Future Endgame gear vs crafted gear with Materia.

[Dragon]

I'm going to agree with waht a couple of people have said.
Bring in Abj's.

For a long time in xi things like heca, shura, dalmaticas & zenith were incredibly sought after pieces. and they required buying a cursed dalmatica and then going out to kill odin or I forget which hnm to get the abjuration to purify it. required high level crafters and a decent group of people to do the fights. in many ways the perfect system.

Other examples included things like the scorpion harnesses and haubies etc. considered incribly strong pieces and required drops from various hnm/ksnm kinda stuff. all crafted items and for along time amoung the best available. still crafted but often required a fight somewhere to obtain the materials

Yeah, something like this.

I mean, who says you can't have endgame drops consist of ingredients instead of armor? Been done, and much better this way.

It could even be further integrated into the Materia system we have now to give a better balance, imagine it: let's take a Cursed Body that someone crafts, then take your abjuration, and finally you have to hunt for a raid-only materia that itself has to be "uncursed".

[Airget]

Yeah, something like this.

I mean, who says you can't have endgame drops consist of ingredients instead of armor? Been done, and much better this way.

It could even be further integrated into the Materia system we have now to give a better balance, imagine it: let's take a Cursed Body that someone crafts, then take your abjuration, and finally you have to hunt for a raid-only materia that itself has to be "uncursed".

DOL, they are already doing it with the Vampire plant, if they add to many ingredients gained through DOW/DOM then what purpose does DOL serve in all of this?

Rather than ingredients perhaps something more evil. Schematics which can only be used a certain amount of times ranging from NQ 3 to HQ +3 10 charges.

Basically these schematics would allow a crafter to craft said piece 3-10 times based on how many charges they've purchased and once done they wouldn't be able to synth it again til they got their hands on the schematics again.

The only way you can obtain these schematics is through DOW/DOM dungeons so a new synergistic path would be create in which DOM/DOM <--->DOH are relying on one another rather than the current DOM/DOW -Needs-> DOH <-Needs-> DOL
-------------------------

Perhaps a schematic could be 50& of the strength of the rare drop in said dungeon while the HQ version could be 75% strength of the rare armor HOWEVER you would be able to put materia on these pieces of armor which would allow those willing to risk it to produce something stronger then say

Darklight Cuirass
Str : +15, Vit : +15, Attack Power : +20, Crit Attack Power : +50, Evasion : -10, Healing Magic Potency : -30
NQ Synth (Meldable):
Str : +7, Vit : +7, Attack Power : +10, Crit Attack Power : +25, Evasion : -20, Healing Magic Potency : -60
HQ Synth (Meldable):
Str : +11, Vit : +11, Attack Power : +15, Crit Attack Power : +38, Evasion : -15, Healing Magic Potency : -45

Or perhaps let's say with the above you fight the chimera and beat him in 25 mins. By doing that you are guaranteed to get the "Synthetic Darklight Cuirass" Schematc which can range from 1-10 charges depending on how lucky you are. Or course you would be able to sell these through the MW or give them to your fellow LS crafters.

I think this would be a better way to balance the usefulness of dungeons without making DOH gear incompetent to use. With the above you have the choice of sticking with the "Darklight Cuirass" if that's what you want and are happy with those stats, or you can take a hit on the stats offered and try your luck at melding to customize your needs.