Failing on Calibrated Rose Gold Cog HQ

I have all jobs to 50, I am on Craftsman 446 and control 402 and with food 391 CP.

I used the FFXIV guild guide, and I used Elasia's macro guide and when I get to the end i don't have enough durability to finish it.

What am I doing wrong?

you are probably using a normal 3* rotation, this are "special" 3* but with a 801 difficulty meaning your 445 3* rotation will fail.

http://ffxivrealm.com/threads/lebens...urn-ins.12833/

Caliberated Rose Gold Cogs are the 3-star tokens needed to get Master Book IIs.

They are the hardest crafts to HQ. Even more so than 4-star, technically.

Short form: Have to bait for Red or Excellect conditions to drop a byregot's blessing on. Depending on how many stacks of IQ you have, CP left, red may not even be good enough. Have to use reclaim until you finally get the RNG on your side.

If you haven't gotten Supra yet, it's almost better. That way you can be content with synths with only 50% or less chance to HQ, at least your mats aren't going to waste if it were to only NQ.

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Originally Posted by Xenosan

If you haven't gotten Supra yet, it's almost better. That way you can be content with synths with only 50% or less chance to HQ, at least your mats aren't going to waste if it were to only NQ.

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This. I obtained all eight of my Mastercraft II books before obtaining Supras, specifically so I could use the failures to pay for my Supras. For all but two of my Mastercraft books, I was able to craft three HQ's before I wound up with six NQ's.

There's no static rotation possible in order to do this - you MUST watch your synth and take advantage of Good and Excellent procs as they appear. Particularly for the Byregot's Blessing finisher: You'll need 10-11 stacks of Inner Quiet PLUS Great Strides PLUS a Good condition in order to manage 65%-85% quality (an Excellent will likely bring you to 100%, or near to it, but Excellent is tough to fish for). If you only manage 8-9 stacks of Inner Quiet, an Excellent may still save you but a Good will only leave you at around 30% quality.

If you reach the end of your synth, and aren't able to manage the right quantities of Inner Quiet, condition, and Great Strides, use Reclaim and try again. If you DO reach them, but wind up with an NQ anyway because RNG is cruel, that goes toward your Supra fund.

Update: The patch notes say that you can now turn in NQ Mastercraft II book token items in exchange for Fieldcraft Demimateria III. If you get TWO FC3 for this exchange, then Mastercraft II's are now officially on EZ Mode. Even if you only get one, it's still a whole lot kinder than it used to be...

I gave up, I will never get this and regret ever getting all jobs to 50, crafting SHOULD not be this hard its a game to jave fun not get pissed and punch my monitor.

lol.. can't tell if serious or not.

But yeah, crafting in this game ain't easy to figure out but once you get to the end, it becomes trivial. If you have problem figuring it out, look at some guides out there, it's not impossible.

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Originally Posted by shanvhere

I gave up, I will never get this and regret ever getting all jobs to 50, crafting SHOULD not be this hard its a game to jave fun not get pissed and punch my monitor.

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Can't tell if trolling or not but if you got em all to 50 and even worked hard enough to get to almost 4 star, yet you don't know what you're doing. This begs the question in the first place. Where did you get the gil? hmm? hmm? Had you actually done it yourself; you would know what you are doing. Just a thought ^^ I'm glad people who buy their way to the top fail miserably.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

Can't tell if trolling or not but if you got em all to 50 and even worked hard enough to get to almost 4 star, yet you don't know what you're doing.

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Actually, it's possible to get that far using leves to level all classes to 50, gearing your character, and then crafting all the required tokens for the 1st master book and the artisan tools using a rng free rotation. The only problem is that you wouldn't have overcome the learning curve. This is no different than power leveling a battle class to 50, farming decent gear, and then expecting to clear T13 immediately.

My recommendation would be to start crafting normal 3* items (using all hq materials) with static rotations until you're familiar with the crafting abilities. The next step would be to toss out these rotations and then move on to 3* items starting from 0 quality using a dynamic approach instead. You should be able to learn most of the techniques required to craft the master book ii tokens.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

Can't tell if trolling or not but if you got em all to 50 and even worked hard enough to get to almost 4 star, yet you don't know what you're doing. This begs the question in the first place. Where did you get the gil? hmm? hmm? Had you actually done it yourself; you would know what you are doing. Just a thought ^^ I'm glad people who buy their way to the top fail miserably.

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I leve all my jobs to 50.

Is there at least a basic rotation I can do then start learning on what to do after that, like I mean CZ, IQ, SHII is a basic start then I decide on the next rotations.

