Crafting Attributes and Skills

[jacksj1]

Haven't seen a discussion about this. Seems to be a largely neglected consideration amongst the wider playing base. I want to discuss these stats with particular consideration to 'pushing the envelope' or achieving the best results that you can with challenging recipes.



So, there are three crafting attributes :

Craftsmanship
Magic Craftsmanship
Control



Lets consider the crafting process and then go on to what these attributes affect. Early consideration of the 'coloured glowing ball' suggests to me :


White - stable and best chance of success

Orange - roughly same chance of success as 'White' but increasing chance each turn it remains orange of 'critical success' with no Durability loss at all

Red : bad, higher chance of failure

Changing colour : lottery




My approach to crafting is based on the use of a key skill from Alchemy and a couple of basic rules :

1. The skill is Preserve - this guarantees the next three crafting attempts will maintain the coloured ball at white;

2. If the coloured ball is white or orange use 'Standard Synthesis'.

3. If the ball is red or flashing check if 'Preserve' is available. If it is use it - if it isn't then use 'Wait'.


This is a basic recipe for a high level of success. Of course you can use other skills. Fulfilment from Leatherworking is another good one - it seems to have a much higher level of success, almost as though the ball is white but the visual still shows it flashing, for your next 3 or 4 crafts depending on what craft you are using. I throw in a couple of other compatible skills that give a high chance of bringing the synth back to white.



On then to the Attributes.


Craftsmanship helps to determine success rate.

It would seem that one element of 'Control' is to help keep the coloured ball in beneficial colours ie White or Orange and to help get it back there if you lose it.


Magic Craftsmanship seems to determine whether the elements remain stable and the chance for the element to restabalize if it goes out of control.




I'd suggest our goal in terms of crafting gear for recipes that test us (ie not trivial or much lower level than our rank) is to :

1) Balance out those three stats as much as possible;


2) Have each of those stats at double the level of the recipe we are attempting, or more reasonably, in terms of available equipment, our rank level. (eg Alchemist Rank 20, have all three stats at 40).



Even a month in into 'live' it's difficult to optimize these stats (balance out Mag Craft and Control) because so many gear recipes need high level components.


Let's take Alchemist and Culinarian as an example. I suggest that for these crafts the optimal 'Beret' (eg Cotton or Canvas) is necessary. It's the 'best' headgear in terms of :

i) giving the most Control and Mag Craftsmanship;

ii) considering the 'best' gear available for the other slots, in an effort to maxmise the stats.


However, I went out hunting for the harder component for all Beret - Apkallu Down. The lowest level mobs this is dropped by is Lower Apkallus around loc 40, 26 across the bridges past the crabs SE of Bloodshore. I duo'ed these with a level 50 Pugilist friend - they conned red to him and he needed a fair bit of healing 1 on 1.


We'll get a much clearer picture of crafting and stats over the next couple of months as the more difficult gear become more widely available, but I look forward to getting other peoples feedback and ideas on the above.



Flight (The Star Onions)
Lindblum

[Purrrfect]

Sounds like you might not have seen http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...f271d7a0a84d5f

[jacksj1]

Yeah I'd seen that Purrfect, but it's a bit misleading. It says :

Q. What steps can I take to ensure that the element of my synthesis does not become unstable?
A. The element has a chance of becoming unstable whenever any step of the synthesis process ends in failure. It is at its most susceptible when the glowing light representing the craft is colored, and is at its most stable when this light is white.

It sounds like any colour except White is bad, but I don't think Orange is. I prefer to see Orange than White, roughly the same success chance and increasing chance of zero durability loss - what's not to love ? The balance is that there are numerous Crafting skills to maintain or re-establish the 'White' status quo. I could be wrong but I'm suggesting Red is the only 'bad' colour - and the chance of hitting Red when it's flashing different colours.

At this point in time, having read the various dev chats on crafting, I'd say there are a number of things that are either wrong or misleading.

[Drako]

Yeah I'd seen that Purrfect, but it's a bit misleading. It says :




It sounds like any colour except White is bad, but I don't think Orange is. I prefer to see Orange than White, roughly the same success chance and increasing chance of zero durability loss - what's not to love ? The balance is that there are numerous Crafting skills to maintain or re-establish the 'White' status quo. I could be wrong but I'm suggesting Red is the only 'bad' colour - and the chance of hitting Red when it's flashing different colours.

At this point in time, having read the various dev chats on crafting, I'd say there are a number of things that are either wrong or misleading.

i agree that ask the devs has lot of wrong things or misleading BUT orange really sucks for me, i have better results on red.

Try standard when the time bar is almost in the end when its RED, 99% of the time i have success (i think i failed no more than 5 times in MANY tries).

[qpoiuwer]

i agree that ask the devs has lot of wrong things or misleading BUT orange really sucks for me, i have better results on red.

Try standard when the time bar is almost in the end when its RED, 99% of the time i have success (i think i failed no more than 5 times in MANY tries).

Don't forget to face east.

[Purrrfect]

Yeah I'd seen that Purrfect, but it's a bit misleading. It says :




It sounds like any colour except White is bad, but I don't think Orange is. I prefer to see Orange than White, roughly the same success chance and increasing chance of zero durability loss - what's not to love ? The balance is that there are numerous Crafting skills to maintain or re-establish the 'White' status quo. I could be wrong but I'm suggesting Red is the only 'bad' colour - and the chance of hitting Red when it's flashing different colours.

