamcraft Link and image for the moment until Etro is updated.
Mid Tier Gathering Melds for 7.1
This is the Mid Tier gathering set for the Endgame gear offering lower stats and therefore less yield but having much easier melding. This is planned around having X overmelds (aside from a GP meld), cheaper overmelds in general and less overmelds to save even more gil while still hitting breakpoints.
The best food for this set currently is Stuffed Peppers so that you hit the 5085 Perception breakpoint to gain 40% Intuition rate on collectables as well as the GP to perform a 900GP rotation. No food is needed for legendary nodes at this moment in time.
Benefits Include:
- Significantly cheaper than the high tier set, using a lot more lower grade materia and less materia in general.
- Futureproofed around minimum perception calculations for future updates.
- Like the high tier set, this set is planned around breakpoints in patch 7.2 and 7.3. The main differences are that this set will be unable to hit any GP node bonuses and may not hit the +2 yield gathering node bonus in 7.2.
- Room to add GP materia if you want the 1000GP collectable rotation.
- Planned with big fish in mind with plenty of gathering to ensure minimums are hit.
Downsides:
- Will hit less node bonuses in 7.2 meaning slightly less yield.
- Low GP to make the set cheaper which impacts yield.
Currently, Etro has not been updated for 7.1. Here is a Teamcraft Link and image for the moment until Etro is updated.
Budget Gathering Gear Set for 7.1
A budget set currently would be simply melding i690 gear until you reach 4540 Perception to be able to gather everything in the game.
The aim for budget players would simply be to upgrade to scrip gear in patch 7.2 and continue simply hitting the minimum perception. If you want to gather and craft materials for raid, you may consider the mid tier set which is still fairly cheap.
Dawntrail Gathering Breakpoints
Breakpoints are the stat requirements to reach new benefits, this could be the ability to gather an item, specific node bonuses or even skill and collectable bonuses. They are vital to planning your melds out properly so that your stats are not wasted.
To know the breakpoints for a specific item, Check out my gathering calculator.
Some bonuses are actually hidden, hidden bonuses refer to the fact that the game will not tell you the requirements to hit the bonus and even when you do it will still state the old value. For example it may state 850GP gives +2 integrity on the 2 star nodes when in reality you would have the hidden 900GP requirement making it say it is giving you +2. It would otherwise say +1.
Legendary Node Breakpoints for patch 7.1 are:
- Minimum Perception - 4540 Perception
- 7.1 Big Fish - 3500 Gathering
Legendary Node Breakpoints for patch 7.0 are:
- BY2/BH2 Skill +2 - 4576 Gathering
- BY2/BH2 Skill +3 - 5593 Gathering
- Node bonus +1 Yield - 4754 Gathering
- Node bonus +2 Yield - 4968 Gathering (Hidden)
- Node bonus +3 Yield - 5181 Gathering (Hidden)
- Minimum Perception - 4480 Perception
- +30% Boon Node Bonus - 4907 Perception
- Node bonus +1 Integrity - 930GP
- Node bonus +2 Integrity - 960GP(Hidden)
Collectable Node Breakpoints for patch 7.0 are:
- i690 Collectable Skills - 4717 Gathering & Perception
- i700 Collectable Skills - 4831 Gathering & Perception
- i690 Meticulous Proc Cap - 4965 Gathering
- i700 Meticulous Proc Cap - 5085 Gathering
- i690 Intuition Proc Cap - 4965 Perception
- i700 Intuition Proc Cap - 5085 Perception
- 1000GP Collectable Rotation - 982 GP + GP Gained from hitting the node.
Changelog
- 18 Nov. 2024: Added recommendations with regards to using the level 90 relic at level 100.
- 13 Nov. 2024: BiS for 7.1 added.
- 09 Sep. 2024: Additional info added to the budget set for 7.1 estimations and dropdowns for breakpoints added.
- 02 Jul. 2024: BIS for 7.0 added.
- 26 Jun. 2024: Updated for Dawntrail.
- 21 Jun. 2024: Added link to spiritbonding guide.
- 17 May 2024: Added notes about using the scrip gear with Dawntrail so close.
- 18 Feb. 2024: Added Final Big fish gathring requirement.
- 18 Jun. 2023: Updated to 6.45's Splendorous tools.
- 24 May 2023: Updated to 6.4.
- 10 Mar. 2023: Added Splendorous Tools Advice.
- 13 Jan. 2023: Updated for 6.3.
- 09 Feb. 2022: Guide added.
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This guide has been written by I'nanghal Shikhu (Discord - Shikhu). He is a Crafting & Gathering theorycrafter, mentor for The Balance and also a guide maker for Teamcraft alongside Icy Veins. He also managed to obtain 10 top 12's on the leaderboard during the Ishgard Restoration rankings.
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