I just do not get it, very frustrated, plz help

[Raveneye]

OK, I must be a complete idiot, because I just am not getting crafting in EQ2.

I've read lots of the primers and guides, and I get all the stuff about the components, the fact that you can't craft Tier 2 and above without getting something from another artisan, and the whole crude, shaped, normal, pristine thing.

What I'm totally lost on and very frustrated about is the buffs/debuffs. I just don't get what I'm supposed to be doing. I react to the events that pop up, and that's cool, plus I've been using the "increase progress by medium amount and decrease power by small amount" buffs alternately to try and speed my progress along, but I still just cannot seem to get Pristine results on all but the most simple recipies. It's very frustrating to go through all the time and effort of putting together components only to have the final result be a shaped or even crude version of some thing that is GREEN to you!

So what am I doing wrong? How do these "buffs" work? I'm a level 11 Outfitter, so what should I be sticking on my hotkey bar to mash like mad when crafting? What is the trick to coaxing pristine results out of these recipies?

[Shiz]

I want to know this too, level 12 craftsman.

[Zyzzyx]

I made it to L20 Provisioner over the weekend. Take in mind that some of the stuff for cooking may work differently, either because intended or its broke; but here's my comments.


Buffs? Simple. I spam all three of the T1 buffs. Feel like I'm playing a bard in EQ1 again. For the most part with that I was able to get normal, and sometimes pristine results, even on brand new recipes. When I got to T2 Craftsman, tried the T2 buffs, didn't like what they did, if anything, went back to using my T1 buffspam. Got to T3 and Provisioner, tried the new T3 buffs, still not too sure about them, went back to 'mostly' my T1 buffspam.

I say 'mostly', because I change it up a little bit now. When starting an item, I'll spam the T1 buffs, for maximum progress. Soon as I lose about half of my pristine durability, I'll change over and spam two T3 buffs and a T2, ones that add durability, at light expense of progress. From what I've found so far, that holds the durability mostly steady and lets my progress complete to the end. When I'm changing over to the Durability buffs, my progress is usually at the beginning of the normal level.

I do intend to go back and read some of the articles again now that I've reached Provisioner.

You mention that you've read the guides, I assume you've spent time over at EQTraders? Also, I've been autojoining the Qeynos_Crafting channel this last weekend. For the most part it gets ignored, but there is some good info on there. And if you voice your problems properly and specifically, some very helpful folks on there as well.


Again, I've a feeling that its working rather differently for cooking (heck, we don't take any damage), at least until the Big Patch(tm) coming up.

[Shiz]

Z, are all your food buffs red and have been forever? Mine are. I have been making food only since level 7. Does it matter that they are red while the other buffs are orange (tier2)?

[Raveneye]

That could be a large part of my problem, I'm not using Durablility increasers, heck I think I just got them at level 10. Basically I'm using only the progress enhancers, and even then usually only one per craft (like Knots when tailoring). So what happens is I zoom through crude and most of shaped, then lose pristine on the durability, which gives me a hit on the progress back to the start of shaped, and by the time I get progress back up I'm either coming out normal or in some cases stuck with shaped. On the final combines it can be as low as crude either because I did not have a pristine initial base component or because I lose pristine and then normal and the resulting "kickback" knocks me back down to low crude on progress.

[kullen]

Until Level 12, I didn't even realize the buffs were there. Since then I've set up the following method which seems to work for me.
I have my hotkey 4 and 5 bars set up with the most recent buff on 4 and the second most recent on 5 in the same corresponding spot (Screenshot (http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/image_view.vm?imageId=169595)) . Since my two hot bars are next to each other, i can use the two powers in conjunction with each other.

I have found my top jeweler power (Key 9) will most likely increase durability with a small power cost. Key 10 will return power with no direct effect on the crafting process. Key 11 (-) will increase progress and durability with a medium power cost.

I will usually only cycle through the top two sets of buttons (keys 9 and 10 on hotbar 4 and 5) and will almost always (98% sucess rate) get a pristine combine. If the bar is close to falling out of level 4 durability, I will begin cycling through all three buffs.

