An Analysis Of The Crafting Endgame

[Lastelli]

And that's really the point. They need to find a way to let crafting be in parity with drops.

No, that would we a catastrophe. Drops from savage should always be the best gear in the game, or you'll just see the top guilds using their crafters and gatherers as slaves just to have crafted gear as soon as possible and have a slight advantage for progression, which actually happened in ARR, though crafting high end gear was way easier back then. Also, crafters are a minority and raiders would really get pissed at devs if they do what you're suggesting (tanks are already complaining that they have to buy ilvl150 accessories, mind you), so having to choose which side to displease, they'll probably choose crafters. Moreover, devs clearly said that crafted gear will no longer be optimal for progression, this is the main point they were considering when designing the new DoH/DoL system. If they want to fix it, they'll have to find other ways.

if Void Ark is to drop ilvl 200 gear, will people still buy crafted gear?

Are people actually buying that stuff? I think 3 or 4 pieces of gear have been sold on my server (for DoW/M).