Why is the Manipulation skill locked behind the crafting quests?

[technole]

Topic is really "I want to shortcut my crafters to 80 without the quest work needed". The quests are short and if you actually did them methodoically when you level, they are quick because by the time you get to the 60s, they hand you all the mats on a silver platter for free. But if you snub them and go all the way to 80, of course you're going to spend hours.

[Shibi]

The quests are short and if you actually did them methodoically when you level, they are quick because by the time you get to the 60s, they hand you all the mats on a silver platter for free. But if you snub them and go all the way to 80, of course you're going to spend hours.

Having done them both ways: I personally consider (at this point) it's easier, cheaper, and faster for me to do the ARR/HW quests when I've way outlevelled them (ShB desn't count as its free mats). You get the guaranteed HQ with the least time, work, and expense - especially on the second last, or was it last HW one that needs the aetherial reduction materials.

Doing another set of crafters at the moment, and 70 seems to be the sweet spot for me, to do them in the shortest time.

But this is me, everyone is different.

[Eien713]

Topic is really "I want to shortcut my crafters to 80 without the quest work needed"

God, can people read the whole discussion before jumping to conclusions? -.-

The quests are short and if you actually did them methodoically when you level, they are quick because by the time you get to the 60s, they hand you all the mats on a silver platter for free. But if you snub them and go all the way to 80, of course you're going to spend hours.

You don't get it. I had all the necessary cross-skills when I leveled my crafters back in ARR/HW. Crafting quests are mind-numbing and time-consuming, so I only did the ones necessary to get the cross-skills needed for decent crafting. I didn't craft much in SB, but I decided to give the restoration a shot now in ShB. But then with the changes they did to crafting, I lost that skill and had to redo the work to get it again on all the damn classes. It was quick for my main crafters, but for the ones whose cross-skills weren't useful back then and which I never used to craft high-level recipes, I had to go back and do them practically from the start.