Make Specialist Matter More

Can we make specialists more relevant? As it stands, all they do is provide a stat boost and make crafting a little easier. While this is helpful, it feels like an underutilized system, especially when considering the potential depth that specialization could bring to the game.

I'd like to suggest only specialists be able to craft the items in the most recent master books.

This change would encourage greater collaboration between players and make the crafting community more interdependent. For example, I have leveled and geared every crafter, allowing me to make a full set of Archeo Kingdom gear, raid pots, and raid food, for both myself and my partner. In the current system, this means one person handles all of the high-end-crafting. If specialists were the only ones able to produce high-end items, we would need to rely on each other for gearing, rather than one person making all the items. Additionally, while this might make items on the market board more expensive, it would also encourage players to gather with friends and craft together to save money.

Overall, this change would make crafted gear, raid food, and raid pots harder to obtain but would increase the value of normal raid gear, which is currently serving as a budget option for players who can't immediately afford full crafted sets. By making crafted items a bit more difficult to obtain, normal raid gear becomes a practical choice, leaving full crafted gear as a clear choice for players wanting to push week 1s or beat DPS checks in an optimized setting.

If the raid tier had included significant DPS checks, the value of master book crafts would have been enhanced, and there would have been a greater reliance on specialists to craft those items.

TL;DR: the current crafting system is underutilized and lacks engagement. making specialists the only ones who can craft high-end items would encourage collaboration and make crafting more meaningful.

The problem with forcing interdependence based on the specialist system is the fact that no matter what class or role you are playing ALC and CUL are useful to everyone with zero exceptions, they are useful for crafters, they are useful for gatherers and they are useful for all combat professions

So basically every player really only has one negotiable specialist because there is only upsides to always having yourself be able to do CUL and ALC. then there is the problem that there is usually a lot of imbalance in the importance of the remaining 6 classes depending on role

BSM and ARM basically always can produce the same things, LTW and WVR dominate in making left side gear (especially for the crafters and gatherers which is the only way to keep yourself up to date) and GSM is the default right side gear maker leaving CRP and BSM under-utilised

I think a system where everyone basically only has one “specialist” of the 6 gear crafters could get really messy especially when you may need to trade multiple times in crafted materials to make the final set

We already had this before and all it did was make people create an alt. So now you can cover 6 of the 8 with the last two easily covered by switching spec as needed.

You both raise good points. It’s clear that implementing something like this would require significant changes to the current system to make it work, which might not be feasible. It’s a shame, but it is what it is.

In most every expansions the books have had things that only specialists can craft. Usually glams, bardings, minions, and IIRC, even music.

This time its the scientist's set.

Less than horrid but less than inspired as well.

Specialization isn't the problem. It is our crafting system and the ability to HQ from NQ in nearly all cases that is the problem. Our rotations are designed, within the constraints of how the developers designed the mechanics of crafting, to not require any RNG. Outside of expert recipes, no one is using Hasty Touch or Rapid Synthesis. Back in ShB, we had a Touch that would double our IQ stacks or reset them to 1, but it was a 50% chance. It wasn't used often, so it was dropped from the game.

With that said, rotations are designed to be usable by specialist and non-specialists alike. Many omnicrafters ignore the +15 CP since if they rely on it for their rotation, it means they need a different rotation for the other 5 non-specialists they have.

If you do expert recipes, all of those abilities are great. It helps bait for a good/excellent (Careful Observation), boost your IQ stacks (Heart and Soul) and a way to line up Great Strides and Innovation if the good appears a turn early (Quick Innovation). Also, on expert recipes with Good Omen, you can pop Great Strides right then followed with Quick Innovation for a huge quality increase.

This iteration of specialist abilities is far better than the Whistle While You Work iteration back in HW. I'm not saying it can't be better, but given how the players utilize crafters, there really isn't a need for specialist abilities beyond expert recipes which are essentially optional anyway.