Snailfish Oil Rotation Discussion (regarding the Maker's Mark Rotation)

The new rotations have already been posted by numerous members tayler1480 on this forum. But more specifically, I want to discuss the Maker's Mark rotation here.

To update those who dont know, there are currently at least two viable approaches regarding rotations. (A) maker's mark rotation, which we all hate how long it is. But although its initial FS spam phase is RNG based (quality part is still prudent-based, so that part is not RNG based), it is still usually ending up being the strongest approach, due to how much progress you can get out of it while maintaining almost full CP. (B) the initial prep rotation, which is paired with specialist skills (and that is ok since you need to be specialist to craft the recipe anyway). This rotation uses reflect to boost up IQ stack before your first touch, thus helping with quality by a lot. This rotation uses no RNG but will need to spend a significant amount of CP and durab on progress. This rotation usually give fewer available touches, and it usually does not leave you much extra CP at the end. (Keep in mind that even if you reach IQ11, the total quality you accumulated from touches is still going to be less because you "skipped" a few touches to reach IQ4 using Reflect)

As mentioned in the 1st paragraph, I wanna talk about the maker's mark rotation. It is almost a consensus now that we all start with Maker's Mark, CZ, IQ, SH, Pbpx3 (which your durab will end up at 40 after this), and then FS spam +CZ renewals. Here comes two items for discussion:

(1) when your CP is approaching max during the FS spam phase, what do you do? For me, when my CP is near max, and if my durab is 40, I use a naked precise touch. (I don't use Precise touch here anymore.) I use 1 Patient Touch during the SH II + 3x PBP phase. This burns off some CP, reducing durab to 30, and hopefully if it succeeds it sends me to IQ3. If my CP maxes again, and my durab is 30, I use manip2 to burn off the CP, and start recovering durab. I then activate Manip2 right away before the FS spam. This burns off the CP, and the durab will slowly recover back to max. At this point, I can freely take any Trick of Trade without the worry of overshooting the max CP.

(2) although this rotation is RNG-based in the initial phase, you will usually end up with a crap load of CP, meaning you will be doing mostly prudent touches under ingenuity1 for the quality part. The question here is, what do you do when IQ hits 11, but still having much CP left? For me, instead of going miracle and try to rebuild IQ stack for Brow, I would usually try to utilize my CP for a bunch more regular touches... If durab allows, I would just throw down more prudent touches. Each seems to add a crap load of quality. If durab does not allow, I would spend my CP on things like Manip2, and then Hasty or Prudent my way on, until I enter the byregot phase with 128 CP. I tend to believe this approach being more secure than the miracle approach. (With the discussions on this thread, I have found the use of "Miracle+Brow" to be stronger than "Blessing". Please see the whole thread below, including the analysis on page 2.) For me, I now try to save up 167 CP for a "Miracle+Brow" finisher phase. It eats up 39 more CP and consumes 10 more durab, but it reliably adds ~3K more quality than the "Blessing" approach.

What are you guys' opinion on this? Do you agree with what I do? Disagree? Do you have suggestions for me to improve it further? Thanks!

These crafts are mathematically simpler than the older crafts but there are so many options that it’s difficult to pinpoint the best strategy. My strategy might not necessarily be anywhere close to the best, but it works reasonably well enough. I’ll discuss how I handle all NQ synths at min requirements and my reasoning. Once I start adding HQ components, my strategy can change drastically.

1. I start my first quality phase and then use a durability restore to spend down CP. I never use precise touch at this point because I have no clue whether I’ll be needing that CP later on where it counts more. The designers have introduced patient touch, which can be used as kind of a low-cost alternative. Goodbye precise touch (most of the time)!

2. This is where a lot of crafters will likely employ different strategies.

I’ve been using Ingenuity 2 (tried four synths under Ingenuity 1 but only managed ~90% each time) but I don’t start using it until I’ve built up a significantly large enough of an IQ stack. I try to buff my touches where it counts the most, so the majority of my Ingenuity buffed touches are at 11 stacks of IQ. Since I consider stack building steps to be of lower value (11 stacks of IQ is practically going to be a given by the end of the synth anyways), hello again hasty touch!

Under Ingenuity 2, I find I have to use HTs again due to increasingly tight CP constraints. However, excess CP can be used for HT2 or prudent touch. I use prudent touches extremely sparingly.

In most of my synths, the last 2k quality is difficult to achieve so I look for situational specific ways of boosting quality. This is difficult to document.

As for spec abilities, I haven't tried using them yet, but I'd likely mostly just use whistle and nymaea's wheel (maybe satisfaction too).

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

(1) when your CP is approaching max during the FS spam phase, what do you do?

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I add on 2 Precise/Prudent touches to the 3 PbP's (under SH2). If CP is approaching max, Manipulation II.

