Please don't gate 3.2 crafted gear behind specialists.

[keyburz]

If you want to waste money melding the lvl 150 universal set that may become completely useless for the next set of released crafted recipies, by all means go ahead. Both of you are ignoring the fact that a lot of people new to crafting, which the specialist system is designed for, dont have a lot of money to pay for something like melds. And if they cant pay for melds to reach sky pirates recipies, they simply dont craft it, or take a very long time to obtain scrips gear, which is one of two reasons very few people are crafting it. The other being the gear itself only being used for spiritbonding to hopefully get a tier 5.

Both of you are forgetting your position in life. We are way ahead of anyone new to the game. We were there before this. We have the experiance, we have the funding, we have the connections, maybe a guild to help with crafting, friends to exchange materials or rotations. Specialist system is for people new to crafting. And its just fine. But that requires either melding the 150 set (lot of money) or scrip gear (lot of time). A new crafter has neither of this, unless this new crafter is an old player with money.

If youre curious btw how much money someone has that does not participate in any aspect of money making, I have a friend that's been around since the game started, only does raiding and stays current on relic. He has 3m saved up over several years. Doesnt run dungeons, no need to farm that aside from the light farming of old stages. Doesnt make materia. Doesnt do side quests. Doesnt farm tomes unless it happens to be best in slot, or the best obtainable gear he can get until the raid content can drop what he needs. Only 3 million. And that could be burned up instantly in some "penta melds" that you seem to think are so cheap for the new crafter, on gear that is near the end of its life very soon. Some unfortunate rng and wrong timing on materia purchasing and that 3m doesnt even pay for half of the meld requirements.
This is someone from the very beginning of the game. Now imagine someone that joined because they heard about the expansion.