The Hydra Helm recipes can no longer benefit from material conservation effects.

Cobalt Scar add-on (I consider it an "xpac" even if the price was $0. Please adjust my wording if that's not your definition, rather than jumping down my throat). CoE. New one already announced. That's "a couple" when I'm using terms as precise as "a couple".

Before experimenting was added, high-end crafted gear was the deshinak (group) and yelinar (raid) recipes. After CoE, high-end recipes were... deshinak and yelinar with refining and experimenting. No new high-end recipes were added, though they did add level 92-95 normal recipes for solo/group-intro gear.

Now new recipes have to take that into account, so our old "bonus" became our new "requirement" (or, in the cases discussed here, our new "no, you can't use your new skills.")

I hated it back in the day when making someone a suit of chainmail took half an hour with all the subcombines (washes, oils, tempers, resins, cloth, padding, bars, rings, straps, harnesses...) Now making someone two items takes a half-an-hour with all the experimenting (takes me about 13-14 minutes for Visionary, anyway, though I've only timed myself 6 times.) I've slowed down by a factor of 3, and my items are less-dominating than they were back then.

And the items (visionary refined tempered azure, stats=183, potency/crit bonus=10.9) are no better than what you get from one fabled drop (stats=185, cb/p=11.0), even though they require harvesting, refining, crafting, experimenting, and FIVE drops. Poor/lazy design. (Though maybe not as poor and lazy as dropping raid-trash fabled in solo instances, rather than actually itemizing the solo instances.)

When the new azure gear is WORSE then lower level reactant gear.. and even after 5x experiment is still worse then the gear you get from the zones you have to run to get the materials to make it.. No, I don't think the azure gear was 'well balanced'. Not at all.

People have enough trouble with the definition of expansions where things like AoD are concerned. Using the right lingo makes everyone's life easier and we avoid silly conversations like this. CS was an update.

The time spent making these items decent is still better than trying to get the actual dropped gear. The components are still essentially handed to you for doing very little, so you can't expect fantastic stats.

Yes, 5 kills and 20+ minutes of mind-numbing tradeskilling work is "doing very little", compared to 1 kill (possibly of the same mob). I guess we'll agree to disagree.

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I confess I didn't look at the colossal jewelry since very little of it was interesting and for those the tempered pieces are definitely better. I was thinking of the BPs when I spoke and over-generalized.

Unfortunately the tempered piece is worse the the solo stuff you get out the old solo instances... and it requires you to get lucky 5 times to get the components and to spend 20+ azure reactants. I'd have expected something that takes 5 drops from new heroic content to be better then the previous throw away solo items...

You don't even need drops from heroic zones. You just need the army of crafters with apprentices and a couple weeks of dailies. (The people asking for easier access to recipes and ingredients like the helm stuff probably have that already.) The Conservation AA which is the hot topic here still works on this set of items, so there's some potential $$ in their future.

The tempered piece that's pictured does not include the refined bonus which bumps the green stats to 167, cb/pot to 10 and most of the other stats up 10% as well, and getting 20 azure reactants is stupidly easy... getting the drops isn't difficult either even if you never set foot in the zones. Just running the daily tradeskill apprentice quests and cobalt scar crafting questlines on my 95 crafters, I've obtained well over 600 of the blue coins (and 800+ reactants), which is enough for creating five of those new crafted items for doing virtually nothing. Plenty of raiders use those tempered azure items as well, there are definitely advantages to them if you pay attention and actually think about what stats to boost with experimenting. I even know a few people that replaced HM raid gear with the tempered azure crafted items because of those advantages. Though admittedly a lot of people seem to think that boosting a green stat by 8 or 9 is better than boosting crit bonus or potency by 1, which I still don't understand. So yes, I'll admit a lot of the visionary ones you see on the broker really aren't that great because the crafter that experimented on them picked stats to boost that are less important.

So I need to blow up a bunch of rares, spend 15-30 minutes experimenting on it to make it comparable to trash loot out of a solo zone from the next to latest content? Much faster just to bore myself and get the trash from the CoE solo instances or the shiny collections from EJ and OP, which are hands down better.

Not so, here is a list of all crafted items since Skyshrine.

Azure Reactant (Regular): 132 Stats
Category: Legendary
Requirements: Materials gathered from Overland zones.

Draconic Craft (Heroic): 145 Stats
Category: Fabled
Requirements: Materials Obtained from Heroic Instances

Colossal Reactant (Regular): 146 Stats
Category: Fabled
Requirement: Drop from Heroic Instances (Reactant) and a Rare Harvest.

Azure Reactant (Tempered): 156 stats
Category: Fabled
Requirements: Materials obtained from Heroic Instances

Solo Legendary: 160
Category: Legendary
Requirements: Run solo zones
- No proc effects.

