4.05 crafting disappointment

I do not like crafting being so easy. HQ mats are useless, which means gearing a gatherer past basic HQ gear(no melds required) has no purpose. 99.99% of the player base can gather the EXACT same materials because HQ mats have no purpose.

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Originally Posted by Mootowncow

I do not like crafting being so easy. HQ mats are useless, which means gearing a gatherer past basic HQ gear(no melds required) has no purpose. 99.99% of the player base can gather the EXACT same materials because HQ mats have no purpose.

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Honestly I don't care if the HQ versions are more useless below 70. It's annoying to have to keep stock of 2 different mats just to craft. it just means I lower the quality and gather faster. It's a lot less inventory hassle. Seems a problem resolved.

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Originally Posted by tymora

I think the "real" challenge disappeared the day the lokyst crafting tool came into existence.

[snipped info]

I bet that if people kept all their rotations quiet, no one here will "complain" crafting is too easy.
But I doubt even the OP will want that.

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You still need a fair amount of melds to be able to macro the 70** recipes.

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Just means that people would need to read the tooltips and do a small bit of thinking. It never has been incredibly hard figuring out a rotation (that works). Whether people decided to make their rotations public or not, it wouldn't change the stance on how easy, or difficult people find crafting. Although I do agree that having a simulator has made everything significantly easier without the fear of loss.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

Why wouldn't I compare the i290 set with the i170 set? It's pretty clear that they're both 10 ilvls below their respective scrip counterparts. This isn't about the difficulty of crafting either sets, but about the actual stats/ilvl of the sets.

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If you believe the i290 is equal to the i170 then the i290 will also carry us to 3 star? In HW you needed to craft the i170 to get to 3 star min (note you could do this was some crazy melds on the shared set and heavy melds on the i170 main/offhand, but did not know anyone who actually did that), you that used the ability to craft the 3 star min to get the iron works set. Basically if i290=i170 you are staying we not getting another crafting set to 4.2, which will be the only other one in SB.

The i290 should not be compared to the i170 for this reason. Really you can't compare HW to SB in this way. The removal of a weekly cap, no favor system has completely changed things.

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Originally Posted by AdamZ

If you believe the i290 is equal to the i170 then the i290 will also carry us to 3 star? In HW you needed to craft the i170 to get to 3 star min (note you could do this was some crazy melds on the shared set and heavy melds on the i170 main/offhand, but did not know anyone who actually did that), you that used the ability to craft the 3 star min to get the iron works set. Basically if i290=i170 you are staying we not getting another crafting set to 4.2, which will be the only other one in SB.

The i290 should not be compared to the i170 for this reason. Really you can't compare HW to SB in this way. The removal of a weekly cap, no favor system has completely changed things.

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I wasn't a fan of the weekly cap but- Am I the only person that kinda enjoyed the favor system? I honestly really liked it. It made gathering feel somewhat more diverse. Mind you I'm not sure why since all you did was go to someplace to gather on a timer lol

I honestly loved favors and was hoping they'd bring them back. I think the only problem was the sheer amount of items you needed to turn in (but then look at how many you got back). I would just throw on a podcast and some gear to spiritbond. Made a lot of money those days and farmed a lot of mats.

The Favor system was awful since you had to spend your weekly Gatherer Red Scrips to gather a non-set amount of items while Crafters spent Crafter Red Scrips just to turn those tokens in for materials!

I think people would've liked favors slightly more if they initially used Blue Scrips.

Oh, I forgot about the token. Yeah, that part was particularly stupid. Should have been blues.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

Honestly it's too early to say, and I actually feel more positive about this since it feels like it's just making it so people can have lives outside the game since that's what Yoshi stated in an interview where he wanted players to take some breaks and not have to log in and mindlessly grind. HW made crafting end game like Battle End game and people complained. .

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That's why I stopped crafting in HW. I had all crafts to 50 in ARR but HW sucked away all my desire to craft. The few levels progress I made were from making old recipes lol. I hope it's better now as I would like to get them leveled back up, I miss repairing my gear ; ;

As someone who is relatively new to two star crafting, Stormblood made crafting very accessible for those who put their time and effort into it and that was simply wonderful to me. Are they going to make it more challenging? Perhaps they will, perhaps they won't, but I'm incredibly happy I can craft anything provided I have the mats to do it.

