Future Endgame gear vs crafted gear with Materia.

[AdvancedWind]

But the gear DOESN'T end in crafting, even with materia. Sure, it is possible to make some materia gear that are unquestionably BiS, but the cost and luck needed to do that is ridiculous, plain and simple.

Did you ever try to meld 3X Tier IV materia into something? Now imagine doing that for all eight gear slots. Now imagine doing that for every class you play.

It's safe to assume that a good deal of players might be able to craft or buy one or two pieces of BiS gear with materia, some players might even craft many of these, but saying that this possibility overshadows the usefulness of raid drops is insanity, specially since many raid drops have stats that ain't even available from materia.

Raid gear will always be useful, because it's impossible to make some kind of ultimate gear set with materia only unless you're ready to dump billions of gil into it. Billions!

Edit: (ok, maybe not billions)