Need help on how to HQ as armorer

My armorer is lvl 18, just got it but I dont really understand how to HQ items. So now I have basic touch and standard touch. Yes, I am a total noob when it comes to crafting. sorry >.<

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Originally Posted by DeadlySwordz

My armorer is lvl 18, just got it but I dont really understand how to HQ items. So now I have basic touch and standard touch. Yes, I am a total noob when it comes to crafting. sorry >.<

Okay, time for a little crafting 101.

Crafting involves increasing the the Progress and Quality of the item you're creating. To do this, you have two resources: Crafting Points (CPs) and the item's Durability.

Synthesis actions increase the Progress of an item. When the Progress reaches required number of points (defined by the item), the item is finished and you have successfully crafted it and the crafting ends. How much Progress is performed by a Synthesis is determined by your Craftsmanship (the more Craftsmanship, the more Progress a Synthesis will do) and the item's Difficulty (the higher the Difficulty, the less Progress a Synthesis will do). A given Synthesis action will list the actual Progress it does as a percentage of the standard amount determined by your Craftsmanship and the item's Difficulty (except for Flawless Synthesis, which does a flat 40 points). There will also be a success percentage chance; a failed synthesis does no Progress. Every Synthesis action you take will reduce the item's Durability by 10, even if it fails. If the Durability falls to 0 or below and the Progress is not 100%, you have failed to make the item. You will lose your shards and possibly some or all of your materials. As an Armorer, you got a level 15 action Rapid Synthesis, which costs no CPs and does a massive amount of Progress, but only has a 50% chance of working.

Touches are where you try to get an HQ item. HQing is determined by the item's Quality. Touches work with Quality like Syntheses work with Progress, except that the characteristic that matters here is Control, and Touches care about the state of the item. The state of the item changes with each step you take during the crafting. Normally the item is, well, Normal. However, occasionally it will go to Good. A Touch performed when the state is Good will create bonus Quality. The state after a step is taken with a Good status is always Normal. Rarely, the state will go to Excellent. A Touch performed when the state is Excellent creates massively more Quality. The state after a step is taken with an Excellent status is always Poor. A Touch performed when the state is Poor creates less Quality. After Poor, the state returns to Normal. When the item is successfully completed (Progress reaches 100%), you have a random chance of HQing it depending on how much Quality it has. If you filled out the Quality to 100%, you are guaranteed an HQ item. Less than that means a less than 100% chance of an HQ item. This is seriously backloaded. An item with 0 Quality still has a 1% chance to HQ, but an item with 50% Quality only has a 15% chance to HQ. Standard Touch does more Quality and has a higher chance of success than Basic Touch, but it costs 32 CPs and Basic Touch only costs 18.

Using HQ materials to make an item gives you bonus Quality. If you use HQ items, you'll see your Quality start at a higher number than 0 (which is where it starts normally). If *all* your materials are HQ, you'll start at 50% Quality.

Note that high-quality items get you bonus XP. You can easily double the XP you get from an item even if the HQ chance is relatively poor and you don't get an HQ. Only the Quality your crafting creates counts for this bonus, so you you can't increase your XP by using HQ materials. A 100% Quality item from NQ materials will earn you triple XPs.

You also get actions that are not Synthesis or Touch. These consume no Durability, but usually do cost CP. Master's Mend gets you 30 more Durability at the cost of a large amount of CPs. Be aware that the Durability can't be increased above the starting number. If you hit that ceiling with Master's Mend, the excess Durability will be lost. Inner Quiet is your one of your best friends. It should always be your first action. It increases your Control with each successful Touch you perform. After two or three successful Touches your Touches will be creating much more Quality. Steady Hand increases the chances of success on your Syntheses and Touches by 20% for your next five steps. Try to always have this up when you're doing Synths and Touches. Note that Basic and Standard Synthesis as well as Standard Touch work 100% of the time under Steady Hand (Basic Touch still only works 90%). And, assuming that you're an ARM 18 with no other crafting classes levelled to at least 15, your one other action is Observe. It costs 12 CP and does nothing. Its purpose is to reroll the item state and is used to try to troll for a Good state or to skip over a Poor state when there's nothing you want to do other than a Touch. Doesn't see much use, honestly.

Disciplines of the Hand get skills exclusive to their class at levels 15, 37, and 50. These skills can be cross-attached to other classes in the "Additional" section of your actions, just like the battle classes can share skills. These can be *extremely* useful (to be brutally honest, Armorer's Rapid Synthesis isn't all that good). I've already gone on at some length, so I won't go into detail on this, but you can research what they do fairly readily. Gamer Escapes's wiki is a good source, but not always completely accurate (Tricks of the Trade is usable when the item state is *Good*, which is very important to get correct, as this is a very useful ability). Once you unlock a class, you can see all its Actions and see what they do, even then ones you can't use yet.

thanks for the 101 Conradus!

I too would like to second that. It is refreshing to see someone take the time to write helpful informative text, and glad to see Inner Quiet explained because until now I had never used the skill as I was unsure what it did (other than it's combination with Rumination) Much obliged for the explanation!

Just to expand a little on what conradus stated, the cross class skills are extremely helpful! if you are starting out at crafting then let me inform you that one of the things you wanna is get as many crafting classes to level 15 ASAP so you can have access to those skills. there are several websites out there that will explain in detail what the best use of those skills are. also, dont underestimate the effect of good crafting gear and practice! :) good luck!

Carpenter gives you Rumination at lvl 15, which will give back CP at the expense of Inner Quiet (but only if you have successfully used any Touch skills).

A common practice for beginning crafting is to put up Inner Quiet as a first step, then try and get your Progress within one step of completing the item, and if you see any Good or Excellent status, use a Touch skill. When you're one step away from completing the item, you can spend the rest of your CPs on touch skills and increasing quality.

One more useful skill in this case is the Weaver's Careful Synthesis at lvl 15. It will give about 10% less Progress than Standard Synthesis (I think), but it has a 100% chance of success even without Steady Hand. Use it when you have 10 durability left and only need one more synthesis to finish. Also remember that once you have Quality at 100%, it doesn't mean that the item is complete. You can still have 100% quality and fail the crafting if you run out of durability before you finish the Progress.