Melding off-hand tools - Min/Max (Mining/Botany)

[Eldee]

From what I've read on these forums, the Tier 2 gathering requirements are 408 Gathering / 389 Perception and a minimum of 600 GP is recommended. I've recently earned my Forager's Tool/Hat along with fully melded my HQ gear (minus the off-hand which I have not touched). I'm currently sitting at 408 Gathering / 399 Perception / 636 GP, which meets the minimum requirements no problem.

I'm trying to figure out the most beneficial way to meld the off-hand (GP+4, Gathering +11, Perception +20 ). The GP portion seems a bit useless at the moment so it comes down to the 11 Gathering or the 20 Perception. The 2 options I'm thinking about are:

6 Gathering, 20 Perception (GIV, PIII, PIII, PIII, PIII)

or

11 Gathering 15 Perception (GIV, GIII, PIII, PIII, PIII)

I guess what I'd like to know is how beneficial it would be to increase my gathering over the cap vs pump my perception all the way for more of an HQ chance. I apologize if this post seems useless to some people, I realize at the end of the day it's debating 5 Gathering vs 5 Perception, but I'm mostly looking to seek some knowledge.

[Raldo]

Save your money. There's little point in going beyond the minimum requirements at the moment.

I'm at 408 / 392 / 619 and I have zero motivation to go any higher, because it doesn't make a big enough difference. Zero motivation for Supra. Zero motivation to acquire/meld any of the new accessories/belt. My offhand simply has a single T3 Gathering (+5) on it.

[thendcomes]

Gather and HQ chance is increased by 1% every 6 or 7 gather/perception. It would depend on the rest of your stats and whether or not you hit the next plateau, after considering food, fc buff, etc. However, 1% to gather is marginally more valuable than 1% perception due to Deep Vigor / Brunt Force (I could show you the math but I don't think you'd care). So choose wisely!

[chidarake]

since you don't need the stat boosts you'd be better of waiting until after 2.4 in case they introduce new off hand tools.

would be kind of wasteful to meld them right now if they did that.