Aside from helping people clear dungeons to move to the next town as I posted previously, not much.
Even hunting for magatamas usually requires a 5/5 party to get the level modifier right and increase enemies = more chances of dropping that magatama. I wish they make some dungeons solo friendly for those without effective AOE skills like Bows and Twin Swords.
True vit spear is right now best in terms of wave clear, followed by i don't know maybe odachi? haven't really seen them at all. I'm carrying SF hell just fine with my bows even though its abit slow averaging 8 min currently, but its still doable and quite easily actually.
Also, what???? people only leach cause they're helpless otherwise WHAT???? In my screenshot, the lvl 70 is a sword/odachi user fit perfectly to your description. The 75 is a bow user sure, but if I can help clear, why do those 2 just stand around like a level 20 afraid of anything and everything that moves??? What stops you from helping out killing the 1 or 2 mob that decides not to follow the carry anymore? Whats stopping them from helping output aoe damage when the carry gather the mob, provided that he don't give a dam about you hitting the mobs? Whats stopping them from bringing a random staff with invigorate or speed up to help the carry heck you don't even draw agro for support in this game. And don't give me crap about them don't have mind stats invigorate don't work cause i'm getting 16 sp invigorates all the time and at 22+18 mnd my invigorate gives 24 per tick so i'm sure they're not mnd build either, and that 16 sp makes me so grateful carrying a party.
tl;dr There are many ways to make yourself useful even if you're leaching. Its not the game's fault its the player's fault when they just go "oh there's a carry i can be as useless as i can be"
If you don't mind me asking what bow skill do you use for this 8 min run aside from an Ougi that is.
And no you're barking the wrong tree.
Yes I'm a leecher stuck with exorcism arrow and rainbow peacock on 40-50 bows and no I hate standing around.
I kill off strays with what I have to make things faster and play fake support with invigorate II if Staff class is N/A in the team.
However I do frequently hear don't aggro my mobs, stay away from carry types.
And it's either they do or they dissolve the party and make a new one.
So yes in my opinion the game's system with mobs and certain classes having OP AOEs do have a part in this.
I understand your point on the useless leechers making a party pub asking for carry but not all of us does the same.
What I consider helping people is go around previous towns and get further derailed when you see someone asking for help in clearing some dungeon that you only cleared once as part of the main quest run.
I only saw handful of people actually go to lower level places and help out. most of them are just standing in front of secluded or the repair place spamming "useless person here looking for carry, let me leach plz i'm a leach". Also, there are people i see all the time looking for elder forest, central garden, veronica standing there for at least half an hour when i'm going repairs while carrying people. People would rather stand there idle and spam "looking for carry" than go help them with those simple dungeons
Well it sucks there's only a few of us who goes back and randomly help people clear main quest dungeons.