For some classes it's difficult to find a suited adornment for some slots (ears for fighter ("best" are the +int ones), feet for healer...). A little bit more balancing here wouldn't hurt. Resist adornments are way to weak. To make them acceptable they have to improved to +200 all resists (treasured) -> +400 all resists (fabled) or grant a large bonus to 1-2 resists (500-1000). Let the transmuter XP on plain damage proc adornments and give all other (including hp / power leech adornments) to the weaponsmith. The HP-regen adornments are to low. They have to be at least 10 times better (30 instead of 3). Even then they will have almost no market.
I really need to agree that + resist adornments are useless and should be replaced with something else or just removed noon use them. Have 4 lvl70 crafter and one of them is weaponsmith (my biggest mistake in game) could Domino give us answer to question Rijacki asked about that class? Not only that class have use only for low lvl alts, top of everything where adornmants when all best of them for weapons where given to transmuters. I forgot 1 thing reward for WS and all his uselessness (English is not my language, hope I got word correct) is to be one of the hardest class to lvl up. I know Domino sad in 1 thread that is being looked but lot of time passed and still no talks about solution, if it go out in few years might be little late.
I'm a tank (guard) and a transmuter. While I'm familiar with the full lists of adornments, I'll just speak from personal experience addorning out a tank. Just to provide some idea of what my perspective on the game is, I'm mostly a raider and don't do much in the way of soloing and/or questing. Concerning the lack of plus stats to various slots, I always thought that was an intentional balancing decision. If I could get any stat in any slot as a treasured addornment, it would be too easy for scouts to just get all +str, or for tanks to go all +agi/sta, or whatever. As it stands, as a tank, I can get a reasonable amount of stat increases in areas I care about (agi/sta, or str if I wanted) without it being huge. When I got my first full set of treasured addorns, I could tell the difference, but it wasn't game changing. However, it would be kind of nice to grab a full set of + stats as a first pass on getting adorned until your gear started to settle out or you had the resources to upgrade to better adornments. People rarely replace adornments on items. There is no progression of geting a treasured adornement, and then upgrading all your adorns up to fabled over time like you do with gear at least in part because of the lack of higher teir adorments that make any sense for a particular character in a lot of slots. There are only a few really great tank addornemtns. The +2% riposte (which can only go on slashing weapons.. seems to go against the spirit of the recent relaxation of weapon requirements on AA's), +2% parry for wrists, +7 parry on the forarms, +1% block... those are the only slots that really just make a tank better. There is no option to get a full set of fabled addornments and really step up your tanking abilities. As it stands, addornements fall somewhere between being fluff and required in terms of adding abilities to a toon, which is probably where you want them to be, but it is a little frustrating in terms of character progression that most of my addornments are treasured simply because that's the best addornment for that slot. Also, it's somewhat annoying to not have T7 versions of all addornemtns (ring HP and the sheild block are the two I have) The block I can understand as being a little unique and easy to become overpowing, but is it so much to have a +80HP T7 ring? Chest addornments are very dull. Practically all classes get the same +6 to all legendary addorn. Similarly with cloak adorns. HP regin isn't worth a legendary adorn to any class (and probably not even treasured), and FTIII is a reasonable treasured adorn. The last slots most everyone adorns is the belt and cloak. The only resist adorns are treasured. Given how resists scale, and their effective importance in the game now, this seems low. Also, there are no fabled or treasured resist items. You can only carry so much gear... if you wanted to really take advantage of the resist addorns as somethign more than, 'well none of the other adorns in this slot are really great, and my XXX resist is weak....' You would need tons of gear. How about a fabled ear and/or ring adorns that would give something like 1k to all resists? Or maybe 2k to half of them or whatever. I can carry an extra set of usable rings and ear rings to swap in as needed if I want resists for a particular fight. Point is, I don't know of anyone that has actually put those on any gear. Or maybe just something insane for a single resist. With the gear I have right now, my mental resist is just horrible. I'd drop 70HP for +3000 mental on a ring slot, and I'd certainly ditch the +14 int on both my ear slots =D. For tanks, the slots that stand out as being particularly weak are belt, ear, and helm, more or less in that order. 