This process seems to work very well for me.

[Zyzzyx]

Z, are all your food buffs red and have been forever? Mine are. I have been making food only since level 7. Does it matter that they are red while the other buffs are orange (tier2)?
Yes. Known bug. There will be many changes coming with the 'Big Patch', many of them affecting Provisioners and their apprentices. One of the folks in the Crafter channel, a 42 Provisioner, told me to just tough it out til 20. Actually, he also said to not deal with foodstuffs from 10-20, but to do woodworking or something else.

[Zoldan]

Ok Raven...

As an outfitter at your level, you're going to have to be very aware of power usage. For tailoring, you only have 2 buffs to worry about for power usage, but they're the same buff type (the knot icon) and burn a lot of power (at least for me - 50 and 100 per use IIRC).

From what little I've read, some 'guides' for crafting suggest you use durability buffs, spending as little power as possible, to gain yourself a positive durability amount. That's great, as long as you don't have a failure. Since, in my experience, you'll fail ALMOST IMMEDIATELY, you're going to spend more time trying to get it back, or keep it up.

So what I do when tailoring is to cycle 4 buffs, 2 (stitching and nimble) at T1 for progress, and 2 (the same 2 TYPES) at T2 for durability. On a normal success, you should net about +10 durability per tick, and +30 to +50 progress per tick. I use the knot type buffs pretty much only when I need to counteract an event or have the power and want to burn a little extra to get progress or durability. Which I use when depends on what my pristine durability bar looks like. If my durability is on the high side of the bar, or buffered past the end of the bar, I'll use the T1 knot for counteracts, and if I'm middle or lower of the bar, I'll use durability. Most times, for events, I will cycle ONLY the durability buffs, because you can see a greater increase in durability for the same level of success without the event.

Keep in mind, cycling 4 buffs constantly isn't easy, as your timing will change a lot, and you have to make sure an event doesn't come up before you start each cycle. Therefore, if you experience ANY lag during crafting, you can queue a buff before the 'tick' but not see it start until after the 'tick'. This has killed me once already, by the queued buff going off on a major event and not be the correct buff to counteract. The buff needed to counteract MUST be the first one used on major events, or it won't counteract the event and you'll take health/power/both loss. However, my experience so far is only the major events cause damage and therefore need to be countered.


I hope this helps some, at least with tailoring. I think weaponsmithing (metal working skill) is bugged, because I can't get durability increases except on events, which isn't the case with tailoring and armoring (metal shaping skill). If you have any other specific questions, ask me in game and I'll see if I can answer them.

[GravenStone]

As an Outfitter, I alternate between Binding (to buff Durability) and Knots (to push progress). I will occasionally toss in Nimble to punch up Durability as well, but it's less effective. I will not touch the higher level counterpart to Stitching as that lowers success chance IIRC, otherwise I just lay in reactives as needed.


One note, if you have to react to an event and intend a proactive buff as well, react first as that's what the system will be looking for. If your buff lands before your reaction (and you can only have two buffs active, at least < 20) the system won't register your reaction and will penalize you accordingly.

[Gaelrond]

You will never convince me that crafting is not somehow bugged, because the difficulty in acheiving pristine results on all but the lowest level recipes is insane. I've tried everything, including using buffs proactively, and I still cannot make pristine items. That's a big part of the reason I have given up crafting entirely. I'll gather resources for those that have the patience for it, but I'm through with it.

[Arelas]

I am not sure why people are having a hard time getting pristines. I typically get a pristine 19/20 times on an even con recipe. The first thing you MUST do is read the buff descriptions. Learn what each does and use it appropriately. Remember that if you are using a buff that eats power, you may not have the ability to use the same buff constantly until you finish making your item. Generally, you want to use a low power consumption but durability increasing buff. (T2 and T4 are durability increasing buffs. T1 and T3 are progress increasing buffs.) You can use multiple buffs at once but you will probably find you can't keep multiples up all the time. How many I use depends greatly on the individual skill. Alchemy will probably be only one buff because of the massive power consumption. Scribing and woodworking are typically two or even three buffs. I recommend picking out the three buffs you plan on using the most. (Using one that drops progress significantly is rarely worthwhile. It is better to use the T1 version of it to counter events.)

