A Waste of 15 AAs?

[adrift]

After spending 15 AAs in Tailoring Mastery and then doing a few hundred combines, my conclusion is that I either had a bad run or Mastery isn't working.

If there was a message like "Your Tailoring Mastery has allowed you to complete a combine that would have otherwise failed!" I could believe that it actually does something. As it stands I am disappointed and regret spending the AAs.

Will I notice an improvement on future combines? What was your experience with the Mastery AAs?

Thanks

[Krrak]

After spending 15 AAs in Tailoring Mastery and then doing a few hundred combines, my conclusion is that I either had a bad run or Mastery isn't working.

If there was a message like "Your Tailoring Mastery has allowed you to complete a combine that would have otherwise failed!" I could believe that it actually does something. As it stands I am disappointed and regret spending the AAs.

Will I notice an improvement on future combines? What was your experience with the Mastery AAs?

Thanks

First off, how did you manage to spend 15 aa's in it?

It's 3/6/9 - so unless you somehow skipped the 3 part it's either 9 aa's or 18 aa's spent... but that's being needlessly picky...

Second, yes, I have noticed a huge difference SUB 250 skill in getting the mastery's - I have all but the Fletching mastery so far and found that on combines that I was failing a lot before it helped to reduce the fails (too bad there is no aa that will increase the number of skill-ups, but /shrug... live and spend more plat or time pharming).

[adrift]

Hi,

thanks for the response. Yes, it's 18.

I was doing sub 250 combines, but hopefully I will be more impressed om future combines.

I would still like to see a message when it activates (like forage mastery message).

Perhaps the description is missleading, but does it really reduce the failures by half?

thanks

[KyrosKrane]

What items were you making? Some items, most notably the Grandmaster cultural armors and augments (now named Elaborate and Elegant, I believe) have a success cap that overrides your skill and mastery -- in other words, no matter how good you are, you will still fail a set percentage of the time, on average.

If you were getting excessive fails on other combines, that's another story.

[adrift]

I was making Solstice Robes (252 trivial) with trophy skill in the 230s.

The RNG can do strange things on small runs but after 200 combines I thought my failure rate was higher with the AA.

thanks

[Nolrog]

Exactly how many combines, and how many failures?

By the way, on Solstace robes, you're better off failing.

[mewkus]

Interesting... my experience with solstice robes was that failures were preferred. While you have a lesser chance for skill up on failure, you don't have to remake another chain if you fail.

[KyrosKrane]

In terms of skilling up, a fail is NOT preferred -- your chance of a skillup is still higher on success.

In terms of cost to skill up, a fail is preferred because it's cheaper. You don't consume the expensive chain when you fail, so you get more overall attempts for your money.

If you're rich enough that cost is not a factor (or if you find a cheap source of chains, like a vendor with 500 or so at less than 25pp each -- yes, I actually found that once), then by all means, equip that geerlok and try for a success! You'll have a far better chance to skill up.

[adrift]

I will keep track of fails on future runs (over the next few days).

I'm using chains that I buy from merchants at 24p each (Blue Diamonds seem rare/expensive on my server so it is not uncommon to find chains on merchants from jewelry skill ups). In my case I would prefer NOT to fail.

thanks

[Bobaten]

In terms of the combine you are doing now, at the skill you are doing it, yes, it was a waste. Your skill already gets you to the 95% success cap, and mastery aa's cannot take you past success caps. While skilling up, most people tend to do combines where they are close to or past the success cap, so mastery doesn't get much chance to kick in. Where it really comes into play is when attempting combines well above your skill.

[adrift]

In terms of the combine you are doing now, at the skill you are doing it, yes, it was a waste. Your skill already gets you to the 95% success cap, and mastery aa's cannot take you past success caps. While skilling up, most people tend to do combines where they are close to or past the success cap, so mastery doesn't get much chance to kick in. Where it really comes into play is when attempting combines well above your skill.

I didn't know that mastery AA's can't take you past sucess caps. Do you know where you read that? If true, it would explain why I didn't see a difference.

[KyrosKrane]

Ngreth has posted about it numerous times recently, both here and on the EQLive forums. When the caps were first introduced with the launch of DoN, the devs didn't mention them at all. It took some dedicated players gathering a bunch of data to establish a high probability of a cap, after which the devs 'fessed up and admitted their existence.

For tailoring, the only items I'm aware of with a success cap are grandmaster armors and augments, and the tailoring combine with the sporali skin. I vaguely remember something about Epithieck's power belts (or however you spell that) possibly having a cap, but I don't recall if that was confirmed.

Aside from those items, the only success cap on tailored items is the normal max of 95% success, which can go as high as 100% success (guaranteed success) if the trivial is 200 points or more below your skill.

[adrift]

I knew about sucess caps on DoN armor, but I didn't realize there was a 95% max cap on everything else

I played with the calculator on this site and saw that mastery AAs have no effect on the combines I was doing. It also show that with 300 skill +15% the combine has to be above 402 for mastery AAs to have any effect.

Which leaves me with the conclusion that it was truely a waste of 18 AAs unless they plan on eliminating the caps.

[Aldier]

From the information we have about the upcoming cultural changes, that may be noticeable.

The mastery aa will help you reach the maximum success rate of the item before your skill reaches the point. That is about all you can hope for. There has always been that chance you could fail a combine, even if it was below your skill and over 100 trivial, even at 300.

[GrimwoodCT]

I knew about sucess caps on DoN armor, but I didn't realize there was a 95% max cap on everything else

I played with the calculator on this site and saw that mastery AAs have no effect on the combines I was doing. It also show that with 300 skill +15% the combine has to be above 402 for mastery AAs to have any effect.

Which leaves me with the conclusion that it was truely a waste of 18 AAs unless they plan on eliminating the caps.

Wait till you get to JC and see the suprise built-in fail rate on OoW augs.