What confuses me about crafting is that they split the Blacksmith into two subprofessions. The two blacksmith professions, namely Weaponsmith, seem to have a lot less things to do that other professions. Weaponsmith really just at most fills two slots of people. Very laughable in comparison to what other people get.

Even if you would combine both Blacksmith professions, seeing how many extras the other professions get, they would still not be ahead of the later. The only thing they have going for them is that Heavy Armor users are all tanks, and tanks are massively gear dependent in their performance.

It gets even more confusing when you realize that there are 6 forms of harvest (metal, stone, gemstone, wood, leather, cloth). I would have done something in analogy to the forms of harvest:

Blacksmith - Metal Heavy Armor (but no Shields), Metal Weapons (Short Sword, Longsword, Greatsword, Axe, Greataxe, Martial Sword, Bladed Staff), Arrow Heads, Bolts, House Fasteners, Mast Mounts

Jeweler - Jewelry, Face Masks, Talismans, Enhancement Gems for Socketed Weapons, Runes

Mineralogist - Stone Weapons (Mace, Hammer, Greatmaul), Stone Damage Focus, House Bricks, Carvings

Carpenter - Wood Shields, Wood Weapons (Staff, Club, Martial Staff, Bow, XBow), Weapon Hilts, Arrows, Wood Healing Focus, Music Instruments, Ship Planks, Ship Assembly, House Chests

Leatherworker - Leather Weapon (Handwraps), Leather Medium Armor, Saddlebags, Crafting Leather Gear

Tailor - Cloth Light Armor [Robe], Sling, Bags, Bandages, Crafting Cloth Gear, Ship Sails

This way I would have toned down the Mineralogist, which is currently kind of the king profession of crafters, and given the Carpenter who is almost as jobless as the Blacksmiths (basically Carpenter only does Ships and Bows) a bit extra (esp Music Instruments should be important).

That was not necessarily true. As a weaponsmith from realease to 09 I've made a total of 80 platinum just from selling weapons ALONE. You just had to know what kind of weapons that would sell. There is only 1 ultimate weapon in cashing in on. It was the weapons that used the STRIKING enhancement. That was the only type you'd craft and sell because those striking types of weapon were far superior than most questable weapons.

Now days all crafting professions are basically useless because there's not enough people in the game to make a living off them. Before I left the game I've given pretty much all my money to old friends and guildies that were still playing. Funny thing is, just yesterday I was looking to buy something but couldn't find it in the exchange broker and had to pay a hefty sum of money to get someone to craft it. But anything to help guildies I suppose. Back to being broke and cant make much money anymore from crafting. Go figure.

Yes, Striking is highly desired.

I would like to point out that I took the freedom of rearranging the weapon types, too - I gave slings (a weapon that doesnt exist in Vanguard at all right now) to Tailors, I removed Spears (should have gone to Carpenter, but I forgot listing that) and all blunt weapons (went to Minerlogist) from Smith.

So your striking weapons (the hammers) would now be done by Minerlogist (who right now cant put Striking on their Stone Hammers). They would have lost Jewelry though.

Well, it is logical from a realistic point, it is a huge different between smithing a weapon and a armor.

A sword usually mixes different quality of steel in it, soft and hard to get the perfect mix between durability and shard edge. In fact most well made weapons like spears and axes are done in similar techniqes.

Armors on the other hand needs durability and a shape that reflects blows, the both are very different to make.

As I see it is the problem more that they havn´t included enough things to make.