Skybuilder's tools (510 shiny)

[Deceptus]

I would have to disagree with the reward part of it honestly. If they do continue to do this they need to make the relics actually worth a damn. Right now, they're trash, plain and simple. Aesthete's pentamelded is still superior and takes far less time to actually make/buy than grinding out a relic. The only reason to get a relic tool is if you don't want to go about pentamelding eight different tools and are happy with slightly sub-optimal stats. These things need to have materia slots on them to be any good, period.

Pretty much this. The current relic step is totally unbalance in reward vs time. Each relic requires a minimum of 2700 yellow scrips (max 5400) EACH coupled with time in the Diadem vs less than an hour for the Aesthete's which can be penta melded to be better.

But that has sadly been the story of relics in Shadowbringers. Reward vs time invested has been completely unbalanced. There has to be some middle ground between braindead easy vs Korean level grind. That's what the players want. A middle ground.

Relic is supposed to be casual. The last step of this relic requires an EXPERT level craft which is the hardest crafting content in the game.

It's akin to requiring savage raiding for the DoW/DoM relics

The fact that the crafter relics don't have at least 2 meld slots (should be 5) is bad.

The fact that we STILL don't have a better fishing gig that the level 61 version is bad. This would have been the perfect time to upgrade it.

[Kaurhz]

Pretty much this. The current relic step is totally unbalance in reward vs time. Each relic requires a minimum of 2700 yellow scrips (max 5400) EACH coupled with time in the Diadem vs less than an hour for the Aesthete's which can be penta melded to be better.

Relic is supposed to be casual. The last step of this relic requires an EXPERT level craft which is the hardest crafting content in the game.

It's akin to requiring savage raiding for the DoW/DoM relics

The fact that the crafter relics don't have at least 2 meld slots (should be 5) is bad.

The fact that we STILL don't have a better fishing gig that the level 61 version is bad. This would have been the perfect time to upgrade it.

Except getting a pentamelded Aesthete's tool to do what you would consider as 'outclass' the relic requires an approximate sum of:
Yellow Crafters' Scrip x80,750 or approximately 10,093~ Yellow Crafters' Scrip per tool
+
White Crafters' Scrip x28,000 or approximately 3500~ White Crafters' Scrip per tool.

Getting all of the above to pentameld your tools isn't exactly an hour journey. Next time factor the time of getting the materia in your comparison tbh.

The necessary breakpoints which you must hit during the Expert recipes are relatively lenient to compensate for the fact they are indeed Expert recipes. These are barely akin to running Hades extreme at iLv510. Not even an inconvenience even at all. Besides, these tools are quite good in their own right, it's only right they make you do something tedious aside from hit a macro and be done with it. I'm down for them adding 5-materia slots, but only at the expense of it being excruciatingly more tedious/difficult. The minimum quality you need is, what, 24,000?

[Jojoya]

Relic is supposed to be casual. The last step of this relic requires an EXPERT level craft which is the hardest crafting content in the game.

Except it's low enough in difficulty that the tier 1 rating can be achieved through a macro if you have the minimum required stats plus food.

If it can be done through a macro you can look up online or get from another player, then it's very much casual content.

It would be nice to have a matching secondary tool as well.

I have a feeling that might be what we're getting in 5.5. YoshiP did say in the Live Letter that new Expert recipes would be coming with new tools as rewards. Since SE stated repeatedly that the Skybuilder tools would be our BiS for the expansion, the new tools coming would have to be the secondary BIS to make them worth pursuing.

I'm also expecting the exact same problem with the upcoming tools - set stats with zero ability to customize so they're nothing more than shiny fluff.

[MsQi]

They are the best you you can get if you hate penta-melding, which I do. It's a lame mechanic. IMnsHO

I have a feeling that might be what we're getting in 5.5. YoshiP did say in the Live Letter that new Expert recipes would be coming with new tools as rewards. Since SE stated repeatedly that the Skybuilder tools would be our BiS for the expansion, the new tools coming would have to be the secondary BIS to make them worth pursuing.

I'm also expecting the exact same problem with the upcoming tools - set stats with zero ability to customize so they're nothing more than shiny fluff.

That would be cool, I thought this was the last one. I would be cool if these tools could be melded but they have a special feature, that when you over-meld the slot becomes permanent.