"Best" tradeskill AAs

[A]

So, I thought we could get a bit of a discussion going about the new tradeskill AAs, which are as follows.

First tier: Ample Harvest (chance to harvest a second time, 15% chance with 5AAs invested)

              Swift Creation (increases the amount of progress gained, 10% increase with 5AAs)

               High Quality Materials (increases durability gain by 10% with 5AAs)

Second Tier: Rapid Manufacturing (increases progress gained by 10 with 5AAs)

                    Resilient Materials (increases durability gained by 10  with 5AAs)

                    Effective Method (increases success chance by 10%)

                    Advantageous Practice (increases critical success chance by 10%)

Third Tier: Trim Reaver (increases rare harvest chance by 1%

                 Conservation of Mass (occasionally create item without using the materials)

So, what do they all mean? Some are fairly obvious, but I am wondering what increased progress and durability actually mean. Progress presumably lets you finish the crafting quicker, and durability means you won't run out of durability as quickly. But what are the difference between the first tier and second tier progress and durability skills. First tier are 10%, second tier are 10 (points?) Which is better, the 10% or 10 points?

Success chance is, I presume, the chance to have a positive outcome every tick, and critical success means you suceed critically more often.  In the third tier, how often does Conservation of Mass kick in? I have chosen the harvest AA for my main harvester, especially as she is a provi and doesn't do a lot with rares.

In general, how is everyone finding the AAs? Do you think they make a big difference or not? I have not noticed a huge difference, apart from Ample Harvest which all my chars have. But this is possibly because I invested the AAs quite randomly across my characters. I am hoping some of you have been more scientific about it

Aya

[Deveryn]

I think the AAs make a huge difference, especially with lower level crafters. I invested in progress and success for my tailor and I've had a good 2-3 mins left on writs, where I had one minute or zero seconds left before. This is in the 20-30 range. I expect "Ship Out" and the tradeskill instances to be a lot easier now.

I tried out Conservation on my 90 sage and I got one hit on the skill out of 25 crafts.

The rare harvest seems to work. I've had some decent luck in the little harvesting I've done, finding 4 rares in under 100 nodes.

At first, I wasn't too happy with shifting some AA out of my adventure pools, but in the case of my 90 necro, it hasn't been too much of a problem. I took crafting AA on my solo spec and it hasn't hurt at all.

[A]

Actually, that's a good idea, I shall test out the various AAs by doing writs on different chars.

I am particularly interested in how different the tier 1 AAs (increasing progress and durability by 10%) are to the tier 2 ones (increase by 10.) Is this a typo and both are either 10 points or 10%? Or is one more beneficial than the other.

I think I will have different specs for the chars that craft using rares a lot, my provi can be the harvester. I may make everyone mirrors for crafting/harvesting!

Aya

[Xalmat]

Its possible they both matter. One might affect the reaction arts themselves, and the other affects the overall outcome of each round.

[the_snare]

I would have absolutely no use for +durability or +critical chance skills. Why do you need them if you have ghost durability, and it's almost impossible to fail anyway? Progress I can see a use for, but since I already have 4 90th level crafters, I really don't even need that, unless this was my first.

[the_snare]

Deveryn@Crushbone wrote:

The rare harvest seems to work. I've had some decent luck in the little harvesting I've done, finding 4 rares in under 100 nodes.

Just what is the base chance of getting a rare? I'm guessing that new AA skill at 5 AA's only gives you +1.0% to finding a rare, but then there's also the advantage of having harvesting skills beyond 450 (or whatever the max is with Velious)

[Questall]

I have invested all in progress and success. The last tier i put 5 points into rare harvest, as the other one is a bit too vague for my liking.

Now i have to say, that prior to this update, i never experienced big problems doing writs or such, i always had 3-4 minutes to spare, now i have 5,5 to spare. Still, together with the success + tools, i hardly miss a rotation at all now.

