Ehcatl Sealant....

[Sibyll]

And the people that never did first turn aren't beating final coil now. They have to catch up, which is easier than it was for the top level raiders back then, before they can push ahead with the top content.

The people that beat T9 and 3 star master crafters from before 2.4 are in the same boat.

As far as selling your sealant, if you were in the 3 star boat you could make several times as much turning it into offhand tools, at least on my server.

I could do 3-star crafting before 2.4 went out, but without a Supra. I didn't level GSM desynth because BSM, ALC and ARM are what I wanted to go. After seeing how absurdly skewed Mastercraft Demimateria was between GSM and everything else I lost motivation in getting there in a rush. Perhaps I'm missing something but MCDs are brokenly in favor of GSM to the point where you almost are required to level it if you want your Supras. I'm assuming the new artisan tools that are craftable will open more routes, but 8 days for a chance to get them seems pretty rough compared to the ease of Artisan Specs.

Off hands (NQ) on my server go for about as much as the sealants to make them. This isn't including the other mats required to make them. I realize I'm from a smaller server (Mateus) and the economy is likely botched horribly compared to a bigger server. From what I've been told HQing this is absurdly difficult in the sense that you need very good RNG.

And I'm assuming the bigger bottle neck you are referring to is the x3 HQ turn-ins for the Mastercraft II Books?

[StouterTaru]

Artisan tools are just 3 star synths, the only difficulty is the 6 sealant can't be HQ. If you get the other items HQ you start with about 700 Quality.

The books are one of the other bottlenecks, mostly for the fieldcraft III. If you don't have leather desynth, you might as well just buy them off the market or have a friend that does and offer to buy in bulk off him. I desynthed 100 boots the other day, got over 30 FCIII for 600k, plus half a stack of wool cloth and some hard hippo leather.

Another bottleneck is the materia to meld onto them, it really starts to add up when you need to overmeld at least 2 tier III materia per tool. Another is the mastercraft if you still need to get supras. You can get mastercraft from forager hats if you have weaver desynth leveled, but it's a slower pace than making tomato relish for hours on end.

[Rath]

SNIP

1.) Sealants are easy to buy or easy to get from dailies. You take time to make gil or do your daily quests.
2.) BSM is the best for getting MCD, you make and break artisan/forager tools and get 3 at a time. You sell 1 and it pays for 10-15 sealants.
3.) Offhands are 3 star and a joke to HQ
4.) Unlocking 4 star is 10x harder then anything unless you are a skilled crafter. If you just used others macros for 3 star or less, then you have to rely on RNG from hell. There was a few posts on how to do this manually without macros that works very well using hasty and rapid. This method is not "100%" but I made my HQ turn ins in 4-5 tries and reclaimed the low-quality ones, I am 12/16 HQ on 4 stars using this same method (I use NQ mats).

[SeraviEdalborez]

2.) BSM is the best for getting MCD, you make and break artisan/forager tools and get 3 at a time. You sell 1 and it pays for 10-15 sealants.

"Up to" 3. I desynthed artisan needle and got a mere 1 FC3. It's not worth the gamble unless you do not have GSM desynth (even then, it'd be better to just do GSM).

Furthermore you could easily get about as lucky on Specs and get 1/5 where you go 0/1 for your triple chance on tool.

[Sibyll]

1.) Sealants are easy to buy or easy to get from dailies. You take time to make gil or do your daily quests.
2.) BSM is the best for getting MCD, you make and break artisan/forager tools and get 3 at a time. You sell 1 and it pays for 10-15 sealants.
3.) Offhands are 3 star and a joke to HQ

1) I never said they were hard to get from dailies. Also it varies from server, but on mine they go for 400k per sealant. My point is why make them attached to a daily if you are going to make them sellable.

2) 50 HQ turn ins for one attempt that has the chance to drop 1-3 or 5 attempts at getting a chance to drop 1. Even if it were guarranteed to drop 3, the Artisan specs win unless the tools have a higher drop percentage than specs do.

