Concentration Crafter Stat Opinions

If someone wants cheap materials there is a solution in game already that’s perfectly viable; spec for it.

Like everything else with the profession system there are choices to be made. In DF there reached a point rather quickly where quality materials didn’t matter anymore since Inspiration bonuses could get so high that it was cheaper to rng an item multiple times. This destroyed the mat market and made anyone who invested in mat refinement set back greatly.

Now, at least for some professions, there is a better balance in profitability between gear makers and material refiners. It also creates a better balance between those who are fine with the increased socialization/time requirements the Work Order system brings (gear crafters), and those who prefer the old style to make money off just listing stuff on the AH.

In DF I was a primary gear crafter, I spammed trade chat to no end, and got lucky with some patterns so I had my niche. Now, there’s so much spam happening in trade that I’ve leaned heavier into material refinement as the thought of spending hours spamming trade isn’t as alluring. Sure have to deal with AH bots, but I get to see some return and play the game outside of a city.

In time some things will get cheaper as people gain more talent points and invest into material refinement along with more gatherers able to pick rank 3 raw materials. For the moment the people who believe things cost too much need to evaluate how important the difference between Rank 4 versus Rank 5 of a piece of gear is. There has always been a premium to be paid in this game to be on the bleeding edge of gear. If the cost is too high at the moment just get Rank 4 done which can easily be done with waay lower cost mats, and just upgrade when the cost of mats drop.

3 Likes

I am speaking as a mythic pushing raider, as I sorta stated. I am in the think I do and I do niche so from MY POV it’s really kinda making consumable costs awful. I appreciate the viewpoint from the gatherer POV, but chastising others for wanting to maximize their output in ANY content for their own joy is just kinda condescending.

There’s a difference between condescension and pointing out that there is a price that comes with trying to optimize to the absolute limit. If folks want to get the absolute top-tier items, then they need to go through the steps to get those. Concentration is a massive upgrade because it removes uncertainty and randomness. The cost of consumables is high because it is so early in the expansion and difficult to make them, you can expect to see that price drop as things progress.

Sorry you believe that to point out the game systems in place is condescending. I’m speaking from the the perspective of the primary Omnicrafter for a multi-CE Mythic team. You’re POV is from the individual, my POV is both from the individual and for a whole team where before the start of every tier I’m researching, planning, and communicating with the team to figure out the best profession routes across multiple characters of mine to get them the highest bonuses possible for the lowest end cost. So no, I’m not just a gatherer and well aware of how things are on both sides of the fence.

You may choose to ignore the recrafting system, but its there and upgrades over time is one of its primary functions. Just because you like many others want to get it all done at once as early as possible for little cost, doesn’t make it fair to all those who’s primary form of engagement is said systems. Professions are like any other pillar of the game, the more a person invest in it, the more they are rewarded. If cost are too high for you then you as the player may need to adjust your style of play to cover those cost.

Is it fair to ask Blizzard to nerf that content down so 90% of groups can do Mount sale runs in order to bring the cost of carries down? Or ask them to increase the top % required for the Gladiator mounts to the top 50% to cheapen that content? That’s what you’re asking Professions for; some means to get past paying premium cost for having that premium power immediately. We’re not even through the first week of Mythic and I’ve already crafted weapons that’ll last into the start of next seasons raid which is months away. Yeah they paid upwards to 80-90k for the mats, but they’re set for quite some time. Heck look how much Heroic* BoE’s sell for at the moment.

*Error on my part for writing Mythic originally

2 Likes

I do like how concentration works, but I won’t lie and say I miss when it was, list of items, get list, make item. My knowledge points on my gatherers genuinely feel worthless. I’ll do 1-2 hour runs to get mats and a quick example is max botany/bountiful/arathor giving me a single level 1 quality spear. What was the point of dumping 120 points to get the same quality I was already getting? I have almost 25% finesse as well and hardly see procs.

That compounded with how incredibly expensive even some basic materials can cost it’s a bit frustrating. I like to be self-sufficient so this helps, but waiting multiple days so I can make a single piece just makes me dislike the new system more and more. It’d be really nice to have a way to earn more through content or another system. Hell I’d take lower concentration requirements for basic mats. Especially given some recipes that require 50-100 of said materials. Even with my crafters/gatherers dumping points to max them and using higher quality mats as I chance upon them.

