Those +Harvesting Skills are Not Useless!
stargrace 
I used to wonder what harvesting skills were good for. I never bothered actually putting ON any of the gear that would raise the stats, unless I was in a zone where my skill wasn’t high enough to even reach the nodes.
Until Sentinel’s Fate, and I required rares to make expert spells that I simply didn’t want to fork out the cash for. To the left is what my current harvesting skills are at. This is with Ellithia (wood elf mystic) using the Grandmaster crafter earring, the reinforced dwarven work boots (drop from the final named in unrest), the harvesters cloak, tinkering tools that raise the stats, the harvest mount sold in Mara (10 tokens and 40k faction later), and the artisan tool set that raises harvesting statistics by a little amount.
For those who don’t know, the chances of you getting a rare are based on your skill vs. the skill required by the zone. The higher your skill is OVER that level, the higher your chances of getting a rare are.
To test this theory I set out on Ellithia for three hours, running around Sentinel’s Fate zones. Most of my time was spent actually looking for places to harvest that wouldn’t require too much killing, or having to fight off other players. By the time all was said and done I walked away with 15 rares, although for some odd reason not a single rare pelt was found despite the fact that I harvested more pelts then anything else (I mean significantly more). Pleased? Yes, I really was. I’ve stashed all of these rares along with Hamal’s rares in my guild bank for the time being. Set aside to make pretty furniture for the guild hall that should be coming up VERY soon. Dragon’s Flight managed to clench on to level 29 yesterday, which I am very excited about.
Brisbane day starts tomorrow, which is always great for a laugh. Happy gaming, and I’ll see you in Norrath!