I didn't search the web, and there is probably better guides already, but let's be honest, the one that were posted lately were far from optimal. They aren't horrible by any mean for someone who just started crafting and need an overview, but the skills suggested aren't good unless you strive for a 15% HQ chance. I wrote this guide a few days ago, but got distracted and never had the chance to finalize it until now. So here it is, and enjoy HQ'ing every single items beyond level 20, this is what your chat log should look like (or almost!). If you don't care about the maths or explanations, just skip to the TLDR read part. And sorry for the bad grammar, English was never my strength.
(in game name is Kaylia Menelith/Ultros if anyone want to discuss crafting, or send death threat)
How to HQ
Obviously, you want quality, a ton of it, and to accomplish that, there is no better way than to crank your "Control" stats all the way up using Inner Quiet. This ability gives you a straight 20% bonus to 'Control' every times your 'Quality' increases, and will continue to stack until your craft is over. This might not seem a lot at low level, especially on short synthesis (40/40 durability), but on longer ones (70-80 durability), the difference is colossal. Simply speaking, three stacks of Inner Quiet will be the equivalent of a "good" rating on every subsequent steps in term of efficiency, and the effect will continue to grow far beyond that. At level 50, it's fairly easy to get 12-15 stacks, which is the equivalent of a ~250% increases. Here is a graph that plot the gain in quality of a 12 steps synthesis with and without Inner quiet (High Mythril Flanchard with lv45 armorer) using HQ weapon/offhand, NQ gears, and no materia. I hit 100% Quality on the 12th step with Inner Quiet, and about 50% quality (~20% hq rate) without it. Something similar should happen regardless of your level, as long you can get over 10 stacks.
Obviously, every high level crafters will be able to tell you that much about Inner Quiet. However, the reason why I'm posting this is to bring your attention on the exponential growth of this curve. Increasing your stacks to 10 or more is critical to obtains a very high HQ rate, and for that, you need to manage your CP and durability perfectly.
How to Build Inner Quiet Stack
Every classes get 3 "touches" (Basic Touch/Standard Touch/Advanced Touch for a 100%/125%/150% quality increase), but they all come at a relatively high CP cost, and there is the unavoidable durability hit. On the other hand, Hasty Touch (unlocked by Culinarian lv15) is free, but comes with a low 50% chance of success. To demonstrate which ability optimizes the durability and CP cost the best, I drew the table of cost of every abilities with or without Steady Hand. However, that alone isn't enough to determine the best pick unless we're able to compare the "CP cost" to "Durability Cost".
To do that, you have to look at abilities that can restore durability with CP. We got "Master Mend" (30.6cp/10 durability), "Master Mend 2" (26.6cp/10 durability), "Manipulation" (29.3 cp/10 durability), and finally "Waste Not" (28cp/10 durability). On longer synths, Master Mend II wins hands down, and should be used at 20/80 durability indiscriminately (unless there is a good/excellent rating). On shorter synth, we will go with Manipulation for a reason I will explain later.
Using the "worst case cost" of 29.3cp/10 durability on the previous result, we determine that Steady Hand I/II+Hasty Touch is the most cost effective combination studied by a significant margin. Again, this is the cost when all 5 stacks of Steady Hands are used, which is rarely going to happen on 40/40 synth. However, even when 1 or 2 turns are skipped, Steady Hand+Hasty touch combo should still come ahead.
CP Restoration
Trick of Trade is a must have, and every single "Good" rating should be turned into another precious 20CP. Why? The reasoning is simple. Since you can buy back 10 durability for 29CP, ToT essentially means 0.7 Hasty Touch (~+70%) per use, which is better than the x1.5multiplier you would get otherwise with the "good". We're not even considering the additional Inner Quiet stack wasted and the huge CP cost of Advanced Touch. You can make an exception when you're near the end of your synthesis, right before clearing your Inner Quiet stack, but sticking to ToT spam remove a lot of the variance in your synth by increasing the total amount of steps and giving you more control over the outcome. Obviously, things aren't perfectly linear since you need a huge chunk of CP to restore durability, but the concept still applies loosely, and CP always open more paths and options.
Durability Restoration
Like I posted above, the value of Master Mend II speaks for itself on longer synths. For shorter synths however, I've seen many debates between Manipulation and Waste Not. Essentially, if you're not wasting a single charge of Waste Not (no puns), it will come slightly ahead (more efficient by a tiny 1.3cp/10durability). However, in reality, there is a very high chance you will see a "Good" rating, or that you will be forced to reuse "Steady Hands" at some point. Because of these random and frequent situations, it's nearly impossible to make the most out of it, and pretty much everything else push it behind Manipulation. At 20/40 durability, Manipulation gives you much more room to deal with random Trick of Trade and refresh Steady Hand, without wasting any procs. That's why you should always go with this ability given the choice.
Waste Not is still very good to have around however. When you just don't have the 88CP necessary for a Manipulation, the much cheaper Waste not (56cp for 20 durability) might be what you need to give you enough turn to finish your synth. Also, since you technically only need to use 3 charges the first time (bring durability down to 5/40), a single usage near the end make sense.
