I actually had an air staff result from combining two branches
it shouldn't work. did they release a new patch and I just didn't notice?
*runs off to test*
EDIT:
just ran 45 staffs.
got pretty close to equal ratios of earth, fire, water. no air.
no random ability assignments either.
you are mistaken. You probably had a normal air staff you found somewhere already in your inventory, and thought it was one you made. staff making is still broken as of the latest patch, which is still 1.081.
now, there IS a different crafting mod on the nexus that DOES fix the staff making issue, and allows for both making air staffs, and randomly assigning ability boosts to crafted staffs.
but not in vanilla.
Similar to others I've only seen the mysterious fabric dye have the effects of regular black dye
I haven't seen the mysterious dye actually work on anything, period.