2% haste, even if stackable, isn't huge and probably not worth a legendary addornment. The only addornment that I can think of offhand that is just flat wrong is the fabled +35 HP/Power that can be replecated by two lower level treasured addornments. I'm not sure what can be done about it now, but people find the addornment system very hard to follow. I find myself repeatedly explaining which components you need for the various addorns, how you get them, and it certainly isn't obvious who makes what. As a muter, we have a few really nice adorns, and some that I can't ever see anyone wanting. I'll go over the list and point out the ones I think are weak when I have more time to actually review them Is there any hope of getting HQ items adornable? Bone clasped girdle and the cloak of flames are the two that most people are still using at 70. My understanding is that this has to do with them being able to be turned into house items. I know that all of my guildies and myself would be fine with a warning, either when I adorned the item or when I went to make it placeable that said I would lose any adorment on it as a workaround. But you know you would still get a lot of petitions, no matter what the warning said =D Alternatively, you could make the end game items non-placeable and adornable until a proper fix could be put in place. Not really relevant here, but dropped and quested adorns would be very cool. As an aside, SOE should hold you up as a shining example of how to interact with the community, and the changes you have made are being very well received. I'm not much of a crafter, but my wife and several of my friends in game craft like fiends. They are both very happy with the changes going through since you have come on board. Snorm -- 70 Guad
Terron wrote: I hated.. hated with a burning passion in fact, the fact that I needed to craft in order to level transmuting. All I wanted was the ability to mute stuff that would have rotted on our raids if a muter wasn't present. However, it's pretty much imposible to make any money as a muter except for crating the adornments. Two possible solutions: 1. make some kind of byproduct to the transmute that the muter could keep.. a dust or something.. fuel, vendor trash (no-trade even lol), whatever. Just something to give me some incentive as a muter to actually go out of my way when someone says 'Looking for a muter to smoosh all my treasured gear' Right now, if you don't know a muter personally, it's hard to get something transmuted simply becuase of the lack of a convienient way to make it worth the muter's time. Early on, people would charge for the service.. now that just makes you look sketchy =D. As an aside, being able to use the commision system for transmuting would be nice. 2. If this isn't intended, I'm shooting myself in the foot when RoK comes out, but.... Publicise the mechanics of how muting levels more. I could be wrong, but I personally found it MUCH easier to just level on low level combines. They are a lot cheaper to do, and the skill up rate doesn't fall off all that much. I still can't say that it was cheap, but it's far better to grab up the T1 and T2 legendary, mute that, buy up the frags as needed, and make exclusively T1 and T2 treasured stuff. At T1, you can also use any infusions you get w/o any penalty as long as you pristine it (you get back the only powder that would have been used). People flood the market with the treasured and even some of the legendary muter adorns for all levels, which seems to mean that they are using those to level on, which is just plain sillly. Sure, burn off any drops you happen across, but don't buy stacks and stacks of stuff just to level. If people knew this, only T1 treasured and legendary would be totally w/o value. Also, I find that pre T7 adorns sell reasonably well. You can put a T4 adorment on T7 gear, and given the cost for T7, a lot of people do that until they can scrounge up the coin. Also, you don't have to be at level 70 to start adorning your toon. Meaning, you don't HAVE to level at a loss making vendor trash. if you are not particularly concerned with the rate at which you level, just make legendary and fabled adorns at whatever tier you are in and level as they sell. in any event, I sympothise with the state of the weaponsmith, but transmuters need some reason to exist outside of being the muter-bot for a guild. Snorm -- 70 Guard
Adornments are of little importance at the lower tiers, as it is rather wasteful to spend money improving your currently equipment as that is likely to be replaced quickly. By the time you are interested in wanting to adorn stuff the bonuses from the low level adornments are insignificant. It would make sense to scrap most of the T1 and T2 adornment recipes. The main ones to keep would be the weapon adornments, but all the +5 to a resist and +1 to a stat ones should go. Since there is a tendancy for people to give up on leveling transmuting at skill 100 or shortly afterwards the T3 recipes are a little more useful as they give such people something to do with the materials they can produce.