For quality I just cram as many touches as possible and end with MiracleBro:
SH2
<up to 2 touches>
ING2
GS
Inno
Miracle
GS
Brow
CS 3

After I posted this thread, I started using less and less HQ mats, and I find myself liking the use of Patient Touch during the PBP phase... so now I favor the use of SH II, PBP, PBP, PBP, Patient Touch. If it fails, I'll Patient Touch it again. It seems to work quite nicely, and now I can use only 1 HQ aethersand to HQ my Snailfish Oil.

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Originally Posted by StouterTaru

SNIP

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Does anyone know for sure whether the "Miracle + Brow" approach is better than the "more touches at IQ11 and then Blessing" approach?
Maybe I will look into this myself later... could be interesting...

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

Does anyone know for sure whether the "Miracle + Brow" approach is better than the "more touches at IQ11 and then Blessing" approach?
Maybe I will look into this myself later... could be interesting...

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My quality route starts off with 2 patient touches under SH2, with luck I get to 5 IQ stacks right away (yes RNG, but worth it). If I get those stacks I can reach 11 IQ for Miracle and rebuild up to 9 stacks for Brow, both under GS. Hard to beat that with just Blessing. I can reliably hit 100% Quality with 4k starting quality, but I usually go for 6-8k for padding.

There are instances to where you can actually use Manip II in the Flawless Synth phase and recover all, if not most of your CP, and if all of it is recovered, plus an additional one in the quality build phase, then I've had instances where I could in fact use Byregot's Miracle, then build some more stacks, and go for a Blessing, but saying that is like asking for luck of the gods somewhat. I never really had it fixed to a 'standard' rotation at that point, just depended on the procs I got and the CP I had, but I'm personally skipping Maker's Mark entirely now.

It's great, extremely powerful even, but I don't want to spend an entire expansion doing Maker's Mark

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

(1) when your CP is approaching max during the FS spam phase, what do you do?

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Although I have tried ManII to recover duro, I find that sometimes I get shafted by RNG on recovering full CP. I have had more luck with Whistle right after SH1 falls off on the post PBP stage. It costs less CP to start and recovers a ton more CP if red balls (good conditions :)) proc. If I get the 6 required red balls to drop whistle stacks to 2, then I Nimeas Wheel for the 30 duro I need and if that fails I can usually run a MM1 to get the 30 duro and still have time to recover enough CP to get back to full.

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Originally Posted by Kaurhz

There are instances to where you can actually use Manip II in the Flawless Synth phase and recover all, if not most of your CP, and if all of it is recovered, plus an additional one in the quality build phase, then I've had instances where I could in fact use Byregot's Miracle, then build some more stacks, and go for a Blessing, but saying that is like asking for luck of the gods somewhat. I never really had it fixed to a 'standard' rotation at that point, just depended on the procs I got and the CP I had, but I'm personally skipping Maker's Mark entirely now.

It's great, extremely powerful even, but I don't want to spend an entire expansion doing Maker's Mark

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Right, I now favor the use of SH II, PBPx3, and then Patient Touch... this way, durab goes down to 30, and I can easily use Manip2 during the FS spam phase. The Patient Touch, if succeeded then wonderful. If not, then I can try it 1 more time before the SH II ends. Either way, there will be enough durab consumption at that point to use Manip2. Then there will be plenty of room for ToT during Maker's Mark.

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Originally Posted by Ostwar

Although I have tried ManII to recover duro, I find that sometimes I get shafted by RNG on recovering full CP. I have had more luck with Whistle right after SH1 falls off on the post PBP stage. It costs less CP to start and recovers a ton more CP if red balls (good conditions :)) proc. If I get the 6 required red balls to drop whistle stacks to 2, then I Nimeas Wheel for the 30 duro I need and if that fails I can usually run a MM1 to get the 30 duro and still have time to recover enough CP to get back to full.

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Oh that is an interesting approach you got there. Yeah, Whistle could be a nice choice if you expect CP to hit near max soon.

I might give the spec abilities a go later.

I can confirm that 2x patient touch works well as I've found that I've gotten the following results:

1. 2 of them land: good chance for 90-100%
2. 1'st misses but the next 2nd lands: good for 85-100% usually. It's like missing a 6 CP HT
3. 1'st lands, 2nd misses, 3rd lands: can be good for 80%+ still
4. 2 miss in a row somewhere: Uh oh, can be 70% or less territory but not necessarily a total fail. This is because of how powerful your Ingenuity 2 buffed touches will be and you save your big guns for that part.

You're going to be in serious trouble if your IQ stack is too low prior to using Ingenuity 2. If my stacks are too low and I determine that I will not jeopardize my ability to keep Ingen2 up later/restore my durability sufficiently, using precise touch at that point isn't a bad idea.

