Gathering Goblin,... as Healer?!

Excuse me Please:

I now have before me the choice of releasing the Gathering Goblin, and receiving a Gardening Mercenary (Fury/Ranger or some such)
While I am loath to lose the every 2 hour now Rare-harvesting Goblin, the 64 slot backpack and "higher tier(?)" mercenary seem provocative.

What has been others' experience with this, primarily from a melee/scout point of view, Gardening Mercenary?
[will avoid the gardening puns, for now ]
Is he a good healer for a scout? what about a healer for a tank?
Can he tank well himself? or is he basically an expensive squishy?
How well does his healing abilities compare to Perrin?

Thanks for the input.

The expansion pre-order merc (Claz'zakla) is the ranger/druid hybrid. The gardening goblin is primarily a "brigand" and has a heal proc on his combat hits. As far as I've experienced he can't cure or cast a heal on the group other than the combat proc, unlike Claz'zakla who can cure and heal. The goblin saved my character when he fell off a cliff under attack and had his health go down to red, and the goblin's attack on the mob healed him back up before the mob could finish him off.

so if I understand correctly, the gardening goblin would NOT serve as a replacement for Perrin,...

Ok, seemed to have missed something. What 64 slot bag?

When you do the quests to free your gathering goblin, for the final quest reward you get a houseplant that will give you a KA rare once every 23 hours, access to the goblin merc, and a 64 slot appearance backpack which is heirloom (so you can put it in a shared bank slot).

To clarify the backpack is actually a collection reward, but you have to do the release the goblin quests to completion to get the final piece of the collection.

Personally, I released my goblin for the house plant that gives the new rares. I can get far more of the old rares faster just going out and getting them myself than the gathering goblin ever brought back. With the plant, I'm guaranteed one of the new KA rares every day (that I choose to visit my plant).

Ok, must not have finished the collection but did the quest.

Here is the EQ2U link to the bag: Gardener's Backpack
EQTraders explains how to get the bag in the Kunark Ascending Crafting & Housing Preview article (Tradeskill Collections section).

You may have missed the non-goblin quest related pieces of the collection. I think they were in the cave you go through to Fens.

wow i missed the bag too