How Do You Feel About Specialists?

[Sylvain]

I don't really mind specialist having exclusive craft but alchemy having required mats from everyone is a bit of a bummer as it makes alchemy specialist mandatory.
I also dislike the crafting list disparity.
Armorsmith, cooking and wood got the short end of the stick here.

Concerning specialist skills, they need some rework as it is overall no worth using those.

[Sylvain]

I don't really mind specialist having exclusive craft but alchemy having required mats from everyone is a bit of a bummer as it makes alchemy specialist mandatory.
I also dislike the crafting list disparity.
Armorsmith, cooking and wood got the short end of the stick here.

Concerning specialist skills, they need some rework as it is overall no worth using those.

[Alisi]

snip.

Cooking has always gotten the short end of the stick regardless. That's just one of those things. Alchemy used to be that way until the end of HW with the ironworks set (where everything needed that one special thing that only alchemy specialists could make.) This feels like they're following in their footsteps with that.


I think it's also important to remember that these aren't the only recipes that'll be out. There will be a later 4.1 patch that'll put out more recipes. We're just seeing the first half of things. They always do this. They put out the crafting/gathering sets first, allow people time to make them, then they add the other recipes. We got that with the two star recipes, which weren't released at the very start. This is sort of the way they do things. The fact that there's no offhand, belt, or accessories just points to that. They do it to level the playing field. So there will be more recipes for armory and carpentry, and for the rest of the classes as well.

[Mrydeen]

Specialist SHOULD make a crafting profession easier, and negate the need for having an OMNICRAFTER toolset... That was its purpose and should be its purpose.

Specialist should not lock out recipes, that only hinders the market negatively. This greatly affects/hinders everyone who is not an omnicrafter.
Instead of setting out what it is supposed to do, it is now doing the opposite, and making the original issue worse.

[DarkDedede]

Instead of simply locking recipes, I think specialists should affect the number of materials required to use a recipe. Perhaps specialists could have a less artificially bloated recipe compared to non-specialists.

[Sylvain]

snipitysnap

Shrug, so the materia price bane isn't going to be over anytime soon...
I wish there'd be a better way to get cracked crystals and lower ranks in general. Even rank 2~4 cost 20~50k each now on my server.

[-BlueGreen-]

Specialist SHOULD make a crafting profession easier, and negate the need for having an OMNICRAFTER toolset... That was its purpose and should be its purpose.

Specialist should not lock out recipes, that only hinders the market negatively. This greatly affects/hinders everyone who is not an omnicrafter.
Instead of setting out what it is supposed to do, it is now doing the opposite, and making the original issue worse.

100% agree. The specialist lockouts is the main thing I disliked from all of 3.x, and seeing it show up again now in 4.1 is really making me wonder if I'll bother renewing my sub when it runs out. I basically didn't participate at all in crafting during HW due to the lockouts until the very end when I went ahead and prepared for 4.0 which made much of 3.x feel empty to me.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Shrug, so the materia price bane isn't going to be over anytime soon...
I wish there'd be a better way to get cracked crystals and lower ranks in general. Even rank 2~4 cost 20~50k each now on my server.

That’s practically a license to print gil, if you can sell T2 and t3 materia for that king of cash. You can get quite a few daily just from doing the Ixali - get some t4 directly (your choice of three, per task) and several per Oakknot.

[Kaurhz]

I like the idea of what specialists, give, I just think it can be so much more. The abilities are good, some of them could do with a slight buff for monocrafters. Although I know the 'meta' has never really supported this idea. For starters, I have mentioned before, but Initial Prep should, in reason be a stacking buff, and it should have abilities added to what it grants. An Ingenuity equivalent I would be in favour for, for example. With it giving a chance of reducing CP, I do think that it should still be a thing, however, the amount of stacks of Initial Prep you currently have should determine the likelihood, or how much CP is reduced on a given action. Of course not something completely overpowered. But I would like this buff to give the vast majority, if not nearly the entirety of the 'crafting community' to use specialist actions, especially over Maker's Mark.

A little bit of salt, I'm sorry, but I really do think that Manipulation II and Prudent Touch shouldn't exist, or at the very least be a specialist only action and have CP cost increased drastically, considering what it gives. Yes I made that comment - Crafting should have RNG element to it, especially to craft HQ, otherwise the idea of an item being HQ is meaningless and everything by default should be HQ, or have the stats of a HQ piece. Starred pieces should be of the 'difficulty' of reinforced spruce plywood to HQ.

I know this last suggestion has some significant logistic problems likely to solve, but being a specialist, rather than granting the ability to just craft a given item entirely, should allow for a second bar allowing for the possibility of a third materia slot opening as a guaranteed slot. Perhaps granted by something equivalent to a delineation which requires yellow scrips to get, and has some form of cap on it. This has been suggested elsewhere I do believe, or something similar to it, albeit with much less a cap on it.

[-BlueGreen-]

Crafting should have RNG element to it, especially to craft HQ, otherwise the idea of an item being HQ is meaningless and everything by default should be HQ, or have the stats of a HQ piece.

Sadly that's already the case. HQ isn't that 'special' currently. It's basically on par with dungeon/trial/raid/tome gear of the same ilvl. NQ is below that to the point where only retainers are likely to really benefit from it, and only because for some reason DoW/DoM retainers (unlike DoL) use ilvl instead of primary stat to determine what they can/can't do. If HQ were as hard as you're suggesting to get, that'd put it in a position to not be worth it compared to alternatives in most cases. It'd only survive if NQ was what HQ is right now and HQ was an actual bonus at the same ilvl as anything else. Of course, the problem with that is that then everyone would only want the HQ crafted gear and there'd be a riot about 'requiring' crafting gear because it's BiS or that sort of thing that has caused problems before (it's why a tanks can't cram 5 strength materia into accessories anymore).

So respectfully, I must disagree. With the way the crafting skills are balanced, you're given options, some of which involve RNG currently:
1. You can craft slow and steady, using a lot of steps to up your success rate (even more if you don't use a macro). This can essentially wipe out the impact of RNG on a craft, but it comes at the cost of being difficult on someone (in terms of time/energy) wanting to mass produce items (presumably to sell on the MB). This approach is more for people looking to keep costs minimal and probably for personal crafts.
2. You can macro a craft. Many macros have a few weak spots that a particular 80% or two chance failing at the wrong times can prevent HQ or similarly, having a very poorly timed poor condition can do the same. RNG is present, but often acceptable for mass production.
3. You can use an RNG-heavy setup to reduce the number of steps to produce more items in a shorter time. Useful if the NQ product has some value (food and potions can often be this way)
4. You can become a specialist to basically do #2 and #3 with higher success rates to the point where #1 might even be a waste of time for a specialist.

Basically, #1 comes down to a basic skill check (like a DPS check... do you know your rotation?) while #2 and #3 are more of a higher risk, higher reward sort of thing with RNG.