Why I think now is the best time to gear your gathering classes.

[DarthBuzzer]

I hope I won't need a level 50 combat class. I don't know what the difficulty of the new nodes will be, but Ido believe that the gear I have now will help me between level 50-60

I'm assuming that's a typo and you meant level 60 combat class? Since you'll need to have a 50 combat class and have to have completed the 2.55 story to access anything Heavensward IIRC. About the gear upgrade, I'd expect 55-57 HQ to be better than current BiS and 58-60 NQ to be better than current BiS. Of course that's pure speculation but it would make sense.

And when I was talking about the 60 combat class requirement I meant that since gathering is most likely going to require flying that means you need to unlock flying for each of the new zones up to level 60. The thing is, even if you don't need flying at all to gather everything - it would still be almost required because it would be so much faster to gather with a mount that moves way faster.

I just really hope Square doesn't lock everything so that you must have a 60 battle class. Right now, you can get 50 for gatherers and crafters before hitting 50 combat class but at the same time it's impossible to get lucis weapons, beast tribe quests, and much higher leve exp without a 50 battle class.