The big but here is : all this does not seem to work on the "Bigger" quests : crafting anything from the first epic TS line doesnt seem to take all the progress gain and success i chose into account (with all this i mean recipes inside the epic ts line or recipes for proof of the pudding, the progress in all these recipes is very slow to say the least, so i have the distinct idea that my progress gain bonus does NOT appy there). The same with epic weapon update recipes. I havent tried out any of the emerald hall quests yet, but i sure hope they work there or all this is pretty moot for me, as i had no problems whatsoever before this update.

EDIT : the rare harvest works wonders for me, getting up to 21 T8 rares within the hour. Too bad that the item revamp now makes rares, other than spell xpert rares, utterly worthless.

[Deveryn]

chardz wrote:

EDIT : the rare harvest works wonders for me, getting up to 21 T8 rares within the hour. Too bad that the item revamp now makes rares, other than spell xpert rares, utterly worthless.

There's always the nice furniture

[Liandra]

the_snare wrote:

Deveryn@Crushbone wrote:

The rare harvest seems to work. I've had some decent luck in the little harvesting I've done, finding 4 rares in under 100 nodes.

Just what is the base chance of getting a rare? I'm guessing that new AA skill at 5 AA's only gives you +1.0% to finding a rare, but then there's also the advantage of having harvesting skills beyond 450 (or whatever the max is with Velious)

The rare harvest AA is a chance to get an extra rare on each harvest.   It is on top of whatever you get from the normal harvest.  There is a post here from one of the dev clarifying it.

So in theory you could get 3 rares on a single pull.  1 from the normal harvest, 1 from the Bountiful Harvest and 1 from the 1% chance AA end-line.

[Meirril]

Liandra wrote:

the_snare wrote:

Deveryn@Crushbone wrote:

The rare harvest seems to work. I've had some decent luck in the little harvesting I've done, finding 4 rares in under 100 nodes.

Just what is the base chance of getting a rare? I'm guessing that new AA skill at 5 AA's only gives you +1.0% to finding a rare, but then there's also the advantage of having harvesting skills beyond 450 (or whatever the max is with Velious)

The rare harvest AA is a chance to get an extra rare on each harvest.   It is on top of whatever you get from the normal harvest.  There is a post here from one of the dev clarifying it.

So in theory you could get 3 rares on a single pull.  1 from the normal harvest, 1 from the Bountiful Harvest and 1 from the 1% chance AA end-line.

Also important to note is that the regular rare rate is less than 1%. This is a MASSIVE improvement for t8 and t9 harvestng.  

[Xalmat]

Higher success chance makes a big difference when you're trying to do the tradeskill missions.

I can think of four tradeskill specs I would go with:

Harvesting: Ample Harvest 5, 15 filler points, and Trim Reaver 5

Missions: Swift Creation 5, High Quality Materials 5, Effective Method 5, Advantageous Practice 5, Resilient Materials 5. You simply don't need Conservation of Mass 5 for missions, as you have an unlimited number of items.

Writs: Swift Creation 5, High Quality Materials 5, Effective Method 5, Advantageous Practice 5, Rapid Manufacturing 5. Cranking out combines as quickly as possible will greatly speed up writs, and the less you have to deal with failures the better.

Mastercrafted Crafting: Swift Creation 5, High Quality Materials 5, Effective Method 5, Advantageous Practice 5, Conservation of Mass 5. A chance not to consume the rare is a good thing.

[A]

So I've put a mix of the different abilities on all my chars. WOW! They really do make a difference! I am finishing items much quicker than before, and writs are even easier. I would say that all items take a good three or four less 'ticks' to finish, and I am done long before I expected to be!

Conservation of Mass has procced quite a few times, only once on a rare combine though. And I haven't done any harvesting with my harvest char yet, but looking forward to seeing if it ups the chance of a rare harvest.

Thumbs up for the new AAs!

Aya

[Katz]

Xalmat wrote:

Higher success chance makes a big difference when you're trying to do the tradeskill missions.

