i170 accessory melding plan

Guys, I'd like to know your thoughts on pentamelding the 2 star shared gear. Aside from the really rich or lucky to have competence V and the possibility to cap it all, ate you going for IV pentamelding or waiting for the patch? I've fought about only putting cunning III and II to get that cp as a temporary meld. What are your approaches to it?

I'm waiting. Not gonna bother penta meld now.

My policy is if I'm going to meld something I'll meld the best I possibly can to avoid wasted gil by re-melding gear. That being said, an extra 3 Craftsmanship is not worth the cost of a Tier V materia at the moment so I opted for Tier IV overmelds.

Also, keep in mind that if Crafting becomes popular again Crafting materia will shoot through the roof.

In general, I think it's best to wait until we know what the requirements for 3* crafts will be. However, I believe that the rings can be fully capped with grade 3 and grade 4 materia, so you can meld those if you like.

I ended up melding three of my accessories in order to reach 455 CP with food (mostly grade 3 overmelds since I ended up losing most of my grade 4 materia to overmeld failure), but that's not necessarily required and can even be achieved using older gear with max CP melds.

I got all accessories but I'm NOT touching them until patch day to see how materia goes. You will need to meld 170 with materia IV or it would not be worth it.

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Originally Posted by Mature

I got all accessories but I'm NOT touching them until patch day to see how materia goes. You will need to meld 170 with materia IV or it would not be worth it.

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As it was mentioned, you can meld the rings. The problem lies on the rest and the fact competence V is ridiculously priced. My intended melding plan was competence V, 2 control IVs and 2 cunning IVs, but competence is still an issue.

I couldn't wait! I pentamelded my rings and maxed them. I also pentamelded my wrist although it couldn't be maxed. I only "quadramelded" my choker and earrings, leaving 1 meld out so i can later push craft or control. All CP is maxed. CP is just too good.

I managed to do the rings but can't max the rest like earings bracelet necklace cause you gonna be short of something. They must bring a way to get materia V easier or make materia iv more accessible

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Originally Posted by Mature

I managed to do the rings but can't max the rest like earings bracelet necklace cause you gonna be short of something. They must bring a way to get materia V easier or make materia iv more accessible

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If only Materia IV are used then you only lose 3 Craftsmanship each on 4 Accessories. It is EXTREMELY unlikely that there will be a rotation that hinges on that +12 Craftsmanship, especially considering the most popular rotations at the moment rely on Piece by Piece and Maker's Mark + Flawless Synthesis, both of which do not scale whatsoever to Craftsmanship and merely become stronger the more Progress a Craft requires.

Materia IV can be brought back by airships, and assuming 2-Stars materials will be more accessible through gathering in the Diadem we should have a viable route to Materia V as well, though I highly doubt there will be a decent number on the market for at least a month after 3.1 drops.

I don't expect grade v melds to be a realistic option for i170 melding as it's highly possible that i170 conversions will be required to obtain them once they're made available through spirit bonding.

The reason why I'm waiting on my melds is because of budget issues. For my i150 melds, I needed around 100 of each type of grade iii crafting materia. However, so far, I haven't even obtained enough grade 4 materia to penta-meld a single set of gear (been using both airships and spirit bonding to obtain). On my server, each piece of grade 4 crafting materia has averaged around 150k each and I still wouldn't have enough even if I bought out the market board.

If the requirements for 3* are low enough, it's possible that you won't need full grade 4 penta-melds and can get away with a number of grade iii overmelds instead (the 4th and 5th slots in particular).

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Originally Posted by Sollux

If only Materia IV are used then you only lose 3 Craftsmanship each on 4 Accessories. It is EXTREMELY unlikely that there will be a rotation that hinges on that +12 Craftsmanship, especially considering the most popular rotations at the moment rely on Piece by Piece and Maker's Mark + Flawless Synthesis, both of which do not scale whatsoever to Craftsmanship and merely become stronger the more Progress a Craft requires

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You'd be surprised just how vital literally every single point of Craftsmanship is now. Far more important than Control. For example, on your own rotation you posted on your "what can you do with these stats" thread, using the Craftsmanship you have only allows you to miss a few Flawless Synths. I use a version of this rotation myself (thank you for posting it btw, it works wonderfully) on my Leatherworker since ltw comes with Waste Not II, which I otherwise don't use because of how inflexible it is. With a little more Craftsmanship, you are capable of missing or otherwise consuming an additional Flawless Synth and still finish without changing anything further down the line.

