4 Star Master Books - Completely frustrating and unfun.

[StouterTaru]

If you have enough CP left to fish for 10 steps, then you are doing something wrong.

[Sibyll]

That does not seem to be the same as what the above poster is doing.

No he's pretty much nailed it. I'll draw out a synth if it has at least 8 IQ and just cycle as long as I can afford to have GS and enough for BB. If I am willing to take a 90% on a Reclaim then I'm willing to take a 90% on 8 stacks + Excellent + GS + unprotected BB. 8 stacks on Rumination is enough to give you 55 for Reclaim at the end combined with the 24 I'd be saving for BB. It's basically a contingency plan.

If you have enough CP left to fish for 10 steps, then you are doing something wrong.

Sometimes you know early enough in the synth you won't be getting 11 stacks, however getting 8 stacks is achievable with some subpar luck. In this case, no you won't get 10 steps, you might get 1 or 2 GS before having to Rumination and Reclaim. An Excellent on 8 stacks and a GS is better than a Good on 11 stacks and a GS, as far as I know, and if you know you won't get 11 stacks with your current run then burning CP to get just 9 or 10 is a waste.

If you intentionally plan a synth around getting only 8 stacks and fishing for an Excellent then it's very possible to get 10 or more steps at the end to fish with a Comfort Zone up and a little luck from TotT procs.

My point here is that "11 stacks or Reclaim" is a bit of a hasty plan. If you have at least 8 stacks it's still salvageable and if you have Rumination there is almost no consequence for doing so.

I could very well be missing some crucial step that ensures 11 stacks every single time, but I've found that if you get some rough luck on your Hasty Touches, Rapid Synths, or Good procs for TotT then getting 11 is just sometimes not possible.

[xPeAcEx]

SNiP

This is just a massive NO and terrible advice. It is better to lose 1 synth than to finish 10 normal quality. Rumination shouldn't even be on your list of skills to use.

<11 stacks = reclaim
11 stacks = GS + INNO(fish for better condition) + CS II (fish for better condition)

Finish the synth.

Doing this, you will get 3-4 normal quality and 3 high quality. With maybe one or two reclaims failed, this is a lot better than 10+ normal quality and 3 high quality.

[Sibyll]

This is just a massive NO and terrible advice. It is better to lose 1 synth than to finish 10 normal quality. Rumination shouldn't even be on your list of skills to use.

<11 stacks = reclaim
11 stacks = GS + INNO(fish for better condition) + CS II (fish for better condition)

Finish the synth.

Doing this, you will get 3-4 normal quality and 3 high quality. With maybe one or two reclaims failed, this is a lot better than 10+ normal quality and 3 high quality.

I'm a bit confused. How would anything I listed result in an NQ? Rumination guarantees Reclaim. Excellent + 8 Stacks + GS is like 95% HQ, if not 100%. You are basically Reclaiming for anything other than Excellent on 8 with a Great Strides, which is made possible by using Rumination.

[Laurell]

Like Sibyll said Rumination guarantees a Reclaim and I personally think it is a highly underrated skill. While everyone else is cashing their chips in on a less then 11 Inner Quiet I only reclaim if I'm out of options and use Rumination instead of BB.

[Mithrie]

I had a lot of fun with this. Sure it was a gil sink but any crafter reaching 4 star can generate millions a day anyway so I just saw it as a reinvestment. I was able on Armorsmith, Goldsmith and Culinarian to finish this using the Artisan Tool and Militia Offhand, giving me stats at the time of 404 Craftmanship, 391 Control and 395 CP with food. Sure there is a lot of RNG to it, and Reclaim is used a lot, but if you don't give up and refine your rotation it works out well. I recorded my experience of doing this on Goldsmith here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YH2AewMPRM. I'm glad to have all of it finished of course so I can work on recovering some Gil before Patch 2.5 comes out.

[RiceisNice]

...

For WVR, and especially LTW and BSM, you'd be hard pressed to try to fit rumination along with everything else you'd need, considering that they only have 1-2 inherent skills to free up their available cross skills. (BB, HT, SHII, Reclaim, INNO, CSII, TotT, CZ, RS, PbP is 10 skills I consider absolutely necessary, and BSM/LTW inherently do not have those skills and cannot pick up manipulation or rumination). Though I guess you could drop SHII for it, but that 70% touch tho.

Though I do agree that the crafts should be seen til the very end for the off chance of getting an excellent (which has gotten me 100% with 7 stacks at the lowest, granted I might have gotten another excellent on a touch). Otherwise, I'd just reserve 55 cp to be able to reclaim (after using GS, inno and SH). In the scenario of having 7-8 stacks, reserving 55 CP won't even give you enough leeway to do more than a single basic touch, bumping your total stacks to 8-9 (which isn't enough, getting as high as 85% with a good condition).

[xPeAcEx]

If you're fishing at 8 stacks you're already doing something wrong.

At best, you should be fishing for a good and not relying on an excellent, 11 stacks is easy to get and if you can't then you're doing something really wrong. Meaning you shouldn't need rumination at all.

1) PbP
2) RS
3) HT
4) BB
5) CZ
6) ToT
7) WN II
8) SH II
9) ING II
10) INNO
11) RECLAIM

Careful Synthesis II is NOT needed, Basic Synthesis is more than enough to finish up. If you are fishing at 8 stacks for en excellent condition, you are going to fish for a very long time, not only does that make it a poor rotation for master books but a poor rotation for anything in general.

EDIT: That is not to say that Rumination is a bad skill, in fact it is a great skill when used early in a 3 star to recover 6 cp or 14 cp if none of the RS or HTs failed.

[xPeAcEx]

SNiP

Sometimes you have good videos that are very informative and other times you have such inefficient videos where i question if you actually know how the skills you use work. At 13minutes, and during that craft.

1) CZ should be refreshed whenever possible because you can usually fit in a 3rd.
2) You said you wasted a step in WN II but that isn't true because you get the same amount of steps.

Example, on an 80 dura item with WN II, you get 12 possible maximum steps.
SH II + WN II + SH II refresh = 45/80 dura, used 7 steps. 45 dura is 5 steps left, so 12 possible maximum steps, so no step was wasted :P

3) Why would you ever pick ING II over Innovation in a 3 or 4 star craft? If anything you had the cp for both, but your order should have been GS > INNO > ING 2 > BB

4) This one is nit picking but wouldn't it be better to save your ING II and CS II for the end of the synth so you can have more fishing opportunities.

5) I don't know why but i kept watching and you gave out bad advice 19:36, if you have a stack of CZ left and you use CZ, u do NOT get 8 cp back. What you are doing is clipping the CZ meaning you don't recover 14 cp but only 6 cp total.

[dspguy]

My first two master books, I probably did about 18 NQs for 6 HQs. The remaining 6? Probably 1 NQ for 3 HQ. I had no supra tools for those 6 books. Had max melded gear and new artisan tool. You can't follow those rotations blindly. Take chances. Don't waste SH2 on PbP. Take the chance that 81% of the time, 2 PbP will succeed. If short on CP, skip SH1 for Innovation. If given the choice, I'd spend 18 CP on a Basic Touch near the end to get me to 11 stacks instead of 22 CP on SH to be sure BB lands. Don't get me wrong. It is great to have SH, GS, Inn up for BB. But, if saving that 96 CP for those 4 abilities is hamstringing your ability to get to 10+ stacks, trade up the SH and Inn for 2 Basic Touch. If you are on your last two chances at HT before you need to BB/CS2... trade that CP for 2 BT instead. A 90% shot at a great chance of HQ is likely better than a 100% shot at a smaller chance of HQ.