You can't get the catchup gear without overmelding?

[Zorafin]

Overmelding has prevented me from crafting since ARR. It's such a dumb system that benefits nobody and just serves to make the game more boring.

With the crafting changes in 3.3, I thought now would be a good time to try upgrading my crafting gear. I got a new primary tool, which was nice and simple. And I otherwise have the best gear a fresh 60 can get. But I'm still nowhere near the requirements for the next upgrade! By the looks of it, I'm expected to cram a bunch of materia into my gear at an abysmal chance to reach those requirements, and that just doesn't seem enjoyable.

Why have they made crafting so complicated and frustrating? It was fun until 50.
Oh well. Maybe next patch they'll make secondary tools easier to get, and that will give me enough points to reach the 2* requirement.
Or... looks like Beet Soup gives me the required stats for this. I should try that...