undead skillz and crafting skill question

as title with the undead skills, is it possble to raise the mummified undead skill to cancel out the the decay rate on the summons.

On crafting skills is there any point to raise the gather skills production skills past gm other then the
Meticulous Collection skills

 

You're not likely to get to -100% Death Decay using the mummified undead passive alone, but there are other means of stacking this stat. Jewelry enchantments, artifacts, etc. I've had summons that would never decay during combat, as long as they landed a death drain on a mob every now and then, though I'm not completely sure that the decay really goes to 0 even at -100%. Certainly it can get close enough that it doesn't seem to matter.

Various crafting skills do indeed benefit from high levels! For gathering the main skill (Mining, Forestry, Field Dressing, etc) determines crit rate, and can be usefully raised to an effective level of 149. I'm not sure if raising it higher than that still helps. This is also what determines the exceptional rate on various crafting tables. I also like having a rather high Swift Gathering skill in each tree, and the little bit of time saved here and there really adds up.

 

Of note, when you have a crit when harvesting, you don’t get any extra xp, but you do get a harvesting speed boost.