At this point in time, having read the various dev chats on crafting, I'd say there are a number of things that are either wrong or misleading.

It only said white is highest success chance. It's possible that white has, say, 50% and orange is 45%, but white's chance for crit success is 20% and orange's is 50%. Unless they straight up lied to everyone reading, white has the best success chance, end of story.

[jacksj1]

It only said white is highest success chance. It's possible that white has, say, 50% and orange is 45%, but white's chance for crit success is 20% and orange's is 50%. Unless they straight up lied to everyone reading, white has the best success chance, end of story.

It doesn't say White has the best success chance. It says White has the best chance of not becoming unstable. The synth attempt can still fail without it going unstable. Even if the attempt is successful you still have to consider if it has the greatest progress gain vrs durability cost over time.

Also, it's not end of story, is it. There are lots of other considerations. How often will white show up compared to orange ? What's the difference in crit chance ? How much do correct use of balanced stats affect failure chance on white and/or orange ? How much does the zero durability loss on orange crits affect the equation ? Also, how do we measure success - it's not just not becoming unstable but also what has the best ratio of return considering progress gain and durability loss.

I'm not suggesting they've lied, but there have been mistranslations more than once already.


Two things I'm pretty sure of :

1) It's certainly not as straightforward as 'Spam Standard Synth' which I've read in a few places (unless the synth is a good deal below your rank and you aren't bothered about quality/HQ);

2) It's a boring system if it's all about maxing your gear then not doing any attempt apart from white and spamming 'Wait' a dozen times before you get it. The question is at what point do you stop aiming for White and what are the other acceptable options ?

You'll notice as well that I opened by saying I wanted to start a discussion - I'm not posting a guide here, rather hoping to get an insight into other peoples experiences. Within that, feedback may be misleading if you haven't got your crafting attributes maxed by using the optimum gear for your level.

[Frein]

Don't forget to face east.

And run at the goblin when he pulls out his bomb! ...wait, what?


Wild, baseless speculation with a healthy dose of confirmation bias for the win. Orange sucks, by the way.

[Meresgi]

Has it been said before, are the bonus stats for crafting, aka +control, Mag. Craft etc etc, effected by favored class or not?


I ask because robes have Craftsmanship+ and Mag. Crafts+ but don't favor CRP or TAN.


Edit: Testing with Canvas Hat, which doesnt favor CRP. Gives +5 control at rank 26. I'm rank 20 right now and getting +2 control from it, so it could be the class isnt effecting that.

[Jayhawk]

Has it been said before, are the bonus stats for crafting, aka +control, Mag. Craft etc etc, effected by favored class or not?


I ask because robes have Craftsmanship+ and Mag. Crafts+ but don't favor CRP or TAN.

If I wear Cotton Shirt on Blacksmith 23, I get Craftsmanship+6 instead of the +9 it gives to favoured classes.

[Kaeda]

Yeah, I began to notice that favored also affects stats. If the class isn't favored, then it will not get the full stats listed. This really sucks for my carpenter because it means not having full stats from all the cloth gear; especially the doublet (w/craft and m.craft) and hat/beret line (w/control and m.craft). I've been thinking about getting spectacles to use for the hat slot, but repairing those are costly...

[Meresgi]

If I wear Cotton Shirt on Blacksmith 23, I get Craftsmanship+6 instead of the +9 it gives to favoured classes.

And Cotton Shirt gives +9 to CRP but doesnt include Tanner as a class...and since i'm ranking up both...

I'm not going to buy 5 different outfits for all my classes and crafts when im stuck with 80 inventory slots..they should have thought this out a lot better. I mean, why do certain crafting classes need different gear then others? Just give them all + to crafting stats and list them as optimal for all "Disciples of Hand" and then do another set for "Disciples of Land".

It seems from a ZAM search that ALL the body armor that favors CRP for crafting has + Gathering on it too...

[Dakin]

I got a question.

Why is Leatherworker the DoH class that SE decided to F in the A?

[tymora]

The level 40 skill for all except 2 crafts suggest that the regular stats affect craftsmanship.
Blacksmith - STR
Armorer - VIT
Goldsmith - DEX
Cooking - PIE
Alchemy - INT
Weaver - MND

Carpenter/Leather = Unknown

[tymora]

I got a question.

Why is Leatherworker the DoH class that SE decided to F in the A?

Because they get a hax synth in the 30s for 6 water shards per synth.

[miokomioko]

I'm suspecting Dexterity or Piety for Carpenter... All my points are in those two for Fishing and I'm not having many issues with Cooking/Goldsmithing/Woodworking Local Leves 5+ ranks past me. Alchemy, on the other hand, is consistently giving me some success rate problems on Local Leves 1~2 ranks above me.

[Rammses]

Yellow is not very good at all. Record some data and even the tiniest of sample sizes will indicate this. I suspect you've been blinded by the golden light.

Preserve can be used for Leatherworking just fine.

[Elcura]

You should only go on whites and flashing colours (if you have no choice). Yellow and Red are disasterous, and on difficult recipes even whites are going to be a bitch.

[miokomioko]

Preserve works great on any class. It's just the difference between 4 turns for finished items and 3 turns for any other type of recipe.

[Meresgi]

You should only go on whites and flashing colours (if you have no choice). Yellow and Red are disasterous, and on difficult recipes even whites are going to be a bitch.

Failing on flashing usually results in a element becoming unstable in my experience.