Crafters and gatherers need to have leveled a battle class -and- go through the MQ in said battle class (including passing quite a number if duties) to get into HW content to:
- Be able to do their class quests. (There might be few crafts exluded of this, not sure)
- Be able to get into areas that are gated behind the main quest. Including idyllshire for the craft/gatherer red scrip content. As well as for gatherers to get into areas to gather the stuff.
There were actually people who were crying out about this on HW launch, that they can't level purely crafter/gatherer due the area locks but the answer from general player populace was to shut up and go level a battle class. And no, they don't even have an option to "just ask from someone else" on this.