The rotation linked below works reasonably well if your starting quality is 1000 or more.

http://www.ffxivguild.com/ffxiv-end-...s-master-star/

The one that you can try is the one listed under "Three Star Master Crafting Rotation", but this shouldn't be used with all nq materials as it only allows for 9 touch attempts. Elasia's macro guide also looks like a decent place to start.

You can also read through Caimie Tsukino's crafting guide for ideas: http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-ad...mie-tsukino.6/

Once the crafting abilities become second nature, you can develop your own approach.

Yo if you're struggling and asking for a rotation to solve the issue, I think you're looking at it wrong.

Closest thing to a rotation I've got is (( 1. Comfort Zone, 2. Inner Quiet, 3. Piece By Piece, 4. Piece By Piece. )) From there on out it all depends


First thing to do is figure out where your craftsmanship skill is putting you on the Progress side of the synth. Use the simulator to test progress actions with your craftsmanship rating.

At start wanna get the progress to a point where only 2 or 3 Careful Synthesis IIs (potentially with ing2 buff) are enough to complete the synth. Obviously you want to spend as little CP and Durability as possible in this starting phase, so if you like to gamble you can do Rapid Synth unbuffed. That's only 50% chance to succeed. and if it doesn't, you have to reclaim.. which has a 10% chance not to work.

Comfort Zone > Inner Quiet > Piece By Piece > Piece By Piece > Rapid Synthesis
Feel like that's too risky, then throw in your Steady Hand Buff, but know that's costing you CP may need later
Comfort Zone > Inner Quiet > Piece by Piece > Piece By Piece > Steady Hand II > Rapid Synthesis


After you've decided on a progress starter you build your IQ stacks until you fall to 120~ CP and/or 50/40/30/20 Durability( depends on how many CSIIs you need to complete synth... if 3 CSII are needed to complete then have to give up on IQ stack building at 40 dura, because you'll need 10 for Byregots and 30 for CSIIs..). At that point you're forced to move into your finisher.

Having multiple CS2s required to finish the synth come in handy here, because you can use them before the Byregot's. IE fishing for Good or Excellent proc

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Originally Posted by shanvhere

Is there at least a basic rotation I can do then start learning on what to do after that, like I mean CZ, IQ, SHII is a basic start then I decide on the next rotations.

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I'm not sure how helpful it will be, but here's my rotation, copied from advice I gave to my sister. It's not so much a rotation as it is a methodology, but maybe it will help!

Edit: Also, recall that I did all my Masterbooks using my Artisan's tool, NOT Lucis - there's a possibility that the PbPx2, RSx2, SHII x2 synthesis formula I used may complete the synth early with a Lucis tool. Be wary!


First off, here are the ten cross-class skills I keep on my palatte:

Rumination (CRP 15 – Recover enough MP for Reclaim, if the synth has gone south. Unnecessary if your luck is good, or you’re good at predicting failure before it’s too late.)

Byregot’s Blessing (CRP 50 – Grand slam quality enhancement, pretty much indispensable.)

Hasty Touch (CUL 15 – quality enhancements at low CP cost, also a necessity.)

Steady Hand II (CUL 37 – to make the Hasties and Rapids more efficient, could possibly be replaced by Steady Hand if your luck is good.)

Reclaim (CUL 50 – to salvage the many, many times when Good or Excellent does not proc for BB, not necessary if your luck is good or your pockets are deeeeep.)

Rapid Synthesis (ARM 15 – enormous synthesis enhancements at high risk, must have either this or Piece-by-piece, preferably both.)

Piece-by-piece (ARM 50 – enormous synthesis enhancements at low risk, but only usable for the first couple synth steps, must have this or Rapid Synthesis, preferably both.)

Tricks of the Trade (ALC 15 – CP recovery by sacrificing Good conditions. Indispensable; it’s pretty much impossible to get decent quality with the amount of CP a crafter is limited to.)

Comfort Zone (ALC 50 – pay 64 CP to recover 80 CP over a period of ten steps. Nice to have, but probably not indispensable; long crafts like these allow use of this two, or even three times, and 32 free CP is nothing to sneeze at.)

Careful Synthesis II (WVR 50 – potent synthesis improvement with no risks. Nice to have to finish the synth as CP is often too low for Steady Hand, but Basic Touch or Careful Synthesis are acceptable alternatives.)


Depending on the class, I might not need all of them - for example, WVR comes with Careful Synthesis II, and so I don't need to cross-class it. In those cases, I'll additionally add Innovation (GSM 50), Ingenuity (BSM 15), and Ingenuity II (BSM 50), as these abilities make it easier to Delay (I'll get to Delaying in a bit).


