Manipulation vs MMII

[StouterTaru]

Even if you used HQ materials, if you got only one good condition the entire craft, it ain't happening. And you're making a weapon at this point, where it s HQ or gtfo unless its for glamour (which probably is, 110 weapons have lower weapon damage which is the best stat for most classes).

That being said, it's really based on what cards you're dealt with. If you haven't gotten any TotT procs, the increased CP cost is going to hurt you in the long run that an extra tick of CZ won't save you. Not to mention manipulation will compete with other cross skills when you're BSM and LTW.

If in the golden world where I cap my CP before using my second CZ, I'd just pop a basic touch with SHII active.

All HQ mats starts you at ~1500 quality, that's a huge jump. 1 ToT proc is enough to get you a Mani and a MMII, that's 13 tries to land two RS and as many hasties as you can, although it does mean skipping the Innovation at the end. Just landing 8 HT is enough to get you up over 50%. And like I said, spiritbond it if you NQ, or find someone who will.

And like I said above, MMII if SHII wears on 10/20 durability, which it will if you only have 1 ToT proc, either as the first durability gain or the 2nd, so the CP loss would be a moot point.

What extra skill do you have instead of INGII, Reclaim?

[RiceisNice]

...

I've been working with 360~ or so CP up until now, and even then I prefer MMII when I have enough CP to spare it (otherwise, i can do MMII + manip without any ToT procs.

Getting 8 HTs would be enough, yes. However, we're looking at someone that got 1 good condition, that'd at the most would be able to fit MMII and manip for 9 extra steps on top of the 8 starter ones. Put aside 5 steps to finish the craft (assuming he has 453 craftsmanship), you have 12 hasty touches and well... shit can happen. You want to start with all HQ materials when possible, but this isn't the case when you're making the baseline materials like platinum ingot (which can only get 400 starting quality). Assuming worse cases, your highest starting quality would be around 400-600 from the HQ'd 3 star materials.

I take manipulation over ingenuity II. It's still nice to have in the event that you don't have enough CP to spare for MMII and still have enough left over for a BB finisher. But my stance is that it's not something I'd use over MMII when the latter is available.