materia and combat classes.

[Zanfire]

I think what was suggested by the devs is fine. Gatherers find the catalyst. Crafters attach materia. Adventurers use the gear and convert it to materia or request new/better materia. No one's really getting the short end of the stick here, all types of classes are involved unless I've misunderstood something.

From my understanding gear can be converted to materia at a certain point which crafters then have to attach to new gear with the catalyst the gatherers get.

what i mean is the only people who nead to really "waste" anything are the combat classes, they must have their gear "consumed" (aka: it goes away) to do our part of the system. Crafters equip it (loose nothing) gathers get them from mining or w/e (loose nothing).

i think the only reason it goes away is because they cant come up with a way of making the gear show its been used (maybe a coding thing?)