Whether you are determined to keep up with your gathering skills from the very beginning, or one of the many players who have found that gathering is essential to character progression further into your career, at some point you will need to know where and what to gather.  This is where I come in!  I took my awesome Elyos Assassin out and ran all over Poeta, Veteron, Eltnen, and Theobomos hunting down the collection nodes for the first batch of skill levels.  These are the nodes you'll need to gather from in order to raise your skill levels, and the materials you will need if you decide to take on a crafting profession.  Also keep in mind that a lot of these materials can be sold for a tidy sum of kinah on the broker so whatever you can't use, you can always sell!

Once you hit skill level 99 in either vitality collection or aether gathering, you'll need to speak with the master of that gathering skill in order to progress to skill level 100.  These "trainers" can be found in Sanctum in Artisans Hall and they do charge kinah.  I paid just over 17,000 to progress my skill.  Ouch!

Material Collecting

Aether Extracting