Help with rotations and other things

[RyDarrick]

Hello guys

I need some help. A lot of people wrote the are able to craft high lvl hq items with nq materials.
My question is if you guys could write down your rotations to craft hq items with nq materials?

And how much craftmanship, control and cp do we need (minimum) to do this crafts?

Should I get the lvl59 gear and assecoires in hq and should I meld or overmeld them. Are they good enough to craft the master book receipes without any problems?

I know its a lot to write down and maybe I will find some answers in other threads. My big problem is I have a full time job and a family and its immpossible for me to click threw all this threads to find my answers and to do in depth theory crafting etc....

My ff life looks like logging in to do the daily turn in for my crafter and gatherer classes and thats it. No more time for more at the moment (After almost a month of hw I'm still lvl 55 with my blm).

[RyDarrick]

So I would be really happy if you guys could help me with my questions. Thank you and have a nice day.

Ps: sry for my bad english. Its not my native language

[Shorty]

The Master book recipes actually aren't that difficult to craft. I did L56 collectables with L56MH/L55OH and 2.0 melded artisan gear. With the L59 collectables, I managed with L58MH/L57OH (these were like 1-2k gil on the MB for me, nq) with L55 chest (from quest reward). The key is to know that collectables don't need max quality progression, just enough to be of high enough "rarity" for the handin. Look at the collectable list to see the details.

As for rotation, no hard maths or simulators yet, so no fixed rotation. I'm assuming you're talking about L60 recipes. Craft an item, look at your progress with CSII or RS. I think if you can get over 431 progress with 2x CSII with your gear, that should be good enough to craft most hq stuff from nq (I'm assuming your control isn't neglected). Get 350+CP. General idea is to HT whenever you have SHII up, precise touch when good/excellent, refill dur with manipulation or MM or MMII, and save around 100CP for finisher. I think at 650ish control you can 100% hq with 7 IQ stacks, but if your gear is lower like me then just aim for 9 stacks.

I would also advice you to experiment a little bit for progress, especially with the 70dur recipes. You can do Muscle memory then RS then CSII finish, or 2xRS then CSII. See which one you're more comfortable with. For me, my progress is Muscle memory, CZ, IQ, SHII, RS, then finish at the end with CSII (once or twice depending on recipe level).

Hope this helps.

[RyDarrick]

This helps a lot. Thank you
My biggest problem with 70/80 durab items is that I need 7 steps with cs2 to finish it. I loose a lot of ht\\'s cause of this.
Most time I start with 6x cs2 so I just need one more cs2 to finish it.
on good and excellent I usw ToT to get some cp back.
After that I\\'m at 20/80 or 10/70. Manipulation for 3 more steps + sh2 + 3x ht.
Then again manipulation and sh2 followed by ht+ the big hq buff (48cp dont know the english name), gs and bb.
Now I finish with cs2.
Unfortunatelly I\\'m unlucky with ht so before bb most time I have just 5 or 6 stacks and I end with 66-70% hq. With hq mats

[Shorty]

7 CSII might mean you need more stats (craftsmanship). Muscle memory is a really good ability... cheap, and 1/3 progress guaranteed. RS is also great, but random and you need to be careful (I accidentally finished a synth with 1 RS because I forgot it'll do that on lower level recipes).

Also MMII is better than 2x manipulation. Both restore 60dur, it's harder to get MMII wrong and it cost less CP overall. I only really use manipulation in 40/35 dur crafts.

[ImDingDing]

This helps a lot. Thank you
My biggest problem with 70/80 durab items is that I need 7 steps with cs2 to finish it. I loose a lot of ht\\'s cause of this.
Most time I start with 6x cs2 so I just need one more cs2 to finish it.
on good and excellent I usw ToT to get some cp back.
After that I\\'m at 20/80 or 10/70. Manipulation for 3 more steps + sh2 + 3x ht.
Then again manipulation and sh2 followed by ht+ the big hq buff (48cp dont know the english name), gs and bb.
Now I finish with cs2.
Unfortunatelly I\\'m unlucky with ht so before bb most time I have just 5 or 6 stacks and I end with 66-70% hq. With hq mats

Try to use Ingenuity before CS2, you shouldn't need more than 4 synthesis on any recipts except end game crafting or furniture.

