Struggling with exarchic gear

Let me start off by clarifying that I'm not using a pentamelded set, nor am I looking for guides or suggestions to make one.

That being said, my crafting gear is a high-quality Aesthete set, fully melded with the default allotted slots. For some reason, though, I'm really struggling with making a full HQ Exarchic set for my friend's healer classes; either I finally manage to get the quality to 100% and don't have enough durability to finish it, or vice-versa.

Does anyone have any surefire macros for this? All the ones I've found online rely on pentamelding, and I'm not about that life. Any genuine help would really be appreciated; she hasn't been able to play in several months, and I want to surprise her with a full set when she comes back.

The idea of macro-ing endgame recipes is based on using overwhelming stats. The fact that you're trying to effectively macro-craft endgame recipes yet not even having 1 overmeld is rather contradictory. Usually, if we don't overmeld, we'd rely on crafting conditions to help bridge that deficit in stats. But utilizing conditions would mean NOT macroing.

That said, it is STILL possible to effectively macro endgame recipes, base on the fact that you can use as many HQ mats as possible.

So, you can either use HQ raw mats, and macro-craft your intermediate crafted mats. That will result in HQ crafted mats, which allow you to macro your Exarchic product.
Alternatively, you can manual-craft your crafted mats into HQ. This allows more room for using NQ raw mats. After that, you can macro craft your Exarchic product.

There are other issues to discuss though.

(1) What melds did you do? You need to understand that CP>Control>Craftsmanship. So if your in-slot melds did not add as many CP as possible, you're doing it wrong.
(2) What are the final 3 stats after your meld? This include what food and medicine you're using. And even FC buff too. With me knowing your stats, I can help with developing a more suitable rotation.
(3) What rotation were you using before? If you spent too much CP and durab on maxing out quality, and ended up not having enough to complete the craft, then it seems to me that you didn't plan you rotation well, and was just pushing quality and progress at your own liking but without a plan. That's usually not a good approach for endgame crafting.

Usually, based on one's stats, we'll calculate the minimum amount of steps + CP to complete a craft, and then use the remaining CP and durab to draft a plan to push quality. That's how we write rotations (and macros) before crafting a product at endgame.

Not sure on your melds but yes it can be done. The Balance has a list of alternative low stat rotations but these mostly rely on being specialist as an alternative to pentamelding.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...WHO6q/pubhtml#

Have a look at the Low CMS rotation. You will need to overmeld a little especially to hit the 553 base CP required. On Teamcraft enter your stats and click Specialist. If you don't reach 100% reliability, meld more Craftsmanship. Add HQ ingredients until you reach 100% HQ rate.

EDIT:

Here's a non specialist macro where you need to supply an extra HQ mat:

https://ffxivteamcraft.com/simulator...ODq6S4KJJpWRbi

Stats required are 2646/2470/543. May not be optimal. All I did was drop a Prudent Touch.

I'd recommend at least pentamelding something. Even just grade 4's, those are dirt cheap and have a reasonable success rate. Max out your CP with them, get some extra control and your life will be a lot easier.

There are surefire macros but the lower your stats, the more HQ base materials you'll need. You can also post your stats here if you can't find anything on the Balance and we can probably help.