HQ i170 vs i180 Main Hand Tools

Now that I've finally be able to consistently reach the cap for red crafting scrips I almost have enough tokens for an i180 main hand tool. I understand, though, that the i180 is not meldable while the i170 HQ counterpart can be. My question is which should I aim to achieve? Considering that the max meld for the i170 is +42/+23/+4 there's absolutely no way to hit all of these maximums. Which is more advisable? Thank you in advance for all responses.

This is currently still a very arguable topic! You are right that max melding i170 tool is impractical and pretty much impossible. On that sense, i180 is so much more desirable since it is hassle-free and gil-free but with much more impressive stats than an unmelded i170. So why would someone still pick the i170? 2 reasons: (1) 4 extra CP and (2) faster gearing up of all 8 classes. Do not underestimate what some people can do with 4 extra CP. In the right hands, 4 CP can be magical! :)

If you have craft / control with over-melding to reach the minimum requirements without using food; to craft 2* then the extra CP more valuable, thus, i170 is the better choice.
If you still need food to reach 2*, the Red script main hand is the better choice.

Once you meet the minimum craft / control requirements, CP is KING because the needed craftsmanship to reduce completion touches by one is way more. While the extra CP can allow an extra quality touch or at the very least a stronger quality touch for the last touch before Byregot's. The stronger touch could simply be a Basic Touch instead of using Hasty Touch, removing RNG from the equation.

Personally I went for a 180 main hand for my BSM so I could reach the 2* requirements more easily. After that I've been crafting the other main and offhands since it takes way less tokens and gives you moar CP, however it requires a lot of gathering ; p

As far as the minimum stats for crafting 2* gear, I meet them at the moment. My weaver is geared with the highest non-green/blue gear (i110-i150) all HQ. The offhand is HQ astral birch spinning wheel. Everything non-tool is melded to the point where my craft/control/cp is 723/701/363 respectively. So I currently meet the requirements for crafting 2* items I just don't know a rotation with any real hope of HQing 2*. I know further improvement to craft will help make my current <lv60 rotation (maybe) come close to finishing a craft but im not even sure how much of a chance i have of HQing them.

I find that the current issue between these two decisions is that we don't know what the the requirements for future recipes will be.

Currently even with an un-melded 170 you will have enough stats to use the rotations listed here:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...fting-Rotation

So the question is do you want to future proof yourself for potential new recipes? Personally i would forgo the main hands and craft more of the off-hand first.

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Originally Posted by Tango185

As far as the minimum stats for crafting 2* gear, I meet them at the moment. My weaver is geared with the highest non-green/blue gear (i110-i150) all HQ. The offhand is HQ astral birch spinning wheel. Everything non-tool is melded to the point where my craft/control/cp is 723/701/363 respectively. So I currently meet the requirements for crafting 2* items I just don't know a rotation with any real hope of HQing 2*. I know further improvement to craft will help make my current <lv60 rotation (maybe) come close to finishing a craft but im not even sure how much of a chance i have of HQing them.

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Looks like you pushed hard on craft and control to reach 2 star requirement, but you really slacked off with CP. Well, it can get a bit tough for you since most 2 star rotation needs as much CP as possible. Personally, when I was melding my white gear, I only made craftsmanship reaching 718. But for control, I let it sit at 666 while max-melding ALL CP up to 397. Indeed, 666 wasn't enough for 2 star, but the food I used was Seafood Stew HQ, which adds 31 control. So I was able to craft 2 star with the minimal craft/control while maxing out CP on white gear at 447 with the help of food. It was great because more CP = more flexibility in rotation and more capability to use more Precise Touches. Much like ChameleonMS said, CP is KING. When you max out every tad bit of CP, suddenly you have a lot more room to work with. Having 30 extra CP is way more beneficial than having 30 extra control in most cases, giving that you are able to reach the minimal requirement for 2 star recipes.

And as I have recommended someone else before, the most economical way is actually to ASK A RELIABLE CRAFTER TO MAKE YOU ALL THE HQ i170 ACCESSORIES. Then you just pentameld them as much as you can, and save yourself the trouble of melding white accessories. This way, you reach super maxed out CP value and some bonus craft/control early. With that, you can be very comfortable making the rest of your 2 star i170 gear and tools.

Believe it or not, I was having trouble finding help with a melding strategy. Because of this, I didn't even think about how food could make up the difference between current control and the 695 requirement. Now I feel like I've wasted a ton of cash on the materia to get me where I'm at, and for nothing. Should I clear out materia from gear and start over or is there a way to fix this?

This is what I had back in October, which I think is what you should aim for first:
http://i.imgur.com/SpZy2Rz.png
Mainhand & Offhand provides most of the craftsmanship & control, while the accessories provide max CP.

