Quote Originally Posted by Whiteroom View Post
There has been a Dev statement. They stated it well before the expansion. The crafted gear was OP and allowed for far faster clearing of the raids than was ever intended, Yoshi said they wouldn't be making it that powerful again. As to why they made weaker gear, harder to craft, the logic eludes me.

It's my opinion that a lot of RMT revolved around buying and melding these pieces, so if it helps curb some buying, I don't mind.
3 parter here, I can't post it all in one post...

Again ty for the responses. I have heard that this statement was made before, I just must have never read or heard it. If what you say is true thats fine I guess, but I dont see how that gear was OP, even with 5 tier 4 materias a lot of the top top top crafted gear paled in comparison to what you could already get from dungeons alone, but I have no real proof to back up my opinion, thats just how I saw it based on looking at the gear's stats and doing simple comparisons.