Ixali Story Quests: WTH?

[Caoihmin]

I have started to lvl my Culinarian to 37. It is now at lvl 25. All my culinary crafting gear is at or a little below lvl. 25 and I have all the CS's from other crafting classes (up to lvl 20 each).

PLEASE tell me that the Ixali story quests (the ones that you do after reaching max reputation level or every 5 crafting levels maybe) are not directly tied into your current crafting level. I am doing the "lvl. 15" quest with a lvl 25 Culinarian and there is NO way I'm gonna be able to make these 4 HQ Helm Components.

Either I am doing something wrong or these quests are severely unbalanced. Hell, in the description it only says "Recommend level 15 crafting class..". Huh? There is NO way a lvl 15 could accomplish these HQ tasks!

P.S. Do the reputation points that you receive for completing the daily quests carry over if you have reached maximum for your level and still have not completed the story quest? Or are those lost?

[MeyrinPhantomhive]

The story quests are not tied to your current level, so the higher you are, the better. You are slightly throttled during the course of the craft, because of your forced usage of their gloves, and you may end up with a reduced CP, but thats about it.

I too have noticed that with the recommended level. No way can a L15 pull off the quest items, not without a LOT of luck. I am L36 Alc, and only now comfortably getting HQs for the quests that have a L16 and L17 requirement.

Rep points do NOT carry over to the next rank. If you hand in a quest when your rank is maxed, you will get a message "your reputation is at its maximum". The next storyline quest is made available as soon as you hit the max on your current reputation.

[chidarake]

sorry to say I was already a 3* crafter when these came around and although the majority was really easy to accomplish there was afew later on that takes a fair bit of knowledge in crafting to accomplish with minimal effort due to the reduced stats and conditions applied.

I think the overall design of the ixal quests was good because they force you to think about your crafts when they start needing hq turn ins.

having the best gear for your current level will make these crafts a fair bit easier, even throwing n a few low level melds for extra cp or control will help I guess even craft if it will reduce a step from the process. wouldn't spend too much on this though since you'll level out of range pretty quickly.

[Crystallin]

tbh, my highest crafter when I started this was 45. and I've been able to hq all the stuff easily.

my 'rotation' is as follows: Inner Quiet, Steady Hand, Great Strides, Standard touch, (repeat those last two if not 100%) then standard synth (15 cp for 150%) 1 or 2 times to finish.

This has worked for me every time. Now that I have two 50's (weaver, ltw) I substitute Careful Synth 2 for standard snyth.

[Shinzoku]

I was also near 3* when I started these and never had a problems with any of the quests, however, I remember a friend telling me he was having trouble making the quest items HQ. I'll tell you what I told him: these are free to make (minus the shard cost of course) so try to run the % as high as you can. If you can get it to 50% or a bit higher, take the gamble and just finish the craft. Of course this is RNG dependant, but eventually you will get the item. If you don't want to do this, only other option is to level and get better gear. Also if you don't have your other crafts to 15, level them, the cross-class skill will help you.

[Kael_Raiju]

I agree, 3* is needed to breeze through. It can be done with lower skill but you'll be repeating a lot of quests due to failures.

[Caoihmin]

tbh, my highest crafter when I started this was 45. and I've been able to hq all the stuff easily.

my 'rotation' is as follows: Inner Quiet, Steady Hand, Great Strides, Standard touch, (repeat those last two if not 100%) then standard synth (15 cp for 150%) 1 or 2 times to finish.

This has worked for me every time. Now that I have two 50's (weaver, ltw) I substitute Careful Synth 2 for standard snyth.

Maybe I'm a tad over my lvl 25 CUL ability to do the lvl 15 Helm Components. My Quality only goes up 2% using this rotation.

[Nyalia]

What are your stats? If you let me know, I can see what I can do for a rotation. It should be possible since you have all the other classes at 15, which really does help. All of the level 15 skills can be really useful in the right circumstance, especially Hasty Touch (CUL 15) and Tricks of the Trade (ALC 15).

Just let me know an item you're having trouble with, your Craftsmanship, Control, and CP with the gloves equipped but without any food, and I'll see what I can do using a simulator to craft a rotation. Chances are, to get a good chance, you'll have to buy food, but likely just food that costs 10 gil from an NPC (frumenty (+10 CP) is a popular choice).

[Caoihmin]

Sounds great! I'm not on the game right now but I'll get those stats to you tonight. I really appreciate it!

[Nyalia]

So, just because I felt like it, I mathed out what your stats should be at level 26 with all HQ gear:
- Craftsmanship: 163
- Control: 153
- CP: 265 (or 262 without the level 26 wrist)

A few notes about this - you said you have the best items and are level 25. According to the crafting simulator I'm using (since I can't test this out myself since I'm not level 25/26), the extra progress you gain from being level 26 over level 25 (the higher level you are over a recipe, the more progress bonus you get) pushes your Basic Synthesis from 49 Progress to 50 Progress. The synth you mentioned (Helm Component) requires 99 progress. This means that at level 25, you need three progress actions to finish, but at level 26, you only need two. That's a big difference.

There are only two new items available at level 26, a chestpiece and a wristlet. If you've been using the level 25 GC chest, the level 26 crafted chest has the same stats. The new wristlet would get you +3 CP, but that should really change anything with the rotation I came up with. So, you don't even need new gear, just to hit level 26 (if this crafting simulator is correct).