I didn't meld any control nor craftsmanship on my mainhand or offhand at all, but I put 4 CP on each. While the i170 accessories were near-max melded with all 3 stats. Since they're shared, all my classes got the benefits. As you can see, the CP reached 422, which is max. With the help of Seafood Stew HQ, it goes 472. And with that much CP, you can pretty own any rotation you like.
You can get the i180 mainhand instead though. That's totally fine.

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Originally Posted by Tango185

Believe it or not, I was having trouble finding help with a melding strategy. Because of this, I didn't even think about how food could make up the difference between current control and the 695 requirement. Now I feel like I've wasted a ton of cash on the materia to get me where I'm at, and for nothing. Should I clear out materia from gear and start over or is there a way to fix this?

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Well, I do have an overmeld section in my crafting guide's Chapter 38:
http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-ad...e-tsukino.156/
It's not too late since there's i170 melds there too. You can still use it. I even offered "Economical melding alternatives", which you may find useful later.

As for whether you should remeld everything? Hell no. Like I said, the best thing to do is to find a reliable crafter, provide him with mats, then craft out all the i170 acc for you. Then you do a near-max meld on them (make sure you max CP!). Then you are suddenly back in good shape. As for now, you can still try do your 2 star crafting, but with 30 CP less than most people, you will need to rely a bit more on luck. If you can get 2 lucky Trick of Trades, or if your Hasty Touches just all goes smooth. God bless you, you will be in great shape anyway.

I get right on this and see where I'm at from there. Thank you for your help.

I got my carpenter the crafted main hand and melded it cause my blacksmith was able to make it and I didn't want to wait for 3 weeks worth of scrips. Otherwise my weaver and blacksmith have the 180 main hand.

My weaver is
Craft:836
Control:759

Blacksmith
Craft: 834
Control 778

Carpenter
Craft:831
Control:776

and they shares the cp of 382 which i then use HQ baked onion soup to add more cp and craftmanship. The rotation I use i find pretty easy to do 2 star items.

So for the main hand I think more personal preference of which road you want to go down cause even if you can't get max melds you can still get them to be equal in stats.

Even with no overmelds, the 4 CP in the guaranteed slot of the 170 is more valuable to me than the 15 craft/9 control on the 180. If you are tight on money, you can overmeld with cheapy tier 1-3 materia and you'll be reaching either 15 craft or 9 control on the 170. Either way, the 4 CP is most valuable.

Well it depends tho. Sure i would NEVER underestimate how useful 4cp is, every crafter knows the pain of being 1cp short on something ... BUT that extra craftsmanship and control is more useful if it allows you to achieve a better rotation.

again here http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...fting-Rotation

Thing is with rotations these days it's easier to tell exactly how much CP you need. Balance up the rotations you can achieve and the different variables.

I originally traded the CRP i180 mainhand because of such impressive stats, which helped me out in making my accessories. But in the end, I still spent the extra time and money to craft out an HQ i170 saw and melded 4 CP there.

Something tells me that at this point, a lot of us already have red tokens to spare... So, apart from making more HQ astral lumbers / adamantite ingots etc to sell, it's also not a bad idea to think about the possibility of acquiring some i180 mainhands / chest pieces. Maybe not now, but some time in the future when we need even more stats to craft 3 star items in patch 3.2..... So having some spare tokens saved up isn't a bad idea.

Heck, one can even use an i180 chest, but glamor it with an i170 chest so one can dye it! That's not a bad idea since it saves soooo much melding fee, yet one can enjoy the dyeable version of it! I'm long gone from the game now, but hey, it's something you people can consider in the future! :o

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

Something tells me that at this point, a lot of us already have red tokens to spare... So, apart from making more HQ astral lumbers / adamantite ingots etc to sell, it's also not a bad idea to think about the possibility of acquiring some i180 mainhands / chest pieces.

Heck, one can even use an i180 chest, but glamor it with an i170 chest so one can dye it! That's not a bad idea since it saves soooo much melding fee, yet one can enjoy the dyeable version of it! I'm long gone from the game now, but hey, it's something you people can consider in the future! :o

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I've started to trade my Red Scrips for Soul Crystals instead of tokens. I'm already swimming in tokens and have my 170 main hands and chests melded to achieve equivalent 180 stats.

But yeah, if one doesn't have the means for heavy melding and is focusing all 8 classes, then maybe consider a 180 for each job in at least 1 slot. I would recommend chest.

