Crafting is dead

[andreopalomino]

The person you quoted as not using BB is still using a multitude of other CC skills, including rumination, comfort zone, ingenuity 2 and muscle memory at a glance. Sorry but I think you've been sorely mislead if you believe 2 star crafts are accessible to those without a multitude of high level crafting classes. They are anything but casual unless your casual crafter was sitting on a full set of red scrip gear. If you think that was what SE was aiming for, then they failed miserably.

Level 60 2 stars recipes are nothing but a dream if you don't have all cross class skills. Just take out all cross class skills on a class you're specialist and try to craft one 2star HQ item.

[Ksenia]

Level 60 2 stars recipes are nothing but a dream if you don't have all cross class skills. Just take out all cross class skills on a class you're specialist and try to craft one 2star HQ item.

I came to 2.00 with 3 characters. A 50 Weaver, Armorer 50 and Goldsmith 40. The Weaver went Omni but I kept the Armorer and Jeweler just Armor and Jeweler. The problem I see is, even if I took the Armorer and Jeweler to 60 and just that to 60 (I'd be doing it with lower NQ exper but I could actually do it)
The big problem I see is, I can do it but I require more crafts and more mats to do it. Everything about HeavensWard from 51 forward reduces Material availability. Suddenly the 'casual' becomes the hard core. For me to move my Exclusive Armorer forward is going to be 10X harder than moving my Omni forward.

[andreopalomino]

I came to 2.00 with 3 characters. A 50 Weaver, Armorer 50 and Goldsmith 40. The Weaver went Omni but I kept the Armorer and Jeweler just Armor and Jeweler. The problem I see is, even if I took the Armorer and Jeweler to 60 and just that to 60 (I'd be doing it with lower NQ exper but I could actually do it)
The big problem I see is, I can do it but I require more crafts and more mats to do it. Everything about HeavensWard from 51 forward reduces Material availability. Suddenly the 'casual' becomes the hard core. For me to move my Exclusive Armorer forward is going to be 10X harder than moving my Omni forward.

I agree, leveling doing NQ items is crazy expensive. But what I'm saying is, unless you covered on red scrip gear, you can't think about crafting 2stars without all cross class skills. One crafter level 60, even a specialist, can't hope to craft anything 2stars unless he's so overgeared that the gear he's crafting is not important for him anymore.

[Sibyll]

snip

I was happy to hear that specialization would remove the necessity to have every class capped, even though I'd planned to cap them all anyways. The problem is it doesn't.

Byregot's Brow is only usable on Good/Excellent procs, hits for less than Blessing for 6+ IQ stacks, and has a 20% lower success rate than Blessing. Comfort Zone, Careful Synthesis II, and Steady Hand II are still too good not to take. Hasty Touch is still needed because the reduced good procs means you can't rely on Precise Touch for cheap IQ building.

The Whistle system and Heart of the Crafter are an interesting concept that is defeated by the CP cost, RNG factor and limited duration of HotC. If HotC was 45 CP and lasted the entire synth, 45 CP and guaranteed X good procs during its duration, or zero CP (still a delineation) and remained as is this would be different. However, dumping 36 CP on WWYW and another 45 CP on HotC to possibly get some whistle stacks removed is asinine to say the least. Using it by itself to proc goods for precise touches implies that you are swimming in CP because you are by no means guaranteed to get a proc.

Please explain to me exactly how anything the expansion added removed/reduced the necessity of cross class skills for end game crafting. I'd be interested to see your argument.

Also I leveled my LTW and WVR for 15-50 just from maxing Ixali rep. Turning in 5 HQ level appropriate leves is a level. HQ GC turn ins is half a level (nearly a full level if it's starred). This is as casual as crafting could get unless you are expecting the game to level it for you.

[LineageRazor]

Please explain to me exactly how anything the expansion added removed/reduced the necessity of cross class skills for end game crafting. I'd be interested to see your argument.

If I had the answers, I'd gladly share them. I don't, but that doesn't mean there are no answers to be had.

