Quote Originally Posted by Fenral View Post
What I've been saying (rather, trying to) is that there's a pretty obvious amount of progression required before you can jump into the two-star recipes
It's possible to hit the stat requirements for the two-star crafts without any of the scrip gear, though granted, it takes a ton of melds to get there. Most of the people in this thread who are going for all of the crafting mats they can (myself included) are likely going this route. That being said, this is almost certainly not an accurate representative sample of the playerbase - the act of choosing to participate in a forum discussion tends to have people self-select toward being at the high end of the spectrum of interest/focus in the area.
Me? I look at the Forgemaster's Hammer recipe in my Master Blacksmith III book and think, "that's gonna take some work."
I look at the stats of the Forgemaster's Hammer and think, "no way that that's worth it over the scrips-only version." Having to HQ a recipe that takes that many trade-in mats, only to need to overmeld 15 craftsmanship and 8 control onto an item with one free slot just to break even? No thanks.