Craftsmanship/Magic craftsmanship

[Yves]

Brain = Fried.

What is the purpose of off hand items? I thought they would be for special recipes but not so?

Where can I find a comprehensive guide to crafting and what skills are worth using and when is best, and what the crap does elemental instability do? etc.

Originally the offhand concept was part of the first vision of XIV under Tanaka. I recall some talk in a post quite some time ago that offhand would be done away with at some point. Whether or not this is a) accurate or b) still stands is questionable. Given the nature of the 2.0 vision being more simplistic this discussion may not be relevant soon.

What I can tell you is that based on crafting dozens of the recently added "hard" items (and their basemats) is...

IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE.

This is over the course of hundreds of synths while using food as the variable. This indicates primarily that:

1. The cap is already hit prior to synthing and the addition of food is irrelevant
2. The statistical bump provided by food (+15) may be so minimal that it doesn't matter
3. That, in an attempt to simplify an overly-complex system, SE decided to add the numbers up and use the total combined value

The ONLY noticeable stats are:

1. Control - it reduces the chances of destabilization. This has been confirmed in patch notes.
2. The stat that affects quality for each job. Again, this is clearly laid out in previous notes and yes, it does make a difference. While the numerical value is fairly low for each successful standard and careful success it does add up over the course of the process.

People are over-thinking it.