With a single HQ mat, you should be able to remove 1 Patient Touch (or if you manage to increase the number of touches; this will depend on how much CP you can get).

I use 15-17 touches total and buff the 9 most powerful so I find that these synths are not particularly sensitive to poor RNG or crafting failure. You do want to balance your CP use between durability restores and buffs. I prioritize simply keeping Ingenuity 2 up first and foremost and then will spend extra CP on HT2 to reduce RNG or prudent touch, which I use for primarily for it's ability to add additional touches step-wise, rather than it's RNG free nature.

From what I've seen, you should be able to get 100% over 50% of the time with most others falling from 85-96%. The better you optimize, buff, manage your CP, the higher your 100% rate will be, but that takes experience mostly.

For the final progress step, how much is CS3 doing for you guys at the craftsmanship requirement?

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Originally Posted by Kenji1134

For the final progress step, how much is CS3 doing for you guys at the craftsmanship requirement?

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At 1441 craftsmanship and 1261 control (using HQ tempura),
CS III = 346
CS III w ingen2 = 447
CS II = 277
CS II w ingen2 = 358
At IQ11, GS, (No Ingen2), Innov, Blessing = 6087
At IQ11, GS, Ingen2, (No Innov), Blessing = 9516
At IQ11, GS, Ingen2, Innov, Blessing = 11565

As we can see, Ingen2 is NECESSARY, and it's stronger than Innov. This is very different from ARR or HW crafting which "Good" > Innov+Ingen2. Here, Ingen2>Good. GS+Innov+Blessing on Good will get only 6087 x 1.5 = 9130 quality. Thus, GS+Blessing cannot be considered even when the Blessing is on Good. GS+Ingen2 is ESSENTIAL. Only after that, if you get a Good, you can skip Innov.

Because of this, the sequence of actions in the final Blessing phase must also be altered comparing to ARR and HW crafting. The ideal sequence used to be:
SH, GS, Innov, Ingen2, Blessing
...with Innov and/or Ingen2 being dispensable if a Good appears after GS.

Now it is changed to:
SH, GS, Ingen2, Innov, Blessing
...with GS and Ingen2 being just as important as each other, and only Innov is dispensable if a Good appears after Ingen2.

Damn, Ing2 is a beast now. Thanks for all that data, its very useful.

So closer to the 1320 craftsmanship requirement, CS3 without Ing2 would be about 300 or so, equal to 7 Maker's stacks.

Since we need a progress move to finish, might as well be CS3, how many Maker's stacks can we burn.

6377*(2/3)^3 = 1890 progress left after PbPx3.
(1890 - ~300)/40 = ~40 FS needed to get close enough to finish with a CS3.
Since we start with 64 stacks, that is 24 we can burn, of which 4 is SH-PbPx3, so 20 left for ToTs, CZ, Manip2, etc... wow, 20 is a good buffer.

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

Does anyone know for sure whether the "Miracle + Brow" approach is better than the "more touches at IQ11 and then Blessing" approach?
Maybe I will look into this myself later... could be interesting...

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So I did look into it myself, and I answered my own question. I believe the "Miracle + Brow" approach IS STRONGER, in general.

My control was at 1251.

At IQ11, I did the following:

Finisher Phase Variant A:
SH II, GS, Ingen2, Innov, Miracle (IQ down to 6), GS, Brow.

Finisher Phase Variant B:
SH, GS, Ingen2, Innov, Blessing.

In Variant A, the Miracle gave 9540. The Brow gave 5021. Total = 14561.
In Variant B, the Blessing gave 11448.
The quality difference between the two variants = 3113.

Variant A needed a total of 167 CP.
Variant B needed a total of 128 CP.
The CP difference between the two variants = 39 CP.

At IQ11, my Prudent Touch or Hasty Touch under Ingen1 gives 1487. Thus, you can imagine if I am using Variant B (with Blessing), I must do two at least 2 more Touches under Ingen1 at IQ11 to be just on par with Variant A. And I have an extra 39 CP to do that. Prudent Touch cost 21 CP. Thus, even two of them will cost 42 CP. Chances is that 39 CP is not going to be enough for 2x Prudent (especially we need these touches to be under SH II and Ingen1). It is more likely that we'll just end up with 2 extra Hasty Touches instead. Because Hasty Touches are not 100% secure, it seems difficult for us to do enough with that extra 39 CP to obtain 3113 more quality in Variant B.

Therefore, I believe Variant A is stronger, in general.

In conclusion, we should save up 167 CP to do the "Miracle+Brow" ending instead of saving 128 CP for the "Blessing" ending.

However, if one runs into a situation where there're plenty of durab left, but just not enough CP, one could forfeit the Miracle+Brow approach to immediately gain access to 39 more CP. By activating SH II at least, one can at least push 5 more steps of Hasties to burn off those extra durab (hopefully add up to ~3K quality). And then proceed to the 128CP-Blessing finish.

