Dragonsung tools; yea or nay!

[Maxcrafter]

Easy enough to add Dragonsung to the Armory chest, but putting them on costs 6 CP vs. corresponding penta-melded ILVL 460 job colleagues. Here are stats from Shooter's Culinarian mainhand (as melded) vs Dragonsung Skillet:

ILVL 460 Facet Frypan ...(Melded - 13 CTL, 21 CFT, 9 CTL, 9 CTL, 6 CP)
Craftsmanship...............756
Control.........................431
CP................................6

Dragonsung Skillet.........(Cannot be melded)
Craftsmanship................770
Control..........................421
CP.................................0

It is certainly possible to fuss, expensively, with the 12-piece Culinarian gear set's overall melding setup to compensate for the Dragonsung's loss of CTL and/or Dragonsung's CFT gain - but I haven't found a way to compensate for the Dragonsung's inability to provide 6 CP. Even there, for most folks it won't much matter if their gear sets lose 6 CP - this based on the simple idea that adding an HQ ingredient or two, or tuning one's personal synthesis command list, can usually make the 480 combines work anyway. Boiled down, Dragonsung is nice if your setup is under-melded, but it is a tempest in a teapot vs extant top melding setups.

So... it looks like Shooter's (Crafting) Dragonsung gang of 8 will be trailer queens for now, at least until upgrades to Dragonsung tools appear. Anyone able to predict that? 5.3? 5.4?

Shooter!

[Jojoya]

When Skysteel tools were first announced, we were told they most likely would not replace properly pentamelded crafted tools until the final version can be obtained at the end of the expansion. I expect we have at least 2 more series of upgrades to go if not three.

If you're already using properly pentamelded Facet tools, keep using them. For everyone else, the Dragonsung tools are an upgrade.

[LaylaTsarra]

When Skysteel tools were first announced, we were told they most likely would not replace properly pentamelded crafted tools until the final version can be obtained at the end of the expansion. I expect we have at least 2 more series of upgrades to go if not three.

That is the case with all relics. They always start off weaker and by the end of the process are biz. Now for how long they'll be that remains to be seen. Obviously relic isn't for everyone but there are lots of people who will be doing these and it's certainly something new given relic has been a war/magic thing only before this release.

[Caitlinzulu]

Those 6 missing cp may or may not be a dealbreaker.

[KageTokage]

The lack of CP on the DoH tools is a problem, so I'm hoping the later relics will have some on them.

They're otherwise passable low-cost substitutes for overmelded stuff.

[Fynlar]

I was hoping for something a little bit better than just "ever so marginally better than white scrip tools", myself.

[Liam_Harper]

They're absolutely worse than melded Facet. Control and CP are just far better stats than Craftsmanship and Facet can hold more of both.

Considering they're just 5ilv over white scrip tools (which are incredibly cheap at 250 white scrips and fine for all Master Recipes) they're almost worthless this patch. Just pretend the craft Relic hasn't been released yet.

[Derio]

Its weird though, this means crafted tools will always be better than the relic which makes no sense because by the end of the expansion you theoretically should have already crafted all you need before the final phase of this relic.

[Gemina]

Craftsmanship loss/gain has to equate to a synthesis step loss/gain to even begin considering modifications to Control and CP. IOW, it's almost never worth losing both Control and CP for paltry gains in craftsmanship. I typically aim to hit the bare minimum for craftsmanship requirements so I can dump everything else into Control and CP.

I would apply that (stat wise) when comparing Dragonsung tools to whatever else is out there (facet will eventually become obsolete).

[Barraind]

but I haven't found a way to compensate for the Dragonsung's inability to provide 6 CP. Even there, for most folks it won't much matter if their gear sets lose 6 CP

I dont meld my main and offhands past the required rotational breakpoints (so they currently have 3 materia), because theres no functional difference having or not having the extra 2 materia unless you want to save minimal steps per craft.

If you arent melding for the 2545 control rotations (and you have to craft a spectacular number of items [SPECIFICALLY: a massive amount of neo-ishgardian combat gear that likely exceeds the amount you can sell at a profit] for that rotation to be cheaper in the long run than using food on the neo-ishgardian crafts), there is 0 difference in the relic vs facet main hands outside of expert crafting, where the 6cp might matter (but my take on expert crafting is that I can do literally anything else instead of compete with bots for a temporary title).


You can change the trailing careful syn to basic syn in the 18 step neo-ishgardian macro, and change nothing in the Facet macro and everything works exactly the same going from non-overmelded facet to relic.


If you ARE melding for the 2545 control macros, or dont care about changing weapon sets and have macros that work, you can stuff em in a box.


Goes without saying that if you dont have the facet MH, just use the relic since youll never make back the investment the 2545 control rotation needs.