Idea: Focus Item stat/look disassociation (crafter)

Now that Nightfall has disassociated the looks of armor from the stats and made the stats insignias, I'd like to see something similar done with focus items.

Do you love the look of that Storm Artifact with its floating crystals and really want it for your me/mo? With this change you can

There would be a weapons crafter, or added to existing weapons crafters (the ones that make focus items) that will craft your focus item of choice with no basic stat that it is linked to.

Once you have your base focus item / rod / staff you would then switch to another tab on the weapons crafter, or go to another NPC that would then allow you to "specialize" the base focus item / rod / staff to whatever stat you wanted.

The base focus item / rod / staff would not be able to be equipped until it had an associated stat to it.

All the weapon crafters that make focus items / rods / staves would have all the styles available for you to choose from that are currently on crafters/collectors (thus preserving any rare skins still being rare).

Example:

Sammy Spellsmasher the Mesmer Monk of Wonders really wants a Pronged Rod and Storm Artifact to complete his look.

Sammy goes to the nearest weapon crafter who crafts blank inscription items and chooses to craft each item for the standard 5k + materials. Now Sammy has the following:

Pronged Rod:
11-22 dark damage (requirement: 9 unknown)
Inscription: None

Storm Artifact:
+12 Energy (requirement: 9 unknown)
Inscription: None

Sammy then saunters over to the Specialist NPC, (or clicks on the Specialize tab of the weapon smith) and selects Inspiration for his rod and Fast Casting for his focus. He now ends up with:

Pronged Rod:
11-22 dark damage (requirement: 9 Inspiration Magic)
Inscription: None

Storm Artifact:
+12 Energy (requirement: 9 Fast Casting)
Inscription: None

Sammy then does a dance of joy in his, Oh So Special, mesmer way now that his look is complete! Sammys happy, the weaponsmith is happy, everyone's happy.

wow, nice idea, i like it.
Maybe just something anet missed and yet again more options options is good.

/signed

I like more options too

Was just thinking that an even easier way instead of having to go through multiple windows for the item's statistic (like soul reaping) would be to just have the NPC sell something like a focus core that could only be applied to a (req 9 unknown) item to change it to whatever it was you bought.

In the example above Sammy would have bought a Fast Casting and Inspiration item to make his newly crafted items into the stats above.

Perhaps they could be called:

Alignment Cores or
Alignment Bases or
Class Essence

/sortofsigned

I think they shoudl do it for the items but keep them class specific. Such as the storm artifact crytals for fire but not for dmonination. There are a few looks for the Mesmer Chakrams so those could be switched but they should be kept separate.

/signed

good idea, would love to see it in game

/signed, this increases the amount of diferent appearances possible per character, when you look at what item they hold atleast, I dont like any of the standard monk offhands, but i'm stuck with them.

I DO like the new Storm Artifacts! Would be nice to be able to use a offhand skin you like, in stead of being stuck with the class-specific ones.
/signed

OMG a suggestion! I have to say /not signed!

j/k

Sounds cool. It's strange that every thing is so customizable except for weapons.

Stat-wise, yes but not looks as much. Yes, there is variety but the stats lock the item down.

So, you propose that ANet allows "blank" weapons to be modded via a NPC.

All non melee weapons/offhands, yes. A sword wouldn't quite make sense to "align" it with Hammer Mastery , yet an energy shooting rod makes more sense to being aligned with different stat aspects

The energy damage type could be linked to what stat it is being aligned to.

So you have a rod that is max damage, req 9 unknown, and when you add a Fire Magic alignment it would become fire damage and fire magic as the requirement, healing would be light damage etc...

Basically this gives us the option of using any staff/rod/shield/wand/focus item skin with whatever statistic we want to align it to.

/signed