DominoDev wrote: Ok, addressing this directly now. If some things seem out of place it's because it's adapted from a larger case for nerfs/changes and why some classes should go away- both adventuring and trades. What's posted here is an attempt to make it cover just trades and within that, just the adornment changes proposed by myself. Sometimes, nerfs aren't about now but what's to come. When a class exists, an implicit promise has been made to support it. When a class has certain features, an implicit promise is equally made to keep those features and indeed, to keep them unique. Unaddressed problems at their very best just sit. More oft than not though, they grow and find themselves encroaching on issues yet to come. In the case of adorns,promises currently made are to 11 classes. With every addition, with every tweak, the people in those classes are going to want those promises kept. That means what they currently have, they keep; so weaponsmiths just aren't going to come up with any of the transmuter adornments. When new weapon procs get added, both transmuters and weaponsmiths both are going to try and lay claim to every one that pops up. There is plenty that can be done now to try and differentiate weapon adorns like adding de-aggro procs and even defensive additions but how many ideas begin to encroach into other markets/territories? Couldn't armorer's, or even woodworkers make legitimate claims to both of those? In trying to support what is essentially an over extended idea, dilution occurs. Exactly why are there so many resist adorns? Proc's that do the exact same thing? Overall questionable adornment distribution? The earlier argument I admit is impacted in this one because in the current scheme no one is really certain what markets they should be in. Right now you can add anything and just about every class would have a legitimate itemization claim to it because of redundancies and hair splits.How do you rationally expand in such an environment? When it's seen how far reason has to be stretched and how difficult it is to support the status quo, sometimes those promises have to be renegotiated or just out and out broken. When that happens, it's best to do it when the problem is seen and as decisively as possible.Holding out because people have already invested is asking for more trouble down the line and usually when that investment is significantly larger. People have invested thousands of plat/lots of time now?Well, that number will only go up. T8 is coming, how much more and indeed, with new blood coming in how many more, will invest into the broken system? The current scheme does not handle expansion well because of all the groups that need to be supported; it's going to need to be touched sooner or later so why not sooner? Touching on previous changes- how many invested heavily into their chars pre-Lu13 or 24? Or for that matter all the other little tweaks that have come?How many players can deny the overall game improvement after LU13? I'd say 24 as well, but to me, it didn't go far enough and has left us with an incomplete change. I only mention because I feel it's a prime example of the issues that arise with incomplete changes that try to preserve a system that needs to be changed. Will I argue the change is absolutely necessary? No. I can't because I don't know what boundaries exist for expansion and I don't consider myself a miracle worker. Will I argue that the change is a really good idea? Absolutely. The system has limits, of that I can be sure and the more room everyone has to move around in it, the less they step on each other's toes. The more clarity given, the fewer fights over what turf belongs to who. The more room people can expand in, the easier it is to expand them meaningfully instead of resorting to half-splits and convolutions of logic. If there's a compromise to be had, I don't see it. More accurately, there isn't a compromise I see that doesn't leave at least one side very upset anyway and isn't merely a delay of inevitable problems. As I said in my initial reply, good luck however you wish to do it and if you can pull it off, you should ask for the title "Miracle Woman". No matter what you decide people are going to be upset. People might even quit but, people quit after LU13 too. No small number of them are back and grudgingly admit things are better. As long as a change is done right and for the health of the overall game(and if anything the changes you're already doing are closer to NGE than anything said here) it will blow over. Letting it sit though will only serve to make it harder in the future when it really needs to be done.
The problem I find with adornments, is that in effect, a lot of the fabled ones are in fact either pointless or should be legend or treasured items, but as an adorn costing close to 10plat to make, they are not worth making. Giving people a recipe no one would ever buy. Woodworker: Fabled :Scintillating Clemency of the Pontiff - When target casts a healing spell, threat to encounter is reduced. No Priest needs this adorn, its effectively useless. Transmuters: The whole collection of Fabled +pierce or slash etc, they give less benefit than the Proc items you grind Transmuters up on and these are Treasured. 10 plat or 50 gold to do more damage? you choose Transmuters: there are a couple of +10 Defense Fabled Adorns for 2-H weapons. Why would anyone using a Two-Hander want +defense? Again an adorn no one will use. Resist adornments: Are worthless whatever value you make them. Almost all AoE's can be ignored now, and in truth there are enough classes on raids who can protect their groups from AoE's. Either that or just joust the AoE or heal through it. I dont really know why anyone would choose to up a resist with an adorn if they can find something else that improves their Tanking/healing/DPS. Why give a 2% haste adorn to Jewelers when they can make a 10% DPS neck adorn? anyone ever equipped the 2%? These are just some examples off the top of my head, the problem is that game mechanics has rendered a lot of adorns useless. And a large amount of useless ones are fabled. Ideas of things to replace the fabled with are Spell/Heal/Ranged/Melee Crit chance adorns, these would be worth using and making.
Oakbark@Splitpaw wrote: I can see someone using +defense on a two-hander if avoidance wise it parsed out to a decent shield. The haste one is a good point though- why isn't it a spell type haste so it can stack?There was a supposed balance issue before but indeed, the item was fairly different when it came up.
