Minimum melds needed for hat

Hello,
I just got my DoL classes up to 50
What is the minimum melds I need to get the hat? The guides I see are for full melds which I do not want, I really only want the hat for glamour purposes so I want the cheapest way to be able to get them.

All you need is 370 gathering and 332 perception to be able to touch the node. The HQs can be done entirely with luck and/or patience.

You should also have at least 500 GP to speed up the process of obtaining the HQ materials.
300 for toil
100 for 15% gathering rate
100 for 10% HQ Rate

That'd give you 100% gather rate (at 370 gathering), a minium of 11% to HQ, and 6 attempts, allowing you to use brunt/deep vigor for 100% hq.

Best to use food to reach 600 gp. Use toil then the +30% hq skill. It's better to have a 90% chance to hit with a 31% hq chance than 100% chance with 11%

With this method, you can easily get both the hat and tool in a few days.

Using the above method. You will get 2-3 hq on average.

Will almost never get 0

Will occassionally give 1 or 4

Will rarely give 5

Will almost never give 6

I planned out my melding for the hat/main hand knowing that I didn't want to re-meld for the 2.3 nodes after. For left side I started with a full HQ set, except the belt, I currently have Raptorskin survival belt. I'll upgrade later. For right side I have Electrum Earrings and Raptorskin rings.

I started with:
Gather - 323
Perc - 321
GP - 573

Here's what I did (bolds are guaranteed slots, non-bold are overmelds):
http://imgur.com/b2jn8qT
NOTE: The materia called out is the actual stat of the materia, not the materia name.

I did slots 1/2 as shown, and plan on doing the other melds as needed. It cost me about 469k in melds, but I had really bad luck, and no adventurer to spirit bind materia for me (highest adventurer I have is 31).

Melding this way gets you to
Gather - 370
Perc - 341
GP - 595


This gets me to 595GP - so I hit toil, hit once and hope I get a log. Then I do the 30% HQ and then Brunt Force if I've hit all previous times.

Hope that helps! I am sure there is an easier and better way to do it, but that's what I came up with.

Thanks Tovin, this looks really helpful.

Going to try to avoid Class IV materia for now, b/c 280K for one seems overly excessive.

Thanks! I know there's a LOT of max meld posts out there, and not many "put this here" posts. I also want to add that I haven't re-visited the slot 3/4 melds since I got the new hat and mainhand. It needs some work, but so far been working on getting my crafters up.

Try to get 600 GP also, with minimal stats it gonna work (did this for my miner, botanist main class), it's not needed for it give a lot of comfort.
So you can use Toil of the Mountaineer or Solid reason (kinda same result in fact), and Unearth II for 30% more HQ, with luck, you can do a chain and use Deep Vigor to get 100% success HQ on the last attempt.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RiceisNice

You should also have at least 500 GP to speed up the process of obtaining the HQ materials.
300 for toil
100 for 15% gathering rate
100 for 10% HQ Rate

That'd give you 100% gather rate (at 370 gathering), a minium of 11% to HQ, and 6 attempts, allowing you to use brunt/deep vigor for 100% hq.

---

I'm pretty sure you will hit 500 GP without any melds if your using the top end gear (AF + BIS <2.2) I know I have ~576 and I think I only have 1 GP meld.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Artiste

....
So you can use Toil of the Mountaineer or Solid reason (kinda same result in fact), and Unearth II for 30% more HQ, with luck, you can do a chain and use Deep Vigor to get 100% success HQ on the last attempt.

---

Not really the same result. Well at the end but not the start.

If you use Toll you need 650 GPs with food to get 30% HQ and +5% to gathering chance from the start.

If you plan to use Solid Reason You can start with 630 GPs, pop Sharp vision I and Unearth II, recover 20 from 4 swings, then use Solid.

No luck involved and less overmelding.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shadygrove

Not really the same result. Well at the end but not the start.

If you use Toll you need 650 GPs with food to get 30% HQ and +5% to gathering chance from the start.

If you plan to use Solid Reason You can start with 630 GPs, pop Sharp vision I and Unearth II, recover 20 from 4 swings, then use Solid.

No luck involved and less overmelding.

---

don't you need like full melds to hit 600+ gp? I know I only have ~580 and I have the hat/tool

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yonko

don't you need like full melds to hit 600+ gp? I know I only have ~580 and I have the hat/tool

---

With Forager's Hat and Forager's Tool and all HQ gear (including the new Dodore and Rose Gold accessories), you sit at 588 GP, I think.
Base GP: 400
Forager's Hat: 3
HQ Body: 3
HQ Hands: 3
HQ Rose Gold Ear: 45
HQ Dodore Neck: 45
HQ Militia Wrists: 43
HQ Dodore Ring1: 23
HQ Dodore Ring2: 23
Total: 588

If you use the old best-in-slot accessories, drop this total to 573.

That's just twelve GP you need to meld, which is far less than fully melded. Using the old BiS accessories, you'll need 27 instead, which still isn't fully melded but will be fairly close to full.

And, as has been noted, you can start with less GP if you use the Swing x5 -> Solid Reason Swing x2 method instead of the Toil -> Swing x6 method, since you recover 5 GP on a successful swing (if you connect with all four swings, you'll then have enough GP to use Solid Reason.

If you forego the 50 GP spent for 5% gathering chance, this means that you can get by with just 580 GP - less than even a full set of unmelded HQ gear gives you!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yonko

don't you need like full melds to hit 600+ gp? I know I only have ~580 and I have the hat/tool

---

I am at 628 GPs and I forget if I am fully melded.

Hat 3
Body 3
Gloves 3 +1
Dodore belt +4
Legs +4
Feet +4
Dodore neck 45 +8

Nope not.
Electrum earrings 41 +7 (Rose Gold will go 45 +8)
Wrists 43 +7 (this can go to +10 now)
Rings 23 +4 each