I can think of four tradeskill specs I would go with:

Harvesting: Ample Harvest 5, 15 filler points, and Trim Reaver 5

Missions: Swift Creation 5, High Quality Materials 5, Effective Method 5, Advantageous Practice 5, Resilient Materials 5. You simply don't need Conservation of Mass 5 for missions, as you have an unlimited number of items.

Writs: Swift Creation 5, High Quality Materials 5, Effective Method 5, Advantageous Practice 5, Rapid Manufacturing 5. Cranking out combines as quickly as possible will greatly speed up writs, and the less you have to deal with failures the better.

Mastercrafted Crafting: Swift Creation 5, High Quality Materials 5, Effective Method 5, Advantageous Practice 5, Conservation of Mass 5. A chance not to consume the rare is a good thing.

Wow, I wish the aa mirrors could hold a lot of builds.   I can just dedicate my main to a harvesting build but I'll need to try the mirror in another house trick as she has two adventure builds already.   I can put the mission build on the two I currently do missions on.  The writs build can be for my lower level crafters.   The mastercrafted one.... hmmm..guess a third mirror for my main.  

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try them.

[Beajay]

Before the new expansion my main harvester was maxed in harvesting and had gear and AA points to help with rares. Despite this I only found like 4 t8 rares in months of harvesting. I can't remember ever getting a second harvest. I finally gave up harvesting altogether.

I don't know whether it was a problem specific to the Test server or I am just the unluckiest harvester of all times. I couldn't even find rares on lower level nodes.

In the months I have been back I think I have found one t8 rare. As a result, when rebuilding my AA tree, I didn''t put any points into anything to do with harvesting.

A 1% chance of finding something is hardly worth the AAs you have to give away. Since I 'm not finding rares to begin with then my chances are nil.

I have no idea why a 1% chance would give all of you such great luck with harvesting. Depite this, I will give harvesting another chance and hope I am pleasantly surprised.

[LivelyHound]

Meirril wrote:

Liandra wrote:

the_snare wrote:

Deveryn@Crushbone wrote:

The rare harvest seems to work. I've had some decent luck in the little harvesting I've done, finding 4 rares in under 100 nodes.

Just what is the base chance of getting a rare? I'm guessing that new AA skill at 5 AA's only gives you +1.0% to finding a rare, but then there's also the advantage of having harvesting skills beyond 450 (or whatever the max is with Velious)

The rare harvest AA is a chance to get an extra rare on each harvest.   It is on top of whatever you get from the normal harvest.  There is a post here from one of the dev clarifying it.

So in theory you could get 3 rares on a single pull.  1 from the normal harvest, 1 from the Bountiful Harvest and 1 from the 1% chance AA end-line.

Also important to note is that the regular rare rate is less than 1%. This is a MASSIVE improvement for t8 and t9 harvestng.  

I would also hazard to say that as bountiful harvest in one extra pull you can probably with uber luck get four rares from the one pull. 1 Normal Harvest, 1 from Normal Harvest Rare aa, 1 from Bountiful Bonus pull, 1 from Bountiful Bonus Pull Bonus Rare.

[Meirril]

LivelyHound wrote:

Meirril wrote:

Liandra wrote:

the_snare wrote:

Deveryn@Crushbone wrote:

The rare harvest seems to work. I've had some decent luck in the little harvesting I've done, finding 4 rares in under 100 nodes.

Just what is the base chance of getting a rare? I'm guessing that new AA skill at 5 AA's only gives you +1.0% to finding a rare, but then there's also the advantage of having harvesting skills beyond 450 (or whatever the max is with Velious)

The rare harvest AA is a chance to get an extra rare on each harvest.   It is on top of whatever you get from the normal harvest.  There is a post here from one of the dev clarifying it.

So in theory you could get 3 rares on a single pull.  1 from the normal harvest, 1 from the Bountiful Harvest and 1 from the 1% chance AA end-line.