[RyDarrick]

Thanks for your advices.
MMII is a good idea. Its a lot cheaper than 2x manipulation and the ingen advice is great too. When I use MMII instead of 2x manipulation I have enough cp for ingen. Will test this thank you guys.
Whats about the skill where you loose 5 durab instead instead of 10. Is this skill usefull?

[PirateCat]

You're thinking of Waste Not.
I personally don't use WN much at all. If you use it properly it effectively buys you 20 durability for 56 CP, which is more efficient than Manipulation but less than MMII. The big downside is that you have to use all the steps doing things that hit durability or it loses effectiveness, which means you lose value if you get a Tricks proc. That's likely less of an issue these days now that Precise Touch exists, so it could be worth testing on 35/40 durability mat rotations early on in the sequence.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

I find Waste Not to be useful on the 35/40 Durability recipes. My usual rotation (which takes quite a few CP, but well under the currently achievable maximum with melds) uses both Waste Not and Manipulation.

5 Durability left is as good as 10 Durability left, as is easily demonstrated by the 35 Durability recipes (make 3 moves, you're at 5 Durability left, but still in the game). So, IF you have enough Durability in the recipe to take advantage of it, missing *one* step (for a Tricks) does not reduce the effectiveness of Waste Not.

Here's what I mean. My usual 35/40 Durability rotation on things that take two CS2's is :
Comfort Zone, Inner Quiet, Careful Synthesis 2 (25/30 Durability left), Steady Hand 2, Waste Not, Hasty Touch x4 (5/10 Durability left), Manipulation, Steady Hand (15/20 Durability left), Waste Not (25/30 Durability left), Hasty Touch (30/35 Durability left), Hasty Touch (25/30), Hasty Touch (20/25), Hasty Touch (15/20), Byregot's Finisher (5/10), Careful Synthesis 2 (finishes recipe)

Although this does not work for a 35 Durability recipe, on a 40 Durability recipe that I can finish in one CS2, I modify it slightly :
Comfort Zone, Inner Quiet, Waste Not (4), Steady Hand (3), Hasty Touch (2, 35), Hasty Touch (1, 30), Hasty Touch (0, 25), Hasty Touch (15), Hasty Touch (5), Manipulation, Steady Hand (15), Waste Not (4, 25), Hasty Touch (3, 30), Hasty Touch (2, 25), Hasty Touch (1, 20), Hasty Touch (0, 15), Byregot's Finisher (5), Careful Synthesis 2.

Numbers in parenthesis are mostly Durability, but in the second one, the first number when there are two is the WN charge remaining. At 0, obviously, WN fades away and does not apply on subsequent moves.

That second rotation, I give up one charge of Waste Not, without reducing its efficacy at all. I gain a fifth HT covered by SH2 for my troubles.

That said, giving up TWO (or, somehow, more) WN charges generally makes WN a pointless thing to use. I can see an incredibly rare scenario where a mistake in Progress means you're at 10 Durability but need two CS2's, in which case a WN then the two CS2's will finish things successfully. I cannot imagine that situation being all that common, nor having the CP left to take advantage of it when it does occur!

Waste Not 2, unfortunately, suffers from the same problem : use of more than one charge reduces its CP efficiency to less than that of MM2. And at 8 charges, the only use I can see for it, really, is on 1 star level 60 recipes, to squeeze in a bunch of CS2's for half the normal durability use. SH2/WN2 will have you giving up one charge to reapply SH2 ... so the only thing you can do with Good/Excellent is Precise Touch, or you lose the CP efficiency. That generally rules out less-than-100% actions ... and makes WN2 the worst of the level 50 cross class crafting skills.

[PirateCat]

Yeah, the SH > WN > HTx4 part of the rotation definitely seems like there's good value there. My current rotation is based on what was needed for the 40 durability Lucis tokens where getting every Tricks proc possible was critical, so it's essentially SH into HT popping Manipulation at 20 if SH is still going or at 10 if going to 10 would make SH run out. If I'm buying durability while SH is up anyway then WN has potential.