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Originally Posted by magnanimousCynic

The Favor system was awful since you had to spend your weekly Gatherer Red Scrips to gather a non-set amount of items while Crafters spent Crafter Red Scrips just to turn those tokens in for materials!

I think people would've liked favors slightly more if they initially used Blue Scrips.

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It was worse than that, remember there was only a "chance" to get the token item before. They had to fix the system a few times before it became tolerable. Too much nostalgia goggles on if people forgot how horrible its first incarnation was. It was definitely a learning time for them to create a system more enjoyable. The only positive aspect of it was the clusters you got out of those nodes, but getting uneven amount of tokens are people who love their inventory space wasted. Even more so when there wasn't a difference between an HQ of that item and NQ. Thank god at least the leftover or uneven amounts were sellable unlike ARR tokens.

As someone who has only been crating consistently since late in ARR, I understand what Caimie is saying. To be honest it was your guides that got me hooked on crafting in the first place! It was amazing to see how much depth there was in crafting.

It does feel like SB has removed a lot of that depth. But I don't necessarily agree that this is a bad thing. There are no real barriers to leveling any other job on this game. Sure there are optimal rotations to playing any job at it's peak performance but it's perfectly okay to play it with varying performance and efficiency. Gathering is the same. But for crafting there was an elevated level of - not difficulty so much - but time spent researching and learning every single ability coupled with a need to level all of the crafters to minimal levels to even be able to perform the most basic crafts. Plus always needing to get books for recipes. They don't drop in dungeons and raids which might have been a cool interaction right? Anyway, for those of us who love that it's cool. But there are so many people who felt locked out from crafting - leveling 8 crafters to a minimum of 50 is a pretty daunting task.

I think what crafting is now is actually a good thing. It is far more accessible. It has farther reaching ramifications. People can now meld and repair their own gear which sounds silly till you can't do it at the beginning of a new expansion :-) I personally am glad crafting isn't an exclusive club any more. I am happy to see friends who were daunted to try before actually leveling and enjoying crafting.

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Originally Posted by IllyriaKnotfred

I wasn't a fan of the weekly cap but- Am I the only person that kinda enjoyed the favor system? I honestly really liked it. It made gathering feel somewhat more diverse. Mind you I'm not sure why since all you did was go to someplace to gather on a timer lol

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Originally Posted by Elamys

I honestly loved favors and was hoping they'd bring them back. I think the only problem was the sheer amount of items you needed to turn in (but then look at how many you got back). I would just throw on a podcast and some gear to spiritbond. Made a lot of money those days and farmed a lot of mats.

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I loved them. I was hired and paid great to use my weekly scrips. Like Elamys, turn on a podcast and gogo. It was a nice way to zone out and make some gil.

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Originally Posted by Cleanse

I loved them. I was hired and paid great to use my weekly scrips. Like Elamys, turn on a podcast and gogo. It was a nice way to zone out and make some gil.

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Indeed. But alas I believe we were a small minority. Most people hated them I think.

Favors were a perceived way to reward material acquisition in the Collection system, where you essentially have crafters 'throwing away' items and materials to get their scrips. They were to encourage players to go out and gather the materials they were going to use, by putting those Favor-items in, as along with the 'trash' stuff you gather, you were getting high gil-per-item materials as well.

Tuned well, they work, but the initial release (and even after wards with fixes) they were too much of a time sink to do what they were meant to.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

Favors were a perceived way to reward material acquisition in the Collection system, where you essentially have crafters 'throwing away' items and materials to get their scrips. They were to encourage players to go out and gather the materials they were going to use, by putting those Favor-items in, as along with the 'trash' stuff you gather, you were getting high gil-per-item materials as well.

Tuned well, they work, but the initial release (and even after wards with fixes) they were too much of a time sink to do what they were meant to.

