Craftsmanship/Magic craftsmanship

[Fadigre]

Hello General discussion!

Today I am quoting a whole bunch of stuff from the Weaver forum!
Whilst this may seem a little counter productive believe me I do have reasons!

I'm am Armourer and if I hadn't used the search function I wouldn't have found the thread. The topic covers all crafts so deserves to be out here!
I also believe that if the thread was in general discussion there would be a lot more feedback!

But anyway, here we go -

I'm trying to find out which recipes are physical recipes and which are magical recipes so I can gear myself accordingly.

Mikita has this to say:

A friend who is a R50 weaver told me that when the primary shards required are
- Fire, Earth, Wind then the recipe is Craftsmanship
- Lightning, Ice, Water then the recipe is Magic Craftsmanship

I'm just taking his word for it. ^^

Which was very nicely responded to by VenusDoom

I have also wondered/experimented alot with Craft vs. Magic Craft and think there may be truth to the idea of shards dictating the type of a particular synth. However, my opinion is a little different from above. Please note that the following suggestions are just observations from my own time spent weaving, I have no "hard evidence".

For example, undyed cloth (which takes only earth shards) seem easily done with a +Craftsmanship setup, assuming you are the appropriate rank. Dyed cloth, which take earth shards AND water shards, seem more difficult with the same craftsmanship setup, even at the appropriate rank. Swap out a few pieces of Craft gear for Magic Craft gear, and the difference in rate of successful actions is pretty noticeable on those dyed cloths. I've noticed the same with undyed vs. dyed leathers in Leatherworking as well.

My opinion is this: Let's use Wine-Red Velveteen as an example. This synth takes 15 earth shards and 5 water shards. Assuming the theory is true, that would hint that our synth is largely physical with a bit of magic required, almost like a sub craft. Stack a good amount of Craftsmanship with a moderate amount of M.Craft, and you'll see better results than going 100% in either direction, or going heavy on M.Craft and light on Craft.

As a R.50 Weaver with a full Craftsmanship setup and almost no M.Craft, I was wondering how I could still hit critical fails trying to HQ Cotton Yarn (~r.12?) and lose ~20 durability despite the huge gap between my rank and the synth's rank. Cotton Yarn uses lightning crystals, which are under our proposed magical category. Switched in only one or two M.Craft pieces and voila! Much easier, even using only Bold Synthesis.

This would also help explain the use of Main/Offhand tools (other than to produce different HQ results). Generally mainhand tools favor Craft and offhand tools favor M.Craft. If you have a largely magical synth and a poor M.Craft setup, switching to the offhand tool with greater M.Craft seems to help boost success rate (or at least it seems to me).

It would also explain why the majority of Alchemy synths (which use alot of water and lightning shards) seem to go better with Magic Craft setups.

Anyway, if anyone has any observations or suggestions regarding the shard theory (or any other theories) let's hear them! Crafting is such a huge part of the game, it would be nice to have some more info to work with.

Although Tymora seems to believe otherwise with this:

Varies by item family, no other tricks to it.

All threads are magical, but if you use offhand you end up getting x2 instead of +1.
All cloth are physical. (It used to be all dyed cloth are magical).

For finished items, it might go like:
All Robes are XXX.
All Doublets are YYY.

Just test with the cheapest member of the item family.
No time to do extensive tests. Sometimes I can't tell the difference either.

Which is then followed up by this:

This seems to be holding true so far for me.

Cotton yarns crafting well on the wheel, switching over to cloth and using the wheel (trying that first since primary is lightning shard) yielded many unstable lightning elements during the craft, and some near-breaks. Switched over to needle and absolutely no problem.

But is this all there is to it?
What do you think, General discussion?