I agree this is a good way of utilizing forge stones of a lesser tier.
So you could end up with something like 1 Jade, 1 indigo, 1 White: Combines into 1 Emerald, Russet, Gold or silver.
Then on the next combination, you could have 1 Russet, 1 Gold, 1 Silver: Combines into 1 Cherry, Crimson, Cobalt.
Then the next combination could be, 1 Cherry, Crimson, Cobalt: Combines into 1 Yellow, blue, red, green.
(But not any of the glorious stones that we know exist)
Sorry for stone colour spoilers, for those who don't know the different colours but this is possibly worth the spoiler.
It could change the dynamic of how the stones are acquired.
By creating multiple tier categories of the stones, we can change the variance of the stones that are dropped, and reward hoarding and hard work more than luck.
It might take 30 stones to get a tier 1.
But the loot drop chance of a tier 1 might be 0.1% where the drop chance of the lowest tier might be 0.5%.
Then again, you might have 25% chance to get the tier 1 you want after hoarding, and spending gold to reforge the lower stones, (Blue, yellow, red, green), upon combining the lower tier stones to have the chance in the forge.
I also think that when combining the lowest tier stones, there should be a 10% chance that the stones disintigrate during the process and leave you empty handed, but not for higher tier conversion attempts, adding another layer of chance into the mix, I also think that crafting skills points should not adjust this type of forging.
And I also believe this could be done at another completely seperate mystical forge somewhere in the server to add another location to force people to go to.
On a side note and probably most people would like to see this, can we please add up the total sale cost of 1 socket stone to be 1/3 the price of a socketed weapon with said stone, so i can just start flogging them to vendors, as opposed to socketing weapons for hours on end to make a better buck.
Ta