Crafting is useless?

[Nofacekiller]

I heard crafting is useless? Are there any plans to make it more useful? Perhaps similar to what World of Warcraft or FFXI have done?

[ElHeggunte]

It depends on what people mean by useless. If you mean in relation to gearing up, then yeah it's pretty lackluster. High level equipment is tedious to make and it still pales in comparison to raid and tomestone gear. However, there are plenty of other items like consumables that are useful. Crafting is also indirectly one of the only sources of materia too (since you can only convert crafted gear).

[Alkimi]

I'd say it's more useful than those 2 games. People always need food and stat potions (well, good players do).

Also, the last tier of crafted gear was generally better than i100 with good melds, despite only being i90. Doesn't really matter so much now since sands and oils rain from the sky but from 2.2 to 2.3 they were really good if you had the money to spend.

[The_Last_Dragoon]

Crafting is probably the best way to both make and lose money in this game. The desynth materia goes for hundreds of thousands of gil and Crafters are needed in order to make vanity and housing items. In addition, in order to meld materia into a piece of gear you need to have the required level with the gears associated crafting origin. In a sense, without crafting you cannot effectively farm for expensive Grade IV materia or put up items for sale that go beyond base materials. Not to mention that the crafting mini-game takes a bit of skill to master and be quite entertaining if you're actively trying to make HQ products.

So if you simply want to do dungeons and not mess around with Vanity for your character, make millions of gold, create unique housing items, or invest into what SE may inevitably bring out for crafters in terms of end-game gear, then it's probably not for you.

[Roris]

Vanity, food, main stat potions and poison pots, more vanity, gear for lower level classes if you didn't save old gear, repairs anywhere, even more vanity, some money making if you get lucky with RNG or that particular market isn't crashed already, that's about it.

[Coatl]

It's useful if you want gil.

[kyuven]

the ability to perform field repairs is an often overlooked but very powerful ability. It's cheaper than repairing as well. Kind of an investment, though, since you need to be lvl 40+ with everything except culinarian to be able to repair every type of gear.
That plus vanity gear, housing, potions, materia, and food.

[Elim]

I guess it's useless if you consider being filthy stinking rich (in-game) is useless.

[Violyre]

the ability to perform field repairs is an often overlooked but very powerful ability. It's cheaper than repairing as well. Kind of an investment, though, since you need to be lvl 40+ with everything except culinarian to be able to repair every type of gear.
That plus vanity gear, housing, potions, materia, and food.

This is exactly the reason I chose my crafts in an order. I can repair everything on my WHM now, and with my miner, once I get blacksmithing up, I won't have to leave to repair when I'm totally in a zen gathering moment.

[TimGoodacre]

All the things people mention above. The question is "useless for what?". I really enjoy crafting. I probably do more of it than anything else in the game. It is an aspect of the game in its own right with its own progression challenges and stands on its own feet, as well as being very supportive of other aspects of the game. Perhaps people who like only crafting (and I know a couple) think that dungeons are "useless" or hunts are "useless" except for the loot they drop for crafters. Just thinking aloud.