Manipulation vs WN II on 80 durability?

[RiceisNice]

Trying to figure out which one is more ideal. I was thinking manipulation after running some rotations but I want to run by for some opinions.

This is what I'm doing for one or the other

[WN II]
Comfort
inner quiet
SH II
WN II
Basic Touch x4 (60 durability remaining)
SH II
Basic Touch x2 (50 durability)
Great Strides (WN II fades)
Innovation
Bygrot's (40 durability)
Leaves me with 40 durability to Careful syn

[Manip]
Comfort zone
Inner Quiet
SH II
Basic Touch x5 (30 durability)
Manipulation
SH II (40 durability)
Basic Touch (40 durability)
Great Stride (50 durability)
Innovation
Bygrot's
Leaves me with 40 durability to careful syn

Some stuff I see is that if I go with WN II, I could fit in a hasty touch after my 6th basic, although it leaves me without a SH buff for bygrot's and I don't feel safe with that 10%

The way I see it though, manipultation seems to have it beat out in every way, due to overall lower CP cost and even giving me some leeway to use ToT if it happens to pop in place of using SH II.

40 durability I'd stick with Waste II since it ties nicely with SH II's duration.

Does this seem fairly reliable, or are there some changes that can be made to efficiently use up the excess durability, cause I'd end up tossing random hasty touch otherwise at the end.

[Nyalia]

What are you trying to accomplish with this macro? Is this for 1-star, 2-star, 3-star, or 3.5 star (primal weapons) 80 durability? Are you fully melded? Are you using the AF, Artisan's, or Supra tool? These questions help determine how complicated your macro should be to guarantee HQ for 1 and 2 star items, or what order to do things in if you're going for 3-3.5 star items.

Generally speaking, for endgame (3-3.5 star manual crafts), both WNII and Manipulation are not considered optimal for endgame crafting. If you're doing 3-3.5 star manual crafts, WNII makes Tricks of the Trade procs significantly worse, and Manipulation, while not bad, is never the first durability restorer that I'd use.

WN, if you only use it once and do not use WNII, is 56 CP for 2 extra hits (28 per hit) and doesn't really hinder ToT because you have one "free" hit during it where you don't have to spend durability. WNII, conversely, is 98 CP for 4 extra hits (24.5 per hit), but you can't use ToT at all during it since you need to spend your "free" hit re-upping SHII. I believe the chance of getting a good is about 25%, so you lose two theoretical ToT hits when you use WNII, increasing the cost to 138, or 34.5 per hit. This costs you Master's Mend, in contrast, costs 160 CP for 6 extra hits (26.67 per hit) and does not hinder you in any way whatsoever. Generally, I try to use Master's Mend II once and WN once during a 3 star craft. If I get really lucky, I do Master's Mend II twice. If I get moderately lucky and, after my MMII and WN, I have a lot of CP but not enough for another MMII, I use Manipulation (88 dur for 3 extra hits = 29.33 per hit, but no restrictions).

For 1 and 2 star crafts, there are tons of ways to get a 100% RNG-free rotation. The rotation that I use for 1-stars uses just WN (this is not mine, I can't remember who I took it from though):

Macro: i55 Crafting 1 (80*)

/ac "Comfort Zone" <wait.2>
/ac "Inner Quiet" <wait.2>
/ac "Careful Synthesis II" <wait.3>
/ac "Waste Not" <wait.2>
/ac "Steady Hand II" <wait.2>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Basic Touch" <wait.3>
/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>
/ac "Steady Hand" <wait.3>
/ac "Ingenuity" <wait.2>
/ac "Standard Touch" <wait.3>
/echo First Step Done <se.5>

Macro: i55 Crafting 2 (80*)

/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>
/ac "Byregot's Blessing" <wait.3>
/ac "Careful Synthesis II" <wait.3>
/ac "Careful Synthesis II"
/echo Crafting Done
/echo =================

You can do something that works too with Manipulation I'm sure, but since I only need one extra hit, WN is fine. I don't even need the CSII in the beginning anymore since I now have enough Craftsmanship to do the item with Ingenuity I and two CSIIs.

