as a level 60 dol do i need to meld my accessories to be top tier?

[papichulo123]

and what is the best gear?

[Shadygrove]

YES

I'm still working on that best part.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

The best gear is the i180 bought gear, and the i170 crafted, max-melded gear.

I180 is bought with Red Gathering Scrip. Fortunately, or unfortunately, there is no overlap as there is with the crafting classes; for any given slot, if it can be crafted there is no i180 version, and if it can be bought for red scrip there is no i170 crafted version.

[AskaRay]

None of my accs/belt/offhands are melded BUT I do have all red scrip gear/mainhand.
I'm able to gather everything in game just fine...

I'd say wait on melding until the next patch to see which stats you need to focus on more.

[Danieros]

Need? Not really, you'll be investing millions of gil for marginal increases in your gathering rate of 60* items:

- Diadem mats: You have 90 minutes to gather them to your heart's content. They aren't unspoiled, they aren't legendary, they aren't even hidden.
- Favor mats: They are rare so you are limited to one per node, so it doesn't matter much to push your gathering rate so high.
- Legendary mats: This is the most interesting one since they are unspoiled (legendary), so you want to reach something like 85% if you want to 100% gather with the 15% gathering buff, or if you want to go past that and gather using the 5% buff only.

For Perception, it's worthless for favor mats but the most important thing for legendary mats.

Looking into the future, if you are able to gather from two-star nodes as soon as they are made available your profit should be enormous, but that's some risky business since not all i170 crafted gear is available yet, it might be best to save up to make them as soon as they are made available instead of spending it on melding current gear.