Going further into detail, a CSII of 215 allows you to finish a synth in three steps with 793 progress going in (a magic number with PbP+flawless synth). 216 allows you to finish with 790 progress going in (a magic number with Muscle Memory+PbP). Various other combinations of CSII, Flawless Synth, MM, PbP, and Standard Synth allow for further configurations ranging from 218 to 225 potency CSII's. Every little point matters tremendously when you are riding on meeting those 40 point thresholds with Flawless Synth.

In fact, to show how ridiculously tight the current Craftsmanship game is, just today I was fiddling with 1-star rotations to make food and such as easily and reliably as possible. At 879 Craftsmanship (my current base across all classes) I could not finish in the number of steps I wanted. With just 5 more points (using my FC buff) I was able to now finish a 1-star synth in three 100% steps using Muscle Memory+Name+Brandx2 under Ingenuity II....by 1 point of progress. With 10 more points (using the grade II FC buff instead), I was able to finish the synth using Name+Brand under Ingenuity II and Standard Synth without IngII. It costs 9 more CP, but doesn't require Muscle Memory as a cross class skill, and scales better with more craftsmanship, meaning with a bit more craftsmanship (like, say, what I would get if I ate a Baked Onion Soup) it will do more progress than the Muscle Memory rotation. Of course, with a little more craftsmanship, I will be able to do Name + Brand(IngII) + Brand (no IngII) to finish the synth as well, saving even more CP.

Every day I'm fiddling around with rotations for various purposes (one day it's mass producing Marron Glaces, another it's Noble Gold's, sometimes it's seeing how reliable and efficient a rotation I can come up with for the 35 Durability recipes, some days it's just random lower level crap I make all the time that I can now finish in 4 steps instead of 5). And every time, the thing that makes the biggest difference in what skills I need and how many steps it takes to finish, after CP, is Craftsmanship Craftsmanship Craftsmanship. Control only ever takes over once I've gotten to the point I can finish a recipe in 2 CSII's or less.

As you can see, literally every point of Craftsmanship is fundamentally changing what we can use and how we can finish, whereas I have never altered my higher level rotations based on Control, nor have I ever noticed a huge difference in HQ rates regardless of whether I was sitting at 695 Control or 800 Control. For HQ, getting those stacks becomes far more critical than the actual amount of quality each stack is giving once you have the minimum Control required to even do the recipe. Control might conceivably make the difference between a 98% synth and 100%, but I have yet to come across a situation where my rotation came out that close and I was sitting there wishing I had more Control (although I know you have, with a certain now infamous frypan). Usually what I do in a situation like that below the 2-star level is see if I can replace a Basic Touch with a Standard Touch (I usually can with, surprise, a couple more points of Craftsmanship allowing me to do a cheaper combination of progress moves), rather than try and increase Control.

Anyways, all that being said, it should come as no surprise that I have maxed Craftsmanship whenever possible, even if it meant giving up a meld that could have been used to max Control instead. My mainhands all have CP+4 and 15 Craftsmanship on them, giving up the 8 Control I would need to match the token mainhands. My offhands all have CP+4 and 12 Craftsmanship on them, with two slots left over. All my blues are maxed in Craftsmanship and CP (with 17 on the body). The only place I went with Control over Craftsmanship were 2 of my 3 non-max meldable accessories, and that was because I was young and stupid back then and didn't realize that here, now, I'd be wishing I had that extra +6 Craftsmanship I have to use an FC buff to get in order to do my 100% HQ 1-star rotation.

Even with all this Craftsmanship melding I have 797 Control on my most perfectly melded class, Weaver. On my most economically melded class, Armorer, I have 772 Control. As I get more control IV's from my airships, I will slowly be remelding my gear to match my Weaver, and will hopefully be sitting at 800 Control across the board by the time 3-star requirements come along. I do not think 3-star will need more than 800 Control unless they introduce new gear, so I feel I am quite safe having focused on Craftsmanship. And hey, there's always Seafood Soup.

EDIT: ...I apologize for how long this ended up. ;_;

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

EDIT: ...I apologize for how long this ended up. ;_;

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No need to apologize! That's some awesome tests you have performed over there! And I agree with you that the current trend is really CP> Craftsmanship > Control. Not saying Control isn't important, but a few (sometimes 1 to 2) craftsmanship sometimes do matter more than control. The reason is, lacking 5 to 10 control will certainly make each touch slightly weaker, but it's not a game-breaker. At the end after your IQ10 Byregot, maybe you're like... what... 300 quality short? ... possibly less. But having that extra few points of craftsmanship could potentially buy an extra step, save some extra CP, or even change the completion method entirely. As for lacking a few CP, I'm sure all of us have faced that awkward moment before when we are 1 or 2 CP short for that 1 extra Basic Touch or Innovation, which would have either made it 100% HQ, or would have pushed it over the steep 70% margin. And a few CP sometimes can also change the rotation entirely.

