One of the gremlins on bazaar should have the ability to decrease a weapon/armor's level.
"Why would you do this?" you may ask.
Well, for example if you want to chose another line for your weapon without sacrificing your UVs.
Or if want a different 5* without creating a new weapon from scratch.
How would this affect accessories though?
It's not a bad idea, but I'd be surprised to see it implemented, because it kind of undermines Three Rings' business model. Requiring players to craft duplicates of base gear in order to explore multiple lines increases CE demand for crafting. Negimasonic's suggestion would go aways towards mitigating this, but still, it's more beneficial to Three Rings for players to be buying enough CE to go from 2* to 5* five times than it is for them to be going from, say, 2* to 3 or 4* once, then getting cheaper downgrades to experiment with loadouts.
to be honest, I've pondered a suggestion like this for awhile, but I thought I'd be crazy to post it...
So I support this since someone else is crazy too :D I probably wouldn't use this but you never know, it's even more useful now since some people could use their awesome UVs in tier 2 PVP and whatnot. I think paying half the cost for the upgrade would be decent for downgrading an item, it probably wouldn't get used much though.
Like 4 to 5* is 800 energy and 5000 crowns, well to reverse that its 400 energy and 2500 crowns.