3) I'm not really sure how I see this considering the 6 sealants aren't HQable. All I can say is I've only seen 1 HQ artisan up on the board and from talking with other crafters on the server there is a decent amount of RNG involved to get it HQ.

"Up to" 3. I desynthed artisan needle and got a mere 1 FC3. It's not worth the gamble unless you do not have GSM desynth (even then, it'd be better to just do GSM).

Furthermore you could easily get about as lucky on Specs and get 1/5 where you go 0/1 for your triple chance on tool.

Do would you happen to know if a successful desynth of an artisan weapon increases your desynth the same as an artisan spec? I realize this is a full patch ago but I'm blown away how easy GSM has it.

[SeraviEdalborez]

Do would you happen to know if a successful desynth of an artisan weapon increases your desynth the same as an artisan spec? I realize this is a full patch ago but I'm blown away how easy GSM has it.

You have 50% success rate for an item of the same recipe/i level as your desynth. You will have 50% chance at a i70 item (like Arty specs or tools) at 70, and 100 at 100. It's not exactly a 1 to 1 increase, just 30 over cap is the point when you hit 100% success and stop getting skill (speaking strictly for the higher levels, not always true for extremely low levels).

So, yes.

[StouterTaru]

And yes, they are both level 70, so they would give the same increase to desynth. They will level you up to 100, but it will be incredibly slow for the last 20 levels; it will take you about a thousand of them to hit 100.

[Sibyll]

And yes, they are both level 70, so they would give the same increase to desynth. They will level you up to 100, but it will be incredibly slow for the last 20 levels; it will take you about a thousand of them to hit 100.

Thanks. And one last thing. Do you know if the drop rates of MCD are the same between Specs and Tools? I'm aware tools can drop up to 3, but I find it absurd to say that this some how balances the 5x cost that every craft besides GSM (and Weaver) have to pay to get these. That's not even taking into consideration that it's statistically more favorable to take 5 cracks at it for 1 than 1 crack at it for a possible 3. I'd think there would be some type of higher percentage to balance this out.

Did they really want to pigeon hole everyone into leveling GSM as a desynth?

[Rath]

"Up to" 3. I desynthed artisan needle and got a mere 1 FC3. It's not worth the gamble unless you do not have GSM desynth (even then, it'd be better to just do GSM).

Furthermore you could easily get about as lucky on Specs and get 1/5 where you go 0/1 for your triple chance on tool.

You can always get 0, but I have only ever received 3 MCD when I get MCD from an artisan or forager tool. The key you are missing is the forager tools are FREE and take a minute or so of your time to work towards every game day. Also, I have gsm at 100 and BSM at 100. Before I leveled bsm I made 10 specs a day and usually got 1mcd every 2 days, some days I did get two, but some I also got 0. I then leveled bsm and make 2 tools a day, that is the same amount of synthes (and to the person that said "HQ synthes", really? these are 100% with a macro) I get MCD once every 3 days, that is 3 MCD in 3 days or 1 in two days, both with 100 synthes a day. Plus you get them from miner and botanist tools every couple days if lucky.

Edit: I have also tried Artisan needles with my gsm and have never received MCD from them. I make them whenever I get enough HQ twinthread from desynthing bridal pants. If anyone has obtained any from an Artisan needle, please confirm if you can, I am beginning to wonder.

[Sibyll]

Snip

There are a lot of statistics here that we don't know and just because you have only seen 3 doesn't mean that is always the case.

If the tools have a higher percentage chance to yield MCD, maybe double what the specs do, then yes maybe those are on par. But with the way RNG can be, having 5 chances at 1 is more favorable than having 1 chance at 3 because you are less susceptible to bad RNG. Once again, this assumes they have the same MCD drop rate.

The only argument that you really bring up that is good is that BSM can desynth Foragers as well as artisan which allows them to double dip. If you went with the forager hat's and artisan specs you'd have to have GSM and Weaver leveled up.