There are a few options on the table for what to do with the crafting recipe situation. It was never intended for a crafter to have to be a level 45+ adventurer in order to obtain and utilize the recipe.

Will have one of the solutions in place either today or tomorrow as well as revising the armor sets (such as making them all level 50 armor as well as making them more enticing, comparatively). The events within the Shrine of Hegnerian are *ALMOST* complete as well.

There is a team of designers here working diligently on raid content, and they've been doing an awesome job and have a lot planned. With that being said, the raids that were originally planned for the Gorgalog Swamp are being implemented as group content (which doesn't affect any of the already-implemented content, but does mean the breastplates will be made available much sooner).

I've got quite a list of items to address, so I thank you all again for taking the time to offer your feedback / complaints / compliments - I try to take everything into consideration (within reason, of course!).
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Michael Wyatt
Game Designer
Sigil Games

I hated Phinny with a passion. 31 kills before dropping the piece for my Wizzy epic. It seemed like every other kill netted the Bard piece though.../grumble

I was very dissapointed. Because I get less crits, I relied more on regular attacks and Boundless fists+6th dragon strike specificaly. And those are very expensive. Are we ok with the costs?

I don't think anything can touch those early EQ raids.  That's truly where raiding got it's start in my opinion.  Watching the single file line of us running out of vox or naggy's room was always hilarious with the limited resist gear that was available at that time.