Please Consider: Cooking needs an overhaul of the upper tier food items.

Currently as cooking stands the upper tier food goods are practically worthless to make in terms of stat bonus they provide and difficulty in crafting compared to lower level ranged foods in the 40-50's.

This goes to show what is the point in crafting the single or double star foods? Currently not much as I will demonstrate below.

Finger Sandwich Double Star LvL 50 item.
~~~Stats~~~
NQ: Parry +3% (Max 22), Vitality +2% (Max 15), Accuracy +2% (Max 9)
HQ: Parry +4% (Max 27), Vitality +3% (Max 19), Accuracy +2% (Max 11)

VS.

La Noscean Toast LvL 45 item.
~~~Stats~~~
NQ: Parry +4% (Max 18), Vitality +3% (Max 11), Accuracy +2% (Max 7)
HQ: Parry +5% (Max 23), Vitality +4% (Max 14), Accuracy +2% (Max 9)

Lets consider HQ as it has the highest % and Max cap for the food stuffs in question. So with the above item (tank food lets call it) to hit the caps for the Finger sandwich I would need somewhere along the lines of (27/4)*100 = 675 Parry, (19/3)*100 = 633 Vitality, and (11/2)*100 = 550 accuracy.

Using the same equations with Toast to max out I would be looking for 460 Parry, 350 Vitality, and 450 Accuracy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now let us put this into practice. My iLvL 90 warrior with full strength build is sitting around 472 parry, 443 vitality, and 497 accuracy. Full vitality I would be at 514 parry, 518 vitality, and 508 accuracy.

So lets us use the highest stats of either build that would allow us to maximize the caps for the foods above and compare. Where stats are capped will be in blue.

Finger Sandwich:
Parry: [20.6 / 27 vit] 18.9 / 27 str
Vitality: [15.5 / 19 vit] 13.3 / 19 str
Accuracy: [10.2 / 11 vit] 9.9 / 11 str *Of note here this stat could be considered null as already at the cap needed for coil 5 content aka above 480 accuracy in both builds pre-food.*

La Noscean Toast:
Parry: [25.7 (23) / 23 vit] 23.6 (23) / 23 str
Vitality: [20.7 (14) / 14 vit] 17.7 (14) / 14 str
Accuracy: [10.2 (9) / 9 vit] 9.9 (9) / 9 str

So looking back at the stats and the highest placements for finger sandwich and toast let us compare.

Sandwich~~vs.~~Toast
20.6 parry vs 23 in both str and vit builds on toast
15.5 vitality vs 14 in both builds
10.2 accuracy vs 9 in both builds



Summary: In short I feel that the effects of food buffs need to be revisited in order to adjust upwards the potency of the food items as the inferior crafted items give superior stats. To address the argument of "Those double stars were added in to account for future stat growth" I can't take this comment seriously as it assumes cooking would never get any new recipes and if they did the new items with higher caps would again over shadow the 50 double stars with a jump from LvL 40-50 items to the new 50+ foods.

Bonus: This isn't just on one food in case you would like to check the math I will post a few other food items and their primary stat below so you can get an idea of what I mean. All of these will be based off NQ but for HQ just increase the % by +1 so 3% goes to 4% as well as the max amount increasing. Keep in mind as with shown above most LvL 40-50 verison of the below foods have NQ 4% and HQ 5% with a max higher than what would be gained via the 4% from the foods below. The gap is further evident when comparing HQ foods.

Lava Toad Legs~~~~~Acc +3% (Max 22) 733 to hit cap vs. Stuffed Cabbage +4% (Max 17) 425 to cap

Black Truffle Risotto~~Det +3% (Max 14) 466 to hit cap vs. Buttons in a Blanket +4% (Max 13) 325 to cap

Pineapple Juice~~~~~Pie +3% (Max 14) 466 to hit cap vs. Mulled Tea +4% (Max 11) 275 to cap

Pineapple Ponzcake~~Spell Speed +3% (Max 22) 733 to hit cap vs Pastry Fish +4% (Max 14) 233 to cap *no food in-between this LvL 40 one and the LvL 50 double star version*

Sauteed Coeurl~~~~~Skill Speed +4% (Max 22) 550 to hit cap vs Eft Steak +4% (Max 21) 425 to cap 525

Apkallu Omelette~~~~Crit Hit Rate +3% (Max 22) 733 to hit cap vs. Deviled Eggs +4% (Max 19) 475 to cap