"Golden rake to dipper is basically easy to get because rake helps u alot, so it wouldn't take you too long to erm get the dipper."
It's funny because tools still make up only 1-3% of your collection (even endgame tools still only make up 5%, and that's mainly from Gummyball/Dark Flames/Tides)
It's always your bees, and they never get credit for it.
"Uhm yeah it's different, 15 B is hard to get especially when you're early stage and can't or not "macroing" and the materials cost more than petal wand especially the 100 glues, you'll need it to get the gummy mask."
I have run 3 different alts, 2 of which got SSA before almost all endgame gears (I didn't even get Petal Wand). I can absolutely tell you that 15B Honey is not a problem if you know what you're doing.
Oh yeah also, Diamond Mask is better than Gummy Mask. Diamond's stats are better, Gummy does has a better ability but requires way too many Gumdrops to run effectively. (surprised you're whining so much about items when you're running Gummy Mask)
(And I'd know this - both of my SSA alts above ran Gummy Mask as the only endgame item before SSA, and I constantly ran out of Gumdrops even though it was Beesmas)
"It used to be Petal wand > belt / windy ( if you're not close to belt ) because back when macro didn't exist or whatev people will just buy the wand first since it's easier to get and definitely cool to wear."
I've already explained above that due to power spike (mainly Planters + Puffshrooms and RBC to a lesser extent), gathering items and boosting is made a lot easier.
From what I've heard, it's also because noone actually tried to optimize early/mid until now.
"Petal wand is not useless, it will help to get more honey and tools are important too, the expensive they are the better! ( never spark staff tho how did that thing be more expensive )"
In some situations, Spark Staff can be better than Porcelain Dipper. I'm not joking.
The math is way too annoying to go through now, but the gist is that the higher the flower's tier, the better Spark Staff becomes, and its maximum pollen collection is 621 PPS. (For tier 3 flowers, the stuff you see on MTN/Coco/Pepper, it's 414 PPS, surpassing Porcelain's roughly 350-400 PPS on White flowers. The only reason you don't actually see people run Spark Staff is because, as I said, it's situational)
But that's beside the point - as I've said earlier, all tools make up 1-3% of your pollen collection due to Bee Abilities. Heck, 1 Bomb token makes more than multiple seconds of tool collecting! Check it out for yourself!