Quote Originally Posted by Sollux View Post
The reason Crafting items being BIS was an issue was because progression raiders were clearing Endgame raids MUCH faster than they were intended to be finished, IIRC FCOB was cleared within 2 weeks of it's release.
It was cleared the week of release. The issues are three-fold.

Firstly, SE have decided that they want the top raids balanced so that the top groups cannot clear them in just a couple of weeks, regardless of what resources they have available and regardless of what knock-on effect that has on the rest of the raiding population.

Secondly, forbidden melding. The fact that as soon as there's even one materia slot on an item, there are really five materia slots on an item means that anything with a materia slot has the capacity to be melded into something far more powerful than its item level would normally allow for. That's still the case even with secondary stats being as de-emphasized as they have been in 3.0. If the crafted i110 items in 2.4 had not had materia slots, the majority of them would have been much less desirable for progression raiders.

Thirdly, SE having no idea what they really want crafted gear to be. They've said they want it to function as catch-up gear, but have set up the methods of obtaining materials in such a way that the cost is completely prohibitive to their functioning as such. Why would I spend tens of millions of gil on a piece of armor when I can get something more-or-less equivalent in a matter of two/four weeks from Alexander Normal?