Is waste not a completely useless skill?

i have been trying to figure out the best way to use this skill, and it just seems to suck. in order for it to be the most efficient skill it means you have to decrease durability 4 (or 8) times in a row. this means that you can not stop and use tricks of the trade, which is maybe the most important and useful cross skill you have. when it comes to waste not, 1 and 2, its like the cons far outweigh the pros. If I am using this skill wrong, or if i am missing something, please let me know :/

i do reckognize that for something like macros, this skill would be great since you are not going to be using something like tricks of the trade. but then again, macros in this game are so unbelievably unreliable, that i avoid using them all together.

You can use one tricks of trade and not lose out as you will be left with 5 durability for final synthesis action instead of 10, I use it on part synths and use it straight away, that way you have more hasty touches to build up inner quiet for the final blessing.

Waste Not 1 isn't too bad at low levels since you don't have as much CP to work with, and if you lack more useful skills to cross over.
High levels, I'd definitely prefer Manipulation for 40-durability synths and Mend 2 for 70/80-durability synths. I only use WN1 now if I just need a tiny bit more durability to wrap up Progress.

I've never seen a use for Waste Not 2. Obviously, it's not good for 40-dura synths because you'd waste too many turns on reapplying buffs and restoring durability once. For 80-dura synths, it'd be amazingly efficient use of CP per dura if you could make use of every round to increase Quality or Progress, saving 40 durability for 98 CP (as opposed to Manipulation restoring 30 dura for 88 CP). But at least while Manipulation is going, you can use Tricks of the Trade if a Good light happens to show once or twice, giving you more flexibility to do more and essentially making the skill cheaper.

When do you not need Tricks of the Trade then, thus making WN2 more reasonable to use? I can only picture it being when you've finished maxing out Quality and just have Progress left. When do you need to push out that many turns for Progress though?
Maybe future recipes will make the skill more useful.

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Originally Posted by Eruantien

You can use one tricks of trade and not lose out as you will be left with 5 durability for final synthesis action instead of 10, I use it on part synths and use it straight away, that way you have more hasty touches to build up inner quiet for the final blessing.

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I hadn't thought about that. If you use waste not 1, and you decrease durability three times and use tricks of the trade once, you still basically have the extra turn because of the remaining five. nice observation!

Tricks of the trade, most valuable cross skill? It's marginally useful when you're low-level, and synthing every synth manually. It's completely worthless if you value consistency in your crafting.

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Originally Posted by Meric

Tricks of the trade, most valuable cross skill? It's marginally useful when you're low-level, and synthing every synth manually. It's completely worthless if you value consistency in your crafting.

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Eh, depending on what other cross skills one has available, I wouldn't necessarily say it's "marginally" useful at low levels.

With Hasty Touch and Tricks of the Trade by Lv.10, and every crafter's ability to use Mend and Steady Hand by Lv.9, the average chance of HQ'ing something noticeably improves compared to when you don't use the Hasty method. Since there are no +CP accessories until Lv.15, the amount of CP you can potentially get back from Tricks of the Trade can make a big difference. It may be hard to notice since you fail really hard fairly often and take twice as long. But the HQ rate in the long run ends up being better because when you do well, you have a decently good chance of making a HQ product, and if you fail, it's not much worse than what you can do normally without the Hasty method.

Lv.15, if you can transfer over Steady Hand 2, the overall chance to HQ stuff is even better and much less frustrating.

Add in other skills like maybe Byregot's Blessing or Comfort Zone, and by Lv.21-25, you should be HQing like every 9 out of 10 synths already, or better. At least that's how it was for me. Given all NQ ingredients.

No one here specifically said Tricks of the Trade is the "most valuable" cross-classed skill, but I'd definitely consider it a staple crafter skill with Hasty Touch that shows results even at low levels.

Waste Not 2 has an effective Durability recovery cost of 2.45CP/D (CP per point of Durability recovered). 1 non-durability consuming action leaves CP/D the same while two drops it to 2.8CP/D and 3 drop it to ~3.267 CP/D.
Waste Not has a 2.8CP/D (effective). 1 non-durability consuming action leaves CP/D the same.
Master Mend 2 has a ~2.667CP/D in 70+ Durability Synths and a ~5.333CP/D in 40 Durability Synths.
Master Mend has a ~3.067CP/D.
Manipulation has a ~2.933CP/D.

40 Durability Synths:

Inner quiet
Steady Hands II
Waste Not I
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch

20/40
(I usually Hasty Touch and gamble 50% just to get it 10/40 for MM)

10/40
Master's Mend
SHII
HT
HT
Byregots Blessing
Careful Synthesis II

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

stuff

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It's better to not gamble with Hasty Touch here and use Manipulation. 2 reasons: 50% chance is very low and if Excellent condition happens when you need to Mend, there's nothing you can do but Mend. But if it happens with Manipulation, you can chance your best touch action or
use a buffer skill like synth (if it takes 2 synth to finish the craft) or Innovation/Observe or if you're doing Byregot's after, Great Strides -> Steady Hand -> Byregot.

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Originally Posted by Lemon8or

It's better to not gamble with Hasty Touch here and use Manipulation. 2 reasons: 50% chance is very low and if Excellent condition happens when you need to Mend, there's nothing you can do but Mend. But if it happens with Manipulation, you can chance your best touch action or
use a buffer skill like synth (if it takes 2 synth to finish the craft) or Innovation/Observe or if you're doing Byregot's after, Great Strides ->
Steady Hand -> Byregot.

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Agreed that's what I do too, except I might use a careful synth 2 after the hasty a if it a high level synth and 1 synthesis isn't enough for completion

Quote:

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Originally Posted by UlricCraft

40 Durability Synths:

Inner quiet
Steady Hands II
Waste Not I
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch
Hasty Touch

20/40
(I usually Hasty Touch and gamble 50% just to get it 10/40 for MM)

10/40
Master's Mend
SHII
HT
HT
Byregots Blessing
Careful Synthesis II

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For 40 durability recipes, although this takes a ton of CP, this is what I do :

Comfort Zone (optional)
Inner Quiet
Steady Hand 2
Waste Not
Hasty Touch x4
Hasty Touch
Manipulation
Steady Hand 2
Waste Not
Hasty Touch x4
"best" Touch
Careful Synthesis 2

If the recipe takes two Careful Synthesis 2 actions, I'll replace that lone Hasty Touch before the Manipulation with Careful Synthesis 2. If it requires 3, then I will use it on a "Normal" or "Poor" condition instead of a Hasty touch within that first set of 4 Hasty Touch.

"Best" Touch refers to whatever I can do to boost the next Touch action : Steady Hand, Ingenuity, Innovation, Great Strides, Byregot's Blessing type of chain.

Not one, but TWO Waste Not actions in one recipe! Quite the useful skill, under the right circumstances.

If I'm doing a recipe that takes several Careful Synthesis 2 actions (say, a friend in the FC wants me to make some 2 star item for him) I'll start off with Comfort zone, Inner Quiet, Waste Not, Careful Synth 2's as needed. This puts me at 60/80 Durability, in the "One synth From Finishing" status and I can concentrate from there on Quality.

Oh I agree!
And of course my play-through of skills was only a rough guide.
Obvious Comfort Zone
Obvious Great Strides B4 Byre.

Control points are usually an issue especially for under-melded/geared situations, but that's essentially the basic principle of how Waste Not is useful.