Here’s how a typical synth goes, starting with HQ material (only one of the ingreds can be HQ, which will put you at roughly 3% starting quality). A * indicates that for that step, if the condition is Good, use Tricks of the Trade to recover CP, THEN use the indicated action.

- Comfort Zone

- * Inner Quiet

- * Piece-by-piece (I do this without Steady Hand II, even though there’s a 10% risk of failure, in order to save CP. 9 times out of 10, this works fine, and when it doesn’t it’s a pretty minor setback)

- * Piece-by-piece

- * If either above PbP failed, keep doing PbP until I have two successes.

- * Steady Hand II (Until SH II runs out, if Excellent procs while SH II is up, use Hasty Touch to try to utilize it; do not use any Touch that costs CP, even for an Excellent – it’s not worth it).

- * Rapid Synthesis

- * Rapid Synthesis

- * If either above RS failed, keep doing RS until I have two successes.

- * Hasty Touch until SH II runs out, or until only 10 Durability remains.

- * For the next several steps, if Comfort Zone has expired, use it again.

- * If Durability is greater than 20, Steady Hand II and Hasty Touch until Durability is 20. Otherwise, skip this bullet point.

- * Master’s Mend II

- * If Steady Hand II is not up, Steady Hand II. Otherwise, skip this bullet point.

- * Hasty Touch until SH II runs out.

- * Steady Hand II

- * Hasty Touch until Durability is less than 30

- * Master’s Mend II. If Good procs have been rare and there is not enough CP for MM II, use Master’s Mend.

- * If Good procs have been common, IQ stacks are 6 or less, and Comfort Zone has expired, Comfort Zone, and go back 5 bullet points.

- * If CP is greater than 81 (or 78), use Steady Hand II (or Steady Hand). If not, we gonna use a buncha Hasties RAW. :D

- * Hasty Touch until 30 Durability, wincing at every break if we didn’t have enough CP for SH or SH II. If goods are generous, we may be able to SH along the way.

- * Time to evaluate for the final push. If Inner Quiet stacks are at 7 or less, it’s a wash. Not even Excellent will bring you above 30% quality. Reclaim (Rumination if necessary to pay for it) and Hasty Touch until the synth fails. Otherwise, Great Strides.

- For the next three steps, you may need to Delay. This means to take an action which will not complete the synth, but will waste a turn. Good choices are Careful Synthesis II (can only use once, twice will complete the synth), Observe (14 CP), Steady Hand (22 CP), Innovation (GSM 15, 18 CP), Ingenuity (BSM 15, 24 CP). If you NEED an Excellent because your IQ stacks are low, Tricks of the Trade is an awesome Delay, since you actually GAIN 20 CP. Be sure, whatever you do, you still have 24 CP remaining for Byergot’s Blessing! Note that Innovation and Ingenuity have the added bonus of improving your Quality results, but the disadvantage that they require using a cross-class skill slot.

- If IQ is 8 or 9, and condition is Excellent, Byregot’s Blessing. If IQ is 10 or 11 and condition is Good or Excellent, Byregot’s Blessing. If neither, Delay until these conditions exist, or Great Strides runs out.

- If Great Strides runs out, and you somehow still have 56 CP left, Great Strides again, and go back two bullet points.

- If Great Strides runs out, and you do not have 56 CP left, Rumination, then Reclaim, then Hasty until synth breaks.

- If you managed to use Byregot’s Blessing on the appropriate condition, your quality should be at 64% or higher. Probably won’t see 100% without an Excellent. Careful Synthesis II twice (or once, if you used CS II to Delay) to finish the synth!


I can't promise this is the best method to use, and it's certainly not the only one, but it worked well for me.

Mithrie's Video for these tokens.
Second Video Should watch both
His thread is here on the forum, hope that helps

You don't need to do his rotation exactly. It's the principal more than about a specific rotation. His commentary may give you the idea on how to prioritize

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Originally Posted by Xenosan

Mithrie's Video for these tokens.

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No offence to Mithrie, as most of his vids are pretty good (and fair play to him for making them!), but this is a bad "rotation" for these crafts.

Some of the reasons being: 4 PbP, no progress moves saved for "fishing", always using WN2 as a 2nd progress restore move.



Anyways my advice would be learn to craft manually and dont follow any set rotation, react based on the situation given.

These are some general tips that should help:

For progress use PbPx2, RS x2 and save CS2 x2 for the last part, using 1 of them to "fish" if needed.

ToT for every "good" before the final BB.

