End Game Craft VS Loot / Drops / Rewards?

Vaerth

If the crafting gear (weapons and armor) as effective end game as it is from drops or rewards? What I mean is, at the max rank will I be using quest rewards or loot drop set over the best crafting gear? Aside from making gold, is crafting weapons and armor equal to what you find or earn at end game? Like armor sets?

I like crafting, but if at the end game content it is superior to use what the quests give or bosses drop, then why bother if not only to make gold and help with leveling?

Ashigaru

the only way to get legendary items is through crafting so i think it would be work it to lvl up. You can take that nice purple drop and upgrade it and the reduction in regents you get from lvling a craft up even if you didnt make anything is worth it just to upgrade any looted gear.

Shimond

You'll need to either craft or find a crafter (if the item isn't bound) to get the very best gear in the game - since it's via upgrading items.

Vaerth

Awesome, I like hearing that. I enjoy crafting, it has been quite fun. I was just worried it would become useless at vet ranks with end game loot having the chance of being superior. As long as crafted gear can match top gear then it is totally worth it to me

Kyotee0071

You don't have to craft, but it seems most folks are. I have never enjoyed crafting in any MMO. As stated before you can only upgrade your gear to legendary through crafting, or pay a crafer to do the job.

Also Item sets can be tweaked to your stats. As an actual crafter you can tweak these to your taste. As a non crafter it could be a bit harder / take longer to "minimax" your gear.

With that said if you didn't craft, you would have more skill points to put to different builds (though there are supposed to be 350 or so, so plenty in the long run) and have more play style choices. Also you wouldn't have the headache of bank inventory space that crafters deal with.

On top of that, you could actually sell all your gear drops you don't use for Gold, and all the crafting mats you gather as you quest and run around leading to a plentiful supply of gold for more bank and bag space earlier, faster mounts earlier, and could probably just buy whatever gear you actually need with all the $$$ in your bag. The process of gearing up optimally could be slower though as you would have to hire crafters.

Choices, choices!