Also important to note is that the regular rare rate is less than 1%. This is a MASSIVE improvement for t8 and t9 harvestng.  

I would also hazard to say that as bountiful harvest in one extra pull you can probably with uber luck get four rares from the one pull. 1 Normal Harvest, 1 from Normal Harvest Rare aa, 1 from Bountiful Bonus pull, 1 from Bountiful Bonus Pull Bonus Rare.

From what dev commentors have said it sounds like the Trim Reaver check is seperate from the actual harvesting, so there shouldn't be a 4th check even on a successful bountiful harvest.

[Meirril]

Aya wrote:

So I've put a mix of the different abilities on all my chars. WOW! They really do make a difference! I am finishing items much quicker than before, and writs are even easier. I would say that all items take a good three or four less 'ticks' to finish, and I am done long before I expected to be!

Conservation of Mass has procced quite a few times, only once on a rare combine though. And I haven't done any harvesting with my harvest char yet, but looking forward to seeing if it ups the chance of a rare harvest.

Thumbs up for the new AAs!

Aya

If your like me and you want to maximize your chance to get your materials back, boosting your progress and success actually HURTS your chances. The longer the combine takes, the more chances you have of getting one of the 2 procs or a flawless reaction. Something to think about.

[LivelyHound]

Meirril wrote:

LivelyHound wrote:

I would also hazard to say that as bountiful harvest in one extra pull you can probably with uber luck get four rares from the one pull. 1 Normal Harvest, 1 from Normal Harvest Rare aa, 1 from Bountiful Bonus pull, 1 from Bountiful Bonus Pull Bonus Rare.

From what dev commentors have said it sounds like the Trim Reaver check is seperate from the actual harvesting, so there shouldn't be a 4th check even on a successful bountiful harvest.

I think the code is bugged on it however.

Mainly because I am now seeing bountiful harvest fail.

Normally the chat text is:

You Bountiful HarvestPull 1Pull 2

Now I am occasionally seeing:

You Bountiful harvest

And no follow up text  and the pull doesn't complete so you have to re-harvest the node. The bountiful harvest has been working fine during the same harvest period but never have I had a bountiful and a rare bonus which you would think would occasionally collide.

---

As to the earlier conversation of which is bette +2% progress or +2progress that all depends on your level. +% affects base tick and reaction arts. Thus if you have +50 in reaction arts the combined +50 base +50 reactions is the same as the +amount. However due to crits it works out slightly better to have +%. However if you have only +20 in arts then the +amount is better, if you have +100 in arts then the +% is better. Clear as mud?

---

As to CoM: meh its worth having as there is nothing else, but the proc rate is terrible. I'm getting at most 1 : 4 , CoM : Prayer Shawl.

And one last thing, it procs teh same way as Brells, I.e. any time during the craft, which is something

[Banditman]

Meirril wrote:

If your like me and you want to maximize your chance to get your materials back, boosting your progress and success actually HURTS your chances. The longer the combine takes, the more chances you have of getting one of the 2 procs or a flawless reaction. Something to think about.

Or, by doing more combines faster you get more chances for Conservation to trigger.  I believe Conservation is a much, much higher percentage than the Flawless combines.

[Nisala]

I'm liking the Tradeskill AA's so far.   I was out questing the other night in Sundered Frontier and while doing that and harvesting I managed to get 6 rares.  

The progress AA's are pretty nice as well.  I can blow through rush orders like no ones business. *chuckles*  Makes doing them for guild leveling purposes bearable.

[CorpseGoddess]

I have to admit, though---I'm still cranky they're making me take 25 aa's away from my bruiser to put towards harvesting/crafting.  Yes, I could swap profiles, but there are some of us that adventure and craft both, and some of us that do both on the fly;  a big part of my aa profile as a bruiser is my solo survivability, and a big part of my soloing is noodling about, harvesting and hoping for rares.

