Quote Originally Posted by Caimie_Tsukino View Post
What's your general approach before your first pliant pops? It's very easy to start working on progress or building IQ stacks, but very soon durab will reach 25 or lower. What's your way to delay it until the pliant? And what do you do if the pliant eventually don't come? I have tried numerous things. Everything works since there's plenty of CP there, but none works great, as all depletes CP fast!
I try to minimize my use of cp in the beginning in order to prepare to pay the full cost of the durability restore if necessary. A good percentage of my crafts involves restoring durability at full cost at least once in the craft. Hopefully, by that point, I've also made some significant gains toward building IQ stacks and/or progress through conditions.

It's always a juggle between using observe and HT to keep both CP and durability as high as possible to delay reaching the point where I would be forced into paying the full cost of a durability restore. However, paying the full cost isn't always terrible as I at least know what the cost is and can plan based on that. There are also other ways of managing cp and durability loss. I'm a fan of discounted prudent touches as they're both cp and durability friendly.

What I'm doing is basically RNG management. By alternating between observe and HT, I bait for a ton of conditions while trying to slow down durability and cp loss. I also selective pick places where the HTs will either hurt the least or have a higher chance of success. Unless you are close to finishing your craft, HTs hurt regardless of whether they land or miss.

Since the number of HTs that I use numbers in the dozens per synth, it smooths out HT RNG as well (increases sample size; I largely don't bat an eye when HTs miss under a normal or sturdy condition as I expect a huge % of them to miss) allowing me to handle the full spectrum of below average, average, and above average luck. You have to be able to handle all types and not just average or above average. Crafting has always been balanced for you to be able to handle all except for the absolute 1-5% worst outcomes.

Yes, even in ARR.

You do have to keep in mind that the double Byregot's method is what I would call a safe method. It allows me to lock in 40-60% of the required quality first and then plan for the 2nd round. With high control though, there are a lot of ways of cheesing these. You will see synths where you only need to use Byregot's once or none at all. If I meet the requirements to do those RNG free, I don't aim for two Byregot's.