Have as much CP as possible, try to save as much CP as possible during the craft.

Refresh CZ as much as possible, ideally aiming to use it 3 times.

Aim to use a 2nd MM2. (will be possible 70% of the time or so)

Finsh only if you have 11 stacks or 10 stacks if you've had an excellent somewhere before.

Aim to fish for a "good" after you use your GS, using Inno first, then CS2.

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Originally Posted by MN_14

Actually, it's possible to get that far using leves to level all classes to 50, gearing your character, and then crafting all the required tokens for the 1st master book and the artisan tools using a rng free rotation. The only problem is that you wouldn't have overcome the learning curve. This is no different than power leveling a battle class to 50, farming decent gear, and then expecting to clear T13 immediately.

My recommendation would be to start crafting normal 3* items (using all hq materials) with static rotations until you're familiar with the crafting abilities. The next step would be to toss out these rotations and then move on to 3* items starting from 0 quality using a dynamic approach instead. You should be able to learn most of the techniques required to craft the master book ii tokens.

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I think you missed the point, it went right up and flew over your head. Crafting is a progressing. There is no learning curve from 1-50; i'm pretty sure everyone used HQ leve hand in's to level to 50; that is beside the point.

To be able to make the token in the first place, you can't use an rng free rotation unless you have some decent gear or melded at least which requires either you have the artifact set melded, the unmelded artisan set from talan or had a huge amount of money to buy the meldable artisan set.

If he started with the artifact set, then going by progression he should know what to do by now.

If he started with the unmeldable artisan set from talan, then he should have some idea what to do, what skills are useful, which aren't. How to set up his rotations for HQ crafts.

If he bought the meldable artisan set and hit 4*, which is what it seeems he did. He is going to have no idea what's going on and do nothing but complain on multiple threads about crafting being hard and other's not spoon feeding him answers. Which as i said, begs the question on where he got the millions for it :P So i reapeat. I am GLAD people who bought their way into 4 star are failing miserably.

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

No offence to Mithrie, as most of his vids are pretty good (and fair play to him for making them!), but this is a bad "rotation" for these crafts.

Some of the reasons being: 4 PbP, no progress moves saved for "fishing", always using WN2 as a 2nd progress restore move.



Anyways my advice would be learn to craft manually and dont follow any set rotation, react based on the situation given.

These are some general tips that should help:

For progress use PbPx2, RS x2 and save CS2 x2 for the last part, using 1 of them to "fish" if needed.

ToT for every "good" before the final BB.

Have as much CP as possible, try to save as much CP as possible during the craft.

Refresh CZ as much as possible, ideally aiming to use it 3 times.

Aim to use a 2nd MM2. (will be possible 70% of the time or so)

Finsh only if you have 11 stacks or 10 stacks if you've had an excellent somewhere before.

Aim to fish for a "good" after you use your GS, using Inno first, then CS2.

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What are you talking about? Most of his videos are bad. Either in terms of rotation or in terms of misinformation on how skills work, granted i haven't bothered watching any of his in months since i was under the impression that he was just following rotations he found online and didn't really know what he was doing himself. Which is fine because he wanted to be a macro crafter but even then, his macro's tended to be more inefficient with cp wasted all over the place.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

There is no learning curve from 1-50; i'm pretty sure everyone used HQ leve hand in's to level to 50

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This is not true. I got my first artisan tool with only wvr at 50, no other level 50 cross class skills, and only melds on the weaver crafted pieces. You can bet I had to use a dynamic crafting approach as I was stuck with skills like SH 1, Ing 1, and an advanced touch finisher. This experience later allowed me to get through the 3* learning curve very quickly (incidentally, I got my first 2nd master book just 2 days after I finally got arm to 50 for p by p).

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

To be able to make the token in the first place, you can't use an rng free rotation unless you have some decent gear or melded at least which requires either you have the artifact set melded, the unmelded artisan set from talan or had a huge amount of money to buy the meldable artisan set.

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A melded AF set and a rng free rotation is all that is required. I know this for a fact because I did exactly that with my other classes.

AF gear is cheap and easily obtainable (I got my first set by farming shards and selling low level items, which can be crafted by spamming SH, GS, AT). In any case, I think it's inappropriate to insinuate that someone is participating in RMT when players can make millions by spirit bonding or even fishing.

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Originally Posted by MN_14

This is not true. I got my first artisan tool with only wvr at 50, no other level 50 cross class skills, and only melds on the weaver crafted pieces. You can bet I had to use a dynamic crafting approach as I was stuck with skills like SH 1, Ing 1, and an advanced touch finisher. This experience later allowed me to get through the 3* learning curve very quickly (incidentally, I got my first 2nd master book just 2 days after I finally got arm to 50 for p by p).