I'm still hopeful this will get re-examined and changed in the future.  *sigh*

[Xalmat]

Streppoch@Guk wrote:

I have to admit, though---I'm still cranky they're making me take 25 aa's away from my bruiser to put towards harvesting/crafting.  Yes, I could swap profiles, but there are some of us that adventure and craft both, and some of us that do both on the fly;  a big part of my aa profile as a bruiser is my solo survivability, and a big part of my soloing is noodling about, harvesting and hoping for rares.

I'm still hopeful this will get re-examined and changed in the future.  *sigh*

Certainly you can sacrifice 25 AA from adventuring to make a harvesting spec?  It's not like having 300 AA is a requirement for soloing versus solo mobs.

[Xalmat]

Katz wrote:

Wow, I wish the aa mirrors could hold a lot of builds.   I can just dedicate my main to a harvesting build but I'll need to try the mirror in another house trick as she has two adventure builds already.   I can put the mission build on the two I currently do missions on.  The writs build can be for my lower level crafters.   The mastercrafted one.... hmmm..guess a third mirror for my main.  

Thanks for the suggestions, I will try them.

Buy a lot of houses. There's oodles of housing options out there, and most of them are relatively inexpensive (there's six newbie 2 room houses alone you can buy if you don't mind betraying).

[Beajay]

Maybe it is just me but I think a 1% chance of finding a rare is statistically insignificant. It may not be equal to trying to find a needle in a haystack but it is just as frustrating.

We need rares for so many things in the games: housing items, spells, jewelry, armor, weapons, etc. Harvesting even 4 per hundred harvests is way too few though I would fall over in a dead faint if that ever happened to me lol. 

I am going to go out today to try and harvest t8s again. I am all buffed up for harvesting so I hope the mobs leave me alone. It will be interesting to see how well I do.

[Xalmat]

Beajay wrote:

Maybe it is just me but I think a 1% chance of finding a rare is statistically insignificant. It may not be equal to trying to find a needle in a haystack but it is just as frustrating.

It's much, much rarer without the AA.

Interesting to note, if you maximize your Bountiful Harvest stat to it's current maximum (54% I think?) the odds of finding a rare with the AA go from 1/100 to 1/65 per harvest, or roughly one rare per 21.6 nodes.

[Meirril]

Xalmat wrote:

Streppoch@Guk wrote:

I have to admit, though---I'm still cranky they're making me take 25 aa's away from my bruiser to put towards harvesting/crafting.  Yes, I could swap profiles, but there are some of us that adventure and craft both, and some of us that do both on the fly;  a big part of my aa profile as a bruiser is my solo survivability, and a big part of my soloing is noodling about, harvesting and hoping for rares.

I'm still hopeful this will get re-examined and changed in the future.  *sigh*

Certainly you can sacrifice 25 AA from adventuring to make a harvesting spec?  It's not like having 300 AA is a requirement for soloing versus solo mobs.

I'm just being nitpicky here but...this is more like loosing 30 AA. Not only do you put 25 points into tradeskill AA, but I use to have 5 of those points spent in the Shadow line when bountiful harvest was there. A few of my toons had 10 points spent on tradeskill stuff in the shadow line!

The really annoying part is now before I go to join a group, raid or craft for someone I have to check my AA build and then visit my house to switch. Before it was 5-10 points that allowed access to higher level adventuring abilities and my dedication to crafting just cost me a few points of power and maybe health. Now? 30-35 AA makes a huge difference.

[Beajay]

I did my harvesting stint with mixed results. I did fairly well harvesting collectables for my two new toons but I don't think I did any better than they did harvesting collectables. Both of my new toons found enough of the rares to fill all the slots that required them. They also found the rare raw mats needed to make most of their armor, weapons, and a few spells each.

The difference appears when harvesting higher-level nodes; after over an hour harvesting t8 nodes I found one rare. I found I could still fight while in full harest gear but I kept to areas with green and blue mobs.

