I was playing my Trickster on Hardcore Elite and when I opened the one-shot chest after killing the Herald of the Flame I only got a recipe for the Beastcallers Cowl - no Epic nor Legendary. Is the recipe considered to be the guaranteed Epic item?
Recipes can be granted as your 1 shot item in place of an actual item. In fact, on that topic, the only way to even get a legendary hat is from a recipe, as none of them drop, they are only craftable.
Also, craftable items are more powerful than just dropped items anyway, sure, they take more effort, but you can repeatedly make them to try and get good stat rolls, and they get benefits from the blacksmith’s expertise bonus, which can grant you a ton of nice, small bonuses.
Just a very minor example, if you used the Celestial smith to craft all of your gear, and got perfect OA rolls from his bonus on every piece, you can potentially get up to 156 more OA than using purely dropped gear. Obviously you won’t try to game anything that hard, but thats just an example of the level of power crafting you gear has over going with just dropped gear.
Thanks for the confirmation on one-shot recipes. Case closed.