The Current State of Specialist Actions

[Alistaire]

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.

This would be terrible.

[Silverbane]

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.

Just giving Specialists the skills Careful Synthesis II, Comfort Zone, Steady Hand II, Tricks of the Trade, and Byregot's Blessing would be enough. There are other nice cross-class skills, but these are the essential ones. If someone want any of the others, they can level the appropriate class.

[FoxyAreku]

Just giving Specialists the skills Careful Synthesis II, Comfort Zone, Steady Hand II, Tricks of the Trade, and Byregot's Blessing would be enough. There are other nice cross-class skills, but these are the essential ones. If someone want any of the others, they can level the appropriate class.

Eh, having comfort zone and tricks baseline would be nice but then what would be the perk of leveling alchemist? And I think Byregot's Brow is enough for those who don't have carpenter, or at least it would be if it didn't require a good, but yeah. Having more of the necessary stuff being baseline would be great regardless.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Giving all of those abilities out would not only make Specialist a little stronger than non-Specialist, it would also still force the Specialist (if he was not also an omnicrafter) to obtain refined materials off of the board. Someone who specializes in Weaver, for example, should get all the other 21 15, 37, 50 cross class skills - but to make most things, he would still need to buy leathers, grade 1 dissolvents, nuggets, etc. off of the board.

Remember - the point of Specializations is to allow someone to take one craft up, without ever touching the rest, and still compete. To compete, anything that can be made HQ must be HQ'able. That pretty much requires the cross class skills. Oh, it's possible, with heavy RNG, to do it with the Specialist actions - but not reliably, which means, not in a manner that allows the Specialist to compete.

The *perk* to leveling up any other crafting class would be the ability to, y'know, actually make that class' stuff.

[FoxyAreku]

The *perk* to leveling up any other crafting class would be the ability to, y'know, actually make that class' stuff.

Obviously, but it speaks of unfairness for all the other crafts to have cross classes and have alchemist have nothing :P

Also being a specialist WITH cross class skills is still > having only one or the other.

[Granyala]

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.

Given the fact that the red script gear was supposed to be the causal alternative to hardcore melding of 2* crafts, I completely agree.
W/o every crafter and both gatherers at 60, it's a royal pain and very expensive to cap.

Sure, as an Omni 60 it's trivial to do. But having Omni 60 is not something I'd consider "casual".

Also, if you ask me, the 1 week gating is a bit overcooked. Esp once you factor in that you have to choose between buying gear or mats.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Obviously, but it speaks of unfairness for all the other crafts to have cross classes and have alchemist have nothing :P

Also being a specialist WITH cross class skills is still > having only one or the other.

I know that your comment had been a response to a comment narrowing my suggestion down, but that inherent unfairness is why I say give all 21 of the other class' 15, 37, and 50 cross class skills. No class is left out, it enhances the power of being a Specialist over being an omnicrafter (and let's face it, someone who specializes in one thing *should* be better at it than someone who does everything), but still requires leveling those other classes if self-sufficiency, the ability to produce the refined materials, is desired.

A Specialist should not have Specialist-only recipes. A Specialist should have an easier time at producing the same goods as the generalist. Specialists were made to allow those with only one crafting class to compete with the omnicrafter. Having no means, or limited means, of producing the refined materials for a recipe would be balanced by having access to all of the cross class skills as though they were regular skills. That, combined with the elimination of Specailist-only recipes (which prevent the very competition with the Omnicrafter that Specialization was intended to bring about), would put the Specialist and the Omnicrafter on even footing.

[Silverbane]

Specialists were made to allow those with only one crafting class to compete with the omnicrafter.

From Letter from the Producer Live XX:

(translation of Yoshi-P's answer) There will be certain actions that you can only use while you are a specialist, but even if you do not become a specialist, you’ll still be able to take all of the Disciples of the Hand classes to level 60.

While I said that the concept for crafting up until now was such that it’d be fine to just level up any one class, the development team is aware that actions like Byregot's Blessing are a necessity, and that leveling all classes is required to use higher difficulty recipes, making crafting quite difficult. The specialist system is something that balances this out, and allows players to enjoy crafting with more choices.

So it's not clear to me that the motive for the Specialist system is what you say it is. To solve the problem Yoshid-san mentions (i.e. allowing people to do higher difficulty recipes without being an omnicrafter) just giving Specilists the essential cross-class skills (such as the ones I listed in a previous post on this thread) would be enough.

The Specialist-only recipes came later, maybe as a reaction to people saying (with cause) that Specialization was not very useful.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Byregot's Blessing is a Quality action. It's use is in making the item High Quality, rather than Normal Quality. Someone with only one crafting class can make the NQ item all day long, until materials run out, but making the HQ item takes those cross class skills.

If it is the word "compete" that you object to, oh well. He talks about the difference between having one class leveled and being an omnicrafter. That, and the general idea that crafters are not just meant to be crafting for themselves, means the specialist system was meant to allow a specialist with one class leveled to make HQ, starred stuff at level 60, just as an omnicrafter can make HQ, starred stuff at level 60. That is a comparison between the two conditions, and I was referring to the practical outcome of such a comparison as the two competing against one another on the Marketboard.

The truly level comparison between them would be to have the Specialist able to use all the cross class skills, as regular skills. As I said, that would give the Specialist an advantage over the Omnicrafter, which would be balanced by the inability to produce refined mats from other classes.

While "it would be enough" to give just those few skills, it would not be all that fair to just give those. You cited five skills, 1 WVR, 2 ALC, 1 CUL, 1 CRP. So an ALC would only gain access to 3 new skills, WVR, CUL, CRP would gain access to 4 new skills, and GSM, LTW, BSM, ARM would each gain access to 5? That is not exactly a fair distribution among the various classes, which as I stated above, is a good reason to just give all 21 to all 8 classes.

[Silverbane]

While "it would be enough" to give just those few skills, it would not be all that fair to just give those. You cited five skills, 1 WVR, 2 ALC, 1 CUL, 1 CRP. So an ALC would only gain access to 3 new skills, WVR, CUL, CRP would gain access to 4 new skills, and GSM, LTW, BSM, ARM would each gain access to 5? That is not exactly a fair distribution among the various classes, which as I stated above, is a good reason to just give all 21 to all 8 classes.

That's exactly backwards. What's unfair is the current situation, where, for example, BSM has to cross-class so many other actions just to do a basic version of Rath's MaMa rotation that they don't have enough cross-class slots to bring in Innovation. Giving my short list of essential skills to Specialists removes that unfairness, which is rooted in some classes (like ALC) having better unique skills than other classes.