The Current State of Specialist Actions

[TheFanciestBard]

I'd like to know if SE currently has plans to rework the specialist actions or if they're currently satisfied with how utterly sub-par these things are. Given these were most likely an attempt at removing the omni-crafter requirement for making money at crafting makes it fairly sad to see how reserved they are. It seems like SE was afraid of Specialists being TOO good at crafting.

Satisfaction and Nymeia's Wheel are pretty much the only worthwhile actions at the moment mainly cause Satisfaction is a gimpy tricks of the trade and Wheel can sometimes be an 18 CP Master's Mend 2. Trained hand could have a big boost in potency, upwards of 250-300% given the requirements needed, while Miracle is weak and Innovative Touch is just so laughably bad.

I think the main problem with specialist lies with Whistle While you Work and Heart of the Crafter. Improving these will see to it that all of the others, with the exception of Innovative touch, having a much more reliable and powerful impact on crafting.

Finishing Touches mechanic needs to go, the fact you can have a craft fail because of RNG makes Whistle a risk and it only having a 50% success rate is mind boggling. The mechanic of increasing progress potency in stacks of 3 also would be removed. With that, Whistle would have the effect of Heart of the Crafter rolled permanently into it and the CP cost lowered by a small amount. This thematically goes with a specialist knowing how to really get the most out of their materials and be in a sort of comfort zone in their work.

Heart of the Crafter would then be reworked to extend the current state of the craft, as in normal, good, excellent, or poor, for the next 6 or so steps. Cost and requirements would probably stay the same but this would allow the specialist the ability to actively manipulate their whistle stacks rather than just relying entirely on RNG. Crafting at a high level is all about removing as much RNG from crafting as possible and it's kind of silly that being a specialist only increases the amount of RNG you have to deal with if you decide to make use of these abilities.

By allowing very strong RNG manipulation this would make crafting higher tier gear easy for people that don't have the money or time to level everything to 60. The new heart would let one easily spam precise touch which would quickly cap your Inner Quiet stacks. That gives Byregot's Miracle a place as well as offering reliable ways to get good Nymeia's Wheel activation.

This comes from a fully melded almost all 60s in gathering/crafting player. I'd love to see people able to enjoy crafting without feeling like they need to spend millions of gil and hundreds of hours just to start. Crafting is my favorite part of FFXIV and I'd like to see more people take an interest in it if only for 1 or 2 classes. Making specialist really feel special would go a long way in achieving this goal.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

The easier, and probably better, way to fix the Specialists is to eliminate the current Specialist actions, and enable Specialists to gain, as normal (not in the cross class area) ALL of the 21 cross class skills that the base class does not provide, for levels 15, 37, and 50. Kill off the Specialist-only flag for recipes at the same time.

[Sollux]

Given these were most likely an attempt at removing the omni-crafter requirement for making money at crafting makes it fairly sad to see how reserved they are. It seems like SE was afraid of Specialists being TOO good at crafting.

This is exactly what they were aiming for. Specialist actions were never meant to replace the traditional cross-class skills, only to provide a means to compete with omni-crafters at the cost of higher RNG. It's highly unlikely they'll ever compare to the original skills as that would remove all incentive to level any other Crafts and at the same time invalidate anyone who has already put in the effort to do so.

The only skill I agree should really be changed is Heart of the Crafter. With a high CP cost and no guarantee you'll even get a single Good out of it (Yes, I have gotten 0 Goods before) it's practically worthless for anyone who wants even a slightly stable rotation.

[MN_14]

The specialist abilities work well under average RNG even for 2* crafts provided that you have the level 15 cross class skills, steady hands 2, some i180 red scrip gear, and maybe an initial starting quality of 1500-2000. The main issue I have with them is that you'll probably want to use Heart of the Crafter, making the craft a lot less predictable than using level 50 cross class skills and more subject to RNG failure. The Heart skill also consumes delineations, increasing the cost of each craft.

Heavy RNG based skills like Whistle While you Work are also harder to use than level 50+ cross class abilities.

[m3eansean]

Let's face it.

Crafting pretty much died with 3.0. Now all you can do is make gear for....other crafters. Specialist or no, interest for many players has evaporated. The fact there is no relevant battle gear to create kind of kills it for a lot of people.

Also, scrips are a nightmare and a ridiculous excuse of a time sink and artificial difficulty increase.

[Silverbane]

Also, scrips are a nightmare and a ridiculous excuse of a time sink and artificial difficulty increase.

I disagree. I find maxing my Red crafter's scrip trivial to do. Generally it take me under two hours. I keep a good stock of likely mats for them, and replenish much of that stock by sending my retainers out on ventures during the week. I can hit the top collectability tier using mainly NQ mats and cheap food, so I quick-synth most of the intermediate mats.

