"Heart of the X" Lv60 Crafting Specialization Skill - CP Cost Too High?

Hey there! So I was reviewing my specialist skills and one of them, "Heart of the <insert crafter name here>" (hereafter referred to as HotX) seems like one of the less confusing skills in the specialist's repertoire, as it increases the chances for a Good Condition to appear for seven steps.

HOWEVER, unlike every other crafter skill in the game, it requires two costs.

1.) 45 CP to activate.

2.) Consumes an "<insert crafter name here> Dilenation" item upon activation of the skill, which sells 10 for 250 Blue Scrips.

Now, while the skill is CRAZY good, its cost seems a little... obnoxious to me. I mean, keep the Dilenation cost, but the 45 CP is extremely crippling to stack on top of it. Could you make it closer to 18-25 CP instead? Thanks!

Tricks of the Trade x3 and you've already profited 5CP.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Tricks of the Trade x3 and you've already profited 5CP.

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Well I get that, but I've heard reports of people only getting about 4 Good conditions per use of this skill at maximum. It seems like a waste of a Dileneation if it's just going to act like a glorified Comfort Zone.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

Well I get that, but I've heard reports of people only getting about 4 Good conditions per use of this skill at maximum. It seems like a waste of a Dileneation if it's just going to act like a glorified Comfort Zone.

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Whistle While you Work + Tricks of the Trade and you'll get a major CP pool back in the next steps. Considering how rare sometimes Goods/Excellents can be on 2-Star 60s its not too bad ^^

Just watch out for that Progression Boost at the end of WWW ^^

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Originally Posted by Magistrella

Whistle While you Work + Tricks of the Trade and you'll get a major CP pool back in the next steps. Considering how rare sometimes Goods/Excellents can be on 2-Star 60s its not too bad ^^

Just watch out for that Progression Boost at the end of WWW ^^

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I've just started experimenting with WWW on 0-star Master Recipe crafts and I haven't quite yet hit the progression boost at the end of WWW (I tend to use Nymeia's Wheel before that happens as the lower the stacks of WWW, the more Durability you get from Wheel).

But that's good to know! I'll try to experiment more! =D

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Originally Posted by Canadane

Tricks of the Trade x3 and you've already profited 5CP.

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Even getting 3 procs from it is a gamble within itself. It's still completely RNG, espesically for the high end lvl 60 crafts (where I've gotten anywhere from zero to 2 procs, I stopped using heart and WWW completely since it's just more RNG that costs CP)

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

I've just started experimenting with WWW on 0-star Master Recipe crafts and I haven't quite yet hit the progression boost at the end of WWW (I tend to use Nymeia's Wheel before that happens as the lower the stacks of WWW, the more Durability you get from Wheel).

But that's good to know! I'll try to experiment more! =D

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If you run out of WWW stacks without using wheel, it'll automatically use Finishing Touch that uses 10 durability, increases 200% progress and at least a 60% success rate (because I've had it fail with SHII before). It's not important enough for the game to list those details, but I've had crafts fail or ruined because of Finishing Touches.

There's some topics on this in the crafting subsection, but people there (including me) have pretty much concluded that specialiation (and by extension,heart of X) is useless, if not detrimental to use, due to the high CP cost, the high risk, and the mediocre to no rewards that come from it (even if you get 3 conditions for TotT, all you've gotten is 5 extra CP and it's still a gamble to get 3 out of 7 in the first place.

If you already have the level 50-60 cross class abilities, I wouldn't bother with the specialist abilities at the moment. They will probably help you under average luck, but all current recipes are easy enough with cross class abilities. I wouldn't want to jeopardize my craft just so that I can possibly have an even easier time crafting them.

If you have only one class leveled, then you have no choice but to use these abilities. But there'll be a lot of rng involved and delineations will get expensive if used frequently.

Well to be honest, 2-star crafts are really really difficult do get HQ for omnicrafters even with food. I mean, even with more CP, it's a challenge.

So I want to at least try to HQ a 2-star craft with WWW skills.

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Originally Posted by HakuroDK

Well to be honest, 2-star crafts are really really difficult do get HQ for omnicrafters even with food. I mean, even with more CP, it's a challenge.

So I want to at least try to HQ a 2-star craft with WWW skills.

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Some crafters do swear by the specialist abilities, so I suppose that there could be a more efficient method of using them and managing rng. Many of us have probably tried the abilities only a handful of times.

I'd like to look at them a bit more closely, but that would mean either mass producing lots of 1* gear that I don't need and can't sell, or choosing culinarian as one of my specializations...

Specialist abilities should be removing rng or least reducing it not adding more to the mix.

Well with experimentation by crafting an Astral Birch Lumber and an Adamantite Ingot, I can safely say that my standard rotations are definitely going to have to be changing.

My opener for specialists is thus:

Maker's Mark (MaM) -> Whistle While You Work (WWW) -> Comfort Zone (CZ) -> Flawless/PBP Spam until MaM goes away.

It's very effective, I feel, as it has an 80% chance of completely washing away any CP loss during that phase of crafting.

Then for the second phase:

Inner Quiet (IQ) -> Heart of the X (HotX) -> Steady Hand II (SH2), then a variety of the following skills depending on situation, in order of priority:

-Nymeia's Wheel (If WWW is at 1 stack)
-Careful Synthesis II (If SH2 is not active, Durability is 20/70, and CS2 won't finish the craft)
-Steady Hand II (if SH2 is not active and Durability is at least 30)
-Trained Hand (If SH2 is active and IQ stacks are equal to WWW stacks)
-Great Strides -> Byregot's Miracle (If Trained Hand was activated the turn before and IQ stacks are at least 8, or if Trained Hand was not activated and IQ has 11 stacks)
-Precise Touch (if Good/Excellent, SH2 is active, IQ is below 10 stacks, and I'm not hurting for CP)
-Satisfaction (If Good/Excellent and WWW stacks are a multiple of 3)
-Piece by Piece (If Good/Excellent)

Finish with Master's Mend II (MM2) at 10 Durability

Then for the final phase:

Repeat Phase 2 skill variety until 40-50 durability, depending on craft.

Then the finisher phase:

SH2 (unless SH2 is at 2-3) -> Great Strides -> Innovation (unless SH2 is at 1) -> Byregot's Blessing -> Ingenuity II -> Careful Synthesis II spam


That all seems to work reasonably well without much of a detriment with 410-ish CP (total, with HQ Seafood Stew).

Ultimately, I think the reason they decided to lean so heavily on RNG was to avoid these endgame crafts from being macro-able. But I think they were a TOUCH overzealous on that front.