This isn't the first time the crafting paradigm has shifted. Before 3- and 4-star crafts (and especially the Mastercraft II books), skills like Reclaim and Piece-by-piece were all but pointless. When it became obvious that the old methods for crafting just weren't going to cut it on the new recipes, that's when tactics like fishing for Good or Excellent procs started to pop up. Folks who were used to being able to gear up enough to macro craft everything under the sun finally started having to pay attention to what they were doing, gauging probabilities to get acceptable results, and working with the knowledge that there was no 100% foolproof way too succeed on many synths.

I feel like folks are being too hasty in assuming that SE has flat-out dropped the ball with their promise of making solo-crafting viable. Pretty near everyone that posts in the crafting forums is ALREADY an omnicrafter. Why? Because damn near everyone that comes to the forums asking advice on how to craft is immediately told, "Level everything to 50. It's the only way." Some may rise to the challenge, but I'm betting a whole lot more get discouraged and turn away. Those of us that remain, we don't NEED to rely on Byregot's Brow or the specialist abilities because we already have all these cross-class bells and whistles.

I'm hopeful that an upcoming crop of new solo-craft crafters will appear that aren't scared off by the old guard's moaning and weeping, who are forced to rely on the new skills. None of us here have put more than a token effort into crafting like a solo-crafter would need to, because it's wasteful and unnecessary. The question isn't whether solo-crafting is the best way - that's almost certainly false - the question is whether it's a VIABLE way. In searching for a viable way, these solo-crafters may come up with techniques that surprise the rest of us.

Edit: And for the record, since many folks seem to be misinterpreting what I mean by all this, I'm NOT implying by any means that level 60 2-star crafting materials are casual-oriented. That is a seperate discussion. My only concern is whether or not casual crafters can effectively craft using those materials, not whether or not obtaining those materials is a casual activity.

[scarebearz]

snip

With specalist skills it's already possible, when crafting with all HQ mats at least.

But it's seriously inneffective and much more risky.

With the cost of mats, nobody in their right mind is going to do it this way though xD

[Aeyis]

I'm hopeful that an upcoming crop of new solo-craft crafters will appear that aren't scared off by the old guard's moaning and weeping, who are forced to rely on the new skills. None of us here have put more than a token effort into crafting like a solo-crafter would need to, because it's wasteful and unnecessary.

Gee. I'd love to experiment with the specialist system, or without cross-class abilities. But what do you know I can't! It seems I can only do a limited amount of crafting per week!

[Lyrinn]

I'm hopeful that an upcoming crop of new solo-craft crafters will appear that aren't scared off by the old guard's moaning and weeping, who are forced to rely on the new skills. None of us here have put more than a token effort into crafting like a solo-crafter would need to, because it's wasteful and unnecessary. The question isn't whether solo-crafting is the best way - that's almost certainly false - the question is whether it's a VIABLE way. In searching for a viable way, these solo-crafters may come up with techniques that surprise the rest of us.

I have 16 2* HQs made so far and I still have my tokens from this week's reset. HQing these crafts is laughably easy. Stop talking about them as if they're something special and the "old guard" just can't adapt. System is garbage, end of story.

[Jade-Nephrite]

I have 16 2* HQs made so far and I still have my tokens from this week's reset. HQing these crafts is laughably easy. Stop talking about them as if they're something special and the "old guard" just can't adapt. System is garbage, end of story.

I was trying to think of what would make a lv 60*** craft difficult and the only concept I think of is raising the Progress / Quality bars. The Master II books were tough because those trade-ins needed a ridiculous amount of Quality, if they raised new recipes to 15K Quality that would be pretty rough.

[Sibyll]

Wall of text

So you have no rebuttal for any of the comments I made about the specialist skills or new class skills relying too much on RNG to be worth using?

Saying you can do 2* crafting without relying on cross class skills is like saying you can do Tank swap mechanics without cross classing provoke. I'll repeat what I said before: Skills like Comfort Zone are too good not to cross class.

Can't complain about melding when there's nothing to meld and no grade V materia to meld with.

Just because there is nothing to meld at the moment doesn't exclude the materia system from being garbage. I'm not a huge fan of binary success/fail RNG design, especially when it's used to gate crafters from doing recipes.