Alchemy and Armorsmithing required?

[AttacKat]

Are they by any means required for successful 2/3 star crafts, or should I be able to get through without too much trouble?

I plan to pick up blacksmithing later for ingeunity, but I can't help but doubt if the cross-skills offered by alchemy and armorsmithing are worth picking up.

IMHO, don't even look into doing 2 or 3 stars without first max all your classes, and your HQ AF gears melded to 391/374/354.

You can try to do some 2 stars, but whatever you make will generally cost you a lot more because you will need to use HQ mats more frequently. When profit is already low at only a few K per HQ item, last thing you need is cut it down even more.

Crafting isn't like DoW/M where you can level just one class and get BiS gear. To do 3 stars, especially if you want to HQ them, you will need/want ALL your DoH at 50.