Concentration

Gameplay Professions
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How is Concentration figured into the crafting of an item. For example, I need a skill of 530 to craft an item. One item my skill shows 495 and I need 147 concentration, but another of the same item shows 505 and I need 146 concentration. If I change the reagents to be all gold level, then my skill moves to 522 on both, but the amount of concentration I need to make up those last 8 points of skill still says I need 144 concentration.

So how is concentration figured out. I mean literally I raise my skill on 1 item 17 and the other 27 but the amount of concentration that I need only falls 2-3 points per craft. Shouldn’t it be a lot less concentration is needed for those last 8 skill points. I know math is hard, but do we really require people a degree if they can’t do simple math?

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It may help to think of it as a linear relationship with a penalty for being short of perfect. You get more skill the higher the blend of gold level mats, but unless you’re at or above the required skill, the recipe will demand a minimum required concentration to get to perfect.

Say, for example, you have a recipe that due to your trees and profession skill, that your skill for the recipe is 510 but the recipe only needs 500. You start swapping out one of the gold level mats and your skill goes down to 507. Two more times and you’re now at 501 and still getting a 5-star result from the craft. You add that fourth silver level mat and now your skill is 498 and you need 246 concentration to make it 5-star. Add another silver and now it’s 495 skill and 258 concentration. You keep doing this and you’ll notice that for every silver mat you add the concentration requirement keeps going up by a little amount. But to get from imperfect to perfect there is a minimum amount of concentration that you’ll need to get there.

Why do it this way? It’s a penalty for not being perfect. It creates a barrier that, once you get past it, you’re rewarded by not needing concentration for a specific recipe. If getting that recipe perfect is important to you then you should spend your KPs in the part of the tree that helps you get to perfect.

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I haven’t paid much attention to mathing it out, but it was my understanding was that it was a flat base cost plus a cost equal to the skill points needed to reach the threshold, then discounted by some % based on your ingenuity stat.

(which I guess is basically what was just said above)

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It’s not hard to figure out. It is a set of connected lines.

For reagents:

From 0-60% of the recipe difficulty it is linear with a fairly low slope. 60% of the recipe difficulty represents when you have all skill and tools but are using rank 1 mats. Low slope means the value of concentration does not change much for this amount of skill.

Typically, the concentration at this level is tuned such that you will be able to make the number of items that they estimate you’ll need per week. Example: cauldrons are tuned so you can make 1 every 4 days, while potions are tuned so you can make 3 (casts, or 15 potions)

From 60% to 80% concentration decreases steeply (but still linearly). The 80% endpoint is a holdover from TWW. That was the rank 2 material point from TWW. 80% difficulty is all skill, tools+ some rank 2 ingredients in midnight.

The last line goes from 80-100% skill. This is another low slope, where additional rank 2 materials won’t affect the concentration amount much (until you have all rank 2 of course). This last line allows you to make more items. For example, anywhere on this curve, you’d be able to make 5 casts of potions (or 25 potions) every 4 days.

Notice that the key is how many items you can make, not the absolute value of concentration.

At 500 concentration you can make 2 items per 4 days
At 333 concentration, you can make 3 items per 4 days
At 250 concentration, you can make 4 items per 4 days
And so on.

If your concentration value went down to, say, 10 when you were really close, you’d be able to make 100 items, which is unacceptable.

The purpose of concentration is to place a sliding cooldown on your product when you are using cheaper ingredients. This limits the amount of items you (and everyone else) can make to make it so more people can make items for a profit. We want to avoid people being able to make hundreds or thousands of items because that kind of supply would tank the market.

For gear items, concentration is a single line for every level bracket. Again, the intent is to limit the number of items you can make without full skill, so you’ll see concentration amounts between 250-400 even at 1 skill less than full skill (meaning you can do this 2-4 times per 4 days). Again, it functions as a cooldown, so you should not look at the value of concentration but how many items you can make.

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You shouldn’t be looking at the number of items you can make, you should be looking at profits per connection point- the amount of profit you make in an item, divided by the number of concentration points it takes. That’s what maximizes your concentration use. Then decide how you want to manage it. Personally I’m on every day so I just make something any time I’m over 750, so I never overcap, but always have some around in case an real opportunity comes up (like a high value commission that requires concentration)

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