How viable are the old 2.5 crafting methods for Heavensward 2-star?

Back in 2.5, I was an old pro at crafting. I could make turn-ins for Master 2 books and Lucis tools without looking up guides and even did some of them a tad under-geared. Not trying to brag, just to give an idea of where I am coming from.

Now in 3.0, I have mostly not bothered with endgame crafting. I leveled everything to 60 (except CUL) to 60 before my first combat class and got the master books. Then they released the red scrips and I realized the only things worth making were 1-star glam gear and i150 jewelry, which was ridiculously easy to make. There wasn't a good way to make Gil like I did in 2.5 (used to sell i90 with little competition for 400k a pop, most of which was profit margin). Since I already had a good stack of Gil from 2.5, I didn't see a lot of point in competing in mostly overcrowded markets chasing smaller profits. I kind of decided to not waste my time on crafting for the most part and do other things.

I have done a little red scrips here and there as the mood has struck me. I am starting to think about gearing up a little. The only thing I anticipate being worth making at a 2-star level is the jewelry they will likely release in the next patch (they always keep crafted jewelry behind because it's the only legitimately good battle gear you can craft). Maybe i180 will become viable like the old i90 if they dramatically increase availability of mats.


That was a bit long-winded. The point I am getting to is I am starting to think about 2-star crafts. I burned through a few hundred tier 3 materia to meld my all-classes set (RNGesus was not kind to me). I can get min 2-star stats for craftsmanship and control plus max CP for the gear I have.

In looking around, I see a lot of folks talking about stuff like Maker's Mark. To be honest, I was pretty happy with my cross class setup and don't want to mess with it or those new fangled specialist things.

Using the old techniques and cross-class skills that have served me well so far, will I be able to cut it on 2-star? I know the effectiveness of the old rotation is severely hampered by the reduction in good/excellent, but I also have more base CP too. I'm sure others have probably tried the old techniques. How well did that work on 2-star? I don't want to blow several million Gil on learning the hard way if this is a bad idea.

Any rotation not using maker's mark or muscle memory would be pretty unreliable. You'd be losing a lot of durability for progress or losing CP to compensate for it. With gear to just meet the minimum requirements, you'd be hardpressed to HQ anything without a decent chunk of luck.

The old two star methods are functional but you're looking at around a 10% - 15% not HQ rate. A good heavensward rotation pushes this down to around 5-10%, while really well tuned rotations with high end CP and higher craftsmanship can push HQ failure rates under 5%.

So you can start with what you know but the sooner you flip over the better. While personally using the old rotation (I subbed Muscle memory) I didn't NQ any items but I immediately had a terrible synth which lucked out and caught a good on Byregot's and still only hit 85-90 quality. That was the point where I said I had to break things down and find a better rotation.

Yeah was same for me. I used an old ad hoc rotation on my first attempt and got 82% which I luckily hq'd. That's when I came here to research. 27/27 so far on finished pieces.

Are you guys using Muscle Memory plus Rapid Synth instead of PbP, or is PbP still an essential? That's an easier sell for me than sacrificing two slots for Maker's Mark.

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Originally Posted by giantslayer

Are you guys using Muscle Memory plus Rapid Synth instead of PbP, or is PbP still an essential? That's an easier sell for me than sacrificing two slots for Maker's Mark.

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That's feasible with enough craftsmanship, you should check out Katlyna's

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Originally Posted by Katlyna

amazing rotation guide

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My old two star rotation was PbP once and Rapid synths. So I transitioned to Muscle Memory once + Rapid synths... which is pretty terrible for new 2 star. Muscle Memory + Ing 2 + Rapid synth can work well enough and I used for quite a while with good success... But that rotation has more flaws than benefits (the ups being you have extra CP for 1-2 or more precise touch). I've had a number of people use that as an entry rotation and can be seen the firth post of my two star thread: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...fting-Rotation

I initially liked that rotation because it was very natural to learn in comparison to my old 2.x rotation and so I knew immediately how to handle all the dynamic situations which came up.

Since then I've done serious rotation analysis and I do not use (or recommend) a Muscle Memory rotation. Maker's Mark is superior so long as your rotation properly allows you to miss 3-4 Flawless. My preferred approach is my MaMa Careful Synth rotation listed on the first page of my two star thread. I'm using the "Normal Progress" versions given my current stats on most crafting classes. And I'm in the progress of transitioning to an Ingenuity 1 version (freeing up one more additional precise). Learning such a rotation is annoying, but worth the investment in terms of your raw statistical improvement of HQ chances.

Muscle Memory is highly overrated. When you get geared at 60, it's a first move CSII for 6 CP on lower recipes, and it doesn't give enough to make it worth a slot in 2 stars. Specialist skills are pretty much the same, not needed on lower level recipes, and the boost is too small on 2 stars to be worth spending CP on.

Precise Touch is the one essential skill for 3.0, and every job gets it without using a cross class. It's a basic touch that gives 2 steps of IQ. Maker's Mark and the Elemental stuff are nice, but far from necessary.

There was so much grumbling about WN2 in 2.5. Now it is king. And yes, you really want to use Muscle Memory or the Maker's Mark/Flawless Synthesis combo. Other than that, the concepts are mostly the same. The only "big change" is that Precise Touch gives you 2 IQ stacks at the same cost as a Basic Touch (with the same success rate). So, depending on your CP, any good can be converted to a Precise Touch or if CP strapped, every ToT you use could be a Precise Touch later on (if you get another good).

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

Muscle Memory is highly overrated. It doesn't give enough to make it worth a slot in 2 stars.

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I still use Muscle Memory on my 4-step progress rotation. And as opposed to the Maker's Mark/Flawless Synthesis rotation, it allows me to keep many other handy additional abilities handy. I personally don't use the Maker's Mark/Flawless Synthesis rotation unless I'm on GSM where those abilities are native. There are multiple ways to get the same results. Muscle Memory can be used with great success.