I’m literally not complaining about the fact they’re so expensive. I’m complaining about the fact a symptom of this new rigid system is how disproportionately much more expensive it is to buy r3 anything over r2.

I don’t choose to ignore the recraft system, in DF I used it frequently. But as a mythic pushing raider I DO want my gear crafted as good as possible as quickly as possible. The costs just are not the same as they were in DF, recrafts cost nearly as much as a regular craft plus 20 acuity.

I’m not asking professions to literally get shot this is what I thought was just a pretty straightforward issue I noticed from my pov. I’m stating from literally any other tier I’ve been part of as a raider, the cost curve is just not ever this egregious, and I don’t foresee it being able to go down much if at all given the artificial value of time added on with conc. I am fully placing my issue with how conc has interacted with the game as a consumer.

tl;dr I willingly pay 20-30k tips, materials just simply shouldn’t cost curve so hard. This can be for future ref so you can adjust accordingly before a new tier I don’t expect it to happen RIGHT NOW.

We’ve only had one other expansion with this style of crafting system, and there’s been large shifts in both the crafting and gathering side that drawing comparisons would be difficult without ignoring other avenues at play. You go be a Mythic raider, and I as one of thousands of crafters and gathers will be there to support your goal. You want premium mats, consumables, gear, you’re going to pay for it. All that time spent raiding and running keys blowing consumables, someone else had to spend their time gathering it and making it. Time they spent not running playing other parts of the game. Why should they get the short end of the stick?

“I’m willing to pay 20-30k tips”

This is exactly the imbalance and problem that existed in DF and an attempt to bring balance to in TWW has tried to correct. That 20-30k tip is great for the person at the end of the line slapping it together. But in the process the person who gathered the mats gets crap returns because there value of mats quickly turned into what tier 1 and 2 stuck it. The crafter who took the raw mats to refine it into the components (hides, cloth, gears, wires, vials, etc) did so at a slight profit because once again they’re held down to where mostly tier 1 and 2 stuck at.

Under the current system there at least has a better chance at compensation for the gatherers when they hit the luck streak and get tier 3 mats, or the refiners who spend weeks worth of points and investment in tools to hit the breakpoints to do tier 3 components. And part of it means that since more people have to spend more on the components that the person at the end may not get as high of a reward. Well that’s the gamble that has always existed at that stage so not a whole lot has changed there.

The curve is hard because you like many, many, many others want that immediate power now. The T3 market isn’t high because of crafters or gatherers, its high because Mythic pushers have an exceptionally high drive to only have the best and unwilling to accept anything less. Its your and every other raiders demand that’s keeping constantly depleting the well. It’s not the profession pillar’s burden to bare because a fraction of a fraction of the player base isn’t happy about the competition they create with each other for top end resources.

2 Likes

Concentration > Inspiration. Enough said.

…it’d be nice if the concentration costs for making 3* materials with sub-optimal KP/equipment/etc. wouldn’t be quite so expensive though…

I log on my alche every day craft 2 maybe 5 with multi - 3 star chaos flask and sell emm for 16 to 40 k gold with the help of conc.

If they made “concentration” generate faster , it would mean more alches could make more flasks quicker and thereby reduce the cost.

So inspiration is not the answer, make concentration generate faster

Concentration is fine.

The problem is the scarcity of raw materials, and Blizzard’s intended and deliberate shift to “higher materials will be very rare”.

Which then impacts how much concentration is needed. Also the requirement to bridge the gap between qualities, before concentration can even come into play (because it can’t cross over a quality bridge, then continue) makes higher-level mats more necessary, but Blizzard made them much rarer to find.

The problem is with the gathering professions. Not with the crafting, nor concentration.

1 Like

Hate it.

Because it seems like crafting quality levels were deliberately sabotaged to make room for concentration on every last thing. Want to unravel better? Spend 200 concentration. Want to weave cloth better? Spend 300 concentration. Want to make Exquisite bolts better? Well TOO BAD you’re out of concentration for 5 days just by doing the lower stages of mats.

And that’s with MAXED OUT SKILL in weaving. There’s no point where R2 mats can be converted up because every skill bar is an insane amount of skill points. Concentration is way too required.

1 Like

Using concentration on components is inefficient. You’re much better off using rank 2 components and only using concentration for the big kick on the finished product.

1 Like

Which would be great for the people buying the flasks, but terrible for the people selling the flasks.

