Quote Originally Posted by StouterTaru View Post
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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.