On the subject of broken skills: Cooking is seriously screwed up. SoE knows this and has said they are fixing it. It would appear the skills are tied to the wrong ability so that increasing artistry does not reduce the chance of a failure of the skill. Also, T2 skills give the same chance of an increase as T1 skills. (With other tradeskills, T2 skills will grant the possibility of increases on every use. T1 appears to only grant a possibility of increase on the completion of the product. I know there have been people saying that they have proved this second thing to be false but I have done a LOT of tradeskilling and have NEVER seen this violated where only T1 skills are used. In fact, I have seen no increases while using the skills only to see an increase when I cancel the combine after a crude item was made.) At any rate, increasing artistry skill does not appear to improve your chances of a pristine in cooking at the moment. I hope they fix this soon.

[EricStratton]

I am not sure why people are having a hard time getting pristines. I typically get a pristine 19/20 times on an even con recipe. I'm guessing it's because they are below level 10. Before level 10 all you get are progress increasers. They will decrease your durability a lot making it tough to get a pristine.

At level 10 you get 3 sets of durability increasing buffs. These are the trick. Keep bumping your durablity back up when you fail. They make it much easier to get pristine. But not guaranteed.

At level 20 you get 1 set of progress increasing buffs (that are better than the ones you had at level 1-9).

I'm a level 24 jeweler. Since getting level 20 I have yet to fail to get pristine on something in the jewelry line (jewelry, runes, carbonite items that use artificing) I was trying to get pristine on (I mean this 100% quite literally). It may take a while, pounding on the durability increasing buffs but it's not hard.

But until then, just try your best. Making pristine at first isn't easy. Not at all.

[shadowgate]

Ok, that is my problem with Artisaning and why I stopped at 12th. I didn't realize or missed the fact that you got new buffs at 10th! I kept wondering what everyone was taking about in bumping the durablity out as all the buffs seemed to do nothing or the opposite! DoH! Ok, so maybe I will go back on the path of Sage! :) Or are we in more need of another Alchemist at this point?

[EricStratton]

As both a jeweler and a fighter class, I can never get enough alchemists. :D But it's up to you.

[Gaelrond]

Level 14 outfitter, and have extreme difficulty getting pristine results on most combines. I use my T2 buffs, and even when I use one that increases durability, often I watch the bar go backwards. I also frequently lose the entire pristine durability bar before making any progress on the crude bar. Apparently I am just too dumb to figure it out, so I'll leave it to the people who can do it and enjoy it.

[Ciiera]

Z, are all your food buffs red and have been forever? Mine are. I have been making food only since level 7. Does it matter that they are red while the other buffs are orange (tier2)? I have this same problem on Fawn. She has artistry of 98 yet ALL and I mean ALL her buffs from T1-T3 are red. It makes no sense!

One of the T2 buffs is supposed to be a good durability increaser but honestly I can only ever get it to work on my alchemist. It doesn't seem to work properly on any other crafting class that I have.

[EricStratton]

Well, I noticed that the buffs all have so many different descriptions. I thought every group of 3 had a buff that reduced your Power by a lot. But that's not true. And I thought every group had one that reduced the success change, but it's not true either.

[Arelas]

The red conned food buffs are the problem I mentioned with cooking.

It is possible that outfitters are screwed up too. I have been hearing repeated complaints about the difficulty of getting pristines with them. Having never made an outfitter, I cannot verify the problems though.