I think the process of getting a full adornment set is too complex, to get the good ones you have to lookup what each class can do and it isn't intuitive at all. Also, transmuters are realy the dupes here. I have a transmuter and a tinkerer, the transmuter has to spend loads and loads of gold to level (like 25-30g for each point) for very little profit. The profits go to the primary tradeskills making the adornments. This may be the fault of the transmuters themselves for not aggreeing between themselves for prices on components but this is the way it goes on eq2, readily available stuff will go cheap even if a huge investment was required to start up the process... I would like a simplification in terms of which class create which adornments but that would mean some classes get nerfed. I don't see this happening. Transmuters need love: Ideas: - Allow leveling on transmutation - Allow transmuters to craft adornments recipes of the primary classes using some duplicate recipes. - Increase skillup chances for blue-white-yellow recipes ... ?
I'm going to disagree here. First, it doesn't take hardly any money to level transmuting if you don't want to spend cash. Second, I recouped all of my expenses and 50% more within a month of maxing Transmuting and focusing on production instead of skillups.
If I was tanking and wanted DPS I wold use a buckler and 1-h, if I was DPS'ing and not tanking I would want a 2-h with one of the Offensive adorns, I cannot see any situation in game where anyone would use a 2-h with defence adorn. When you consider the Adorns in light of game mechanics you realise just how many are really of no worth.
I coordinate all of the adorns for all of the characters in a sizeable raiding guild (with plenty of casual nonraiders also). I'll give some feedback based on what adorns my guild actually find useful based on making THOUSANDS (I dont make any to sell on broker so wont comment on profit margins). I wil only comment on final adorn in each line, earlier ones get outleveled so fast hardly anyone justifies the expense (maybe pvp uses them earlier, I dont know I am on Guk). I'll break it down by slot and apologize in advance if I neglect any adorns and for the size of this post but I feel strongly about this topic. Head: Virtually everyone takes 100power, a few take 1% heal crit. 14wis isnt as useful as either of those so might as well not exist in this slot. 100 Mental resist is such a small number noone would ever consider it. Cloak: Bad slot. Everyone takes 3 Mana Regen if they feel like wasting a legendary adorn here. 3 Hp regen is silly and completely useless/underwhelming. Falling damage is an OK fluff toy. Chest: Every single person takes +6 to stats. +1 mana regen or 100 mental or 100 magic are again superweak (not that +6stats is that great either) Shoulder: Decent slot with 3 useful choices: 100hp, 14str, damage shield. Other 3 choices are terrible: 14sta which is less than <-- 100hp, or 100poison or 100disease. Forearm: OK slot, has 14wis, 7parry, +mit. Again two weak 100 resist options. Mages pretty hosed in this slot. Gloves: Good slot, something for everyone. +heals, +spelldamage, 14agi, 1% ranged crit Waist: Bad slot. +5disrupt/subj (why no corresponding +ord/min?), +1% ranged crit, +2 haste which is so paltry after it was nerfed it might as well not exist. 2 haste is terrible Leg: 14str, 14sta or 100disease or 100poison. Thats a couple of stat choices which arent very useful to many classes. No interesting effects available whatsoever here yet. Feet: 14agi, 14sta, 100cold. Same as leg slot. If you want to add some new adorn lines here is definately some room. Neck: +spell damage or heat dot on hostile spell. +heals or +ord/min. +1crit, 2haste, or 10dps. You actually have options in this slot Wow. They arent at all balanced so most choices are obvious but this slot is a good slot nonetheless. Hope more slots have actual choices in the future like Neck. Ear: 14int or 100to any resist. Come on. 100 resist like everyone has said before, is nothing. Why only int? Why no effects or skills etc? Finger: 70hp or 70mana (both treasured) or 35hp/35mana (fabled) That makes no sense whatsoever since fabled nerf. Also can get 100 to any resist again which is terrible. Wrist: Good slot. 14 to Any stat you want! +2%parry or +mit is cool. But 3hit point regen? That is Nothing in Tier7. The 3 reactive healing procs are interesting but noone takes them unless they are experimenting with a solo farming character or something, pretty weak. Ranged Weapon: Everyone takes 10dps on pouch or bow pretty much. The multiple versions of +12damage (normalized) arent very interesting. There's also a power syphon which noone has ever asked for. Could have put some +ranged skill here maybe which is overlooked throughout the game. Shield: +1%block, damage shield, +1 heal crit, +mit, or weak reactive heal proc. That's a reasonable amount of choices but most just take +block. Symbol: +to various damage types, +1 spell crit, +2 power regen (weak), +disruption/subjugation. Most take spell crit or regen. +damage ends up being so tiny once game factors casting time/targets/duration that you dont actually get that much out of it but that is getting off topic. Weapons: There are almost as many weapon adorns as all other gear slots combined! Various elemental procs. A few decent defensive choices. +heals and power taps and lifetaps and spell crit and weapon skill. All of these get requested. The 2hander only choices could use some improvement. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- None of the weaponsmith weapon adorns ever get asked for EVER. Only weaponsmith adorn that ever gets asked for is the +spell damage neck (lol). I very rarely need a Sage adorn, but they get so many regular recipes I dont feel very sorry for them. Tailor and Armorer by far have the highest number of requested adorns. It has been said many times but I'll say it again. 100 to a resist is Nothing in T7. Please do something about them (removal or substantial increase OR something neat like refreshing ward to that damage type which is way better than resist) Please look into making Something useful in every slot for every archtype: fighter,priest,mage,scout. Lots of slots are only relevent to a couple of archtypes. It would be GREAT if there was a choice of a couple things for each archtype in every slot but that is probably wishful thinking. Meesh - Survivors - Guk
Oakbark@Splitpaw wrote: Oh? So warriors are the only ones who can use 2-handers? Not arguing with the broader point but there are classes that can make use of it. Now that said, them being fabled.....
