With the anima weapon grind being tedious, I've turned to crafting.
And when I last left off, I was wearing AF gear, with ilvl 55 accessories, off-hand, and original blue tools. I was in a similar state with gathering.
So I decided to take on the challenge (or rather, the only thing I can do until I breach level 51, I assume) of progressing through the 2.x crafting endgame and making good friends with Talan.
At first I figured I'd see how far I could get without melds since I was gonna replace stuff anyway. I quickly realized I wasn't going to get past lvl 50 1* recipes.
So, some quick (and minimal) melds with food power later, I'm now in possession of the artisan main hands, and ready to leap for Supras and the off-hands. I also took advantage of SE dropping the gathering requirements on old nodes and got my botanist and miner their Supras.
As fun as this has been, how far will all this hold when I tackle Heavensward again from the crafting and gathering perspective? Also, just how much easier (or necessary) will this make the transition into Heavensward leveling? That is, could it be feasible to try out the lvl 51 recipes now?