Specilists don't seem very special

[Lemuria]

So, I recently unlocked my first specialist class. I had expected skills which could make life easier while crafting, perhaps something impressively powerful which could only be used on that class. What I got, however, were a bunch of skills with so many conditions laden on them as to be almost meaningless to use.

Let's tackle them, shall we?

Whistle While You Work: Gives you a stack of 11 whistles which, on their own, do absolutely nothing. When the stack is either 9, 6 or 3 you allegedly get a bonus on, quote, 'certain skills' which I can hand-on-heart say doesn't seem to apply to any of the ones I've tried so far.

Once depleted, whistle gives you a 200% efficiency progress boost.

Now, how do you use stacks if you start with 11? Well, you might think they'd deplete like any other stacking bonus, with each action. Nope. They only deplete on a good or excellent condition. That's right, you need 11 good/excellents in one craft to deplete this and get the bonus. Or 8 good/excellents if you use the follwing skill every time it's up.

Satisfaction: This consumes 1 whistle for 15cp. This can also only be used at 9, 6, 3 stacks. If you use this every chance, you make up the cost of Whistle at +9 cp. Not really worth the 9 cp considering you have to go through all of the above for it.

Innovative Touch: A quality increase skill. 40% success rate. 8 cp cost. Kind of a weaker version of Hasty Touch, but with the added bonus of giving you a free Innovation. Not sure I'd get much use out of this, since the success rate even with Steady Hand isnt that good.

Nymeia's Wheel: Removes whistles, restores item durability. 18cp. This could be nice, but it works in retrospect. The fewer the stacks, the more the bonus, and the maximum seems to just be 30 durability. Which means to get the best out of it, which is just equal to a normal Master's Mend, you have to somehow deplete enough whistles to make it worthwhile.

Byregot's Miracle: Quality boost, inner quiet stack halved, gives 10% bonus for each inner quiet stack. Seems like Byregot's Blessing does a better job of this. Even if you were to use it twice, it wouldn't come close, though Miracle is cheaper by 8 CP.

Trained Hand: Increases quality and progress at the same time. 150% effecient. Sounds awesome right? Can only be used when you have an equal number of stacks of whistle and Inner Quiet.... doh!

Heart of the Weaver: increases chance of material becoming good condition for the next 7 steps. Eats 45 cp. I don't like the word 'chance' in that sentence, and at 45 CP I'd expect at least some guarantees.

This is basically all there is to being a specialist? Really? These skills are so selective on how and when they can be used, that you're better off sticking to tried and tested rotations. They rely so much on chance, especially whistles and whistle-related skills, that they can't be relied on at all.

There's really no advantage to being a specialist at the moment. I was really looking forward to trying out something new, and seeing what advantages specialization has over other crafts. The fact is, if you've already hit 50 on every craft you will gain precisely nothing from having the crafting souls equipped. Not even the tiniest of stat boosts!

[Tam_Hawkins]

I'm not that far yet (just started lvling my crafters) but weren't there specific reciptes just for specialists?

[Causality]

I'm not that far yet (just started lvling my crafters) but weren't there specific reciptes just for specialists?

At 60 weaving specialist, nothing new populated.

[Tam_Hawkins]

At 60 weaving specialist, nothing new populated.

Thank you (that's actually a relief fo me^^)

[lordoftheapes79]

I refer you to the other 10,000 threads about crafting being incomplete and under powered. It won't all be out for a couple more weeks.

[Rath]

The Specialist system was advertised as a way to make those hard crafts without needing to level all of your crafts. It basically gives you a slightly less effective way to craft then someone that has all crafts leveled. Of course someone that is skilled in every craft can do things better, but for someone that didn't get byregot's blessing, byregot's miracle is good enough to get the job done. It doesn't really add anything unless you don't have the other crafts.

[Mature]

The ONLY thing I use from this is innovative touch and SOTC the rest is a waste of cp

[BalthierDragoon]

When the stack is either 9, 6 or 3 you allegedly get a bonus on, quote, 'certain skills' which I can hand-on-heart say doesn't seem to apply to any of the ones I've tried so far.

When the stack number is multiple of 3, you get +50% bonus to all your progress actions (Careful Synthesis II does 170% progress, Rapid Synthesis 300%, etc), which is a great thing to have on high-level recipes. Along with Nymea's Wheel those are the only specialist skills I found useful so far.

2-4 hits with 50% boost means saving 10-20 durability with the cost of 36CP, which you can (somewhat partially) restore with Satisfaction. Add durability restoration with Nymea's Wheel and you can have something like this (notice the number of steps, credit to SoIIux from reddit):http://prntscr.com/7nhvdt

Anyway, many people including myself notice decline in the number of good states you get on the 57+ level recipes, so without Heart of <Crafter>, it's getting harder to manage your whistle stack.

[Lexia]

Yea I find all the new Specilists pretty useless and never use any of them and able to craft fine.

[Causality]

It would be more shines if I didn't have other crafts leveled, also you failed to mention that the level 60 ability requires an item you only can get through Scrips... Like the master weaving book you must have to make the item to complete your level 60 quest that you would rather sell for 3,000,000 - 9,000,000 Gil