Changes to the Crafter Level Penalty

I'm not sure whether this was a bug or intended, but I noticed something strange while trying out old level 60 master recipes at level 60. The new level penalties used for SB (lower penalties for progress, higher penalties for quality) seem to apply to the level 60 recipes as well, which were balanced differently in terms of quality requirements. I got the following numbers using the different finishers below on a 3* recipe:

11 stacks of IQ, GS buffed byregots finisher; no innovation or ingen2: ~3700 quality
11 stacks of IQ, innovation buffed finisher: ~4700 quality
11 stacks of IQ, innovation and ingen 2 buffed finisher: ~8200 quality!

This has a few implications:

- At 60, the balance has been broken to heavily favor the use of ingen 2 for quality, whereas in the past it had limited power in terms of quality increases, particularly for 3* or 4* recipes

- Until you reach 61, you'd be much harder pressed to craft a 4* from 0-100% now and require more cross class skills

- At 60, level 65 recipes are easier than 3* or 4* level 60 master crafts....

I was quite surprised when I tried a 4* recipe, got 11 stacks of IQ, two extra successful touches, used an innovation buffed finisher (without ingen 2) and got 28%, rather than the 14K+ quality that I would have gotten in the past.

Has anyone else noticed anything?

I haven't tried the level 60 crafts, but I did notice the penalty for crafting above your level was very very steep. It should be fairly simple for me to HQ koppranickel nuggets, but it's rare that I get above 30%. It wouldn't surprise me if the change somehow also applied to your level 60 crafts.

Also, I wasn't aware that Ingenuity 2 buffed quality as well? I had never noticed a change to how much quality I get while buffed under that, and it was part of my HW rotation, but I also sometimes don't pay too much attention to the numbers floating around on my screen.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Elamys

I haven't tried the level 60 crafts, but I did notice the penalty for crafting above your level was very very steep. It should be fairly simple for me to HQ koppranickel nuggets, but it's rare that I get above 30%. It wouldn't surprise me if the change somehow also applied to your level 60 crafts.

---

Ooo! I thought I was just going crazy. The level 61 stuff I tried (the very basic first stuff) was seemingly impossible to get 100% on as level 60 but when I turned 61, it rose to something like 8 times out of ten I could get 100%. My GS is at 62 or 63 and I can get 100% from 0 every time. The thing that kind of baffled me was that I haven't changed my gear. Still using my ironworks set.

Yeah, there was a change made in the last patch that penalized your ability to get higher quality if the recipe is above your level, and it's pretty dang hefty. It is, however, easier to achieve progress on those crafts.

Though, really, having the penalty on crafts AT your level seems unintended.

Noticed it earlier when crafting some 60 ★★ for a FC member, what should have been almost certainly 100% quality from NQ mats (especially at 11 IQ stacks) was now coming out at ~70% which was less than I was averaging on 0 starting quality 60 ★★★★ as recently as Tuesday.

The penalty should only apply to recipes above your level, at least according to what I read in the patch notes. I only meet the requirements for 60-2 star atm, but noticed no difference in any level 60 recipes I was previously crafting. I have not tried any 61 recipes, but I was already used to not being able to increase quality much on recipes above my level because I would need so much durability to complete the craft. So on paper, I figured these changes would balance themselves out. Would have to run hard numbers to know for sure.

Don't starred recipes count as higher level then the number would indicate? 51 recipes were easier then 50 starred recipes were they not? 50* were what, between 51 and 52?

So that this would affect 60 starred recipes makes sense, unfortunately.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder

Don't starred recipes count as higher level then the number would indicate? 51 recipes were easier then 50 starred recipes were they not? 50* were what, between 51 and 52?

So that this would affect 60 starred recipes makes sense, unfortunately.

---

Yes, that's correct. I believe that a level 60 4* recipe should be considered to be probably something like a level 63 recipe....only it's using the old quality requirement standards (ie. 13K vs 10.4K). This seems to be a strange oversight as somebody should have considered that. Sb recipes have an adjusted quality requirement that is considerably lower than HW, most likely out of consideration of the bigger penalty when you're under-leveled and to drastically reduce difficulty when you're at level.

Since the quality requirements are lower, level 65 recipes are quite doable at level 60 even without the use of ingen2. I can usually get around 9600-10000 quality out of the required 11263, which is good enough for over 80%. Bait a good proc and I can bump it to 100%. In contrast, the 4* recipes from before are much tougher at 13187 quality since they have the same new quality penalty.

Ingen 2 used to boost a 4* by around 700 quality but now it boosts quality by almost 100% of the base finisher. I haven't tried it on level 65 crafts yet, but if it works the same way, there is a very simple way of cheesing them at level 60.

Update: Confirmed that ingen2 boosted my finisher for a level 65 craft (while at level 60) to 7900 quality out of the required 11263. Even at 5 levels below, i had no issues reaching 11 stacks with extra touches on top of that due to the high good proc rate, had a chance to land byregot's on a good not once, but twice (but passed on it), and easily got way more quality than i needed to craft from 0-100%. It's a riot!

Hopefully things get harder later.

Quote:

---

When a recipe's level is higher than your crafter level, the difficulty of raising quality will increase, while the difficulty of raising progress will decrease.

* This change does not apply to recipes below your crafter level.

---

This penalty is pretty much removed with IngII. Remains to be seen how this will impact high end starred crafting, but if SB crafts have an overall lower quality increase curve, it will definitely be a buff for us as long as we use IngII.

This possibly unintentional penalty on HW starred items is actually nice! It makes the old stuff more challenging and more fun! :P

Although, it makes the starred items not as good a grinding choice for leveling. If memory serves, this was similar when we were entering Heavensward. When we were leveling from 50 to 51, we found Rose Gold Nuggets to be a much better choice than Rose Gold Ingots for grinding for EXP (well, the "similar" I meant was referring to the end result, not the reason). I remember the ingots gave only a tad bit more EXP, but the 9 Peacock Ore requirement was too expensive. In fact, I remember making a crap load of Aetheryte Rings, and desyning them back into a single nugget, just to redo the rings again for EXP! LOL! Fun old times.

Anyway, I guess the Heavensward level 58 and level 59 recipes of stackable items would be a better choice than Heavensward starred stackable items for EXP then.

In terms of leveling, it's probably easiest just to unlock the levequests in Kugane and then use your allowances. Leveling seems to be super fast so far.

The crafts that I've looked at seem to be balanced so that single class crafters can complete them (even when under-leveled), which is why they're so easy. If your stats are at level 60 2* level (~700 craft and control), you can HQ the level 61 40 dur recipes easily enough without needing many HQ components and in terms of skills, you only need the level 15 ones (and the name/brand skills), maybe SH2, and byregot's miracle. 80 dur recipes are possible from all NQ. One side effect of the penalty change is that ingenuity 1 provides a large boost to quality as well. If your stats are lower or you don't have enough base cp, some HQ components will make up for the difference.

Once you hit 61, you can buy new gear and catch up in terms of stats. If this kind of balance remains, I'd say single class crafting is very viable now, although balance seems to be broken for omni-crafters so far.