Best approach to unspoiled nodes?

[Castillan]

HQ items are the only way to go. The market for NQs is over saturated and there is hardly any demand for NQ. What I do (I do not have melded gear yet just HQ Artifact stuffs) is Toil then Leaf 1 and FieldM2. I usually get one HQ swing normally and then I always get my for sure HQ swing on the last hit with Brunt Force.

Let's assume a base 2% HQ chance.

Your way gives 5 gathers at 12% HQ chance at 100% success, plus 1 gather at 100%, or on average => 1.60 HQ gathers per node

My way gives 5 gathers at 32% HQ chance at 90% success, plus a 0.9^5 = ~59% chance at a 100% HQ gather chance at 100% success, for 5*0.32*0.9 + 0.59 => 2.03 HQ gathers per node.

If you want more HQ's per gather, on average, then do it my way. Statistically it works out better in the long term.