Having all crafts (except CUL) geared to L60 2-star stat requirements or better and waiting for a good gold-starred turn-in helps.

[FoxyAreku]

Trained Hand and Finishing Touch could use buffs, the rest are perfectly fine.

Heart of the Crafter makes things so ridiculously easy (can argue it's RNG based, but I've yet to run into a single Heart use that didn't give me at least 3 goods and I've done it at least 20 times by now).

Whistle, I was originally unimpressed with, but it's really amazing, since it refunds itself and then some when combined with Maker's Mark, satisfaction, Heart, Comfort Zone, and Nymeia's wheel.

I use Trained Hand when I have CP to spare but it could be better...

Innovative touch is perfect, it's a gamble move. Less chance to succeed, but way more quality progress if it does if you use a few hasty touches right afterward.

Byregot's miracle is great if you get an early excellent but don't quite want to give up all your IQ stacks just yet.

Finishing Touch, when you're lucky enough to chew through all of your whistle stacks, is garbage though. I'd much rather use Nymeia's wheel at 1 stack then let my whistle stacks hit zero and fall off. Maybe if it was 250% efficency and didn't use durability it'd be good?

Honestly, 2 star crafting is so easy if you're a specialist. I wouldn't trade most of these moves for anything at this time.

Also lol@scrips being called a nightmare. I'm sorry, but if you think scrips are in any way hard, crafting may not be for you. I cap them every week in less than an hour. >_> Two hours if I don't feel like buying mats and go get them myself.

[Jpec07]

Having all crafts (except CUL) geared to L60 2-star stat requirements or better and waiting for a good gold-starred turn-in helps.

I hope the irony of this statement isn't lost on you - this is a thread detailing how the system that was intended to prevent the need to be an omnicrafter is failing, and your answer is "just be an omnicrafter."

Scrip grinding isn't very compelling as a progression mechanism, because it's too grindy, and the rewards don't seem worthwhile, outside of getting the DoH books. It doesn't matter how easy it is, it seems like it's fallen victim to the same arbitrary gating we've seen everywhere in 3.0 endgame, and like it was deliberately lengthened to draw out the progression for as long as possible.

[Silverbane]

I hope the irony of this statement isn't lost on you - this is a thread detailing how the system that was intended to prevent the need to be an omnicrafter is failing, and your answer is "just be an omnicrafter."

Because of how the recipes are put together, if you don't like buying your intermediate mats, you need to have all crafts (except maybe CUL) leveled to 60 anyway.

And I do not consider myself an omnicrafter. I have four nicely-geared crafting classes (e.g. Craft 795 Control 723 CP 422), three that need food to make the required stats for 2-Star L60 crafting (e.g. Craft 718 Control 685 CP 418), and CUL at a mere Craft 665 Control 658 CP 418. But even as a CUL I have no trouble doing red-scrip collectables.

Fortunately for me, my wife is well-geared in my lesser-geared classes.

[TheFanciestBard]

This is exactly what they were aiming for. Specialist actions were never meant to replace the traditional cross-class skills, only to provide a means to compete with omni-crafters at the cost of higher RNG. It's highly unlikely they'll ever compare to the original skills as that would remove all incentive to level any other Crafts and at the same time invalidate anyone who has already put in the effort to do so.

The only skill I agree should really be changed is Heart of the Crafter. With a high CP cost and no guarantee you'll even get a single Good out of it (Yes, I have gotten 0 Goods before) it's practically worthless for anyone who wants even a slightly stable rotation.

The incentive of leveling all crafts should be to be able to craft everything yourself, not to just be able to craft. If you just want to level weaver and make yourself pretty glamour gear or whatever, that's your choice, but having the option to at least compete with omni-crafters in that specific craft wouldn't hurt anyone. I recall hearing that specialist was supposed to deal with omni-crafting but no one is going to find it acceptable to have multiple attempts at 2 star fail because your RNG was less than optimal.

Not to mention the whole red scrip system was obviously another band-aid for people who aren't omni-crafters as well. You make gear, hand it in, and get stuff that's class specific upgrades to the 150 gear. No one who omni-crafts is going to touch red scrips outside of tools cause it's a waste of money you can use to meld out non-class specific gear and achieve 2 star that way.

All the changes in 3.0 hints at attempting to make it easier for people to get into crafting and avoid feeling like they need to level everything to 50 at least to compete in the ability to craft everything related to that class or make themselves a small niche market, except you can't unless you do all that still. Something has to change unless they just want to make specialist a "Pick this if you want to craft fancy items in this class" which it seemed to devolve into.