Risk and control still sketchy to me

I do believe the lodestone statement that some synths favor craft and some magic craft in terms of success rates and progress even though it has been rough going figuring out which synth favors which type in gs and bs.

But I still have little idea if the concept of risk in crafting. My risk reducing abilities seem to do nothin.
I also can't figure out what control does. Instability rates seem the same without it. Wondering if it really is to pack in more touchups on a final product, making it useless for materials.

Still all these questions after 50 levels of BS and 47 gs.
Need a big ask the devs session!

Wow! I don't have any DoH near that high, but I will soon have them all to 20 and half of them to 30. I used to completely ignore control: I had one outfit that heavily optimized Craftsmanship, and another that did the same for Mag. Craftsmanship. I often got unstable elements, but my success rate on an action was high enough it didn't matter until recently. Harder recipes in the upper 30s, coupled with lower Control on the R32 ARM and TAN main hand tools made the instability too difficult to overcome. I was routinely failing synths that only netted 300SP or so, esp. if they used the lightning element. So I added some Control-increasing gear back into my inventory. Since then things have been much smoother. You probably already know this, but instability is more likely to occur toward the end of a synth, so the effects of higher Control can be hard to judge, because you still probably will get instability, just at the end and not the start.

tl;dr: Around R30 adding Control helped me noticeably.

Will someone describe risk to me?

Here are the abilities that affect it, fwiw:
Ease the Burden: ARM(50) - Reduces synthesis progress to control risk. Most effective for finished items.
High Return: BSM(50) - Temporarily increases chances of success in proportion to risk. Most effective for finished items.
Comfort Zone: CRP(40) - Temporarily reduces risk. Most effective for materials.
Harmonize: CUL(10) - Reduces risk. Most effective for finished items.
Close Inspection: GLD(30) - Reduces risk of next action. Most effective for decorations.
Flawlessness: WVR(50) - Temporarily prevents increases in risk. Most effective for parts.

All we really know is that risk increases throughout the synthesis and decreases the chances of success while increasing the chance of instability. However just like bad element colors, high risk increases quality if you are successful. That's why you get 2/3 of your quality in the last half of your synth if everything goes well.

I use high return 3-5 synths from the end of a session just because, but I can't honestly say I can tell a difference without stat software telling me there's one.

Risk *is* element color. Notice all those abilities will directly affect element color. For instance, when I pop "Ease the Burden" it is like a free "Wait" action which also lowers progress by 10%. It doesn't necessarily improve the element color from say flashing to white as Preserve would do.

I do not have all the R50 abilities (yet), so I am unsure how it works for them all.

I'm only in the 20-ish rank and I love to craft, but I find myself wondering several things.
What to wear for what synths...
Control
Output
Mag. Craft... Like what's magical to craft? A staff/wand type thing..or...?
And the big urban legend: elemental direction/moon phase
Ought we be facing a certain direction based on the shards being used?
Or, as my ls-mate suggested, direction based on the job you are crafting on.

I'm tempted to try and gather together different crafters of ranging ranks and have everyone do the same leve-quest synth and record the results during different moon phases. Though this would be a huge undertaking and I don't know how excited or willing people would be to use up a leve just for a test. :3

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Karis

Risk *is* element color. Notice all those abilities will directly affect element color. For instance, when I pop "Ease the Burden" it is like a free "Wait" action which also lowers progress by 10%. It doesn't necessarily improve the element color from say flashing to white as Preserve would do.

I do not have all the R50 abilities (yet), so I am unsure how it works for them all.

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Frick, maybe they are.