Gaelrond, all T2 and T4 buffs increase durability. The amount they increase it and the attribute they decrease vary but all increase durability. The trick is finding out which buff as an acceptable cost for the durability increase. Also, it is crucial to get your secondary skill (eg, metalworking or tailoring) as high as possible. This is done by using your buffs as often as possible. If the tradeskill buff cons orange or red, your chances of failure is much higher than a yellow con or lower con buff. (This is why cooking is so screwed up. The buffs aren't tied to artistry like they are supposed to be. Hence, the chance for failure is extremely high.) If you DO get a failure, you will probably lose durability (and often a lot of it) and you may lose progress. Even so, using the appropriate buff (or buffs) should make it virtually impossible to get anything lower than a normal grade product. A final thing to remember is that if you lost pristine before you made crude, you can cancel and only lose the fuel component. Then you can try again. I strongly recommend doing this if making something that matters. (Just make sure you never got to crude. If you did, you will get a crude result.)

Ciiera, woodworking has a very nice durability boost. I can frequently finish anything that uses fletching at more than 100% durability. Scribing sucks for durability increases unfortunately. Jewelcrafting is ok but not spectacular. I haven't messed with any outfitting skills. Sculpting (carpenter) has good buffs as well though not as good as fletching. Artistry (provisioner) is just plain screwed up.

One other thing to consider: the first buff you trigger after an event determines if you managed to counteract the event. If it is the wrong buff, you can't counter the event at all. If you try to hit all three buffs every time, you will probably miskey a buff and that can be painful. (This is purely speculation on my part but I think an event that isn't countered continues to affect your product for a few cycles beyond the initial event. If true, an event left uncountered has potentially major complications beyond hurting you.)

[Shiz]

Well, I tried spamming my tier1 buffs while processing black tea leaf and raw vanilla (yellow recipes) last night and got a few pristine results.

[attriel]

My Craftsman and Outfitter both have a little problem with pristine, now that they're both level 12 and making level 12 recipes, but I haven't noticed that much issue. And it's definitely gone down as their skill has increased (if only any two components of the same final combine used the same skill!)

[Biaxin]

Hey,

I don't know that this is the true move, but it has been working for me:

Tier 1 - I generally used the T1heat buff, which I hit right after the first bar movement (either blue forward or orange backward), and, subsequently after each following bar movement. Generally this produced greater advancement of the blue bar, while maintaing the orange bar in a tolerable range. Hence, more often than not, and more often and more often, pristine.

Tier 2 - This time around I discovered doubling buffs. Through trail and error and a certain amount of superstition, I found that, at the bar movement, hitting the T1heat buff followed quickly by the t1flavor buff would, more often than not :lowlol: , kick the advancement of the blue up a bit, and maintain or, even, advance the orange. Again, motn, pristine.

Tier 3 - Still playing with this, but, so far... At bar movement, I hit the T1heat buff and the T1flavor buff, I repeat that until the blue is very close to making the turn to the next quality level and use the T1heat and T2flavor buffs - figuring that the extra boost to the orange from making the turn will compensate for the hit the t2flavor takes on orange for it's bigger boost to the advancement of the blue. Unless that has gotten so far around that it's practical to do it again, I go back to the first combo, until I get to that point. On the pristine level, if the orange is at 3/4 or better, I'll hammer the T1heat and T2flavor all the way home, if the orange is lower than I'll start out with the T1 combo and see if I can get close enough to pull the slam dunk.

My findings may be the results of pure statistical standards - hard code, or I may be the plaything of the gods. You decide.

[Shiz]

Are you color blind? My bars are green (top) and blue (bottom.) Thanks for the comment Biax.

[Greebo]

Are you color blind? My bars are green (top) and blue (bottom.) Thanks for the comment Biax.
I don't know to whom that is directed, but attriel is, in fact, color blind.

Makes it very fun playing board games...

[attriel]

I don't know to whom that is directed, but attriel is, in fact, color blind.

Makes it very fun playing board games...

I think it was directed at biax's orange/blue bars vs shiz's green/blue ones.

and i'm not colorblind. you all just keep making things up to confuse me in the hopes that i'll attack the wrong people.

it's all a conspiracy, i tell you!

[Shiz]

I was indeed referring to Biax since attriel did not mention color at all.

[Raveneye]

Well, I played with this a bit since I was home yesterday.

