Just hit 93 cloth last night and am planning my post-plume skillup synths. I'm looking at Errant Slops to 94 and Elite Beret to 95, but after that its tricky. Dance shoes are looking to be about 335k/synth (and will almost double if Spider Webs return to their previous 60k each Christmas high), so I'm trying to see if another method might be slightly cheaper (I know nothing is cheap at this point, but doesn't hurt to look around).
I know that some woodworkers purposefully break synths with a below cap smithing subskill to save money on materials. Has anyone tried this with clothcraft? The specific synths I was looking at are Errant Houppalande and Rasetsu Hakama.
For the errant body its 96 cloth 53 gold, and I'm at 93 cloth 44 gold. Would a 9 lvl subskill gap be enough to break it most of the time (my guess is yes), and more importantly, which ingredients seem to get lost the most? Depending on which materials are lost it might be a cheaper route, but if its highly variable or an all or nothing loss it wont be... NQ is probably a 300-400k loss after sell, full break ~700k. Thoughts?
Same question for the Rasetsu Hakama, though I'm unsure of its sub requirements. I'm at 60 leather and 28 smithing. Viable?
I have all three guild items. Would packing my MH full of earth energy help much?
Thanks for the help!