114790-a-way-to-make-crafting-relevant-without-unbalancing-pve

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Disclaimer: this idea only works for Curcuit Board Crafting, It's the only crafting I have experience of. If you have any similar idea for the other professions add it below!
 
PvE versus Crafting
Crafting and PvE loot is sort of opposing forces. If crafting is better than loot, why do group content (again and again and again)? And if crafting is inferior to loot, why craft?
 
A possible way to get the best of both worlds would be Custom Imbuement Chips that drop as loot. 
 
Custom Imbuement Chips
So you are killing a boss and a Bind on Pickup Custom Resistor drops, and you win the roll. The next time you load up a schematic and click on a chip socket, you get the usual options, and to one side you now have a list of the custom chips in your trade bag, and here you can select this new Custom Resistor.
 
Let's say it is a purple "High Frequency Biobooster Resistor Chip" that is better than the standard (free) resistor chip for Health. So you could craft an item with it and the socket would give more health per energy than the standard chip, resulting in a slightly better item.
 
The catch, of course, is that the stat provided by the chip is locked behind an imbuement to kill the boss the chip dropped from. So in the example above, the item would actually have zero +Health until the player kills the boss that the chip dropped from.
 
These custom chips would be balanced around the content they drop from, so that an item with custom chips and some overcharge is equal to loot drops in that content (a full overcharge using only custom chips might even be better than drops).
 
The advantage of the imbuement is
The items crafted will only unlock their full potential if you "deserve" it, so it won't unbalance progression any more than the items on the Elder Gem vendor.
Allow crafters to sell items crafted with custom chips.
Another option is to not make the custom chips Bind on Pickup. This would let players who do not participate in group content still enjoy high-end crafting by buying these chips on the CX, or when crafting by comission. I am not sure what is best.	
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			Not a bad idea.  There's a whole talent in the weaponsmith talent tree that supposedly reduces the cost of imbuements -- completely failing to recognize that we cannot create anything with an imbuement in it.	
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Give crafters exclusive crafted costumes. Maybe a decor type of costume-crafting, basically attires designed by players. Definitely has to have some limitation however, otherwise things can get out of control. Blinded by discoball resonators!
 
Technologists can make something like Noggengogger Elixir (a costume-potion?)
 
Architects ... well, they have have no impact on PVE, so they are left out. :(	
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