Ha, I never heard of Phantom Knights. ^^
Ha, I never heard of Phantom Knights. ^^
It depends on the item and which tool you want to use.
The main hand tool relates to craftsmanship, while the off hand tool relates to magic craftsmanship, this is what the devs are talking about.
If you look at you tool stats you will see the main hand tool has a higher craftsmanship and the off hand tool will have higher magic craftsmanship. In regards to that each item has an "affinity" with being crafted by either the main hand tool or the off hand tool. If an item has "affinity" with the main hand tool then the main hand tool will yield high quantity (more of the item) on HQ results, the same item that has an "affinity" with the main hand tool can yeild high quality (+!,+2,+3) ny crafting with its non-0affinity tool, in this case the off hand.
If you dont know if the item has affinity with which tool, you can make an educated guess. I will use alchemy as an example since its my highest craft. As an alchemist I use an alembic (main hand) and mortar/pestle (off hand). If I think about making glue in real life it would logically be made by an alembic, you take the materials and boil them down until left with a sticky substance, so the item has affinity with the main hand, which means that this item will produce high yield on main hand and high quality with off hand. Take the item sleeping powder, its made from belladonna leaves, logically in real life you would use a mortar/pestle to grind down the leaves until your left with a fine powder...sleeping powder, so this items affinity is with off hand tool, which means off hand tool will produce high yield, main hand will produce high quality.
This is what the devs are referring to by some items use craftsmanship and some use magic craftsmanship.
As far as choosing the right gear this girl said it well:
Hopefully that will clear some things up
Your theory about real life relation makes sense to a point but doesn't hold true for all. There's no real world way to turn fish into crystals. You don't construct a bow with a saw. They have stated that the difference between main and offhand is how they handle HQ.
Does the stats of the off hand affect synths even when you are not using it?
True it doesnt work all the time but I did say to make an educated GUESS
Isn't that what I just said, I explained the difference between items affinity with main and off hand weapons and how that relates to weather you get high yield or high qualityQuote:
They have stated that the difference between main and offhand is how they handle HQ.
By equipping a off hand tool, you can see it does NOT add any points to your total craft/ magic craft as seen in the attribute window, because of this it is my opinion that you only get the benefits from the tool you are using for that particular synth, otherwise it wouldn't matter which tool you used.
Well materials can yield + or larger quantity. Finished items (gear) can only yield + for HQ. I don't think the recipes have a main/offhand affinity per recipe.
Ok take carpentry for example. Say you want to make a bow. You have a saw for your main hand tool, and a hammer/chisel as a off hand tool. Let's make an educated guess and say a bow would more likely be made using hammer/chisel. That means the items affinity is with the off hand tool, and high quality (+1,+2,+3) would be achieved with the main hand tool. It makes sense
Magic Craftsmanship works exactly like Craftsmanship, it depends on the recipe as to which is used. Qualtiy gain is dependent on your attributes and the tool used.
I am surprised you got to rank 40 without ever noticing this...Hell, SE themselves explained this much. >_>
And Obei, both hands can yield high quality for finished items and Toxic Powder uses Craftsmanship...so logically you would use the main hand unless doing it for items.