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Well yes. When they were 15 minutes long each it was too much. But they changed to 5 mins per and it was perfect.

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Originally Posted by IllyriaKnotfred

Well yes. When they were 15 minutes long each it was too much. But they changed to 5 mins per and it was perfect.

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There's still problems with the system though. I mean it was MUCH better, but I definitely wouldn't call it perfect.

The biggest problem is token bloat. You had to trade in scripts to get a Favor Token, so it's another item added into the inventory. If it had stayed in currency system it would have helped, but then, not only did you need the token item to activate the script, you essentially farmed for more tokens. You needed a certain amount of tokens to get the crafting item. So you could have up to 3 stacks of token items. Granted you can sell some of the token items off for money if you were tired of carrying them, but with all the other tokens like the primals and raid tokens (from both Normal and Savage), I can see why people became irritated with the system.

All this back and forth about what's wrong with crafting and I'm gonna say it again - Prudent Touch.

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Originally Posted by blueruckus

All this back and forth about what's wrong with crafting and I'm gonna say it again - Prudent Touch.

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Pretty much this. Prudent touch should cost at LEAST 30 CP for what it does.

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Originally Posted by IllyriaKnotfred

Pretty much this. Prudent touch should cost at LEAST 30 CP for what it does.

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Pretty sure at 30 CP we would just be back to Hasty under Waste Not II. 7 hits in a waste not II cycle at 80% for a average of 5.6 quality hit, costing 98 CP for 17.5 CP per quality. Do not think 12.5 CP would be worth the removal of rng. (Note you have a small benefit under Prudent in that you are not having to burn a steady hand II stack to the waste not buff) At 21 CP with current max CP makes the skill very usable, now does it seem that this skill will be broken by the time we get our final sets in SB, or in 5.0? most likely. Unless they decrease durability to 60 or 50.

I'd rather it be like this than "Only Tryhards Need Apply". In fact I think they should have made Lv61-69 stuff a bit easier, because it feels like they expect you to grind up Scrip Gear from Heavensward before even starting on Stormblood stuff, but yet Heavensward Scrip Gear needs Scrip Gear to even have a hope of doing anything, but yet Lv69-70 HW stuff takes so. many. materials. to. make. that it takes hours just to make a few items to turn in...


Oh, and they are ludicrously hard to get high collectability on too.

Basically, the whole crux of the problem is during the last days of ARR, you had three groups of crafters:

Group A: The people who had endgame gear.
Group B: Those who didn't
Group C: Those who weren't Lv50 yet.

Then, in HW, they tooled everything to Group A's skill level. You can easily see this because if you're wearing non-endgame gear, it is almost impossible to craft NQs, let alone even think about getting more than 2% HQ chance on an item. Group A sailed through easy, Group B struggled and Group C? Pfft. They waited for Moogles because there was nothing else they could do.

So, now at the end of HW, we're left with this:

Group A got there way before anybody else and they were already grinding scrips as soon as they were available.
Group B, some of them might have clawed and scratched their way to get caught up before SB release
Group C, found themselves needing Scrip Gear from HW so they're still grinding away

So now that we're in SB... Group A is yet again macroing Lv70 gear... Group B, some of them are high 60s, some might even be 70s but struggling to HQ stuff, and Group C is feeling even more left behind and hopeless with no chance to catch up whatsoever 'cept for maybe at the very end of the expansion, after the last patch makes scrip gear easier to get.

The only reason HW Scrips are even possible is because of Zhloe. Without Zhloe, HW scrip gear would be impossible for me (well, ok, nigh-impossible. I suppose I could grind away for hours at 8 scrips per lumber or something when it takes 2-3 minutes to make a single lumber) and NQs from SB won't cut it (seriously, the Lv61 SB set is weaker than HW Scrip Gear, and I'm pretty sure the HW Scrip Gear is even better than the Lv63 set too!).

NQs from SB won't get you any kind of HQs whatsoever, it just isn't strong enough and without that kind of stuff, it takes forever to level because you can't HQ anything, and leves tend to take hours to complete because of the ridiculous amount of materials it takes to make anything (and of course, the people trying to catch up have to deal with poor gather rates because SB NQs only get you 60-70% success which means whiff whiff whiff whiff).