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Right.. So you had to learn by doing, which is what most crafters at 4 stars right now have done..
A common trait I see among people who complain about the difficulty of crafting is that they think it's either luck or gear based.. But we all know it isn't.

At the end of the day, we're all wearing the same gear, 472 craft 426 control 395 CP with food, give or take a few points on Control and CP with melds but that's negligible.
Does everybody else but me have incredible good luck? Hardly doubt it.
So what is it? ROTATION!
That's the only difference between crafters when it comes down to it, but some people just complain and refuse to see that they might have room to improve or just expect to be spoon fed some macros. How can we help with that kind of attitude? We can't.

For me, honestly, I don't care where he got the money to buy his gear, be it from spiritbonding, a friend, RMT, or whatever. Doesn't concern me at all. But I do agree with Zephyr's sentiment that I find it hard to sympathize with someone just expecting to be spoon fed the answers because well, crafting simply can't be spoon fed.. It took me about 2 hours of closely watching and giving advice to a friend craft in order to help him get through the artisan token crafting.. But at the end of the day, it's up to him to take in the general concept and take it further.. He completed his first manual II tokens 2 days after that and got 5 crafts to 4 stars in about a week since he first got his artisan tools.



Do I think Shavnhere can do the same? By reading online? I don't think so, my only suggestion would be to grab a bunch of cheap 3 star mats and start crafting them. The kind that doesn't really matter if it's nq or hq, still salvageable (terminus putty comes to mind). Challenge himself so he can learn from experience (Experience is really the only thing he's lacking). You learn by doing, not watching other people do it.
Best thing you can do is find something that's less costly to nq and practice with it. The artisan tokens would've been good practice but I think he skipped right over that by just buying his gear. So he never got to practice.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

I'm not sure how helpful it will be, but here's my rotation

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Originally Posted by Xenosan

Yo if you're struggling and asking for a rotation to solve the issue, I think you're looking at it wrong.

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That's just the general consensus and I share the sentiment.
I'm not trying to be mean, but that's just how it is when it comes to end-game crafting.. Especially manual II tokens.

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Originally Posted by MN_14

A melded AF set and a rng free rotation is all that is required. I know this for a fact because I did exactly that with my other classes.

AF gear is cheap and easily obtainable (I got my first set by farming shards and selling low level items, which can be crafted by spamming SH, GS, AT). In any case, I think it's inappropriate to insinuate that someone is participating in RMT when players can make millions by spirit bonding or even fishing.

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I think he's talking about the manual II tokens

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

But I do agree with Zephyr's sentiment that I find it hard to sympathize with someone just expecting to be spoon fed the answers because well, crafting simply can't be spoon fed..

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I don't think any experienced crafter would disagree with that sentiment. I just wanted to point out that without spending a lot of gil, someone could reach 3* and still know nothing about crafting. I might be misinterpreting his posts, but Zephyr seemed to be insinuating that for that to happen, you had to participate in RMT and spend millions on gear, which I found to be a bit unfair.

Bickering over this is pointless, however, as I think we all agree that players should have to learn how to craft to unlock the best recipes.

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Originally Posted by MN_14

I don't think any experienced crafter would disagree with that sentiment. I just wanted to point out that without spending a lot of gil, someone could reach 3* and still know nothing about crafting. I might be misinterpreting his posts, but Zephyr seemed to be insinuating that for that to happen, you had to participate in RMT and spend millions on gear, which I found to be a bit unfair.

Bickering over this is pointless, however, as I think we all agree that players should have to learn how to craft to unlock the best recipes.

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No you're right.. I don't necessarily agree on the RMT part.. it's really not hard to make the money to get your crafting gear without crafting to make the money. In fact, if somebody did go the route of RMT, I don't think they'd be fretting over the cost of gear anyway :D What is a full set of artisan gear anyway? $10?

I think what likely happened is that he saved up all his gil by spiritbonding, leves, whatever else gave him gil.. had barely enough to gear up. Thought it would be a gateway to easy money then BOOM! manual II decides to screw with him.. which would be a huge downer, don't get me wrong.. But that's the price you pay for taking short cuts.. I took short cuts too from AF -> 3 stars.. I just used Talan's set to get there and I was completely clueless for about 2 weeks.. I blew up 12 sealants on failed reclaim etc.. But all that culminates to help you craft better next time. I might've been a little harsh because he sounds like he's just going to give up, and well.. I think that'd be such a waste.