Dragon Craft (Fabled Raid): 172 Stats
Category: Fabled
Requirements: Materials obtained from Raid Zones.

Solo Fabled: 179 Stats
Category: Fabled
Requirements: Rare Drop from Fabled Zones
- No proc effects.

Psionic Shielding Helm: 211
Category: Fabled
Requirements: Clear Challenge-Duo Zones

Hydra Scale Helm of Rending: 275
Category: Mythical
Requirements: HM-Raid Content cleared.

Note the hardest and best stuff is Raid-Craft meaning it was designed for raiders. The fact that it can be sold outside of raid is a great benefit to the economy and to Heroic/Solo Players who can afford such items. The reason the Azure-Tempred gear is worse than the previous Experimented items is because the previous items everyone wanted were in fact raid items not Heroic items like the Tempered Azure items are.

Tempered Azure gear also when made with a Refined base item is also better and Experimenting puts it on par with Stewards Gear at roughly the 180-190 stat range. That is pretty darn good for a Heroic Item, its at or above EM-Raid Gear which has 187 stats on it. Yes it takes time and investment but it's a good item for Solo and Heroic Players. Sure it's not for Raiders but that's fine they have PoW to get their basic set of HM-Starting gear.

LOL, blow up a bunch of rares? I guess maybe if you mean trying to refine one, but unless your server economy is drastically different from mine, the refined rares don't cost much at all on the broker. Obviously you're set in your opinion that they suck but considering how many of these items I make and experiment on because people want to use them over raid gear I'd say there are plenty that would disagree with you.

I raid and I've yet to see anybody running with any azure reactant gear over raid gear.
I've got some yelnar pieces that have used refined rare and been experimented on. I'm not saying all crafted gear sucks.. far from it.
My comments in this thread have been:
1) Rather then making recipes and then going back and making exceptions to how they interact with crafting (hydra helm recipes and insignia of the deep) they should use a different mechanism for having these enter the world.. perhaps like the VP armor patterns did way back in Kunark, so they don't have to keep making exceptions (after the fact) time and time again. That is just good programming practice (among other things.)
2) Yes, I think the azure gear is garbage. You absolutely positively have to use a refined AND experiment on them for them to be anything beside absolute garbage. Both refining and experimenting are things that are supposed to be EXTRA. But, in order for those recipes to not be totally pointless, you have to use a refined and 5x experiment on them. THAT is why I think they're garbage.

Azure Reactant gear is not meant to be better than Raid Gear. It's Heroic Level gear even when Experimented on it will only barely reach Raid Levels.

Yelnar is Raid-Crafted gear, using Raid materials. Of course it would be on par if not better than most Raid Gear when made properly. A better comparison is Deshinak Gear to Azure Gear.

There really is not issue with the Hyrda Helm or the Insignia's. The materials come from Raid Zones (Challenge) and of course they will be high quality gear. The VP armor required guilds to farm all of Veeshan's Peak every 7-9 days and dragged the expansion on. That isn't to say VP wasn't fun but it had quite a bit of trash in it, especially when you divide the armor around the players in a raid. It would take at least 3 months to get the patterns alone given the long lockout.

It's just like Deshinak Gear, it was meant to be Refined/Experimented on. The big flaw here is that Solo Gear is still better than it is in raw stats. Another sign imo that Solo Gear was placed too high in the stat list when compared to the preceding game update: Skyshrine. Jumping form 145 = Heroic Gear to 160 = Solo gear was a mistake. Adv-Solo zones should have scaled.
Dreadcutter/Temple: 145 (right on with SS Heroic)
Throne of Fear:/Wurmbones Crag 150
Chelsith/Wurmbones End: 160
Then the Fabled Solo Gear could have been 170-180 range like they are now (179).
Since the Azure Gear can be Refined/Experimented on up to the 180-190 range it now outpaces Solo Gear and Heroic Current Gear which is 174 iirc.

I'm not expecting azure gear to be comparable to raid gear. I'm objecting that it is worse then the trash loot from the CoE solo instances.. and it requires 5 components + azure reactants from the cobalt scar heroic instances.
New lvl 95 crafted gear that requires 5 heroic drops should not require a refined rare and 5x experimentation to be better then lvl 92 solo gear from the previous content release.

Your the one who brought up Yelinak stuff. I have always said CoE-Solo gear was stronger than it should be just to get people to run the instances. You are right, Azure Reactant Gear (non-Tempered) is worse than CoE-Solo Gear. However Tempered Gear is better just experiment on it a few times just like the skyshrine stuff. Also the Azure Reactants are not from the instances the items to make the Tempered Version are. The regulare Azure Items are just made from harvested materials.

