A word to lvl 60 crafters who don't quite understand crafting yet

[MN_14]

Perhaps you may want to slowly learn what each button does first, formulate some combos, and eventually develop your own rotation. Also, please learn how to utilize the Good and Excellent conditions. Learn how to bait them as well. These are all the things that are actually FUN at end-game crafting. What's the point of being a Summoner, if you can just press a single button and get the job done? Similarly, the fun of crafting doesn't come from copying macros. It comes from understanding everything

Yep, crafting is most fun when you understand all of the underlying mechanics and can develop effective strategies. It isn't simply about learning your abilities either. The idea is to design your synthesis on the fly, not to follow pre-designed rotations, which are inherently limited.

Macros obviously won't teach you anything but mechanically following a rotation and using a strategy as rudimentary as swapping HTs for BT or PT won't get you far either as far as crafting mastery is concerned. Rotations with BT swaps were popular in 2.2 but they were extremely ineffective when the newer ARR endgame crafts were introduced in 2.3-2.5. It’s where the majority of crafters failed in ARR endgame crafts (like the master 2 tokens or even 4* crafts or artisan’s offhands). This strategy is similar to mastering battle rotations on a striking dummy and refusing to learn specific raid/trial mechanics. You’re ignoring RNG mechanics and calculations. It only works now in HW because the crafting balance has been designed to be very casual friendly in terms of difficulty.

In a RNG based system, you analyze probabilities when coming up with your design (before and during the craft as you're designing as you go) and some of the common techniques I’ve heard quoted don’t really make sense. When working on your design, here are a few questions you should be asking.

During the Maker’s Mark phase, one common practice is to avoid the use of tricks of the trade if SH is up (for pbp). Does this make sense statistically? Is it worth sacrificing 20 CP just so that your 90% success rate of landing FS is increased to 100? Even if you have one extra FS miss, is it detrimental?

Is there an overuse of CS2 for most posted rotations? RNG free/minimal RNG progress comes at a price....

Is swapping HT for PT efficient (I think so if you have the CP to spare)? Is swapping HT for BT efficient (using a swapping strategy, the majority of your swaps will be HT for BT)?

These are only a few considerations out of a number of them. HW crafts are more interesting than ARR but only if you look into mastering RNG mechanics. Difficulty is easy though as you’ll breeze through even 4* final products from all NQ materials.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

During the Maker’s Mark phase, one common practice is to avoid the use of tricks of the trade if SH is up (for pbp). Does this make sense statistically? Is it worth sacrificing 20 CP just so that your 90% success rate of landing FS is increased to 100? Even if you have one extra FS miss, is it detrimental?

I am glad you brought this up. I ALWAYS take at least 1 Trick of Trade during that first SH if available

The biggest reason for that SH to be up isn't for the Flawless Syn anyway. It is for the PBP. This is because PBP cost 15 CP and 10 durab each, so failing 1 can be quite painful, and failing twice is detrimental. The SH ensures that this does not happen. As for FS, you got like 10 naked FS after the SH anyway, and it's expected to fail a few.

To me, the biggest concern is balancing 3 things: (1) amount of ToT taken, (2) using MaMa steps for CP consuming steps so that you have more room to take ToT, and (3) still having enough FS to get sufficient progress done. Basically, before you take a ToT during MaMa, you ask yourself, do you have room for CP (especially if you already activated CZ, would the last few steps of CZ be wasted?)? If there is room, take the ToT. After taking the ToT, can you create another room for another ToT by sacrificing a MaMa step for a CP-consuming step (usually Inner Quiet) as well as another MaMa step for an anticipated ToT in the near future? I think this sort of complex management is quite fun

[MN_14]

To me, the biggest concern is balancing 3 things: (1) amount of ToT taken, (2) using MaMa steps for CP consuming steps so that you have more room to take ToT, and (3) still having enough FS to get sufficient progress done. Basically, before you take a ToT during MaMa, you ask yourself, do you have room for CP (especially if you already activated CZ, would the last few steps of CZ be wasted?)? If there is room, take the ToT. After taking the ToT, can you create another room for another ToT by sacrificing a MaMa step for a CP-consuming step (usually Inner Quiet) as well as another MaMa step for an anticipated ToT in the near future? I think this sort of complex management is quite fun

That's right. If you've maxed the amount of CP that you can get and missed enough FS that you'll need an extra progress step anyways, spend down CP to make room for additional tricks of the trade use.

[Gemina]

I am glad you brought this up. I ALWAYS take at least 1 Trick of Trade during that first SH if available

I do mostly freehand crafting, and this is one of the most situational circumstances I come across. For me, the stacks of inner quite is the determining factor. Modifiers to quality progression can make or break a synthesis, even in the early stages, so it has to be carefully evaluated because every failure hurts just as much as progression helps. Ability to recover from failure, value of mats vs risk, level of recipe, gear, food, etc. So much goes into the decision making of how to proceed.

In the simplest of methods, I almost always use ToT if IQ stacks are at 1 or less. At 2 stacks, I will think about it because risk vs reward immediately comes into play at this point. The higher the IQ stacks get, the less I use hasty touch as it eventually gets to a point where 80% is not worth the risk. This stack number though, is up to the crafter.

