Fishing Gear Progression -- 2016 Style

[Mysterysword]

Okay, so I have FSH at 51, completed all 2.0 FSH quests... and now I've run face-first into a brick wall concerning my DoL gear progression.

For my DoL classes, I have a full HQ Raptorskin set, melded sparingly with tier 1 materia here and there. With this, and the Halcyon Rod, I'm sitting at 234 gathering and 205 perception on FSH, no food or FC buffs.

So this leaves me somewhere short of 60 to 150 gathering short of where I need to be to get Talan's Super Special Supra stuff. All the resources I've found so far seem to be stuck back in 2015, so I really need some up-to-date information on this. Crafting the Forager's set is just plain impossible for me at this point, so I've decided to try going for the Archaeoskin set, which would be easier to HQ.

My biggest question is, even if I have the Archaeoskin set in HQ, would I still have to meld it fully just to meet those horrific Gathering requirements for FSH? And, just as an aside, who on earth do I have to kill for creating these restrictions?