2 Likes

My issue is the fact that it can take hundreds of concentration to bump a single 2-star mat up to a 3-star one.

Which is only very slightly less than what you’d need to bump an entire finished product up a rank.

That’s stupid and makes doing anything other than blowing massive amounts of cash on 3-star mats off the AH a terrible idea.

On any given day, it’s either “make a few 3-star mats today” or “make one upgraded piece of gear today” which feels very slow and very frustrating, especially when you’re trying to both craft for your friends/guildies and keep up with Patron Orders.

1 Like

Ingenuity is the thing that enables that concentration to be refunded so you basically have the same mechanism but more control over the results.

I personally prefer how profession were last expansion but too many people complained no catchup so those patron work orders were the result.

Yes and that makes concentration worse. Only being able to make 2 good items per week is incredibly limiting on profs.

1 Like

We are currently at the start of the period that has highest demand for top end materials from all the teams that are pushing into Heroic and Mythic raiding along with all those pushing keys. Everyone wants it now, now, now. Demand is at its peak or heading up to it. In the coming month it’ll drop as they are needed in nearly as high volume anymore, and gatherers will have had more time to replenish the market while increasing their kp which will bring even more to the market.

If you artificially inflate the numbers at the start to satisfy first week bleed edge pushers wants, you create more work down the road to fix the problem you’ve now created. If they follow the DF plan we aren’t going to see new raw materials in further seasons. Just the same we wouldn’t see any changes to the framework of the crafting side so what that pair of Epic Mail boots cost to craft today will be the same in season 2 but now way more people will better kp numbers so they can balance between cost and concentration way better which means less reliance on only T3 mats. Something new is crafters will have had a full season of building up +skill point scrolls which again, leads to less reliance on T3 mats. That injection at the start is going to exponentially grow hit each season harder and harder. For profession focused people this will just bring about the s4 issues of DF sooner where mats are bottomed out so better join the trade spam in gear crafting.

And speaking from personal experience; my commissions/tips didn’t nearly increase by any level close to what the savings brought about by everything getting cheaper to make.

Change things profession system because there’s a problem in the system itself, not because another pillar is asking for nerfs cause it inconvenient for their mentality. It’s no different than the hurt PvE’ers have when PvP issues force change to their class.

People complaining about the multiplicative cost of T3 Consumables when outside of few handfuls of groups, T2 Consumables are just as viable. This isn’t a profession problem. This is a player mentality issue; they’re choosing to willing disregard viable options and alternatives because of perception.

Weapon Sharpening Stones costing a rare component with a low drop rate, the recipe not creating multiple per cast akin to similar options, and having to drop a sizable amount of kp to learn the other portion is all very much a profession balance issue.

Null stones being used in components, consumables, and item modifications…now that’s a profession balance issue where discussions about increasing drop rate has merit. Someone hit the nail on the head comparing it to the Glowing Titan Orb from DF.

Glass Shards and Gem Dust having abysmal prospecting rates, that’s a profession balance issue. There should’ve been something either on the main prospecting talent or an attached sub-talent to increase chance/yields. Situations similar to the Enchanting issue of got all the rare mats in the world but its the common stuff that’s hurting things. The Null stone prospecting talents in place are a giant joke and slightly insulting for the investment.

Concentration restoration items from patron orders would be a nice way to help off-set cost there. It’d help alleviate the constantly being on the watch to make sure you don’t cap as you’re wasting points otherwise. Maybe go a step further and let people buy said consumable for a portion of their current Concentration. I’d gladly pay 150-200 points today to have an item that restores 50-75 points when I need it.

1 Like

Sure, if I could raise my ingenuity to something higher than “might as well be 0” per cent, which I currently can’t.

Even if I were willing to blow thousands of gold on that finishing thingie that adds 5-7% I’m still only going to get a partial Concentration refund on 1 in every 7 crafts. That’s total garbage and not worth wasting thousands of gold on.

2 Likes

Part off it is that stuff is expensive in new expansions.

Even in cata classic, some things held a very high price for quite a while, and didn’t fall off for about 2 months.

Main thing blizzard can do to help out with prices is adjust the available quantity of rare or R3 mats (to use enchanting as an example, Profaned Tinderboxes for the good ring enchants are still over 7k gold, with under 10k available region wide).

1 Like

Why are you wasting concentration on everything then? Pick what you think is the most valuable use of your concentration.