Progress Phase
"But hey, I followed your guide and now I'm at 10/80 durability with no progress on my tier 2 weapons." Sadly, this is the situation you will find yourself in far too often on tougher or uncooperative synths. The trick here is Rumination. Because we were aiming to maximize Inner Quiet stacks, you should be able to restore ~60 cp near the end of your synthesis, which can be converted into more ~20 durability or something else. I won't details the last few steps, because it varies considerably from synthesis to synthesis (random good rating, IQ stack, risk management), but there is many approaches that work well to complete it in very few steps. If you're crafting a 1 or 2 stars items, Ingenuity I or II will do wonder by doubling the amount of "progress" you get in a single turn. Ingenuity I/II + Steady Hand 2 + Rapid synthesis is enough to get 200/230 progress in a single turn (80% chances of success 55cp). Ingenuity + Standard Synthesis + Basic Synthesis will also finish almost everything in two turns (at 47cp). Sometime, Steady Hand I + Standard/Basic Synth is enough to finish without any risk…There is many choices, and depending how fast you maxed out controls, you may have to decide between a higher chance of getting NQ, or a small risk of blowing it up (which is honestly better in most scenario).
Going blindly into a 2 stars item and expecting to finish it a single turn is silly, but, you can play it safe by doing a single standard synth early on, then estimate how many turns you need to finish it. If you're getting screwed and didn't manage to build enough Inner Quiet stack, then it might be a good idea to stop earlier and save some TP for the grand finale, but with proper usage of your ability, you should be able to get HQ on nearly everything, at any level.
TLDR/What does it means?/Write less number please
Must have abilities for this method
Cooking lv15: Hasty Touch (100% progress, 50% chance of succes, 0cp) Cooking lv37: Steady Hand 2 (this is easily one of the best, but it's a lot works to unlock) Alchemy lv15: Trick of Trade (give you 20CP on a good, no cost) Goldsmithing lv15: Manipulation (10durability every turn/3 turns) Carpenter lv15: Rumination (Give you back durability for every stack.
For rumination, the amount/stack restored was posted by stevenl4 in this thread)
Highly recommended
Blacksmithing lv15: Ingenuity (lower the synth level to your current level) Armorer lv15: Rapid Synthesis (250% progress, 50% chance of success) Leather Craft lv15: Waste Not (Cut the durability cost by half for 4 turn)
I didn't include the lv 50 abilities, because they are a pain to obtain, and you don't need them to HQ reliably, but most of them are worth getting (except armorer).
Quality Phase gambit
#1 Inner Quiet #2 If there is a "Good" rating –> Trick of Trade #3 If there is "Excellent rating" –> Advanced Touch #4 If Durability is at 20/40, 10/70, or 20/80, use Manipulation or Master Mend II (Manipulation for 40 synth, Master Mend II for 70/80 synth) #5 Steady Hand 2 (SH1 until then), and reapplies every 5 turns #6 Hasty Hand spam
If, and only if you have plenty of IQ stacks, and got some CP that is about to be wasted, feel free to blow them on a "Good" rating for the large quality boosts
In fewer words, we could simplify it to Inner Quiet > Steady Hand > Hasty touch, with Trick of Trade on every "Good" rating. That's essentially what it come down to.
Progress Phase gambit
#1 Rumination #2 Recover Durability with Manipulation #3 Steady Hand 1 ( uses 2 if you plan to go with Rapid Synthesis) #4 Ingenuity I or II if you can drop the synth level by 2-3 or more #5 Standard Synth (100% success, 150% progress), Rapid Synth (70 or 80% success with Sh2 and SH2 for 250% progress)
There is multiples approaches here, but the less durability wasted on this phase, the more "quality" you will be able to squeeze out of the previous phase. Just be careful to not overestimate how many turns you need to finish the craft, and remember that it's okay to take some risk at time to boost your HQ rate considerably. Losing materials is rarely good, but getting NQ isn't necessarily better.
Macro and leveling
Since you're going to be HQ'ing most meaningful pieces of gears using the method above, there is no need bother HQ'ing basic material. That's why I recommend writing a decent "ingot/lumber/leather" macros that will complete most craft in a single press, and still give you decent xp. If you want HQ material for whatever reasons, then just do it manually with the method above, otherwise, using something like this will give you a 100% progress/15%Hq chance.
Replace Basic Touch with Standard/Advanced touch at higher level when you have the CP, and replace the first Basic Synth with something else if you can finish it in a single round. You could also spam "Great Stride -> Advanced Touch" touch twice, then finish it if you prefer. Your macro will change as you level, and nothing prevent you from finishing it manually if you want to increase the odds in your favor, but the 15 lines limits prevent you from using more than 8 actions per sequence.
Most guides covered leves already, and I won't do it again. But if you want to level quickly using as few leves as you can, try finding one that request 3 items or more since they generally have three parts and 3 times the reward (this is an example of the xp you get after a single turn in). The one that ask for a single item also work if you have leves to burn, but at a rate of 6 leves a day, you can run out
Proximo Admin replied
639 weeks ago