Newbie Druid seeking advice

[HelloPancake]

Hi, like many-- I haven't played EQ for 15 years and only recently found P99 and I feel like a complete newbie all over again. Adult life is going to keep me out of the raid scene so I figured I could start gathering materials and hire a tailor to have cultural armor created.

To cut to the chase, I am level 16 and I have started to farm all the materials (acorns/pebbles etc) for Halfling reinforced vale armor (Figure it will be the best I will have for a long time) but I noticed the Imbued Mithril that the high elves can make and its making me wonder if I chose the wrong race! That armor is equal in AC but superior in wisdom and SVM, only loses out on the stamina. Considering I may never have groups/raid groups to get the really good stuff-- the crafted might be my best gear for life-- is this suit worth changing race for ? (I really like my hide skill, going from 50 hide to 1 hide [wood elf] could that noticeably hurt the failure rate?) Even as a casual, can I gather better stuff individually rather than commit to this crafted?

Also the wiki doesn't say how rare morning dew/swirling mist/essence of moonlight is.. though I could start gathering it all very early (ak anon steam elementals at 10ish, forage from the start as a wood elf in the faydarks--only thing I don't know about are the essence of moonlight)

Any help is appreciated!