Some slots only have a treasured option. I would think adding a legendary and Fabled option for these slots would make them alot more useful. As it is right now some of these slots don't add much value if any. Resists are a bigger issue. They are worthless to get at this point due to how they work and only adding +100 doesn't do anything. Helm slot: This slot doesn't have any T7 legendary or Fabled adornments. The only Fabled is T6 and is a 1% heal crit. Even the treasured ones don't add much value as a tank. Currently its +power or +mental or +wis. Adding a Melee based stat would be a start but would love to see a legendary/Fabled one added as well. Chest slot: This is an important piece many get. I'd like to see the adornment for this be just as important. The legendary +6 to stats is nice. A good Fabled one to add value to all classes would be a good addition. Shoulders slot: This is almost the opposite of Helm slot where it is very melee based. Adding something for our casters/healers would be good here. Even +int/Wis is a start. The legendary is damage on melee. Why not a damage on spell as well. Leg slot: Again a critical slot I would like to see an good adornment. Currently it only has 4 treasured items that are ok. +resists really don't mean alot. Otherwise its str/sta. I wouldn't mind seeing a legendary/fabled adornment added. Maybe +crit, +melee or even +incombat runspeed. Boots: Again no legendary/fabled items. It currently has AGI/STA and a resist. Nothing really decent for a caster/healer. Runspeed/haste/crits would be decent for this. Neck: This is the opposite issue of some of the above. It doesn't have any treasured items! Treasured adornments are good to get when you know your going to upgrade the item soonish. +stats would be good for this. Ear: No legendary/fabled items. +100 to resists really doesn't do anything with how resists work currently. Only a +int for stats. Spell haste/melee haste for fabled would be good. Waist: No treasured items. Again stats or skill abilities would be good for that. I think some of the legendary or Fabled adornments could include +aggression, +skill (ie pierce/slash/subjugation etc) as long as its an OK number. Resists need to go up to make them worth while. Even a fabled resist at +600 I'd consider or a treasured that has more than just 1 resist may be worth while. Fabled +hate items would be very valuable with the hate changes coming.
DominoDev wrote: I also feel that adorns should be removed from transmuters, and that they should be able to level by doing what they do.. Transmuting. You would not be removing what transmuters "DO", what they do is provide raw materials to thier main craft or crafter, raws to the market, what transmuters produce in the way of adornments is oversupplied, underpriced bulk grind junk. The situation is just going to get worse, and it is by far the most cost intensive and frustrating level up system in the game. Economically it is creating a shambles. Treasured gear and adepts are inflated, raw transmuting materials are inflated, lower tier adorns are hidiously inflated in some cases. I've sold t3 Prismatic chest adorns for over a plat The fact that Transmuters are forced to level on weapons adorns floods the market with stacks of goods priced just over fuel costs.. and make the WS adorns a waste of time. The current system negates an entire tradeskills adornment recipes.. did you really want that? Unpopular? I think if you actually asked most leveling Transmuters which they would prefer, leveling by grinding tempers.. or leveling by transmuting.. the choice to level by Transmute would be overwhelming. On Nektulos the going price for opal shards is 7gold. These are used to produce tempers you can buy for Fuel cost. How in the WORLD can you justify a system that forces this type of waste, cost and frustration? Time to fix it is now, not let it just grandfather along in this sorry state. It should have never been set up as it was, and the fact it was let go too long doesnt change that. T7 adorns are so prohibitively expensive that they are not being purchased/utilized until a person feels they have thier final piece of armor. Instead of being used to enhance mid tier or PM armor.. they end up going on the best endgame gear a person thinks they can get. Nobody is going to put a 9plat adorn on a 2plat Legendary.. Or a 2 plat treasured adorn on a piece of MC. Adorns should be of some value to every level and every playstyle. At this time (and around t3) they are the playground of the very well financed twink.. or endgame raider. Was this the intent? Price raws and Adorns produced at "Level by Transmute" levels.. T1 and T2. Then price t3 and up.. and see just what kind of market this leveling system has created.
