Can you really guarantee an HQ synth using NQ materials

[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.

[SchalaZeal]

When you reach about 18% HQ chance use Great Strides (lv21, all classes) and then Byregot's Blessing. (If you have enough CP, use innovation again before these 2 moves).

Use Ingenuity before Byregot. It will make it give much more quality (about 1.5x on 1-star), so you need less hasty touch stacks.

[Balaur]

I make tons of level 47-49 accessories as GSm for spiritbinding in dungeons. I use all NQ materials, gem cutting and electrum ore, to make HQ parts, then use those to make HQ accessories. So, yeah, you start with NQ, make HQ. Consistently. If I get NQ gems or ingots, I simply use them as one of the ingredients that asks for two of them: Earrings need two gems, chokers need two ingots, etc. Make one HQ, make one NQ and I still get near perfect synths each time.

[Nix]

Use Ingenuity before Byregot. It will make it give much more quality (about 1.5x on 1-star), so you need less hasty touch stacks.

Thanks for the tip! I learn something new every day

[TrystWildkey]

Ok, I think I'm starting to see another thing, some of the guides I've looked at tell you to use Hasty Touch all the way for quality. But, one common thing in these posts is Byregot's Blessing, which takes all the control bonuses you've stacked up and puts them to good use.

I'll have to go through my actions and add Byregot's Blessing and move a few things around tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone who has posted!

To anyone who hasn't posted, please share!

[SchalaZeal]

Thanks for the tip! I learn something new every day

It's mainly because of quality gains on recipes above your lv.

You have a penalty for trying to craft above your lv, on both progress and quality. But once you hit that lv, you get a bonus of something like 1/lv advantage in progress...and nothing for quality. It just stays the same.

1-star recipes count as lv 55. 2-star count as lv 70 recipes. Ingenuity 1 drops it to 50 for its duration. Giving you the same gains as if it was lv 50 recipe...meaning much bigger ones.

I had 290 control when I made some weaver AF gear. I use basic touch (so 100% efficiency) and only get something like 109 quality. A normal first basic touch would easily give me 135 or 137. So it might be 1.25x for quality.

Ok, I think I'm starting to see another thing, some of the guides I've looked at tell you to use Hasty Touch all the way for quality. But, one common thing in these posts is Byregot's Blessing, which takes all the control bonuses you've stacked up and puts them to good use.

I really want to find a good way to get enough to use Basic Touch instead of Hasty Touch, just to eliminate the RNG from the calculations. When I craft normally, I can (currently) reach 2000 quality before I run out of CP (and that's before I run out of durability, I usually have 2~5 turns left to synth), when using NQ mats. But this is with 303/312 crafts/control and 313 CP, using no food, on lv 50 and less recipes (not starred).

I just need to push this up to 2700, without relying on Good/Excellent touches. And allow for Ingenuity in CP cost.

[Pentt]

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?

Absolutely not, I HQ'd my own Weaver set using the method I posted on the first page. I was wearing nothing but 46~47 crafting gear at the time.

[Medura]

Full gear should give you: on star materials; 67% hq rate with good rotation. On finished items: 98% hq rate, only lower if you fail 50% of your touches.

[Zaels]

I'll never get how people can advertise that they guarantee HQ 2-star synths considering there's a possibility you can get unlucky and fail every Hasty Touch and not get any "Good" conditions.

[AndrewN]

As others have said it is possible to HQ synths from non HQ mats. I can reliably (unless I am really unlucky, you don't need too many Hasty Touch failures and a few 'good''s for Tricks of the Trade) do 1 star recipes. The key is Hasty Touch when Steady Hand II is running, Tricks of the Trade to recover CP and a final buffed Byregot's Blessing (easily get 1600+ quality here).

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?

I have HQ gear for all my crafting and gathering classes (very little is materiaed) only because I made it all myself. The good gear only makes things a little easier, but I can do it in my old 48ish gear as well. The thing that is vital is a deep CP pool, 280 is about the minimum and at that point you need a bit more luck, 300+ is better.