Of course, until you hit level 26, you could just eat any food with +Craftsmanship on it, any at all. Just 2 points is all you need (165 total), according to the simulator. NQ Mint Lassis (+8 Craftsmanship) are 11 gil from city vendors.

Here is the best crafting gear at level 25/26:

• Head: HQ Silver Maginfiers
• Body: level 25 GC chest (or HQ Velveteen Coatee of Crafting)
• Arms: Ehcatl Wristgloves
• Legs: HQ Velveteen Chausses
• Feet: HQ Elm Pattens
• Belt: HQ Goatskin Tool Belt
• Neck: HQ Brass Choker
• Ears: HQ Horn Earrings
• Wrist: HQ Brass Wristlets of Crafting (or level 26 HQ Silver Wristlets of Crafting, either work fine)
• Ring: HQ Brass Ring of Crafting
• Ring: HQ Brass Ring of Crafting

Here is the best rotation I came up with for Helm Components with that gear and all level 15 cross-class skills (with no level 37/50 skills). Note: this rotation is really absurd and fairly non-sequitor, but it's the best I could come up with:

1. Inner Quiet *%
2. Steady Hand *
3. Hasty Touch *
4. Hasty Touch *
5. Hasty Touch *
6. Hasty Touch *
7. Hasty Touch *#
8. Manipulation *
9. Steady Hand *
10. Hasty Touch #
11. Great Strides *
12. Hasty Touch *
13. Hasty Touch *
14. Hasty Touch *
15. Great Strides *
16. Steady Hand
17. Standard Touch
18. Rumination
19. Waste Not
20. Basic Synthesis
21. Basic Synthesis

• * = If the condition after the indicated move is Good, use Tricks of the Trade, max of once only.
• # = Only do one of these two moves. If the first Good condition comes while the first Steady Hand is active, do only the second # move and ignore the first. If the Good condition comes before or after the first Steady Hand buff, do only the first # move. In other words, don't use HT while SH is down.
• % = If you ToT here, you waste 2 CP, but that's fine because +18 CP is plenty.

Rumination will restore a variable amount of CP based on the number of Hasty Touch successes. If four succeed, you will get 45 CP back. If all eight succeed, you will get 59 CP back. The thing is, only 42 is required for this rotation, so you can fail half of the Hasty Touches and still finish it (you can fail 5 of the 8 and still finish with the level 26 Silver Wristlets).

It might seem like a waste to use Waste Not where I do, but you have to consider Rumination. You only have two non-Touch actions in the craft. If you Ruminate before you finish with Touch actions, you lose a large amount of Quality (after just 4 successful touches, the buff from IQ is +50%). Moving three of the touches to the end so you can get the full benefit of the Waste Not that you funded with Ruminate is essentially throwing away one touch action's worth of Quality, not to mention the hit to your Great Strides-powered Touches. Thus, though you gain 1 more action by Ruminating early, you waste way more than 1 action's worth of quality by doing so.

So, look at it this way: Ruminate restores 45+ CP. Waste Not costs 56 CP. Therefore, (Ruminate + Waste Not) taken as a single action costs 11 CP and grants 1 extra move. 11 CP for +1 actions is insanely cheap! Waste Not is normally 28 CP per extra action, Manipulation is 29.33 CP per action, Master's Mend is 30.67 CP per action, and Master's Mend II is 26.67 CP per action. So, spending 11 CP for 1 extra action isn't just good, it's amazing!


Results:

• 0 HT fails: 100%
• 1 HT fail: 96%
• 2 HT fails: 78%
• 3 HT fails: 30% (worse if all three were the ones after the first Great Strides)
• 4 HT fails: 19% (worse if three were the ones after the first Great Strides)
• 5 HT fails: 14% (worse if three were the ones after the first Great Strides)

With 8 70% actions, on average, you will fail 2.4 of them. This will put your success rate somewhere between 78% and 30%. This means that you should only need ~8 attempts to get 4 HQ items.

Here's a link to the rotation in a simulator. The quality shown assumes all Hasty Touches succeed, and obviously the Tricks of the Trade can happen anywhere indicated above.


Please let me know how this goes, or if your stats are very different from what I listed here.


Also, if you're using NQ gear or don't want to wait until level 26, let me know and I'll see what I can do. Oh, and here's the rotation at level 25 (or with Crafts under 163):

1. Inner Quiet *%
2. Steady Hand *
3. Hasty Touch *
4. Hasty Touch *
5. Hasty Touch *
6. Hasty Touch *
7. Manipulation *
8. Steady Hand *
9. Great Strides *
10. Hasty Touch *
11. Hasty Touch *
12. Hasty Touch *
13. Great Strides *
14. Steady Hand *
15. Standard Touch
16. Rumination
17. Waste Not
18. Hasty Touch
19. Careful Synthesis
20. Careful Synthesis
21. Careful Synthesis

This rotation gives worse results and can handle fewer failures:

• 0 HT fails: 100%
• 1 HT fail: 86%
• 2 HT fails: 64%
• 3 HT fails: 24% (worse if all three were the ones after the first Great Strides)

Simulator link