Quote Originally Posted by NanaWiloh View Post
Could have told you that someone like yourself with max melds would have no issue crafting 3 star. SE did say they were not making 3 star anymore difficult then 2 star, expert recipes are going to be your endgame. I really hope expert recipes are incredibly hard to HQ, hard as in your going to fail more then you succeed.
If I remember correctly, in Stormblood you couldn't macro the Ala Mhigan set 1-100% even with max melds. You needed a HQ mat or two in there and HQ food, maybe Tea. The mats were harder to obtain, timed nodes took high melds to even attempt HQ, we needed a special fish and Gyr Abanian Alchemics were costly. And max melds were miles harder to get, I sold grade 6 materia for between 1-2 million each back then. We were still theorycrafting and discovering new rotations a month in. And all that was considered easier than HW.
However, like I've said before, it was great for the casual crafter too because the basic lv80 set and furniture sold for more than endgame Master Craft does today. It was rewarding for everyone.

As for max melds, everyone can get them. It's no secret. You simply stockpile the mats for Cunning Craft Syrup and Tinctures with Retainers. When they're starred on Collectible turn ins, spam as many as you feel up to for that day. Repeat any other day they're starred. When patch day finally comes, you're sitting on hundreds of each, completely free. And now we have Extract Materia so you get even more materia just for crafting those collectibles. There's no excuse besides being too lazy.

Remember too my rotation is No food, no specialist, no syrup. Add a NQ vendor food, barely 1-3k each, or make your Alkahest HQ using Ryaz's rotation and the requirements shoot down.

Expert recipes should not be an endgame. It's a little minigame at best.