Can you really guarantee an HQ using NQ items?

[TrystWildkey]

Ok, I've got all my crafts except cooking to 50. I recently leveled cooking to 37 for Hasty Touch and Steady Hand 2. Theoretically, I have all of the abilities recommended for crafting HQ finished products using NQ materials.

There are numerous references to always being able to HQ a recipe using NQ materials.

I've been practicing. I call Shenanigans.

Is it really possible to HQ anything or are these people claiming to do so exaggerating?

Or, do I need to have all +2 gear with forbidden melds in order to do so?

I pop Inner Quiet at the beginning of every synth. I use Careful Synthesis II to get progress up far enough that just one more will finish it.

I use Tricks of the Trade when up to restore CP.

Now I start the phase where I try to increase Quality.

Sometimes I use Great Strides and Steady Hand II. Sometimes I don't. But, at this point I begin using Hasty Touch, and Tricks of the Trade when up.

When I get to 20 durability, I use Masters Mend II to take me back to 80.

Then I go back to Hasty Touch and Tricks of the Trade.

Here is where it starts to vary depending on my available CP.

I can either use a Master's Mend, Manipulation, or Waste Not to give me either more durability or less durability loss.

When I can no longer restore or reduce the cost of durability, and when I'm down to 10 durability and nothing else I can do, I finish the synth with Careful Synthesis II.

Sometimes I HQ, sometimes I don't.

Am I doing it wrong, or do I really need the tricked out gear to do this successfully?

Anyone willing to help me? Or is everyone keeping their secrets secret so they can corner the market? I really only craft stuff for myself, my husband and a couple of my friends.

[AlahnSiegrain]

I usually go for ADV touch+ Inovation + Strides for the final quality addition. If you have stacked enough Inner quiet, it should max it, specially if Good pops. Then proceed with rumination > ing 2 > steady and basic/standard synths (you should have carefull 2 tho I guess). The rest are the same I think.

[Kenji1134]

I believe the biggest thing is Byregot's Blessing. It provides a quickly increasing return on IQ stacks, and although it is not labeled as a "touch", it is affected by Great Strides.

The general idea is that you use Steady Hand 2 and either Hasty Hand or Basic Touch, to build up around 6 to 8 IQ stacks... somewhere around there. Then use Steady Hand (1), Great Strides, Innovation, and Byregot's, to get a massive quality boost... Especially if you have Innovation, with a good 6-8 IQ stacks, it really is massive... And then you finish.

[Raldo]

What gear are you wearing? Unmelded HQ AF should be sufficient, though obviously melds help.

Also, what are you trying to make

Edit: I HQ 1-star stuff with NQ ingredients just fine with my GSM who wears top-tier accessories/belt, but crappy mis-40s Grand Company DoH gear otherwise. The problem must lie in your use of crafting abilities.

[TrystWildkey]

What gear are you wearing? Unmelded HQ AF should be sufficient, though obviously melds help.

Also, what are you trying to make

Edit: I HQ 1-star stuff with NQ ingredients just fine with my GSM who wears top-tier accessories/belt, but crappy mis-40s Grand Company DoH gear otherwise. The problem must lie in your use of crafting abilities.

I'm wearing NQ crafting AF, I'm trying to HQ the crafting AF.

I've also listed the abilities I'm using in the OP, what should I be doing instead, and/or can you tell me the flaw in what I've listed?

[Rainsford]

If you're crafting without knowing the outcome of what you're doing, you're doing it wrong. I got that from "using Synth until I'll one turn away from finishing."

Have 360 Craftsmanship and eat CP food. Inner Quiest>Steady Hand II>Hasty Touch to 20/80 while using ToTT on every good. Masters Mend II. Repeat to 30/80.

Now, have you landed at least 8 touches? Good. Great Strides > SHI > Ingenuity > Byregots > Standard Synth x2 and you've just gone 100%/100%.

Did you land less than 8 touches but still have more than 130 CP? Manipulation/Mend and use more touches to get to at least 8.

Basically, the idea is that you have at least 11 80% chances to land Touch, and you need a 75% success rate. Of course, odds are you'll have gotten enough Goods to get more durability or you'll have had enough left over CP to use a 100% touch a few times to get you to where you need to be.

[Sapphidia]

I didn't see you mention Byregots. That's the entire point of the Hasty Touch spam. Spamming hasty touch isnt huge amounts of quality on its own compared to using the mana on better touches, but it builds up huge amounts of Inner Quiet stacks. The idea is that you build up your control absolutely huge with Inner Quiet via Hasty spam, then when you're close to finishing the craft, you use a massively boosted "finisher". Ideally this will be a Byregot's Blessing with Great Strides and probably Innovation up too. -This- is the key. You can't do it without Byregots. Hasty Touch spam on its own isnt all that special. It's the Inner Quiet stacks that it builds that make it worthwhile.

[Mikita]

Can anyone here reliably HQ the 1-star 40 Durability recipes from all NQ ingredients? This would be things like Twinthread, Darksteel Nuggets, Rose Gold Nuggets, Hippogryph Leather, Spruce Lumber, Growth Formula Delta, etc.

Those recipes give me a bit of a hard time because 40 Durability isn't much to work with. Whereas, HQing high level 70 or 80 Durability recipes from NQ ingredients is usually easy unless I have a string of bad luck along the way.

I pop Inner Quiet at the beginning of every synth. I use Careful Synthesis II to get progress up far enough that just one more will finish it.

How many times do you need to use Careful Synthesis II to finish the recipe?

Personally, I want to go from 0% to 100% with just 2 or 3 actions (even on 2-star recipes) at the very end because this gives me more room to work on building up Quality first. On 2-star recipes that usually means using Ingenuity II together with Careful Synthesis II.

I use Tricks of the Trade when up to restore CP.

Maybe just me, but I will usually use Tricks of the Trade earlier in the synthesis -- but not always later in the synthesis. Depending on how things went earlier on, if I have CP to spare I would rather use one of the Touch actions on a Good condition to get a nice boost in Quality due to your built up Control from Inner Quiet.

And as Kenji1134 said, Byregot's Blessing can make all the difference. If you haven't failed too many Hasty Touches along the way and have enough CP for it, Great Strides + Byregot's Blessing is wonderful. Even better when under Steady Hand because "90% success rate" has a bad habit of failing when you need it most. ^^;

[Xbob42]

We've got a dude in our guild who has been able to HQ 100% of items with NQ items for weeks now. He's our beautiful pro crafter!

[TrystWildkey]

We've got a dude in our guild who has been able to HQ 100% of items with NQ items for weeks now. He's our beautiful pro crafter!

Cool story bro, care to share how he does it?