Thanks to all the input here I finally understand what is going on with the buffs/counters. I setup a hotkey with my T1 and T2 Outfitter buffs on it and went to work. I'd begin by hitting the two T2 buffs that increase Durability (green bar) by decreasing power and chance of success. This usually worked to give me greater than 100% durability or at least keep me even. When it failed it was ugly though, often taking half the durability of pristine with it (ouch). I assume this gets less painful as my skills mature from orange to yellow to white, though even my T1 skills are still yellow at this point.

Anyway, after the initial durability two-fer (I have 3 durability increasers, but one saps progress by an insane amount, so I avoid it) I would click two progress enhancers. When all 4 buffs worked correctly I would usually get a jump all the way through shaped on progress and only halfway down pristine on durability. At that point I would carefully hit progress enhancers witha durability buff thrown in each 3 or 4 clicks. This seemed to keep me in pristine 90% of the time and never resulted in less than a normal item.

The only thing I still don't really get is the timing. It seems like the same combination of buffs clicked will sometimes result in a stunning increase in progress, and I'm not sure why. It seems like I was getting these when I'd successfully counter an event followed by use of a progress buff, as if the counter was boosting my progress buff more than the buffs alone would normally do.

To be honest, I still find the entire process needlessly complex and tedious. I can understand wanting to make crafting inter-dependant so as to create a mini-economy of exchanged crafted goods. I can even understand adding in events that need to be countered so that crafting is not a mindless and macroable activity. But putting in the durability and progress sliders and throwing all this buff management stuff in was just needless and aggravating in my opinion.

[Sitsonsix]

Perhaps I'm strange, but I'm very much enjoying the crafting system in EQII, whereas I found EQ's crafting system horribly boring. In fact, I'm enjoying it enough that I made a Barbarian Alchemist slave just to keep Gnylix supplied with the chemicals he needs.

I levelled straight through 16 to 17 last night, just making some Tanned Leather Backpacks. Gained a level, got new recipes, and upgraded a lot of 6 slot inventory holders to 8.

If I was going to ask for any one change, it would be to allow us a "favourite recipes" book, where we could store the ones we use most often (or are planning to use that session). It's a bit of a pain having to sort through a bazillion recipes all the time.

While we're on the subject, I found an Advanced Jewelry Volume 23. Free to any guildmate who can make use of it.

[Zyzzyx]

If I was going to ask for any one change, it would be to allow us a "favourite recipes" book, where we could store the ones we use most often (or are planning to use that session). It's a bit of a pain having to sort through a bazillion recipes all the time.
Haven't tried it myself, but thought I heard something that you can take a recipe icon and drag it to a hotbar. Give that a try, see what it does.

[Sitsonsix]

Ooooh, that would be nice. Thanks, I'll give it a shot next time I go crafting.

[Biaxin]

Hey,

While not color blind, my attention span and my memory are about as long as my ...

[EricStratton]

Hey,

While not color blind, my attention span and my memory are about as long as my ...
:eek!: :eek!: :eek!:

[Raveneye]

Hey,

While not color blind, my attention span and my memory are about as long as my ...

Little finger? :lowlol:


Well, looks like they went and changed everything just as I got around to figuring it all out. As of the patch today I can no longer do what I was doing. Now that the durability buffs and the progress buffs are tied together (so they go dark when either one is pushed) which means buff spamming will likely cause you to fail any event that pops up since you'll be unable to counter it in time.

[Zyzzyx]

Which means that pristines will likely be that much harder to make, which means prices go up. Interesting.

But then, I've not tried it yet; and who the hell can predict player economy in EQ?

[Arelas]

Well, spamming as I have been doing it still works. Pristines shouldn't be THAT hard to manage now. Of course they will probably be slightly harder than before. The linkage in reuse timers is only for like buffs. It will make it a little harder to counter but not THAT hard. Just don't try to keep 3 buffs active all the time and it should be fine. Two buffs can easily be managed and occasionally 3 buffs as well.