Crafting is just a mess and we seriously need a catchup, something better than 6-per-week turnins at Zhloe.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

NQs from SB won't get you any kind of HQs whatsoever, it just isn't strong enough and without that kind of stuff, it takes forever to level because you can't HQ anything, and leves tend to take hours to complete because of the ridiculous amount of materials it takes to make anything (and of course, the people trying to catch up have to deal with poor gather rates because SB NQs only get you 60-70% success which means whiff whiff whiff whiff).

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I'm going to again point to https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...w_cp_crafters/

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First of all, I have the carbonweave gear, MH and OH tools from scrips and on the right side I have the Hallowed chestnut accessories melded with CP (not overmeld, just 1 materia per item)
So my stats are:
Craftmanship 817 | Control 770 | CP 381 unbuffed, 424 CP with Food “Tempura Platter” (Kugane vendor)
It is very easy to get to 381CP unbuffed and cheap. Then you buy the food from Kugane vendors and you are at the magic number of 424CP! (which my macros need). You also need to be level 61 in order to get Hasty Touch II. With my macro I manage to get at least 70-75% HQ with normal quality mats and if I am lucky in procs I can get much better :)

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Granted carbonweave is from scrips mats but actually not too horrible to get. I stated before people who were lower gear than my ironworks one got past me because they had carbonweave gear and were able to meet the stats for that post. They also did daily GC turn ins to get to 61. You don't need HQ mats to make HQ turn ins. Take a look at that post and see what you need to get. It helped many friends level up fairly quickly.

As far as Leves go:
https://goo.gl/uDCzzC

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Originally Posted by Maeka

Group A: The people who had endgame gear.
Group B: Those who didn't
Group C: Those who weren't Lv50 yet.

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I find this interesting actually, because I started playing in 3.1, and didn't have my crafters up to even 50 until like, 3.3 at best. I used moogles to boost the last three or four classes up to 60, but still managed to have a pentamelded ironworks set (sans tools) by the end of heavensward with actually relatively little grinding involved?

And I will ALSO add that a friend of mine was lv25 cul at the start of this week, and is now lv70 and gearing herself up to make sushi, she got herself a yellow scrip top and I made her some gear and she's melded it with Vs from the scrips she made levelling cul. She has no other crafters levelled.

There is, admittedly, a time investment involved in levelling a crafter, especially as fast as that - but the same is true of battle classes. While admittedly I was a little disappointed that my IW accessories are basically better than the hq lv70 whites unless I overmeld the whites, is that a bad thing? Going into this expac I feel like I can actually make some progress as a crafter and help my fc out with stuff they need. Maybe if you wanted to hog the top 10% of the market and roll around naked in gil the accessibility might be an issue, but I don't really get the complaints otherwise.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

Then, in HW, they tooled everything to Group A's skill level.

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What? At the start of HW all I had BSM, CUL, and ALC at 50 (See BLM at 50, yea you can tell I was noob). Yet I was still able to cap week one red scripts just crafting Deep-fried Okeanis in NQ vendor gear. Scrips have always been easy... (CUL was my only 60 for a bit)

After geared ALC was easy, just save the mats for one of the two books it would be, wait and watch during the week to it is starred, and it was like 8-9 crafts later, and you capped.

I will agree that going into SB fully geared out made the process so much easier... but I think you just want a "crafters level 70 jump potion"

Maeka, if you are having a tough time with some crafts, you could always make a post here in the crafting forum section requesting suggestions on a rotation tailored to your stats.

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Originally Posted by Maeka

NQs from SB won't get you any kind of HQs whatsoever, it just isn't strong enough and without that kind of stuff, it takes forever to level because you can't HQ anything, and leves tend to take hours to complete because of the ridiculous amount of materials it takes to make anything (and of course, the people trying to catch up have to deal with poor gather rates because SB NQs only get you 60-70% success which means whiff whiff whiff whiff).

Crafting is just a mess and we seriously need a catchup, something better than 6-per-week turnins at Zhloe.