I spent countless hours spirit bonding my gear for the Gil\\'s, I just felt dishearten I spent so much work to be stuck. I appreciate the help as I\\'m reading to fill my need to become a better crafter

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Originally Posted by shanvhere

I spent countless hours spirit bonding my gear for the Gil\\'s, I just felt dishearten I spent so much work to be stuck. I appreciate the help as I\\'m reading to fill my need to become a better crafter

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I can understand the pain of losing the gil, but the game isn't designed to screw you over.. I'm glad you're not giving up on it because crafting will help you make it all back and then some.

Only way I can describe it is.. Unless you come up with one of the most optimized solution, it will give you a hard time because 8 stacks of IQ vs. 9 stacks vs. 10 vs. 11 are all WORLDS apart, so even improving a 11HT rotation to a 12HT rotation is a drastic improvement.

scarebearz' guideline is actually pretty accurate and concise, and that actually applies to all 3-4star crafts as well as the token..

for example 3 star rotation goes PbP RS RS -> Quality touches -> GS -> Byregots -> CS2
4 star goes PbP RS RS -> Quality touches -> GS -> Byregots -> CS2 -> CS2.
token is something like PbP PbP RS RS -> Quality touches -> GS -> Byregots -> CS2

So it's all similar, you basically have to account for 10 extra durability out of 3 star to make 4 stars, and take 10 more out of that to make the token etc..
So if you get enough practice with 3 star crafting (terminus putty, wolfram ingot are cheap to practice on) you should get the feel for it.

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Originally Posted by MN_14

A melded AF set and a rng free rotation is all that is required. I know this for a fact because I did exactly that with my other classes.

AF gear is cheap and easily obtainable (I got my first set by farming shards and selling low level items, which can be crafted by spamming SH, GS, AT). In any case, I think it's inappropriate to insinuate that someone is participating in RMT when players can make millions by spirit bonding or even fishing.

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I think you missed the point. I already said he would need 1 of three things which is melded AF set / unmeldable artisan set / or melded artisan set.

He doesn't have the unmeldable set, the AF set would cost more in the long run to fully meld so it makes sense that he went with a melded artisan set. Yet since he doesn't know rotations it's obvious that he bought it and regardless of server. You're looking at a minimum 1mil per body piece (4mil total) 1 mil for all accessories + belt and around 1.5 mil per offhand. Add in around 5-10mil for some melds, not even to be fully melded. and You're looking at around 22-27 mil from spirit bonding? Sure bro, sure :)

Regardless of if he got his gil from spirit bonding or rmt's. He bought his way to the top and i'm glad he can't progress because he shouldn't be able to, he has no idea what he's doing when it comes to crafting and until he chooses to actively try to learn instead of asking for hand outs; he'll be stuck between a rock and hard place. All because he skipped the learning curves that were put in to make sure you progressed at the right pace. I for one am glad to see lots of NQ 4* stuff on the mb, let's me control markets easier and force out anyone that tries to come in.

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

I can understand the pain of losing the gil, but the game isn't designed to screw you over.. I'm glad you're not giving up on it because crafting will help you make it all back and then some.

Only way I can describe it is.. Unless you come up with one of the most optimized solution, it will give you a hard time because 8 stacks of IQ vs. 9 stacks vs. 10 vs. 11 are all WORLDS apart, so even improving a 11HT rotation to a 12HT rotation is a drastic improvement.

scarebearz' guideline is actually pretty accurate and concise, and that actually applies to all 3-4star crafts as well as the token..

for example 3 star rotation goes PbP RS RS -> Quality touches -> GS -> Byregots -> CS2
4 star goes PbP RS RS -> Quality touches -> GS -> Byregots -> CS2 -> CS2.
token is something like PbP PbP RS RS -> Quality touches -> GS -> Byregots -> CS2

So it's all similar, you basically have to account for 10 extra durability out of 3 star to make 4 stars, and take 10 more out of that to make the token etc..
So if you get enough practice with 3 star crafting (terminus putty, wolfram ingot are cheap to practice on) you should get the feel for it.

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I don't even know where to start, let's talk about a 3 star rotations. Should it be 4 steps or 5? If you do 4 steps for progress, you get another quality step. Yet that step is worlds apart because you 10 or 11 stacks is a massive difference? That's wrong, to be more precise it isn't accurate from lack of information.

PbP is a waste of 15 cp in a 3 star rotation simply because that one extra HT step you gain is NOT useful, in fact it is a detriment.