Cooking buffs may have been fixed. Either they completely removed the dependence on artistry or they did something else screwy though. T1 buffs are conning grey to Ardahin. At lowest, they should be conning white since he is level 9 artisan. I haven't logged Tonamu in to check his buffs though. He has T2 buffs for cooking. If they did remove the dependence on artistry, cooking buffs should almost never fail now. (In theory, that should be true with grey con buffs anyway. I have no idea if it is true in practice.)

[Zyzzyx]

Cooking got fixed so well its still screwed up.

[kullen]

Little finger? :lowlol:

Well, looks like they went and changed everything just as I got around to figuring it all out. As of the patch today I can no longer do what I was doing. Now that the durability buffs and the progress buffs are tied together (so they go dark when either one is pushed) which means buff spamming will likely cause you to fail any event that pops up since you'll be unable to counter it in time.

This doesn't appear to be the only thing that has changed. I haven't seen a single durability recovery since I tried crafting, post patch. I sequenced my buffs accordingly but there wasn't one single increase.

As a level 26 jeweler with maxed skills.

Level 20 combines 6 attempts 4 pristines.

Level 22 combines 4 attempts 0 pristines.

If this is the way things are supposed to be, I doubt that I will be tradeskilling much anymore. While it may have been excessive that I was able to count on one hand the number of non pristines I could have achieved out of 100 level 22 combines, this seems a bit excessive. I might expect this result from level 26 combines but not something 4 levels below my level.

It could also be that Jewelers are now gimped. Anyone else seeing these results?

[Thundolfe]

Okay..

First, there were major changes in the Big Patch. For one, reactive buffs with the same icon are now "linked".. which means that when you use one, the other greys out. This means you can't spam buffs like crazy as you could before, and/or push progress and durability at the same time (this all depends on your specific profession).

As well, many buffs have had their power cost significantly increased, intentional or not. One of my T2 durability buffs (sage) now takes 20% power. You need to be more careful how you use your buffs, and note their power usage.

Secondly, it's in this 26 Sage's opinion that "spamming" buffs is a bad idea, pre or post-patch. As you have probably noticed, tradeskilling "ticks" at 4 second intervals. The key is to have the buffs you want ticking at the same time this occurs. I usually count in my head one-onethousand two-onethousand three-onethousand and on three I activate the buffs I want. Even post-patch I can make even-con pristine app4 spells without much problem.

Anyway, hope this helps

P.S. Sage is extremely difficult (especially post-patch), not a recommended path :P

P.P.S. App4 spells are either bugged or a complete ripoff, I advise not buying them, unless you are buying them from me, in which case they are working perfectly... ;)

[Raveneye]

Ahh...so this is maybe the secret I was missing before. You need to have the buff active and flashing when the "tick" occurs to get the benefit. So if I have a durability buff and a progress buff that are not linked (Knots and Stitching for example) I can alternate them between ticks and get increases, while still having a good chance of being able to counter anything that pops up.

I will try this and see where it gets me over the weekend. I do think tailoring may be bugged or just a lot harder though, as I never seen to have issues when smithing buckles, bars or sheets and getting pristines, but anything leather is much harder to do.

[leng]

A lot of timers were inadvertently linked as a by-product of the upgrade spells added with Training. It was not clear to me from Moorgards note if the linkage in tradeskill buffs was also inadvertent.

[kullen]

A lot of timers were inadvertently linked as a by-product of the upgrade spells added with Training. It was not clear to me from Moorgards note if the linkage in tradeskill buffs was also inadvertent.

Hello all,
Just wanted to give you a heads up on something that was unintended with this patch. We ment for power costs and benefits to be more in line with each other and not be as unbalancing to the process. We are looking at the what some have reported as 3x-8x increase in power costs as this was not intended.


Ben
____________________________
Tradeskill Designer, EverQuest II
____________________________




I don't know if this is an acknowledgement of that or not. But its the first official word I've seen regarding tradeskilling changes/bugs/nerfs.

[Thundolfe]

The linkage in TS buffs are intentional

[EricStratton]

Here's how I did:

I'm a level 24 jeweler with maxed skill (and I also have the +5 from the High Elf trait, I'm sure this helps some):

Level 25 combine - 4 attempts, 4 pristine.