I still think that rares are too rare. Harvesting seems more like work than fun and it is frustrating to boot. I really enjoyed harvesting at the lower levels because the rares were more plentiful. Harvesting at t8 level is boring as all get out and I won't be doing it very often.

And that is a problem because all of my toons are starting to get to the level where harvesting is a bummer. If harvesting isn't fun then that is less time I (and other players) will spend doing it. That translates into less time needed to max the game and move on. There is only so much time I am going to be willing to spend to find the rares needed to make house items.`

To me, harvesting works best when you can do it while adventuring. If you have to switch AA trees and gear to get a decent harvest then chances are you will have to do harvesting as an activity independent of adventuring.

Unfortunately it is virtually impossible to harvest without aggro unless you harvest in a grey area. Even then, as I found to my sorrow, SOE will often spawn a high-level heroic to clean your clock when you least expect it.

That makes me wonder why SOE makes us have to switch AAs and gear to harvest? None of it makes sense to me but maybe I'm alone in this.

[CorpseGoddess]

Meirril wrote:

Xalmat wrote:

Streppoch@Guk wrote:

I have to admit, though---I'm still cranky they're making me take 25 aa's away from my bruiser to put towards harvesting/crafting.  Yes, I could swap profiles, but there are some of us that adventure and craft both, and some of us that do both on the fly;  a big part of my aa profile as a bruiser is my solo survivability, and a big part of my soloing is noodling about, harvesting and hoping for rares.

I'm still hopeful this will get re-examined and changed in the future.  *sigh*

Certainly you can sacrifice 25 AA from adventuring to make a harvesting spec?  It's not like having 300 AA is a requirement for soloing versus solo mobs.

I'm just being nitpicky here but...this is more like loosing 30 AA. Not only do you put 25 points into tradeskill AA, but I use to have 5 of those points spent in the Shadow line when bountiful harvest was there. A few of my toons had 10 points spent on tradeskill stuff in the shadow line!

The really annoying part is now before I go to join a group, raid or craft for someone I have to check my AA build and then visit my house to switch. Before it was 5-10 points that allowed access to higher level adventuring abilities and my dedication to crafting just cost me a few points of power and maybe health. Now? 30-35 AA makes a huge difference.

Exactly.  And Xalmat--no, I can't really "sacrifice" the aa's---and your use of the word illustrates my point beautifully.  Why should I have to sacrifice anything?  SOE needs to understand that some of us don't just have one playstyle or another exclusively--some of us blend more than one.

The fact of the matter is, I *do* need those 25-30 aa's, both for soloing and in a group.  And with all the new stats changes, I need them more than ever.  But I also need them for harvesting, too.  And that is why I'm really resentful that the aa's I gained through tradeskill quests I could not apply to tradeskill aa's.

[Tracor3k99]

a ton has changed!

[Xalmat]

I give up in arguing this.

I still fail to see the problem given that every class is capable of soloing easily solo-conned (no arrow) mobs with precisely 0 AA, and the vast majority of harvestables that warrant AA investment are located near solo-conned (no arrow) mobs. There isn't some magical switch that says "With only 275 AA i can't solo these mobs, but with 276 I can", or even "With 0 AA in adventuring I can't solo, but with 1 AA i can".

Especially since the lower level zones were balanced around having 0 AA investment in the first place.

Inconvenience or not, the option still exists to invest in multiple houses and store multiple AA mirrors. And until, or unless, tradeskill AAs don't share from the same 300 AA pool as adventure AAs, this is what we have to deal with. I for one am taking full advantage of this to it's maximum extent (6 AA specs: Adventure Soloing, Adventure Grouping, Rare Harvesting + up to 275 AA in Adventuring, Rush Order Crafting, Mission Crafting, Mastercrafted Crafting)

If you're a high level adventurer or artisan, low end (2 and 4 bedroom) housing cost is a drop in the bucket. You can afford the rent on multiple houses with a single level 89 rush order writ.