Help with Quest "Standing at the Helm"

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Unless you have the CP to spare for multiple Great Strides, you ALWAYS want it on the BEST Touch you can make. This means the last one, the one with the highest IQ stack - Byregot's if at all possible.

If, for a given recipe and stats, you get 100, 110, 121, 131, 142 for the first 5 Touches, why would you want to GS the 100 (bringing it to 200) when you could GS the fifth (bringing it to 284)?

[Niwashi]

If, for a given recipe and stats, you get 100, 110, 121, 131, 142 for the first 5 Touches, why would you want to GS the 100 (bringing it to 200) when you could GS the fifth (bringing it to 284)?

Because it can usually get you a condition based crit on it (not guaranteed, but it triples your chances), bringing the 100 to a 300 or sometimes 800.

If you have enough extra CP to add in a couple Observe steps as well, then you can get the same crit chances at the end when you a better IQ stack. (But by the time you have that, it's almost enough for a second Great Strides anyway.) When I first worked this out, I didn't have the enough CP for the extra Observe steps yet, but the Waste Not and Steady Hand that I wanted in play anyway could serve as Observes at the same time without spending any extra CP.