From my own experience, I have had more success taking ToT the majority of the time. The IQ stacks have to be 3+, and I have to have plenty of CP to warrant a CP touch. CP is also what allows you to recover from a mistake/failure. I dunno, it really just comes down to risk vs reward. And how big your balls are.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

I do mostly freehand crafting, and this is one of the most situational circumstances I come across. For me, the stacks of inner quite is the determining factor. Modifiers to quality progression can make or break a synthesis, even in the early stages, so it has to be carefully evaluated because every failure hurts just as much as progression helps. Ability to recover from failure, value of mats vs risk, level of recipe, gear, food, etc. So much goes into the decision making of how to proceed.

In the simplest of methods, I almost always use ToT if IQ stacks are at 1 or less. At 2 stacks, I will think about it because risk vs reward immediately comes into play at this point. The higher the IQ stacks get, the less I use hasty touch as it eventually gets to a point where 80% is not worth the risk. This stack number though, is up to the crafter.

From my own experience, I have had more success taking ToT the majority of the time. The IQ stacks have to be 3+, and I have to have plenty of CP to warrant a CP touch. CP is also what allows you to recover from a mistake/failure. I dunno, it really just comes down to risk vs reward. And how big your balls are.

Yea, I agree with your analysis. Usually, the first Good is better to be taken as ToT for CP. Precise Touch seems to work better after IQ becomes a bit higher. But of course, everything is situational at the end.

I agree with your switching of Hasty to Basic Touches near the end too. For instance, if you are at IQ7, and you have a choice of doing 4x Hasty vs 2x Basic. If you know IQ9 gives >90% HQ rate, then there's no point to push the 4x Hasty. Might as well go for the 2x Basic instead.

[Dzian]

I am glad you brought this up. I ALWAYS take at least 1 Trick of Trade during that first SH if available

The biggest reason for that SH to be up isn't for the Flawless Syn anyway. It is for the PBP. This is because PBP cost 15 CP and 10 durab each, so failing 1 can be quite painful, and failing twice is detrimental. The SH ensures that this does not happen. As for FS, you got like 10 naked FS after the SH anyway, and it's expected to fail a few.

To me, the biggest concern is balancing 3 things: (1) amount of ToT taken, (2) using MaMa steps for CP consuming steps so that you have more room to take ToT, and (3) still having enough FS to get sufficient progress done. Basically, before you take a ToT during MaMa, you ask yourself, do you have room for CP (especially if you already activated CZ, would the last few steps of CZ be wasted?)? If there is room, take the ToT. After taking the ToT, can you create another room for another ToT by sacrificing a MaMa step for a CP-consuming step (usually Inner Quiet) as well as another MaMa step for an anticipated ToT in the near future? I think this sort of complex management is quite fun

All those acronyms. took me a while to work it out.
Generally speaking I have a crafting system that i came up with quite a while ago. more recently it was pointed out that it's loosly similar in principals at least to what is known as raths rotation. but i have a few differences,

Generally speaking I will use as many tricks of the trades as I get procs. the exception to the rule being if my CP is at maximum or will be at maximum once comfort zone wears off.

The result of this is that there are times where flawless synthesis won't grant me a huge amount of progress and thus I might find I need 4 maybe even 5 carefulls to finish a synth.. (Instead of raths 3.)
Using loose maths its roughly 3 tricks while makers mark is up means I need one more careful to finish which means I can use one less hasty.

The trade off however, is that those 3 tricks mean I can then switch out 3 hasty touches for precise touches or even basic touches if needs be. both of which have a 100% success under steady hand 2

So typically speaking instead of using 4 hasty touches at 80% success I will at some point use 3 precise touches if I get 3 procs (or basics if I'm nearing the end and haven't had precise procs) and replace one hasty with the extra careful synthesis I need to finish..

Best case scenario here is I get 6 stacks of inner quiet instead of the potential 4 from hasty touch (assuming all 4 would have succeeded)
Worst case scenario is I'm guaranteed to get 3 stacks of inner quiet where I might possibly have gotten 4 (again assuming all the hasty would have succeeded)
If I get just one precise and use 2 basics then I break even at 4 stacks of inner quiet. (still assuming all 4 hastys would have succeeded)

I also find that if i get 3 tricks procs I can then swap one steady hand 2 for a steady hand 1, and get a 90% success at upto 4 precise touches (or basics if no precise procs)..

On the slightly lower teir crafts. things like iron works for example I can swap out my clam chowder for sea food stew, and end up being able to use precise / basic touch upto 6 times if I use 3 procs on tricks of the trade.. that's essentially 6 guaranteed basic touches at 100% instead of 7 hasty touches at 80% (and if rngesus granted me procs those 6 basics could all be precise yieleding a maximum 12 stacks of inner quiet.. never happened yet but it's possible and I can dream)

It's generally never a bad idea to use tricks of the trade during flawless. unless you've had extremely bad luck and had a chunk of flawless fails.
On that stuff where makers gives you over 20 stacks I've hit tricks up to to 6 times a few times. just means i need 2 extra carefulls to finish.