3 star rotation goes PbP RS RS -> Quality touches -> GS -> Byregots -> CS2 @ 11 stacks

if you do NOT use pbp, take out 1 HT, so assume 10 stacks with GS and BB but what you also get is Innovation and the freedom to bait for higher quality condition. The condition aside, the innovation gs bb will end up giving you more quality with 10 stacks than 11 on gs + bb.

Crafting is not hard, all you have to do is put some effort into figuring out what's best and in which order. The fact that people blinding accept rotations in mind boggling to me.

scarebearz is a reputable crafter so i don't think he/she would have posted such a lack luster rotation for 3 star, that rotation doesn't even apply for new 3 star crafters because they wouldn't finish progress and it isn't useful for crafters that are near or already at 4 star craftmanship.

The ONLY situation where 11 stack + GS BB would yield almost the same quality as 10 stack inno GS BB is at 440 control or more and even then, there is still a 100 quality difference which is 99% or 100% for a synth.

Those aren't my actual rotations, just showing a basic structure of how the rotations differ from 3 stars to 4 stars to manual tokens.. Point I'm trying to make is that 4 stars = 3 stars with 1 extra progress step. manuals = 4 stars with 1 extra progress step etc.

Thus, practicing on a 3 star craft will grant him the experience he needs to get the token crafting down because they're all quite similar

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

What are you talking about? Most of his videos are bad. Either in terms of rotation or in terms of misinformation on how skills work, granted i haven't bothered watching any of his in months since i was under the impression that he was just following rotations he found online and didn't really know what he was doing himself. Which is fine because he wanted to be a macro crafter but even then, his macro's tended to be more inefficient with cp wasted all over the place.

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I've only seen a few of his guides to be fair, so perhaps not enough to judge. But that said, the other ones I saw were aimed at total newbie crafters at the "lower end" of crafting.

The rotations for macro's could be better and more efficient sure, but they are rotations many fresh 50's can use fairly easily and close enough to 100% HQ rate. The plvl guides seem ok too.

So for the target audience, they are useful.

My issue is with the Master 2 tokens, because it's so counter-productive and likely to put people of "high-end" crafting. The crafts are already RNG based, but most of the "rotations" and "guides" I've seen online make them a heck of a Lot More RNG based!

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

Those aren't my actual rotations, just showing a basic structure of how the rotations differ from 3 stars to 4 stars to manual tokens.. Point I'm trying to make is that 4 stars = 3 stars with 1 extra progress step. manuals = 4 stars with 1 extra progress step etc.

Thus, practicing on a 3 star craft will grant him the experience he needs to get the token crafting down because they're all quite similar

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I understood that, point i was trying to make is that both 3 and 4 star should have exactly 5 progress steps for the above reasons i already mentioned. :)

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Originally Posted by scarebearz

I've only seen a few of his guides to be fair, so perhaps not enough to judge. But that said, the other ones I saw were aimed at total newbie crafters at the "lower end" of crafting.

The rotations for macro's could be better and more efficient sure, but they are rotations many fresh 50's can use fairly easily and close enough to 100% HQ rate. The plvl guides seem ok too.

So for the target audience, they are useful.

My issue is with the Master 2 tokens, because it's so counter-productive and likely to put people of "high-end" crafting. The crafts are already RNG based, but most of the "rotations" and "guides" I've seen online make them a heck of a Lot More RNG based!

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That's a good point, to be fair thought; i never thought the purpose of all the videos was aimed towards new players. That was something more recent. I say this because he was one of the first people to make the 3 star rotation public, but even the it wasn't exactly the most efficient as you said. To be fair, i see so many lack luster rotations on the forums and these attempts at guides that i don't even know what to make of them, most of the time i question if people even read the skill descriptions :(

Just because something is 100% doesn't make it good in my eyes, just like being able to easily clear extreme primals or farm t10 in full 130 gear (over geared). I watched the plevel guide after you mentioned it, i was never into long video guides myself but i can see how others might benefit from it. Personally i would just refer others to http://ffxivcrafting.com/levequests.

I never understood why people are having trouble with those. I struggled with my one master book 2 and that was it, after that it was nothing more than pbp pbp rs rs cs cs, reclaim if not 11 stacks, repeat. I can't really call it skill since the entire synth relied on 11 stacks, good condition and gs but i guess the skill came from baiting the condition and getting 11 stacks.

