Miss Echo even had the idea that you shouldn't be able to imbue items outside of what you had a skill in. For example, if you are not a blacksmith, you can't imbue weapons made by blacksmiths. Or Jewelry for Tinkering, leather armor for Tailoring, Bowcraft/Fletching for bows, etc.
This was way back in, what, May, when Imbuing was first introduced to the focus group? At least they took away the Peerless requirements they originally had.
Actually my view was that imbuing shouldn't 'replace' crafting skills as this is basically what is going to happen to all crafts in the longer term. Sure, when you are 'training' as someone above says it is handy to have that GM Fletcher or Smith to grind out the items you need to 'unravel' but that is the point I tried to make over and over in focus, that once you have your Imbuer trained how many will then bother with the bod system to 'maybe/possibly/never' get that uber kit to craft that 'maybe/possibly/never' single 'choice' item. How many of you will be crafting or enhancing anything in the colored leathers, knowing that you can't 'imbue' them. Not many, when for a few resources that within a few months will be so farmed up that everyone will have a stockpile for the various mods they want imbued. You won't need your tailor or smith to actually 'make' armors/weapons, do bods or anything they will just exist to craft normal plain resource exceptional items to hand over to the imbuer, who just became the 'god of all crafters'. Imbuing cheapens every other craft skill in the game and makes those skills subservient to the Imbuer.
My 'proposal' as such was not to say (as said above) they HAD to have a craft skill or couldn't imbue the item but to incorporate Imbuing into the existing crafting system to avoid this by:
#(1) If imbuing was the ONLY skill they had the Imbuer could only imbue stone/glass crafted armor/weaps, or items marked gargoyle ONLY at the full 100% intensity. All other items could only be imbued to 80% intensity.
#(2) If the imbuer also had GM tailoring, they could do the above, PLUS 100% intensity on Tailored items. Ditto for fletching, smithing, carpentry, tinkering, etc
So for example: Without tailoring an imbuer could only imbue up to 16% LRC on leather instead of 20% which the tailoring skill combined with Imbuing would allow. Or say taming skill at +12 instead of +15 if they didn't have imbuer/tinker skill.
It would have meant that to imbue at 100% intensity those items generally 'crafted' by another skill set you had to have the respective skill at GM level. The imbuer could still imbue leather, smithed, fletched, tinkered items to 80% (as shown above) so it wasn't like they were missing out or that the skill was nerfed, it would just have meant that the other crafts would not sink into complete subservience to the Imbuer. Once people are done with their 'training' as it is now the 'other' crafters will just become the char that churns out the 'stuff' to unravel or to make the 'starting' exceptional item to hand over to the imbuer.
This would have meant that a 'customer' wanting some mod imbued would likely find an imbuer with tailoring skill to put that LRC onto their sleeves and an imbuer with tinkering skill to add the taming skill to their bracelet, etc. In the case of (1) above the Imbuer would need to find a gm or greater tailor to 'convert' an item to 'gargoyle Only' for them to add a mod at 100% if they didn't have the tailoring skill etc. It would have made the imbuer interdependent on the other crafters to be able to work all mods at 100%. The other crafting skills would have played an integral role to allow a ONE skill wonder to be able to craft items in their respective trades.
Basically, imbuing has done NOTHING for any existing crafter or crafting skill other than to make them second class crafters. Frankly, I see this happening already with characters who
just have Imbuing outselling and outcrafting anything my 5 year old Tinker can craft. And the same 'imbuer' outselling and outcrafting anything my 6 yr old legendary blacksmith can craft, outselling and outcrafting any bow my gm Fletcher of 6 yrs can make. Basically those crafters are NO longer required. Imbuing on jewelry and weapons is probably the worst thing as there is absolutely ZERO CHANCE the trades that 'own' these crafts can compete against an imbuer in items of their own trade. Couple this with the fact the imbuer can also modify store bought leathers, wooden armors/weapons, metal armors, all bows, jewelry, shields, etc makes the imbuer the god at the expense of the other 12 year old 'classic' trades.
Customer: "hey Mr Fletcher, can you make me a nice bow with Demon Slaying, mana leech a bit of SSI and maybe some life leach or stamina leech please?"
Mr Fletcher: "sorry no, at Grandmaster Fletching the ability to craft an item like that is beyond my skill"
Mr Imbuer: 'sure thing, go buy a bow from the npc, and bring me xyz in ingredients and I will whip one up for you in a few minutes"
As for the OP, imbuing should be at least 7 times harder and 7 times more expensive to train than it currently is as it is basically taking over 7 other trades Tailoring, Smith, Fletching, Carpentry, Tinkering, Masonry, Glassblowing and relegating these to the 'craft deco only' club.
And yes, I have in less than a week, a GM imbuer, who is on their way to Legendary, and I have NOT been overly fussed in powergaming it. I have not spent a cent on getting the resources needed to get her to where she is. In another week, at a reasonable pace, she will outperform and outcraft with her 120 skill points the following invested by the 'other' crafts I have:
120 tailor
100 arms lore
120 smith
100 tinker
100 carpenter (wooden armors/shields) (masonry-stone weapons armor)
100 fletcher
100 Alchemy (glassblowing - glass weapons)
740 total skill points
Who really needs all these skills now?
