Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: So you want to be a Weaponsmith... But do you want to be great?
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Mor-Dan
Mon Sep 06, 2004 10:27 pm
#1
(I wrote this for my fellow Sunrunner crafters a few months back... Perhaps others who have not discovered the mysteries of experimentation could benefit from it.. I was a Chef at the time, but all crafting professions can take away the same lessons...)
Ok, so we have all heard the exultations of some great crafters. Names like Fatal-one-, Thriend, TheGreatZippy, Cuatro, Vallyn, and Astrid are very common names. If you have been playing for 3 months or more, chances are you have already heard these names when you asked about armour, weapons, meds, or food. They earned this honor. They took experimentation to the next level, and as a result their items are generally better than anyone elses. The question many have is, why? What makes them so special? Is it the 12 points of experimentation? No. Is it the uber old resources? Sort of, but no. In an attempt to help the crafting community understand how to get the most out of their sessions, I am going to teach you how to get the same results with 9 experimentation points as you can with 10.
Many moons ago I challenged the great Fatal to a crafting a session. 10 points, against 10 points. He declined saying that his crafting suit is part of what makes a great smith great. Well, we all know that. A 12 point crafter is better than a 10 point crafter. That is an easy thing to figure out. However, he claimed to be able to do in 9 points what I could do in 10. This got my attention. Being the well adjusted, extremely competitive person that I am, I did not ask for further advice. It was something I was going to find out on my own, but not at that time. I was tired of crafting. Combat beckoned, and I dropped WS to become a Pikeman as the great Holo commanded. When I hit Chef, however, the crafting bug began to do its work. I didn't want to be an average Chef. I shelled out credit after credit to acquire great resources, and +25 in Chef experimentation tapes to put myself in line to challenge the great Vallyn. My education began when I discovered double buff vercupti.
To start, my stat lines were 50 filling and 1015 power for 7m 6s. A bonus of 2030 was pretty cool, but I had learned more about the "amazing success" and knew I could get better power. I maxed out at 50 filling and 1036 power for 7m 6s. I was thoroughly excited about this. To me, this was the best discovery since we were given Vasarian Brandy. I knew that this would change the face of PvP, and to a measure it did. People didn't know what to think when they saw people running around with over 5k to every stat. The real surprise came when I went back to my old style of crafting. I would put the maximum number of points into one line and experiment. Since I always got more great successes than amazings, this was the fastest way. That all changed when I got an amazing hit on an 8 point success. It pushed my filling down an extra point to 49, and left me with 3 points to add to the power instead of two. The result? A DBV that was 49 filling and 1052 power for 7m 6s.
With my curiosity effectively piqued, I began experimenting to find out just how many amazings I needed to get to save that extra point. I spent several hours of experimentation to find out that I needed an amazing success on a 6 point attempt to save the one extra point for the power. That's when it hit me. I now understood why Fatal could have still beaten me on overall stats even if we both used just 10 points and used the exact same resources. It was that extra level of dedication to understand all the mysteries of experimentation.
At that moment I understood what made the legends who they were. Hopefully, now, you do too...
Ok, so we have all heard the exultations of some great crafters. Names like Fatal-one-, Thriend, TheGreatZippy, Cuatro, Vallyn, and Astrid are very common names. If you have been playing for 3 months or more, chances are you have already heard these names when you asked about armour, weapons, meds, or food. They earned this honor. They took experimentation to the next level, and as a result their items are generally better than anyone elses. The question many have is, why? What makes them so special? Is it the 12 points of experimentation? No. Is it the uber old resources? Sort of, but no. In an attempt to help the crafting community understand how to get the most out of their sessions, I am going to teach you how to get the same results with 9 experimentation points as you can with 10.
Many moons ago I challenged the great Fatal to a crafting a session. 10 points, against 10 points. He declined saying that his crafting suit is part of what makes a great smith great. Well, we all know that. A 12 point crafter is better than a 10 point crafter. That is an easy thing to figure out. However, he claimed to be able to do in 9 points what I could do in 10. This got my attention. Being the well adjusted, extremely competitive person that I am, I did not ask for further advice. It was something I was going to find out on my own, but not at that time. I was tired of crafting. Combat beckoned, and I dropped WS to become a Pikeman as the great Holo commanded. When I hit Chef, however, the crafting bug began to do its work. I didn't want to be an average Chef. I shelled out credit after credit to acquire great resources, and +25 in Chef experimentation tapes to put myself in line to challenge the great Vallyn. My education began when I discovered double buff vercupti.
To start, my stat lines were 50 filling and 1015 power for 7m 6s. A bonus of 2030 was pretty cool, but I had learned more about the "amazing success" and knew I could get better power. I maxed out at 50 filling and 1036 power for 7m 6s. I was thoroughly excited about this. To me, this was the best discovery since we were given Vasarian Brandy. I knew that this would change the face of PvP, and to a measure it did. People didn't know what to think when they saw people running around with over 5k to every stat. The real surprise came when I went back to my old style of crafting. I would put the maximum number of points into one line and experiment. Since I always got more great successes than amazings, this was the fastest way. That all changed when I got an amazing hit on an 8 point success. It pushed my filling down an extra point to 49, and left me with 3 points to add to the power instead of two. The result? A DBV that was 49 filling and 1052 power for 7m 6s.
With my curiosity effectively piqued, I began experimenting to find out just how many amazings I needed to get to save that extra point. I spent several hours of experimentation to find out that I needed an amazing success on a 6 point attempt to save the one extra point for the power. That's when it hit me. I now understood why Fatal could have still beaten me on overall stats even if we both used just 10 points and used the exact same resources. It was that extra level of dedication to understand all the mysteries of experimentation.
At that moment I understood what made the legends who they were. Hopefully, now, you do too...
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