Quote Originally Posted by Februs View Post
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Thank you for thoughtful reply. I was not attempting to directly the difficulty of end game raid to end game crafting in terms of difficulty. Raid is clearly harder.

End game crafting is just as time and Gil consuming though.
We have to gather; waiting for unspoiled nodes to appear to get the mats, praying to RNG the whole time. And / Or we have run dungeons and win drops for mats.
Use those mats to craft collectables.
Turn in those collectables for Scripts.
Use those scripts to buy end game mats.
Then finally, we get our chance to do the final 3 minute long craft, which even with the best gear, is still subject to RNG, 2 failed Hasty Touches and the craft goes from 100% HQ to 60% real fast. Not enough Good conditions, and there will not be enough CP to execute the maximized finisher rotation. If any of this RNG badness happens, we then must pray again to RNG that Reclaim does not lose our mats.

Yes, crafters can and do take Gil short cuts and buy the mats off the MB; but so can a DoW buy a clear anyone?
With regards to the relic, requiring optional class (crafting / gathering) for optional content is fine.