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It's not that hard to catch up to group A in this patch. You can easily craft lv 70 HQ crafting gear using NQ npc gear at 100% rate with specialist. In fact, I got to group A from group C in HW without any help in this patch, while earning alot of side gil when I'm leveling crafter.

You can easily HQ level 60 leve item when you reach level 66 (prudent touch) too, which most of them is just some nugget or ingot that's really simple to make. I would say 60-70 for this patch is much easier than the previous.

By the way, you shouldn't be doing turn in of high level (anything above 64) because you don't really get much extra experience/script out of it.

Maeka - I sympathise. I bought the game in HW and the transition from ARR to HW crafting was extremely painful.
I gave up at one point and then came back to crafting late in the expansion and have just breezed though SB in pentamelded Ironworks. You will have it tougher than me due to your gear, but your crafters are all at a similar level and your gatherers are ahead of them, so you are in a very good position for tackling SB. Once you get to 61, I think you'll find things a lot easier than they were in HW. Much less is tied to timed nodes and they are now up for 2 hours so gathering is far more relaxed.

A few tips that helped me when I was undergeared:
- Don't attempt to craft above your level (there is a hefty penalty)
- Starred recipes scale as if they are a higher level, so again there is a penalty to attempting these at level or below
- Get the best tools you can and upgrade them as often as you can. HQ is a must.
- Level your retainers and keep them geared. Send your battle-retainer out for skins and the hair/ wool needed for worsted yarn. It will save you a fortune.
- Don't forget food - HQ Baked Onion Soup is very easy to make and was enough to get me to 70
- Plan which classes to level first. I levelled BSM CRP WVR GSM and LW first (roughly together), so I could make my own gear.

If you've done all that and you are still struggling, get to to level 61 by doing lower level crafts/collectables and your Grand Company turn-ins.
-SB NQ gear is very cheap on my world. If it's the same on yours, buy some to boost your stats and then make the HQ version yourself (once you have HQ gear you should be able to make what you need from then on)
- Personally, I wouldn't spend scrips on gear in SB, except perhaps the tools (Melded Twinsilk is plenty for level 70 2*).
- Use a mix of Collectables and Leves to help you level. The ones that have 3 turn-ins give best xp. I used the same guide Qt Melon linked to above Google Docs Crafting Leve Guide (edit: Thanks for pointing out that info was already in the thread, Qt)


Back on topic -
Compared to HW, SB has been very enjoyable for me. I admit as one of the lucky ones in good gear I did find it easy, but I think it's good decision to make levelling accessible to newer players rather than trying to hold everyone back by having scrips capped and levelling materials tied to timed nodes and then favors (which I absolutely hated).
It's early days yet, so I'm expecting the challenge to come further down the line.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

Maeka - I sympathise.
A few tips that helped me when I was undergeared:

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This is the same info I pretty much gave a few posts above. Its in the links I posted. x.x

Oops! My bad. I did read your post but didn't check out the links :)

Well, one thing I find Reddit confusing as all crap, I hate its interface.

Basically, I am Lv58-60 in all crafts: I have Lv60s all except for... um, LTW, CUL, and... WVR? I think.

I'm wearing Adept's with all crafts except ALC which has the stuff you can buy for Blue Scrip Tokens in Idyllshire. ALC has both MH and OH Blue Scrip, so does CRP. BSM has mainhand, but not OH yet.

I'm wearing a mix of Lv56-58 HQ jewelry though it has Craftmanship melds (back when I got that stuff, I was having trouble just NQing stuff).

I forget what my CP is, but it is a good 40 points short of most macros I see people suggesting, and the HQ food is expensive, dun think I can HQ them reliably. Doubt it, anyways.

Currently trying to get the last two 58s to 60 using Moogles, and each week, doing Zhloe trying to get the rest of the MH/OHs though it is slow as I can only get 2 per week. Maybe if I get lucky they'll ask for Orphanage Donations again, but those are hit-or-miss whether or not I can get the middle collectability tier or not. I got the full collectability just once when I got an Excellent on the same step I was about to use Byregot's on. Otherwise, best I can do is get Mid-collectability... unless of course I had one like I did a few days ago where Hasty Touch failed 4 out of 6 times even with SH2 up. *sigh* I hate FFXIV's RNG sometimes.

