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This one's been a long time coming. It's been gradually building since 250-skill people became common, since the 1750 tradeskill lists started getting long, and now that the new tradeskill UI is out, it's easier than ever to raise skill in virtually all tradeskills.
The desireable tradeskill items are no longer driven by difficulty to make, but by expense and scarcity of ingredients. Often, the finished product is worth less on the market than its unfinished components.
Grandmaster smiths with skills of 250 and a +15% modifier item that required a raid to acquire make items with the same skill and efficiency as that of someone with a skill of 240 who bought a relatively cheap geerlok. People spend lots of time collecting the ingredients for a tough Livestone Plate combine, and go to any of a number of max-skill smiths, and see their efforts wasted on a failure. This kind of problem is not unique to smiths, either.
Tradeskills are no longer a function of how good a craftsman someone is; after achieving a skill that is of increasingly nominal difficulty, all are equal. The only difference is that some are better at farming than others. There is no scaling, no incentive to get a better % modifier, no way to distinguish onesself from the rest of the field.
Unless you're an enchanter. Then you can invest a bunch of AA's and become a better jewelcraftsman.
Raising the effective skill cap could help. Even if a craftsman can only get to 250 skill, it would be nice to have some advantage afforded to the smith whose guild farmed XTC for the +15% hammer over some smith who bought himself a geerlok.
Even better, in my opinion, would be to have AA's for other crafts besides jewelcraft. Most of the enchanters I know at the high end have 250 skill. I know only one that has her AA's maxxed out; guess who's the one people prefer to go to for combines?
250 in a skill used to be a stunning achievement. Now it's less so. I submit that it is time for some other means to distinguish the true masters, those who love their craft more than whacking mobs, from the hobbyists.
Feroce
The desireable tradeskill items are no longer driven by difficulty to make, but by expense and scarcity of ingredients. Often, the finished product is worth less on the market than its unfinished components.
Grandmaster smiths with skills of 250 and a +15% modifier item that required a raid to acquire make items with the same skill and efficiency as that of someone with a skill of 240 who bought a relatively cheap geerlok. People spend lots of time collecting the ingredients for a tough Livestone Plate combine, and go to any of a number of max-skill smiths, and see their efforts wasted on a failure. This kind of problem is not unique to smiths, either.
Tradeskills are no longer a function of how good a craftsman someone is; after achieving a skill that is of increasingly nominal difficulty, all are equal. The only difference is that some are better at farming than others. There is no scaling, no incentive to get a better % modifier, no way to distinguish onesself from the rest of the field.
Unless you're an enchanter. Then you can invest a bunch of AA's and become a better jewelcraftsman.
Raising the effective skill cap could help. Even if a craftsman can only get to 250 skill, it would be nice to have some advantage afforded to the smith whose guild farmed XTC for the +15% hammer over some smith who bought himself a geerlok.
Even better, in my opinion, would be to have AA's for other crafts besides jewelcraft. Most of the enchanters I know at the high end have 250 skill. I know only one that has her AA's maxxed out; guess who's the one people prefer to go to for combines?
250 in a skill used to be a stunning achievement. Now it's less so. I submit that it is time for some other means to distinguish the true masters, those who love their craft more than whacking mobs, from the hobbyists.
Feroce
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