Best methods to HQ?

[Veronica]

Has anyone found a guide on HQing crafts? My own experiments have led to mostly non HQ items.

[Raldo]

Level lots of crafts, set a bunch of cross-class skills, and get top-tier gear.

[SuperChris]

I started out by leveling my DoL classes at the same time as my DoH classes. Then I focused on making a set of HQ crafting equipment. The set was, by a long shot, the most frustrating and took a few days. For the next set I made sure to gather HQ raw materials because then later HQ's would be much easier. And once I could set cross class skills, I hotkeyed Rumination, Tricks of the Trade, and Hasty Touch to all my crafting classes.

(draconian posting limits are draconian. More below.)

[SuperChris]

It took some work, but I've done it all myself without buying gear from the market boards, and I can HQ a synth almost every time when I start with HQ materials, use Inner Quiet as my first action, use Hasty Touch for the vast majority of my quality increases (mostly I just use Basic Touch when the condition is excellent, or the condition is good and my CP bar is full), use Tricks of the Trade whenever the condition is good and my CP bar isn't completely full, use Master's Mend any time the durability is down by at least 30 and I've got enough CP for it, and occasionally use Ruminate if I need just a few extra CP to get an extra use of Master's Mend.

[Veronica]

Thanks for the tips guys, going all hq mats helps a lot but its nice to see what can push the % a little more.

[geekgirl101]

Use HQ mats and try to find a rotation where you can spam Great Strides and Standard Touch as many times as you possibly can before you finish off the synth with Standard Synthesis/Basic Synthesis. You will likely also want to keep up Steady Hand to prevent yourself from wasting attempts. Since Great Strides only triggers after using Standard Touch and you have 3 times to use it you can prioritise it first followed by Steady Hand then either Standard Touch right away or use Waste Not then Standard Touch, depending on whether you can get more moves in for Great Strides/Standard Touch before running out of GP or attempts. Also for a bonus make sure you shove in plenty of Perception/GP materia into your gear.

[Ksenia]

As already pointed out, spam HQ material. I've done enough crafting in ARR to know that we have been throttled to the point that creativity is pointless. My crafting is 1.00 crafting and I have Weaver 50 and Blacksmith 24. The rest of my classes are 12-14. Because of the weaver 50 I have full HQ gear and I get strategic fails that force NQ resuts most of the time. Good con and excellent con are certified failure 99% of the time. I hate to be a negative nanny but I don't know what to say. It's forced cookie cutter.

It might be a temporary under the hood nerf and on a less negative note, HQ mats are abundant and even with NQ results if you go 2 levels over in crafting, you will get substantial experience bonus for it. I was making Iron Ingots on a level 10 Armorer, using HQ Iron and while I only got 15% HQ Ingots, the exper I got for crafting something 3 levels above me was in the 1600-1800 range and I blew through 3 levels in 20 minutes. I'm guessing that's the reasoning behind the heavy throttle.