I get the feeling Specialist recipes are not going away anytime soon and it really does suck to not being able to do everything yourself like it used to be. Having Soul Crystals saved up is a viable way around all of that. When 3.1 landed, I quickly loaded up on about 400 titanium alloy ingots then swapped that BSM specialist to ARM the following week allowing me to start making some good money off all those ingots.

Cp is king in this game. Well so far.

I haven't meld any of my ilvl170 MT just waiting for 3.2 to see if they add materia V in diadem.

For now if you really wanna meld both tools I would probably go for :

IV CP
IV CONTROL
IV CONTROL
IV CRAFTSMANSHIP
IV CRAFTSMANSHIP

gl!

At the moment, I think CP is far more valuable than craftsmanship and control, but of course, you have to take a close look at your stats. 4 CP from the i170 main hand alone might not make much of a difference, but when combined with all of your other CP upgrades (you have to pass a certain CP threshold), as well as CP gained from using tricks of the trade, you can easily accomplish a lot more than what you could do with even maxed craftsmanship. I initially started crafting using around 435 CP and made huge improvements to my strategies after upgrading to 455 CP and then to 471 CP. Having CP levels in between 455 and 471 doesn't seem to dramatically improve my rotations (still helpful though).

With high craftsmanship, you can definitely create a better base 2* rotation easily achieving 12 touch attempts. However, the more CP you have, the easier it is to change your base rotation to either improve it during the craft or to respond to bad situations like the times where you find yourself with a lot of hasty touch failures.

Hey, if you want to try 2* with your current melds, use HQ Baked Onion Soup and more or less the first rotation from Katlyna, found here:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...fting-Rotation
As you are short on CP there are two edits to this rotation:
- You NEED to get a Good in the opening Makers Mark, and then can not use it on a Precise/Basic touches (would need a second outside of the opener ToT to get the 20 CP before you can use Precise/Basic touches, given opener is 15 steps I find you generally should get a good during it, I get sad when I do not)
- The rotation has you do Careful Synthesis II until Ingenuity II falls off, you will want to do one more Careful Synthesis II after that
What this will allow you to do is finish without needing a second Ingenuity II in the final 2 steps (saving 32 CP)
Now I would recommend higher starting quality (3000 min) as you have one less touch for quality, should have a very good success rate.

I personally get more use out of the extra CP than the extra stats. So for me the 170HQ are an automatic win, as without the CP I would loose a significant move in my rotation (an extra Precise/Basic touch).

As I suspected Materia V is gonna be a be more flexible to get so I'm glad I didn't meld a thing apart from all accessories. So if you are about to meld , WAIT for 3.2 then make your choice. :)

I'm waiting new patch and decide. really don't know the way to go. For sure for the short term ill use my red script for the main hand.

i170HQ crafted for the 4cp is easily the best choice. Hitting 422 cp base is HUGE. The only thing I use Hasty Touches for now are 2**. I can use all basic touches and 100% HQ any 1 star item with 800 crafts // 770 control // 422 cp (Base stats).

:o ilvl 150/140 HQ tools are more than enough dont waste your red scripts for it.
better save them and do some Favor and stack the ooid stuff, i belive they change the exchange rate for the stuff you need to craft ilvl 170 gear so you will need a lot of red scripts ^^

i just use ilvl 170 gear for the right side and belt and full meld and i meld 2CP on my tools so i have on all my class 690/695 412CP without food on all my classes which allows me to do easy 2 star HQ crafts on all class.
i have on some ilvl 170 stuff on BSM and GSM and WVR like tools and bodies but its more for glamour. i dont see any diffrents in high stats on my GSM i have 822/790 416 CP but well is totally overpowered and also need do a totally diffrent rotation for 2 star crafts with higher stats.

regards

Small Hobbit =)

I went for max control build I had the gil to burn my main hand and off hand are x2 control IV as it's the most expensive then 4 CP and 2 x craft IV rest of 170 penta apart from the chest which has 3 x control IV.

I'm waiting to see how they allow us access to V but I want to do MH and OH as

Controll V x3
Craft V x1
CP IV x1

And chest will be

Control V x1
Craft V x3
Control IV x1

But I will have to prey to the rng God and offer my first born as this on 8 chest and MH and OH is going to kill me.

Depending how hard V is to get it will make the 170 stuff best in slot which is nice

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Originally Posted by Aikota

i170HQ crafted for the 4cp is easily the best choice. Hitting 422 cp base is HUGE. The only thing I use Hasty Touches for now are 2**. I can use all basic touches and 100% HQ any 1 star item with 800 crafts // 770 control // 422 cp (Base stats).

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Woah you mean with all NQ mats? If yes, care to share your 1* rotation? I got the same stats as you with max CP but and my 1* rotation still has 6 hasties (with 4 basics/precises and no rapid synthesis).