Quote Originally Posted by RhaegarFFXIFenrir View Post
End game raid and token gear are coming with materia sockets. As these gears are not crafted, we shouldn't have to hunt down a crafter in order to meld materia into them.
I couldn't agree more... I was just coming to the forms to create this thread if it didn't exist... I am fine if they keep it for crafted gear, or at least crafting/gathering gear... But for the new slots, I wish they just set it free to allow anyone to meld gear if they had the items.

I have my crafts able to do most of this, back in 2.0 I still wanted the ability to free this system from crafting. I get that they want to keep it crafting relevant, but it is, I don't think removing mateira from their skill set will hurt them much, but rather drive up demand for materia, making more and more people use it, because it isn't a pain to do so.