weapons & armor questionFollow

are the item you can craft, like weapons and armor, any good? or are they the same or worse than any common drops you can find at any particular level?

Until you get to tier 6, anything player made is going to better than common drops from the same tier. The only point where you might want to stick to drops would be the very beginning of the game - tier 1 - say till about lvl 10 or 12

I craft leather and cloth armor with my lvl 33 tailor and find the the stats on both are much better than any of the equivalent drops I have seen on the broker. My warden and fury are each decked out in complete sets of player made leather. My ranger wears a full set of player made chainmail.

Usually, I use drops as a "temporary fix" while I transition into a new tier and replace them with player made as soon as I can afford it.

As far as weapons go, I would much rather have a player crafted imbued weapon than anything that drops except maybe a heritage item or something from a high end raid... but since I am not in a raiding guild and nowhere near the end game, the player made stuff will do just fine for me!