Crafters and Gathers.. Need Help!!

[Raldo]

Short answer:
The 340 gear is better if it's HQ and if you overmeld it.


Longer answer:
While the melded 340 gear can be better, it can obviously cost a lot to do that. If you're not planning on making money crafting the newest gear to recoup your meld costs, then the cheap scrip gear is probably your best bet. It's also worth noting that different pieces take different amounts of materia to make the 340 better than the 350. For example, the DoH 340 gloves only require a single T6 control materia to be (slightly) superior to the 350 gloves (though you should certainly continue to meld more to get the most out of them). Whereas, the DoH 340 body would require at least 3 materia before it becomes better than the 350 body.

Overmelding DoL gear generally isn't going to recoup the cost of melding, so you probably shouldn't bother doing that unless you need to reach certain stat thresholds for something.


Sassy answer:
You should have access to all the information you need to answer this yourself in-game (or heck, even out of game if you want to dig through a gear database). Look at the 340 gear, note the stats. Look at the 350 gear, note the stats. Can you make the 340 gear have higher stats by melding it? Voila, you have your answer. I don't have either the 340 gear or the 350 gear yet, and I was able to answer this question just by comparing the stats on the gear while sitting through a meeting at work. Chances are, if you had to ask this question, you're unlikely to craft enough to recoup the costs of melding the 340 gear.