EDIT: About as much as I hate the ridiculous (and useless) 1000 character limit rule that is easily circumvented by an easy but annoying process of editing and C&P.

EDIT2: I had an idea of trying to find something, anything in SB (Lv61 or some-such) to just grind Alchemy with in hopes of being able to do the Orphanage Donations easier when they pop up, hoping to get 61-62 if I can find something that is reasonable to grind for XP and just collect a crapton of materials and craft away.

Maeka: Start a new topic so you aren't taking @Caimie_Tsukino's post off topic. Also, swapping to your class and posting your craft, control and cp would be better than listing the items you have.

Maeka, do not forget about the GC hand ins. Make sure that you are handing in a HQ item (unless its something that cannot be HQ, like that one fishing lure).

Another thing - do not look at macros. They are really for only one kind of people, though they can be useful for another. They are meant for people who already know what they're doing and have the gear. They can be used by (but should not be) people who have the gear but somehow managed to avoid getting the know-how.

Instead, learn your skills, and develop your own flow for crafting by hand. So you do not have enough CP for a macro - so what? How many Rapid Synthesis successes does it take for you to reach one (or two) Careful Synthesis 2's from completion? Once you're there, focus on adding more Quality. And you should be getting a lot more than merely six Hasty Touches in. Something tells me you are not using your skills to their fullest potential.

I am rather disappointing that unless you have 100% hq gear and 100% max overmelds on every piece you can't really craft any of the 2-3 star recipes.

yes I get it, they want you to work for it. However, spending 10m gil to get to this level is just absurd.

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Originally Posted by LathusWHM

I am rather disappointing that unless you have 100% hq gear and 100% max overmelds on every piece you can't really craft any of the 2-3 star recipes.

yes I get it, they want you to work for it. However, spending 10m gil to get to this level is just absurd.

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There isn't 3 star right now?

70 2 Star doesn't take max overmelds. It's really not a lot of work. Not sure if you were being funny or not, since this is almost opposite of what the OP is complaining about.

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Originally Posted by LathusWHM

I am rather disappointing that unless you have 100% hq gear and 100% max overmelds on every piece you can't really craft any of the 2-3 star recipes.

yes I get it, they want you to work for it. However, spending 10m gil to get to this level is just absurd.

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You can craft 2 star gear with 70 white HQ gear and minimal overmeld (1 in some slot).

Edit: Unless in your server white HQ crafter gear is so undercutted that its cheaper than the mat, you can always craft 2 or 3 of them using white NQ gear with specialist, to sell and earn back the material cost. It's really simply to get to full HQ in this patch, you just need the level.

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Originally Posted by LathusWHM

I am rather disappointing that unless you have 100% hq gear and 100% max overmelds on every piece you can't really craft any of the 2-3 star recipes.

yes I get it, they want you to work for it. However, spending 10m gil to get to this level is just absurd.

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The current recipes are a complete joke. Friend of mine put together a meld list that guarantees HQ from all NQ mats at a 97% success rate; 100% if you had a little higher control. Every single materia he lists can be obtained through red scrips or Ixali.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...m_cp_crafting/

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Originally Posted by Maeka

I'm wearing a mix of Lv56-58 HQ jewelry though it has Craftmanship melds (back when I got that stuff, I was having trouble just NQing stuff).
I forget what my CP is, but it is a good 40 points short of most macros I see people suggesting, and the HQ food is expensive, dun think I can HQ them reliably. Doubt it, anyways.

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Purchase NQ Tempura Platter from vendor in the Kugane market, 2K a pop but it will give you a good boost in Craftsmanship and CP.

Most lv60 macros are written assuming 430 CP before food or higher. The basic difference between a macro you could use and one you have read about is the reduction of RNG in the formula due fewer RNG touches.
While you are levelling, I would hand craft until you have reasonably repeatable rotation. If you post your stats we, the community will gladly run some simulations on lokyst.net.
FYI, I just ran an import your character stats on the simulator, not completely accurate but a good starting point.

