Has anyone else had no end of trouble trying to get the Master II craft books?

I have fully melded 2.3 gear, my Supra and Artisan's offhand and it's just failure after failure after failure.

Really unimpressed with how hard they made this. :S

I'm "lucky" in that I don't have my supra tools yet. So, getting NQ token items isn't really a bad thing for me, as long as I don't get too many. So far, I've made 1x HQ and 2x NQ token items for my focus class (WVR). I'm a bit scared to try to make the rest.

I hear Reclaim is great for this. If you don't get an Excellent for your BB, reclaim. Of course, that requires you to hold back a TON of CP, but saves you money in the long run. At least FC3s are now trivial to get and the price of them is tanking!

Here's the rotation I'm using, btw. This isn't necessarily ideal, but it's what I got. If I don't get an Excellent for the BB, my final chance is always about 18%. First of all, I have fully melded AF, fully melded demimateria accessories, Artisan's Spectacles, the Artisan's Tool, and the Artisan's offhand. I've melded only a single Competence IV into my offhand so far. With Bouillabaisse, I have 395 CP.

With all of this, I can only benefit from 3x PbP. After that, PbP gives me 79 progress, and CSII under IngII gives me 78 progress. 801-267-178-118 = 238 progress remaining. 238/3=80, so 3x CSII will barely not be enough to finish the synth. However, CSII without IngII gives me ~61 progress. 61*4=244, so I can actually completely ditch IngII if I want and just use CSII three times at random points during the synth without worrying about IngII. This saves me a fair amount of CP.


Generally, what I do, is start off by using PbP three times under Steady Hand (not SHII) and WN, taking ToT opportunities I get there, but making sure to use all three PbPs under both SH and WN. After that, if SHII is up, I prioritize ToT first, and HT second. If SHII is down, I prioritize CZ if CZ is down (NEVER clip CZ). If SHII is down and CZ has 1-2 steps remaining, I use CSII until CZ wears off, then recast CZ before going into another SHII + HT stretch. I try to time MMII to go off when SHII is down.


More specifically

Legend
(G:ToT = if condition is Good, use Tricks of the Trade)
(GToT* = if condition is Good, use Tricks of the Trade, but only on one of these marked chances)
(Careful Synthesis II** = only use three of these total! The fourth will finish the synth with my stats)

&&& =
[If CZ time remaining = 2:
- Careful Synthesis II**
- If Good, ToT, otherwise, Careful Synthesis II** (G:ToT)
- Comfort Zone (G:ToT)]
[If CZ time remaining = 1:
- Careful Synthesis II** (G:ToT)
- Comfort Zone (G:ToT)]
[If CZ time remaining = 0:
- Comfort Zone (G:ToT)]


Rotation
Comfort Zone (G:ToT)
Inner Quiet (G:ToT)
Steady Hand (G:ToT*)
Waste Not (G:ToT*)
Piece by Piece (G:ToT*)
Piece by Piece (G:ToT*)
Piece by Piece (G:ToT)

&&&

Steady Hand II (G:ToT)
Hasty Touch (G:ToT)
Hasty Touch (G:ToT)
[If SHII is still up: Hasty Touch (G:ToT)]
[If SHII is still up: Hasty Touch (G:ToT)]
[If durability>10 and SHII is still up: Hasty Touch (G:ToT)]
[If (SHII is not up or durability<25), and CZ time remaining = 0: Comfort Zone (G:ToT)]
[If durability<25 and CZ time remaining = 0: Comfort Zone (G:ToT)]
[If durability>20 and SHII is not up, Careful Synthesis II** (G:ToT)]
[If durability<25 and CZ time remaining = 0, Comfort Zone (G:ToT)]
Master's Mend II

&&&

Steady Hand II (G:ToT)
Hasty Touch (G:ToT)
Hasty Touch (G:ToT)
[If SHII is still up: Hasty Touch (G:ToT)]
[If SHII is still up: Hasty Touch (G:ToT)]
[If SHII is still up: Hasty Touch (G:ToT)]
[If SHII is down and CZ time remaining = 0: Comfort Zone]

[If durability>50 and CP~=153-239:
- Steady Hand II (G:ToT)
- While SHII is up and durability is greater than (50-10*(Careful Synthesis II uses)): Hasty Touch (G:ToT)]

[If durability<25 and CP>312, Master's Mend II (G:ToT)]
[If durability<65 and CP>240, Manipulation (G:ToT)]

[If durability>(50-10*(Careful Synthesis II uses)) and CP>152:
- Steady Hand II (G:ToT)
- While SHII is up and durability is greater than (50-10*(Careful Synthesis II uses)): Hasty Touch (G:ToT)]

