Edit: Never mind I found my answer
here.
Quote:
Gathering: This stat effects how fast your remainder bar is depleted. The remainder bar goes down faster when you are attempting to obtain a rare/difficult material (i.e Mahogany branches/logs at rank 30). The higher your Gathering stat, the more attempts you'll have at finding the correct hit zone to obtain your material. I've tested this by using Mahogany Logs / Branches at rank 30 by doing two separate tests:
1) While lowering my Gathering stat by removing my body piece, whenever I encountered a Mahogany Branch, I would only get 2 attempts before my remainder bar hit zero and for the logs I would only get 1 attempt.
2) With full Gathering gear, while looking for the same items, whenever I encountered a Mahogany Branch, I would get 3 attempts before my remainder bar hit zero (as opposed to only 2 attempts without my body piece and lower Gathering), and for the log, I'd get 2 attempts instead of one.
As for harvesting, I believe that Gathering may simply effect your success rate while harvesting, but this I have not tested.
Edited, Jun 28th 2011 5:29pm by CupDeNoodles
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