[RiceisNice]

I'm trying to work towards 2* material items for artisan. WN II works fine for me for 2* 235 difficulty crafts, and I still need to do some melding to meet the craftsmanship requirement for the 2* mat crafts, but I want to see if this sort of rotation would be sufficent to get me through the Artisan Material crafts

In regards to the 3*s crafts though (excluding culinarian foods), I'm under the impression it's not necessary to work on quality for those (due to most of them being glamour/un-HQable). I saw somewhere that Master's Mend II is the best durability:CP restoration out of the three with no strings attached to it.

[Nyalia]

Master's Mend II is great if you happen to have 160 CP in excess of what you need to finish your craft. It's not so great if you only have, say, 100, or even 150. In those cases, Manip is usually the best (if you've already used a WN/WNII) because it has so few strings attached. If you were to use WNII in that case (after already being at a durability ending in a 5), it'll only give you ~+3 hits instead of 4, making it just an expensive Manipulation with extra complications.

Which Artisan Material crafts? The 5 base items for the book, or the 50 token items for the tool? The token items are harder than their level suggests, as a warning. All of the 100% chance of success rotations that I have for the 40 dur, 2-star mats and for the Artisan token items require food of some sort, but they're from before 2.3, so I'm not sure what's really changed there (I still haven't upgraded my accessories...). For me, the macros for both of those use just a single Manipulation.

[RiceisNice]

The Token ones. I do have the new 2.3 accessories, but I'm still in the process of melding. Another question I have is how much CP is ideal before foods, reason for this is because I'm trying to find the most econimical route for melding (whether or not I should use up my IVs for control/CP), and whether to take CP or control on the first slots.

[AttacKat]

Trying to figure out which one is more ideal.

The one that give you higher % HQ ALL the time.

Use this (JP site, but you can trans)

[Nyalia]

Generally, the more CP, the better. My 100% HQ token rotation takes all HQ materials and 356 CP, but you can do a 99% rotation with less. I have 346 CP naturally and eat an NQ Frumenty before doing tokens (they're practically free to make). With the new accessories, the new cap is like 354 (if you meld your offhand), so melding to max CP wouldn't even help with the macro I use.

However, CP is the best stat once you reach the effective caps of the other two. Craftsmanship doesn't matter unless you're trying to meet a requirement or it changes the number of synths required to complete an item. Control has diminishing returns on usefulness. Each point of CP though can be important.

I highly recommend setting up your melds such that you CAN max meld items if you want to later, or using melds that are so cheap you won't lose much ditching the items to replace with max melded ones later.

[RiceisNice]

Mmm, I see. I sit at 360 CP with an HQ fish soup (which are fairly easy to come by), 327 without any buffs. Someone did put up a melding list that allowed them to meet the stat requirements for a 3* craft without an artisan tool, so I'll probably just follow that. Thanks for all the help.

Also tried using it in 40 durabiltiy crafts. I feel like I've taking manip for granted with how much leeway it gives with good conditions.

[Nyalia]

When manual-crafting, WNII is the worst Durability-"restoring" skill because it doesn't let you use any ToT procs. None of the other ones really restrict this (except WN only lets you use one proc, and you can get two with it up, causing one to go to waste, and it only doesn't restrict you the first time you use it). When macroing, it's not terrible since you aren't going to take advantage of ToT procs anyway. I still don't use it due to the limitations on how many cross-class skills you can set (as-is, there are 12 skills I want on all classes, which means half my classes require me to fiddle with their skills every time I go to craft). Generally, for 40 dur crafts, WN once is good, then Manip for the rest, and you're golden. For 80 dur crafts, MM2 is the best, if you can afford it.

[Giantbane]

I have 346 CP naturally and eat an NQ Frumenty before doing tokens (they're practically free to make).

why on earth would you make your own NQ frumenty. Every major city has a vendor that sells them for 10gil, way less than the price of the crystal used to craft it.