[If you find yourself with 130<CP<153, and durability equal to exactly ((55 or 60)-10*(Careful Synthesis II uses)), use Steady Hand II followed by Hasty touch]
[If you find yourself with CP<153, but with durability greater than (50-10*(Careful Synthesis II uses)), and SHII is down, use CSII until you hit 3x total uses, taking the Goods as you get them]
[If you find yourself with CP<153, but with durability greater than (50-10*(Careful Synthesis II uses)), and SHII is down, and you've used CSII three times already, use Hasty Touch]

[Basically, repeat the above until CP<153 and durability is equal to ((45 or 50)-10*(Careful Synthesis II uses)), then do this finisher]

Steady Hand [22 CP] (unless SHII still has 4 turns left)
(If Excellent: Byregot's Blessing)
Great Strides [32 CP]
(If Excellent or Good: Byregot's Blessing, then Careful Synthesis II until done)
Ingenuity II [32 CP]
(If Excellent or Good: Byregot's Blessing, then Careful Synthesis II until done)
Innovation [18 CP]
Byregot's Blessing [24 CP]
Careful Synthesis II until done


This is all highly RNG dependent. I don't have good advice on when to give up and use reclaim. In fact, the above rotation can't fit in reclaim for most of the classes (all but ALC, CUL, and GSM) unless I remove Manipulation, which I probably will do if I want reclaim. Alternatively, I can remove Innovation or Ingenuity II, but I think they're useful enough for the finisher. Innovation is likely the less useful of the two.

YMMV.

Made 8 NQ so far, 4 broke even with reclaim. I rarely even get good during my BB, how to feel.

Yep. Up to 11 NQ and 0 HQ for my first book now, though I've probably taken chances on some I should've reclaimed. Even managed a 68% once, but still hit a fail. Thinking I'm going to wait until I get the mastercraft demimateria for my supra together before I try again, this is just painful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rennah

Yep. Up to 11 NQ and 0 HQ for my first book now, though I've probably taken chances on some I should've reclaimed. Even managed a 68% once, but still hit a fail. Thinking I'm going to wait until I get the mastercraft demimateria for my supra together before I try again, this is just painful.

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Not to be a spoilsport, but your supra will make no difference here. If you can meet the above requirements for craftsmanship that I listed (which you easily can with your artisan offhand), any more craft does nothing. 5 Control at this level will be barely noticeable, adding probably 0.5% to your chances. The usefulness of the supra is in that you cannot reach the 4* minimums without either it or both FC buffs (or with one FC buff and crafter food).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nyalia

Not to be a spoilsport, but your supra will make no difference here. If you can meet the above requirements for craftsmanship that I listed (which you easily can with your artisan offhand), any more craft does nothing. 5 Control at this level will be barely noticeable, adding probably 0.5% to your chances. The usefulness of the supra is in that you cannot reach the 4* minimums without either it or both FC buffs (or with one FC buff and crafter food).

---

Yeah, I know it's very little in the way of Control, but at this point I'd take one point just for my peace of mind, haha.

Finally got it after 14 NQ 4 broken, that's about 2.52M in just fieldcrafts in my server.

It is just insane. It started with 3 star recepies and the new ones take it to a whole new level. No matter how good you are equipped or how well you know the skills of your crafters, you heavily rely on RNG aka Luck. Several times. More than one hasty touch Fails? Reclaim! Not enough good conditions? Reclaim! No good or excellent condition for BB? Reclaim! And pray to the RNG gods that 90% are indeed 90% and you get your FC's back. Taking way too much time and ressources for what you get out of it. Especially if you are like me and don't want to make the big money but just want to be able to craft everything that's about Vanity or Housing. Insane enough they put such items behind such roadblocks anyways.

Now that FC3s are 30k each for an LTW desynther, I don't think it's so bad. That's about 70k per attempt, with a 20% average HQ chance, that's only 1m per book on average. If you can get the chance up a bit higher to 33%, your costs go down to 650k per book.

My far bigger problem right now is the Mastercrafts for the Supras and new armor. Why are Mastercrafts so hard to get? Why can't they be obtained from desynthing NQ tier2 tokens? =\

@ TomTom: I think this is SE's lame attempt to create some kind of "challenge / difficult content" for Crafters.

If you think about it, Adventurers are faced with (awful, lame) Gimmicks in Coil every major patch. Primals have their new tricks and Gimmicks to overcome / learn. So what does SE give to Crafters to make it more "challenging" each new patch?

This is their answer: Harder and harder requirements and RNG / Luck. Not very inspired and unfortunate IMHO. :(


@ Nyalia: Yah, I agree. I hope we get a cheaper source of Mastercrafts soon. I think this also ties into SE's "pacing" of the game and gear distribution. They probably know that if they introduced a cheap source for MCs now that it might make it too "easy" for most of the players to max out their gear and be done with nothing left, until the next Gear Grind / Patch. Ugh.