I am not really disagreeing with you just pointing out that your claim is off on a few points but not all points. I pose you this question where between these stat sets should Tempered Azure fit? Considering it can have +15-25% to any stat through Refine/Experimentation? This is just how it currently is below.
Azure Reactant: 132
Cobalt Scar: 142
Skyshrine Heroic-Craft: 145
Collosal Reactant: 146
Drunder EM-Raid: 148
Skyshrine Fabled (Contested): 153
Tempered Azure Reactant: 156
Edilon/Obol Fabled: 159
Solo-Legendary: 160
SS-Raidcraft: 172
Skyshrine EM-Raid: 172
Siren's Grotto: 174
Stewards: T1: 178
Nox Incessit (Normal): 179
Solo-Fabled: 179
Talavan Abyss (Challenge Heroic): 184
Drunder Raid (Challenge): 184
Fabled Clefts of Rujark (Fabled): 184
Steward's T2: 187
EM-CoE Raid: 187
SS-HM Raid: 187
Nox Incessit (Challenge): 192
Skyshrine Contested Fabled: 194
Plane of War: 196
EM-SG Raid: 200
HM-CoE Raid: 204
Challenge Duo-Craft: 211
Avatar: 216-224
Mythical Cloak: 220
HM-SG Raid: 226
Hydra Scale Helm: 275


Increases from Refining and Experimenting
- 10% from Refinement and 15% From experimention.
Azure Reactant: 165
- Better than Solo-Legendary and is Legendary
Skyshrine Heroic-Craft: 181
- Better than Solo-Fabled and is from a past Update
Tempered Azure Reactant: 179 (broken refinement lost a 10% bonus)
- Better than Solo-Fabled which has 0 effects on them.
Skyshrine Raid-Craft: 215
- Better than Plane of War and HM-CoE but only for a very select few items.

So please where in the ever so cramped 90-95 stat spread can Azure Gear fit without severely breaking progression? It's not Raid-Craft which was able to break progression due to being from raids. Raids have always been the source of the best loot with Heroic being just barely under raid so that you may enter EM-Raids in Heroic Quality Gear. Basically you are not wrong but the Azure and Tempered Azure gear is fine where it is in progression compared to other 95 items.

I do have to conceded that with the smooshed progression they've painted themselves into a corner. They've also set a disturbing precident that some crafted gear will be garbage unless it is refined and experimented on. Frankly, the precedent is what bothers me the most.. which is my concern with the 'exceptions' they made for the hydra helms and the insignias.

The Helm/Insignias are designed to be relevant content come an expansion or two. It's a reason for non-hardcore raiders to get to experience this content after gear and other things like levels and new AA have helped them out thus making the fights less challenging. They aren't so much "exceptions" as they are "future incentives". Perhaps it may seem better to think of it that way. Very few items break the tier list.

Yelinak items only break the progression curve for 4 slots maximum (cloak/gloves/shoulders/ranges) and no class can use all 4.
- Tanks have 1, the Dragonscale Pauldrons
- Mages have 1, the Cloak of the Archmagus
- Scouts have 2, Dragonhide Gloves and the Bow.

Mythical Cloaks are the best in-slot unless you can kill Bristlebane even then some have superior effects. Thus a reason for Non-HM Raiders and progressing guilds to try to run PoW as it gets a bit older.

The new Hydra Helm and Insignia are just what things like the Cloaks or the Zekian Mythicals were back in DoV when Drunder was the "endgame." Items also break the usful barrier sometimes between expansions. Najeena's Ring of Readiness was one such item. These little odd ends that break progression are incentives to run content longer just so you can get that shiny item.

As I said, your point is valid but I feel you may be looking at it in the wrong light. I hope some of my counter-pointing has helped illuminate the situation in the game.

Except that Deshinak gear predates refining and experimenting...

As I said upthread, R&E being added was a hack to extend Deshinak/Yelinar for another xpac without giving us new MC-Fabled recipes. And now as they add new recipes beyond that, they "balance" our new MC-Fabled recipes in such a way that R&E are required, but the end result still has lower stats than dropped Fabled.

Making something both required and useless at the same time takes some serious game-design skill.

You make your points well and I do understand the game situation. I just think their choices are suboptimal.
But I still think making refining and experimenting 'required' to make the gear useful is a bad design decision.
And the could have accomplished exactly the same results for the helms and insignia by using a method similar to the armor patterns in VP (when they were current content) without necessitating making exceptions to existing skills.. especially since they didn't even think about the 'exceptions' until later.

VP armor was sloppy and tedious. The helm is simple and straightforward. You do a zone once to get a pattern that fits all classes, as opposed to running VP so many times to try and get a pattern for your class and collecting gems to go along with said pattern, then talking to someone with a faction lock.