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

Oh that is an interesting approach you got there. Yeah, Whistle could be a nice choice if you expect CP to hit near max soon.

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Upon further testing I am now pretty confident you can skip using Comfort Zone during the MaMa build phase and go with straight whistle.

Build Phase looks like, MaMa, WWYW, IQ, SH1, PBP x3 (141 CP). Then FS your butt off using ToT on at least 6 red balls followed by Satisfaction 3 times, this will recover 165 CP. Use Nymea's as soon as whistle stacks hit 2 and if you are lucky to proc one more red ball you will have full CP and 70 duro ready for the quality phase.

Best to have around 6100 or so total progress at the end of the MaMa stacks, okay to have more but not less. This allows a single CS3 to finish out the craft during the quality phase.

This rotation works with the Build Phase I posted. You need 70 duro and at least 527 CP at the beginning of the quality phase. My current stats are Cft=1494, Ctrl=1356, CP=466. I use HQ Tempura Platter and HQ Cunning Tea to bring my CP up to 533 total.

https://i.imgur.com/SC2kvt7.png

Of note, in order to get the optimizer to compute properly I added IQ into the quality phase, this should already be present during the previous build phase so ignore it, this will leave you 1 additional CZ stack that I usually just observe to get back 1 CP :).

With some decent RNG I believe I can 100% HQ these crafts with no HQ starting mats.

What I was doing was hitting a masters mend after the 3 pieces by piece. But I liked your idea of adding something else there and using manipII to get 10 more back since you almost always get all the cp back but I don't like rng in my crafts so I changed it a little and ended with this

https://imgur.com/a/3c1PS

0-100%
24 cp left over which will cover bad rng
no tea
seafood stew can even NQ it
no rng, well you can use a precise touch instead of basic touch on the first one if you get good rng
the +50 control is cause I don't have the shoes/hands yet

a more experienced crafter I'm sure can make changes to this and id like to see them

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Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino

Finisher Phase Variant A:
SH II, GS, Ingen2, Innov, Miracle (IQ down to 6), GS, Brow.

Finisher Phase Variant B:
SH, GS, Ingen2, Innov, Blessing.

In Variant A, the Miracle gave 9540. The Brow gave 5021. Total = 14561.
In Variant B, the Blessing gave 11448.
The quality difference between the two variants = 3113.

Variant A needed a total of 167 CP.
Variant B needed a total of 128 CP.
The CP difference between the two variants = 39 CP.

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Is variant A really worth it given Brow's 30% failure rate and not covered by SH2?

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Originally Posted by Lyraele

Is variant A really worth it given Brow's 30% failure rate and not covered by SH2?

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As of Patch 4.05, Brow now has 100% success rate when used by a Specialist.
For more details of other changes of skills, please visit:
Caimie's Crafting Guide (Part 4 Stormblood)
http://ffxivrealm.com/guides/ff14-advanced-crafting-guide-part-4-stormblood-by-caimie-tsukino.194/
It is not a completed guide yet, but it does hold some useful information including all the changes of old skills in Ch 53.

Oh wow. I did not know that. Off to the guide to get edumacated! Thanks!

@Camie - was reading your guide at lunch and looked at http://ffxivrealm.com/threads/storm-...tations.16483/ at the 2* rotation's in the simulator. And the picture there shows no food, but additions to Craftsmanship of 53 and CP of 58. Where are those stats coming from if not food or medicine? Or is that just something like HQ Tempura Platter in use but the simulator didn't have that as an option at the time? Thanks in advance and thanks for writing such clear guides to crafting, it's a big help to us n00bs.

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Originally Posted by Lyraele

SNIP

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Ah, right. Sorry that it was a bit confusing. I have assumed the use of HQ tempura platter there. My craftsmanship and control were 1340 and 1262 as it had stated in the original inputs on the simulator. So the tempura would have added 53 craft just as stated there as well. However, for CP, the tempura would have added only a maximum of 54 CP instead of the 58. 58 is just a number which I randomly put there (because I know we can reach it by melding or with Cunning Tea). The reason I carelessly put in the 58 there as additional CP is because the CP pool is really quite different for each of us, and my point of those simulator pictures was to show "how much CP can do which rotation, resulting how much quality gain". Assuming you have 460 CP (as stated in the original input on the simulator) as your base amount of CP, getting an additional 58 wouldn't be too hard (and this is just for the Rotation #3, which I dont even favor these days since it added so little quality comparing with Rotation #2). Anyway, since Rotation 1 and 2 there required only 492 and 504 CP respectively, you can even shoot for a lower base amount of CP and still get the job done using tempura or ANY other food you like.