I had more trouble, maybe that's the wrong word but lucis tokens (Fluorite Lens) was harder to craft HQ than the MB2 tokens. Simply because i was adamant about making it a 2 progress rotation but i do think it needed to be more of a challenge, more quality needed or limited skills, something deserving of earning a master main hand tool. I think i had about an 85% hq rate overall for those. The need to not use reclaim made them easy but tedious which was sort of a let down, catered towards casuals.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

I understood that, point i was trying to make is that both 3 and 4 star should have exactly 5 progress steps for the above reasons i already mentioned.

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Ahh you mean to leave 2 CS2 left on the finisher for the byregot's bait? Yeah that's probably more important than getting 1 more HT for most cases, I agree. If it's an expensive craft, I'd invest more in the baiting for sure.

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Originally Posted by GenJoe

Ahh you mean to leave 2 CS2 left on the finisher for the byregot's bait? Yeah that's probably more important than getting 1 more HT for most cases, I agree. If it's an expensive craft, I'd invest more in the baiting for sure.

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The 3 star rotation you mentioned was pbp RS RS CS2, 4 steps and 11 stacks.

This is worse than RS RS CS2 CS2 CS2 10 stacks, because.

The CP used for pBp is essentially an innovation.

10 stacks + Inno + GS + BB >>>>>more quality gain than>>>>> 11 stacks + GS + BB

So you have GS + Inno (first bait) + CS2(2nd bait) + BB + CS2 + CS2

The 2 baits compared to 0 are nice to have. The innovation you are able to include into the rotation is what makes it better/more efficient.

For normal 3 star progress I use either RS RS RS CS2 or PbP RS RS CS2 (changes from RS to PbP depending if I get a "Good" before the first RS) and I always have the CP needed to use Inno before the BB/to fish if needed.

That said, my method for 3* may not be "the best", but I'm sure there are many "good" ways to craft them considering how over-geared we are now.

I think if it's not broke don't fix it and the way I do 3* works fine for me at least.

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

The 3 star rotation you mentioned was pbp RS RS CS2, 4 steps and 11 stacks.

This is worse than RS RS CS2 CS2 CS2 10 stacks, because.

The CP used for pBp is essentially an innovation.

10 stacks + Inno + GS + BB >>>>>more quality gain than>>>>> 11 stacks + GS + BB

So you have GS + Inno (first bait) + CS2(2nd bait) + BB + CS2 + CS2

The 2 baits compared to 0 are nice to have. The innovation you are able to include into the rotation is what makes it better/more efficient.

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Ohhh, I did not think of it from that angle, but that's an eye opener.. I usually forget to account for the effectiveness of innovate other than as a cheap bait but that's good to know.

the 4star tokens are heavily RNG dependent

You just have to view it as the crafter's version of relic.

and the problem with GSM is the limited cross classes. if i remember correctly i used HQ Shark Fin Soup. dropping ingenuity 2 and dropping careful synth 2. instead i used Rumination+reclaim. i know alot of people around here are not fans of rumination.

but i dont want to have this risk of botching HQ and getting NQ instead. FC3 is just too expensive for me to waste (especially that i have already supras!) (back then when we couldnt trade NQ for 1 FC3. now the risk is less)

i have mentioned before how it works. you basically go through a complete cycle of your rotation, reach the end right before you hit byregot:

(this is + bait)
if you have 11IQ stacks and Good/Excellent = hit byregot.
if you have less than 11IQ stacks and/or normal condition = hit Rumination (gain cp back), then Reclaim.
Repeat.

i dont mind reclaiming +20 times before i get the desired RNG to HQ!. since i horde and gather my own shards :/ (ty retainers)

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Originally Posted by ZephyrZ

I think you missed the point...He bought his way to the top and i'm glad he can't progress because he shouldn't be able to...

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That's harsh, but I agree with it.

My FC has a few members who get on my leg pretty regularly to craft their gear...one wanted me to craft all his artisan turn-ins. Meanwhile, all my gear has my own name on it. It took a lot of patience, a lot of failure, and a whole helluva lot of gil to get to 4 star across the board. But all that aggravation and exhilaration taught me the value of each skill. Now I can craft 3 and 4 star gear in my sleep, and enjoy offering advice...not gear.

To the OP: The turn-ins for MCII books are a real pain, but there are thousands of us who managed to do it. So can you. When I did mine, I wrapped it all up in one evening. 5 books in a row. When I started my CUL turn-ins, it took a couple of hours because of the RNG. I learned to scrap it if a single PbP failed. Scrapped it if 2 HT failed. Scrap, scrap, scrap, scrap...bingo. This turn in needs a whole bunch of RNG variables to be viable. Don't commit if it's iffy. Save yourself, at least, that frustration. And be prepared for bad luck. I failed 4 reclaims in a row before we could turn-in our failures.