I have been a crafter/gatherer since about 2 months after this game came out. Honestly I don't really do much else. I do not have a problem with the difficulty of crafting increasing. I enjoy difficulty. The issue I have is I am constantly waiting for crafting gear to catch up and be compatible with raiding gear. So far I hardly ever see this happen. SE claims that they do this to avoid selllable gear being the best because they think it will increase RMT. This change in fact will be what increases RMT. Materials on Lamia are going for 1-5 mil per mat. The crafted gear is going to be selling for tens of millions. This will greatly increase RMT transactions. Crafting is indeed dead and as a crafter I feel an empty 2 year long pit in my soul to a wasted game. I keep waiting for a change to happen and everyone keeps saying "wait for the next patch it will fix things". Well I am done waiting, I'm going back to EVE online.