4 Star Master Books - Completely frustrating and unfun.

[Sibyll]

That does not seem to be the same as what the above poster is doing.

No he's pretty much nailed it. I'll draw out a synth if it has at least 8 IQ and just cycle as long as I can afford to have GS and enough for BB. If I am willing to take a 90% on a Reclaim then I'm willing to take a 90% on 8 stacks + Excellent + GS + unprotected BB. 8 stacks on Rumination is enough to give you 55 for Reclaim at the end combined with the 24 I'd be saving for BB. It's basically a contingency plan.

If you have enough CP left to fish for 10 steps, then you are doing something wrong.

Sometimes you know early enough in the synth you won't be getting 11 stacks, however getting 8 stacks is achievable with some subpar luck. In this case, no you won't get 10 steps, you might get 1 or 2 GS before having to Rumination and Reclaim. An Excellent on 8 stacks and a GS is better than a Good on 11 stacks and a GS, as far as I know, and if you know you won't get 11 stacks with your current run then burning CP to get just 9 or 10 is a waste.

If you intentionally plan a synth around getting only 8 stacks and fishing for an Excellent then it's very possible to get 10 or more steps at the end to fish with a Comfort Zone up and a little luck from TotT procs.

My point here is that "11 stacks or Reclaim" is a bit of a hasty plan. If you have at least 8 stacks it's still salvageable and if you have Rumination there is almost no consequence for doing so.

I could very well be missing some crucial step that ensures 11 stacks every single time, but I've found that if you get some rough luck on your Hasty Touches, Rapid Synths, or Good procs for TotT then getting 11 is just sometimes not possible.

[xPeAcEx]

SNiP

This is just a massive NO and terrible advice. It is better to lose 1 synth than to finish 10 normal quality. Rumination shouldn't even be on your list of skills to use.

<11 stacks = reclaim
11 stacks = GS + INNO(fish for better condition) + CS II (fish for better condition)

Finish the synth.

Doing this, you will get 3-4 normal quality and 3 high quality. With maybe one or two reclaims failed, this is a lot better than 10+ normal quality and 3 high quality.

[Sibyll]

This is just a massive NO and terrible advice. It is better to lose 1 synth than to finish 10 normal quality. Rumination shouldn't even be on your list of skills to use.

<11 stacks = reclaim
11 stacks = GS + INNO(fish for better condition) + CS II (fish for better condition)

Finish the synth.

Doing this, you will get 3-4 normal quality and 3 high quality. With maybe one or two reclaims failed, this is a lot better than 10+ normal quality and 3 high quality.

I'm a bit confused. How would anything I listed result in an NQ? Rumination guarantees Reclaim. Excellent + 8 Stacks + GS is like 95% HQ, if not 100%. You are basically Reclaiming for anything other than Excellent on 8 with a Great Strides, which is made possible by using Rumination.

[RiceisNice]

...

For WVR, and especially LTW and BSM, you'd be hard pressed to try to fit rumination along with everything else you'd need, considering that they only have 1-2 inherent skills to free up their available cross skills. (BB, HT, SHII, Reclaim, INNO, CSII, TotT, CZ, RS, PbP is 10 skills I consider absolutely necessary, and BSM/LTW inherently do not have those skills and cannot pick up manipulation or rumination). Though I guess you could drop SHII for it, but that 70% touch tho.

Though I do agree that the crafts should be seen til the very end for the off chance of getting an excellent (which has gotten me 100% with 7 stacks at the lowest, granted I might have gotten another excellent on a touch). Otherwise, I'd just reserve 55 cp to be able to reclaim (after using GS, inno and SH). In the scenario of having 7-8 stacks, reserving 55 CP won't even give you enough leeway to do more than a single basic touch, bumping your total stacks to 8-9 (which isn't enough, getting as high as 85% with a good condition).

[Sibyll]

Though I do agree that the crafts should be seen til the very end for the off chance of getting an excellent (which has gotten me 100% with 7 stacks at the lowest, granted I might have gotten another excellent on a touch). Otherwise, I'd just reserve 55 cp to be able to reclaim (after using GS, inno and SH). In the scenario of having 7-8 stacks, reserving 55 CP won't even give you enough leeway to do more than a single basic touch, bumping your total stacks to 8-9 (which isn't enough, getting as high as 85% with a good condition).

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just did one at Good + 11 stacks + Great Strides and it put me at 58% (it HQ'd). I think 70% is the highest I've seen a Good condition give me. The BB gave me 3200 Quality. I didn't get any touches beyond that to give me 11 stacks.

I could see that number being doable if you are hitting 14 touches, but I've rarely had such luck.

[RiceisNice]

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just did one at Good + 11 stacks + Great Strides and it put me at 58% (it HQ'd). I think 70% is the highest I've seen a Good condition give me. The BB gave me 3200 Quality. I didn't get any touches beyond that to give me 11 stacks.

I could see that number being doable if you are hitting 14 touches, but I've rarely had such luck.

Not sure where I got 85% from, I meant around 65%, 50~% if its not lined up with innovation as well. Also worth to note that I did have two excellents or so with that craft prior to the BB finisher. I always try to line up an innovation with a good (unless like your scenario, I had about 14+ successful touches), otherwise the HQ rate wouldn't be high enough that I'd weigh it against a reclaim.

[Sibyll]

Not sure where I got 85% from, I meant around 65%, 50~% if its not lined up with innovation as well. Also worth to note that I did have two excellents or so with that craft prior to the BB finisher. I always try to line up an innovation with a good (unless like your scenario, I had about 14+ successful touches), otherwise the HQ rate wouldn't be high enough that I'd weigh it against a reclaim.

Ok I just wanted to make sure I wasn't horribly missing something.

I've only got 6 out of 8 books at this point. I'm sure many would disagree, but I'd almost say I lean more toward the idea of aiming to get 8-9 stacks of IQ and saving CP to rotate skills for an Excellent proc on Great Strides (which is 100% HQ) over the general approach of 11 stacks and a Good proc (60-70%).

I'd say it's at least arguable whether getting 11+ Touches requires more favorable RNG than getting 8-9 and fishing for an Excellent. Maybe I just get really garbage luck on my touches.