I believe that you need both of them to complete it. X_X It would have been much better if its one or the other to complete it so that if you are a crafter at heart you can do it that way and if you want to fight instead do it the other way. (Maybe they could have increased the amount of crafted items for that)

My main problem is not he first two steps. Even the last one would have been better if it was only the collected items but having to collect them and crafting specialist items is way overdone. Maybe if it would have been the best weapon for the next half year than it would have hurt less but I can already see it coming that I will already have a much better weapon before I will finish it.