Now I'll give you this - they DEFINITELY made it harder. But I'm still not having that big a problem with pristine.

Here's how I used to do it:

1. Start spamming the T2 buffs Center of Spirit and Telekinesis (not Square Cut b/c it uses Power) until your durability is in the 100%+ area. I keep track of my durability while it's going along. I like to get it to about +40-50 durability before I switch to my T3 buffs (progress buffs).

2. Once durability is in the +40-50 range, I spam Oval Cut and Precognition (not Fixation of Spirit b/c it lowers Success Chance) until durability is in the -10 to -20 range.

3. Repeat 1 and 2 until done.

Perhaps b/c I never used to spam both sets of buffs at the same time, this isn't effecting me as much. I don't know.

Here's how I have to do it now:

1. Same as above. But it takes longer to get to comfort zone. I'll explain why below.

2. Once durability is in the +40-50 range, I spam Precognition (not Fixation of Spirit b/c it lowers Success Change, and not Oval Cut anymore b/c it uses just too much Power - 20%. I read your note that said it wasn't supposed to use this much...hopefully this'll change).

3. Repeat 1 and 2 until done.

---

Why it takes longer now:

Pre-patch during step 1 a success would yield +20 +30. And a fail would yield -20 -20. So all told I was 0 +10.

Now a success yields +15 +30. And a fail is -25 +30. So now if I go 1 for 1 I'm at -10 +10. That means I have to have a lot more successes than failures to get my durability into the buffer zone. I spent a majority of my time just spamming the durability increasing buffs to get it into the buffer zone.

Also now that I can't use Oval Cut, it takes longer to get my Progress going once I do finally get durability into the buffer zone.

[kullen]

I'm a level 24 jeweler with maxed skill (and I also have the +5 from the High Elf trait, I'm sure this helps some):

Level 25 combine - 4 attempts, 4 pristine.

Now I'll give you this - they DEFINITELY made it harder. But I'm still not having that big a problem with pristine.

Thanks Pats,

I was a little worried about the situation of crafting but of course I'm used to using T2 and T3 buffs in conjunction and not focusing on only durability or progress seperately.

The longer duration bothers me a bit but it wasn't like the duration was speedy before the patch. Any estimate of how much longer each crafting is taking. 20% longer?

I still haven't made a decision as to whether I'll return to crafting as much as I once did or not. I think I need more time to feel out the new system. I'll also have to see if any changes are made to the system in the near future.

[EricStratton]

The longer duration bothers me a bit but it wasn't like the duration was speedy before the patch. Any estimate of how much longer each crafting is taking. 20% longer?
Yeah, 20% is about right. Maybe a *little* on the low side. But it'll get faster if they fix the amount of Power required for Oval Cut and Square Cut buffs.

[kullen]

Many thanks to you Pats for doing the legwork.

I went from 0/4 pristines on lev 22 crafted items to 5/5 on level 25 crafted items. I don't know if all the crafting classes are working as well, but jeweler for the most part seems to be working as intended.

Really the biggest thing to get used to is changing from an alternating duribility/progress buff per cycle to just using either duribility or progress in the cycle.

I think 20% longer is a bit of a generous estimate but i've already found that I can use our top two buffs (not cuts) and use one progress and one durability at the same time since they are on different timers. You still get a minor durability drop but progress goes up faster. Then if duribility falls out of your comfort zone just switch back to all duribility buffs.

It still makes little sense why these changes were made since its still button mashing. Once the process is figured out there is very little thought behind it. Its just a longer duration of button mashing.

[EricStratton]

Very cool, Kullen. Glad to hear it.

And I completely agree. It's still button mashing, just more of it.

I read the Moorgard's explanation (that Chari posted) and I get what they want. But I don't think they are there yet. Pristine's (jewelry at least) is still going to be easy enough to make to make it the market norm. Honestly I wouldn't mind a time when Pristine's can only be done by those with the skill and time but we're not there.