Can you really guarantee an HQ synth using NQ materials

[TrystWildkey]

OP: Give an example of something, specifically, that you are trying to craft and having difficulty doing so.

Any of the one star recipes, specifically the iLevel 55 crafter gear: Weaver's Swallowtail, Carpenter's Hood, etc.

[Leknaat]

I have 328 CP and 340 craftsmanship / 315 control

For 40 dura items I tend to pop
Comfort Zone, Inner Quiet, Great Strides, Ingenuity II, Innovation, Advanced Touch, Great Strides, Advanced Touch, Steady Hand II, Ingenuity II, Great Strides, Breygot's Blessing, Careful Touch II

The 70 dura items get 2 hasty hands before the Great Strides/Breygot's and it needs 2 careful touch IIs

Sometimes I'll replace the first Ingenuity II with Steady Hand II. So far it's worked fairly well for me :/

As long as I don't get a failure I'm usually going to end up with an HQ item these are the 50* items. (and I usually only have 1 cp left over :P)

I never touch tricks of the trade unless it's during the steps of comfort zone/inner quiet or after the second advanced touch. And it's a little luck when hoping for 'Good' or 'Excellent' during the touches. I suppose my approach to crafting is a little weird since I carried over my levels from 1.0 so never saw a reason to ever use Hasty Hand.

[Estellios]

Hasty Touch is mostly useful because it costs no CP at all.

[Marael]

Just a little suggestion: If you're using inner quiet, don't start off with great strides+whatever Save that for last, so you get the inner quiet bonus on it. You can near double the quality increase you get simply by saving it for last, esp if you get lucky with a quality+ turn on it.

I can HQ with NQ ingredients, but maybe only 50% of the time. Of course I don't have a lot of cross class abilities as of yet, so it may be different for those who do.

[madolyn]

having all crafts to 50, there is literally no need for me to us HQ materials.
With all NQ materials, I can guarantee 100% HQ pretty much every time on all recipes.

[TrystWildkey]

having all crafts to 50, there is literally no need for me to us HQ materials.
With all NQ materials, I can guarantee 100% HQ pretty much every time on all recipes.

Cool story bro! That means you're one of the people I'm asking: "How do you do it?"

[madolyn]

Cool story bro! That means you're one of the people I'm asking: "How do you do it?"

its already been said a few times.

[monterrey4ever]

Start phase:
Comfort Zone > Inner Quiet (use tricks between these)
Quality phase:
Steady Hand II > Waste Not > Basic touch x4 > Steady hand II > Waste not > Hasty hand x4
During this phase you should aim to have around 120 CP and 40-50 Durability left, so you may need to use tricks of the trade once-twice ( I start with 333 cp so only need it once)
Finishing phase:
Depeding on recipe level and your stats you will need 1-3 steps to finish the synth but play with the remaining dura to increase quality one more time and do Byregot's blessing before finishing.
I usually just do Steady hand II > hasty/basic if enough dura/cp > Greater Tides > now we have 3 chances to fire byregots with double potency so I just do a combination of
Ingenuity II, Careful Synth 2, Observe and fire Byregoths whenever its most convenient. You will want to make sure you land your Careful Synth II while Ingenuity is up btw =P

I HQ anything up to iLvl 55 100% using NQ mats, I cant provide statistics for iLvl 70 items since I usually just use HQ cheap mats and NQ expensive mat so I usually start at 800~ quality with that and its a guaranteed HQ

Now I have all HQ iLvl 55 crafting gear including accesories, I have caped stats on accesories via melds, and have a combination of melds on the offhand and body to reach 348 craftmanship and 320+ control without food.

Now go spread the message, flood the market and dont forget to undercut everyone by more then 10% the going price =P ggwp

[TrystWildkey]

What I've seen so far, is that everyone has different methods they use, and the real determination in hq is the gear and materia you're wearing. Is this a fair conclusion?

[Nix]

What I've seen so far, is that everyone has different methods they use, and the real determination in hq is the gear and materia you're wearing. Is this a fair conclusion?

Yes, it's very helpful to have decent gear with a few melds, it doesn't need to be all capped but every little helps. If you feel yourself falling short there is food too^^

The biggest thing for me over gear is having a decent skillset to pull from ^^;

As an aside; if you're wanting to HQ iLV70 things, I always make sure as many of the mats are HQ. Things can go wrong and sometimes hasty touch doesn't want to proc as much as you'd like, even with Steady Hand II. I am not gutsy enough to attempt a reclaim (CUL50; 90% chance to reclaim your materials after a botched synth) because as we all know, SE's idea of 90% can oftentimes feel a lot less

It's best to give yourself as much of a boost as possible on these and not leave it to chance. iLV55 gear however is very easy to HQ with NQ mats.