DoH Gearing?

[RiversideGuy]

Am I correct in thinking that jewelry means absolutely nothing when equipped for any of the 3 DoH modes (i.e. gear ilvl is irrelevant)? Yeah, know all about stacking Gathering & Perception on left hand side gear!

[AskaRay]

When you are leveling, not as much, unless you are really hurting-
oh you mean DoL? Disciple of Land? So gathering?

No it doesn't matter when leveling unless you need GP for some reason. It does matter after you are leveled for endgame though, if you want to gather high level items, you will probably need to meld materia to reach Gathering and Perception minimums.

[MeridaQ]

600 gp minimum for endgame.

[Niwashi]

(Assuming you mean DoL since you mentioned Gathering & Perception, and that there are 3 of them.)

Jewelry does nothing for Fishing (though it's not a bad idea to equip some just to spiritbond it). Its Gathering Points are important for Miner and Botanist, though, and that's not just at endgame. It's important while leveling it, too. You're going to want access to your skills, particularly for increasing HQ chances and in some cases gathering chances. The more GP you start with, the better. (Unfortunately though, it doesn't increase the rate at which GP is recovered after using it.)

At level 15, though, not all jewelry slots have available DoL gear yet. You can use Copper Earrings from level 7 on, and a Hard Leather Choker at 15. The first useful bracelets, Hard Leather Wristbands Of Gathering, come in at level 17, but the first DoL ring is a Goatskin Ring available at level 20.

[CGMidlander]

600 gp minimum for endgame.

Yeah 600 is pretty much the minimum if you want to do collectibles.
650 is desirable for 100% gather chance though. (The red scrip stuff caps at 95% naturally atm, and 50 GP allows for a +5% gathering rate skill)

[RiversideGuy]

My bad, meant DoL, d/oh. So there is jewelry w/GP, nice, although such amounts are only marginally useful. I am taking each of the three gathering professions in chunks of five levels... and seeing that each set requires a slightly different strategy, even within the same profession.

[Nutz]

While leveling GP is useful, but not necessary. Most of the time you won't have it (because it replenishes so slowly), but it's very nice for the nodes where you can use it. HQ items yield much more exp than NQ and sometimes you'll want to increase your gathering chance (particularly on items you've never gathered before since those will cap at 25% until gathered the first time). Keeping jewelry up to date (and/ or HQ) is more a luxury than anything while leveling. Like others have said 600 is necessary (more or less) at 60 to do any endgame gathering, while 650+ is very nice to have.

As a side note, if using a DoL retainer they never need any jewelry (or any purely perception pieces really) except to meld gathering materia into it if desired/ required. All of their ventures are based on the gathering stat.

[RiversideGuy]

Hmmmmm, a DoL retainer... I need to contemplate that. I have my free 2, one I am leveling, the other has 1-2 slots left (she can take anything she already has).

[Niwashi]

While leveling GP is useful, but not necessary. Most of the time you won't have it (because it replenishes so slowly), but it's very nice for the nodes where you can use it. HQ items yield much more exp than NQ and sometimes you'll want to increase your gathering chance (particularly on items you've never gathered before since those will cap at 25% until gathered the first time). Keeping jewelry up to date (and/ or HQ) is more a luxury than anything while leveling.

Those Field Mastery (BTN) / Sharp Vision (MIN) skills that increase your chance of getting an item are really good for (as you mentioned) the first time you try to gather something, but also any time you're gathering items that you're a bit too under-leveled to get easily yet. They're also really good for the type of levequests that have you choose between one easy-to-gather item and another harder-to-gather item that gives more points (where higher point totals turn into bonus XP if you reach certain thresholds).

The Leaf Turn (BTN) / Unearth (MIN) skills that increase HQ chances not only increase the XP for the gathering itself, but you'll often (usually it seems) be after the HQ results. HQ gathered items give twice the XP for Provisioning missions, better HQ success rates if you're going to be crafting with it, or better prices at the MB.

And the various Ward skills you get at level 20 make gathering shards go quite a bit quicker, but they are pretty costly in GP at first.

Those are the important ones I've reached so far. Bountiful Harvest / King's Yield sound promising, but I rarely have the GP to spend on them (since for anything that can be HQ, I'd rather spend it on Leaf Turn / Unearth).

I haven't reached endgame with my gathering classes (39 and 40 so far for BTN/MIN), so can't speak to that part. GP may well become more important once you reach endgame. While leveling, at least you can eventually get whatever you're trying for even without it, but I find the benefits listed above plenty of reason to make it worth keeping jewelry fairly up-to-date while leveling as well.