However, if I remember correctly, after 1 meld of craftsmanship materia on the accessories (right side), the next one only adds about 2 craftsmanship. It could potentially be useless, which one could have used for control. Thus, many of us rather just leave that last slot open, and test the importance of that tiny bit of craftsmanship later with craftsmanship food.

The crafting accessories take +9 Craftsmanship, so you can either do a IV+I or a III+II (or III+III if the II prices/supply on your server are as ludicrous as they are on mine) to hit max Craftsmanship. But yeah, that +3 could be useless, or you could be sitting here needing to use an FC buff to get +5 Craftsmanship. I plan on just slapping another Craft III onto my offhands sometime tonight to fix that, but ultimately if your budget is tight, I agree leaving that last slot open is a good choice, especially if you plan on remelding with a V at some point anyways.

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Originally Posted by Espritduo

EDIT: ...I apologize for how long this ended up. ;_;

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I really do appreciate detailed analysis on Crafting and I love in-depth discussions like this. I don't by any means discount the importance of Craftsmanship, however Control can help save steps as well. Since you're familiar with my "The Things You Can Do" thread I'll reference that. I've made a slight change to the original, but with my stats the first rotation has the breathing room to fail 3 FS and 3 HT and still reach 100% Progress and HQ. Using your stats, and assuming HQ Baked Onion Soup, you have the breathing room to fail 4 FS and 2 HT. Failing a 3rd HT drops your HQ chance to 92%:

My Stats + HQ Seafood + 3 HT failures:

http://i.imgur.com/1ZpZVh0.png

Your Stats + HQ Baked Onion + 3 HT failures:

http://i.imgur.com/89RVUGl.png

I look at it this way: If I can make room for a failure I want it to be the one with a less likely chance of succeeding (80% HT vs 90% FS). I also have yet to finish the last 2 melds on all of my MHs/OHs and if I melded Craftsmanship IV into the remaining slots and used HQ Baked Onion Soup I could JUST reach 4 FS failures and 98% reliability (The simulator Progress/Control is slightly lower than the numbers you'll actually get):

http://i.imgur.com/LyaWk5p.png

The reason I value Control THE MOST however is when I'm planning for a "Guaranteed Craft", I.E. "If I start with so much Quality I can guarantee this Craft". On that basis I've come up with the rotation below:

http://i.imgur.com/q7z2amE.png

Using this rotation with my stats (853 Craftsmanship 822 Control + HQ Seafood Stew), if I begin with 2.7k Quality I can literally guarantee a HQ 2-Star. Here's how:

The initial SH is used to guarantee PbP and 4 out of the 12 total FS during MMark, leaving 8 FS with a chance to fail. Having 1556/1436 Progress at the end leaves me room for 3 failed FS, meaning I only need to succeed at 5/8 90% chance FS. The simulator doesn't show it, but this rotation finishes with 10 Durability remaining. Should I fail 4+ FS, I can use that last 10 Durability for 1 more INGII buffed CSII, which adds 202 Progress with my Craftsmanship. That 202 Progress can cover the other 5/8 FS, meaning I can fail literally every unbuffed FS and still complete the Craft. Every other step is either an SHII buffed BT/BB or a CSII which all have 0% chance to fail.

This doesn't even take into account any Goods that could be PT'd. Also, should I get a Good during MMark (Or before/after MMII) and not fail more than 2 FS I can take advantage of the extra CP and the remaining 10 Durability to add 1 more BT and increase my guaranteed Quality by 400-500:

http://i.imgur.com/ZUsCotn.png

This rotation also has the same beginning as my standard rotation, so if I start with 2.2k Quality I can plan to use my standard rotation, but if I get a ToT during MMark I can immediately switch to my guaranteed rotation.

The hardest part about melding early on is not knowing whether that 1 extra Craftsmanship or 1 extra Control will really make a difference in your Endgame rotations. Personally, I build my rotations around my stats rather than the other way around. I can't really speak on how much Craftsmanship might affect the ease of 1-Star Crafts as I don't do them often myself, and when I do I just manually Craft them. I don't see myself needing to re-meld any time in the near future and have no regrets for what I've already melded.

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Originally Posted by Sollux

SNIP

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It is exciting to see someone bold enough to attempt doing it all with Basic Touches! That was the approach I loved for 3 star crafting back in 2.2 and 2.3. At that time, i went for a high control build on my offhand, and had very minimal craftsmanship.

100% guaranteed HQ is indeed the ultimate goal. I might try out your rotation when i reach that stats of yours. The recent news about 3.1 dreaded me though. I still haven't heard anything about SE fixing crafting for us.