I chose Noble Codex, as it is good item to get Red scrip with. Easily obtainable materials with a reasonably high turn in value.

http://i.imgur.com/rFt1OF6.png

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/ac "Muscle Memory" <wait.3>
/ac "Comfort Zone" <wait.3>
/ac "Inner Quiet" <wait.3>
/ac "Steady Hand II" <wait.3>
/ac "Hasty Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Hasty Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Hasty Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Hasty Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Hasty Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Master's Mend II" <wait.3>
/ac "Steady Hand II" <wait.3>
/ac "Hasty Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/echo Macro #1 complete <se.1>

/ac "Precise Touch"
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Steady Hand" <wait.3>
/ac "Ingenuity II" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.3>
/ac "Tricks of the Trade" <wait.3>
/ac "Innovation" <wait.3>
/ac "Byregot's Brow" <wait.3>
/ac "Careful Synthesis II" <wait.3>
/ac "Careful Synthesis II" <wait.3>
/ac "Careful Synthesis II" <wait.3>
/echo Macro #2 complete <se.14>

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The following has CP space for 1 Basic/Precise Touch if you use Byregot's Blessing instead of Byregot's Brow.
Or, if you can get 3 more CP, you can keep both guarunteed touches and use Byregot's Blessing.

Guess I'll chime in too. Started the game around 3.2, played for 3 months. Then again 2 weeks ago. Have 1k hours ingame and nearly all on crafting so it's a "newer" crafter's view on it, who never experienced ARR and early HW crafting.

The culprits are 100% the skills.
Precise touch and Manipulation II are the most efficient skills cp-wise and at the same time are the SIMPLEST. In other words, the optimal way to solve the puzzle is by using SIMPLE rotations, rather than something a bit more complicated, like the super CP squeeze in Rath's rotation. On top of that, the quality/progress requirements are undertuned, meaning that you are not pushed to the maximum to achieve 100% HQ.

To put it into perspective, I joined 2 weeks ago, had 10mil in my pocket and overmelded Ironworks. It took me 2 weeks to get main class and all DoL/DoH to 70s and then only 1 day to reach the full i190 and overmelding.
1/3

Overmelding was as simple as just slotting all the free Vs I got from the quests and then spending all my red scrips I got from leveling the final few levels on IVs and spamming those up to 4 slots deep. And that was all I needed. At that point, absolutely any rotation that just employs a Mani2 -> SH2->5x Precise in it will beat anything with minimal melds.

Heck, level 66 was already where it was all broken, once you had both Precise touch and Manipulation II. The leveling became uber easy, since you could HQ everything at ease.

What's weird is that they added even more specialist actions. Interesting ones too. The specialist skill list atm is VERY interesting and I think with enough thinking, we could create some insane rotations with it, but the problem is that we simply don't need to.

See, the issue is more in that the REQUIREMENTS for 2* make you already strong enough to easy beat the puzzle with the culprit skills. If this requirement was dropped, I'm sure super clever use of specialist skills would allow for NQ -> 100 HQ without even overmelding i190. But as it stands, once you CAN craft 2*, you are already broken.

2/3

What they need to do is make it so that once you break the minimum requirements for a craft, you still need to push the puzzle REALLY hard to succeed. So hard, that specialization skills become vital. If not - require absolutely insane melding, not the super easy Vs into IVs we need atm.

They put in these awesome new specialist skills... I just don't see why they would do that without a plan to make us sweat really hard. Accessability is fine, but crafting should be more like raids towards the very endgame - require a lot of planning and dedication OR you need to buy your way into it and beat it easier by being overgeared, but that overgearing has to cost A LOT and even then require some brain. I don't see why crafting can't follow that same paradime. Then again, they are nerfing raiding too.. It's just odd how the design decision on specialist actions are all in the right direction of creating completely unmacroable rotations (how do you imagine easily macroing whistles lol) and yet everything to do with normal crafting and requirements don't make use of this direction. It's like 2 designers got in a fight.

3/3