Why is Crafting still in the game?

[Roth_Trailfinder]

They seem to have taken the position that "Crafting can be either the way to get the best gear, or not the way to get the best gear, and we want it to not be the way to get the best gear".

That means that most people, in seeking the best gear, are going to avoid creating gear, even as a stepping-stone. If its not the best piece, why shoot for an intermediary?

What they need to do would be to offer Untradable materials and recipes, that yield dungeon level gear, that come from dungeons. IE - I run WP, I can get i55 gear as drops. I should also be able to get a crafting piece from there that cannot be sold to players, but can be used to create that same i55 piece.

This would allow people to gear up easier (hello casuals) as long as they had the right crafting classes also leveled up (which is so easy, a caveman could do it - unlock Quick Synthesis and just QS a ton of mats or something if that's what floats your boat). Need to run a dungeon to get a specific drop, but tired of the RNG dictating that you never see it? A crafter would be able to take the generic drop and create it - but only for himself. No selling i55 WP gear, no selling i60 PS gear, no selling i80 CT gear.

Of course, those who loathe crafting would not see any direct benefit from this - but there would be an indirect one. More people to run whatever dungeon they want to get gear from in the short term, and less competition for the stuff that they want, when it does drop, in the long term.

Mythology tomes already offer i90 gear. The new tomes would offer higher level gear than that. It would not surprise me though, if 2.2 would allow the use of myth tomes to purchase myth mats to make i90 gear - meldable i90 gear - that would be just as surpassed by the new tome gear as crafted i70 gear is by purchased myth tome gear. The only question I have in that scenario is : is the new crafting gear going to require philo or myth tomes for the materials?