DominoDev wrote: I'm not really sure how the first option takes away anything from transmuters. A transmuter's primary goal is to skill-up, not to make weapon adornments that constantly flood the market and earn zero profit. Once transmuters skill up to 70, what is their primary function?? certainly not to make weapon adornments. Their function is to be the transmuter for the guild or raid. And changing the skill-up scheme for transmuters (as I suggested earlier) does not make it less taxing to skill-up. All it does is allow the raws from transmuting to be available to other crafters so that everyone can compete in the adornment market. Share the wealth I say!
[p] Calthine, that is only true if you fall into the trap of ignoring opportunity cost. Considering the market value of shards and powders you ground up on the way to maxing Transmuting.. I doubt you have recouped. Also.. you recouped as a Woodworker.. not a Transmuter. I suspect the profit from a T7 Reinforced Fastener is a bit better than a T7 temper or binding.[/p][p]So, in essense, you haven't "recouped" as a transmuter. You gained the freedom to produce raws for your main tradeskiller instead of producing skillups. Honestly.. could you have made up the cost of leveling WITHOUT another tradeskill.. could you have done this solely as a transmuter? Granted.. Transmuting is a secondary skill.. however, Tinkering, another secondary skill, can be leveled with self harvesting of common raws, even if the amount is staggering sometimes.[/p][p]We don't see Tinkers creating level locked alts to farm noob island.. farm named, farm specific levels. We do see Transmuters having to do that. That says a ton about the current system. Right now my Transmuter typifies the system. Level locked on newb isle for 12000 kills. Level locked at 19 for that Tiers worth of named farming. Right now, level locked at 32 for maximization of T4 quest rewards to transmute, and she won't level further until those rewards have been exhausted. Its a phony system leading to phony gameplay. Even worse is my good friend's account. Level 9 locked island twink to take advantage of that transmuting market, Level 13 locked twink to take advantage of Ruins/GY/Cemetary named.. for transmuting market. Level 19 Locked twinks to take advantage of CL/Wailing/Blackburrow named.. for Transmuting market. Multiply that times the amount of accounts doing it.. and you can see the real impact of the Transmuting system. My friend is leveling transmuting by using the gold/raws produced from 4 twinks created to do so. That is hardly healthy or "intended', at least to me.[/p][p]Bottom line is, the main function of a Transmuter is production of raws. Forcing them to level by adornment grinding ignores this basic function, and creates a very artificial market.[/p]
It doesn't cost as much, yes, if you only transmute T1 and T2 and use those components to level on. But.. that also creates -very- inflated prices for T1 and T2 goods or people feeling they're required to have an alt level locked on the island mowing down stuff or harvesting in rings. While I don't think that newbie players are prevented from attaining items like some do (heck, they can sell in the inflated market and then buy what they want.. and no one really -needs- broker goods until T3 or T4), it does give an oddly skewed market and a new player might well be frustrated/confused by the high prices they can get for T1 and T2 stuff with their T3+ stuff not getting much more than NPC buy prices. I agree that the other problem is the utter lack of components for any other class for T1 to T6 because, if a transmuter does 'mute something then, they'll likely keep it for their own crafting skill-ups. However, without the skill up by crafting aspect, if transmuters only leveled on 'muting, the skill progression would be too rapid, bottable, and the even more isolated only to the very rich. It's a hard hard hard balance issue. While I do dislike the effects transmuters skilling only by crafting has, I don't know that there is a better solution. Perhaps, though, if their crafting was making components other classes use and not adornments to be used directly, it would have been better.
Her experience tracks with mine. We both skilled up on t1 items while doing other things. Once I broke t1 I never posted a loss because while I was grinding on t1 combines, I was marketing raws from every tier I could so so effectively.
