HQing stuff

[MN_14]

My problem isn't that I don't know what I'm doing. My problem is, I know exactly what I'm doing. I was making Basi Whetstones 2 nights ago. I made 30. Couldn't fail them if I wanted to. They could and did hit me with 4 poor conditions on Adv T 3 out of 4 time. I made 30 Basi. I got 50 Good Proc. 4 were useful. The other 46 were there to heckle my rotation.

IQ
SH II
GS
Innovation
Adv T
GS
Adv T
SH II
BB
SC II

46 of 50 Goods, inert.
3 of 4 Excellent, Detrimental.

Crafting in this game is designed to bust your balls.

Spent an hr and a half making all my own parts for a set of 58 Healing gloves. HQ as many parts as I can (sound familiar OP?)
5 times I made parts before the Gloves HQ'ed.

The crafting is for Macro builders and bot gatherers. If you enjoy it, glad to hear it. I don't.

From your description, it seems like you're ignoring the procs when they appear. Your effectiveness as a crafter depends entirely on how you respond to those good or excellent procs. I also think it's best to stay away from following a rotation blindly. For low level items like basilisk whetstones, you should be able to HQ them by spamming SH, GS, and AT until quality is at 100% and then finishing with CS2. You shouldn't need inner quiet, byregot's blessing or even innovation.

This is the general methodology I use when I craft the current end game 2* recipes (same general steps can apply to all crafts):

1. Figure out beforehand a general method for progress (subject to change during the craft)
2. Figure out beforehand a general type of Byregot's finisher (also subject to change during the craft)
3. Do whatever it takes to build up the highest possible number of inner quiet stacks.

There isn't a fixed rotation that I follow because what I choose to do depends entirely on the procs that appear (both number and timing). My vanilla rotation has 11 touch attempts, but I rarely use 11 touches unless I choose to spend my excess CP on precise touch only. This is because my general rotation can be easily modified to 12-14 touch attempts depending on how many good/procs appear.

The largest number of touches isn't even necessarily the best approach either. For example, 14 hasty touches is statistically superior to 1 precise touch and 11 hasty touches. However, 2 precise touches and 10 hasty touches is far superior to 14 hasty touches. If you consider all of these factors, you'll blow through any of the recipes that have been released in HW so far.

[cgbspender]

From your description, it seems like you're ignoring the procs when they appear. [...]

This is the general methodology I use when I craft the current end game 2* recipes (same general steps can apply to all crafts)

He did mention he is 60 and can't HQ level 51 recipes. You don't even need to take the procs into consideration for anything below 1-star with a good rotation, for which he can find perfect guides by Caimie, Rath and a few other craft-masters.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Its ... not about "finding" a good rotation online somewhere.

Its about learning the mechanics behind the moves, either online or in game, in order to develop a methodology rather than a rotation, that works best for the individual.

Unless you outlevel and outgear the recipe in question, it is always more about having enough of an understanding to adjust what you are doing to the situation you find yourself in. Rotations in general are for the stuff you outlevel, can write a macro for, and not for stuff that you have to think about what you are doing.

[Ksenia]

Its ... not about "finding" a good rotation online somewhere.

Its about learning the mechanics behind the moves, either online or in game, in order to develop a methodology rather than a rotation, that works best for the individual.

Unless you outlevel and outgear the recipe in question, it is always more about having enough of an understanding to adjust what you are doing to the situation you find yourself in. Rotations in general are for the stuff you outlevel, can write a macro for, and not for stuff that you have to think about what you are doing.

Agreed and when you know the cascades of adjustment, you start to see that most crafting is very linear.

My 'flaw' is, I don't use macro's. 30+ rotations are not really an option unless I make that reconciliation. I'm also not being 100% straight forward.
The way I have learned to craft, I can in fact HQ everything but it's a long ass process. I use HQ to make HQ. That falls apart with the vendor exclusive reagents. While I said I can't HQ 51? Irony is, I can HQ 54. Because they moved the secondary items to gathered. Leather, Archaeo is mistletoe, Dhalmel is Dark Chestnut log. I have access to the HQ log and I can HQ the leather, HQ what it makes.

I have a feeling that will collapse again when I get to 2 star because again, HQ isn't always available. Demimateria III is always going to be NQ so you stop tailoring and start spamming based on RnG.

[MN_14]

My 'flaw' is, I don't use macro's. 30+ rotations are not really an option unless I make that reconciliation.

Most experienced crafters do not use macros when crafting the latest crafts as they are largely effective only when you're already overgeared. I know that some macros were popular in ARR for level 50 end game crafts, but they only gave average results. When it comes to the latest recipes, 30-50 step rotations are the norm because that's what it takes on average to complete progress and build up enough quality for an HQ. It has nothing to do with using macros and as described in my post above, the method I use isn't even possible to replicate using them. 100% of my crafts are done manually.

It seems that you're implying that it isn't humanly possible to handle 30+ step crafts. If you want to be effective as a crafter, being able to manually handle long synths is something that you'll have to get used to. Of course there's a learning curve involved like all of the game's systems, so it's something that has to be practiced.

[Alisi]

If you want to be effective as a crafter, being able to manually handle long synths is something that you'll have to get used to. Of course there's a learning curve involved like all of the game's systems, so it's something that has to be practiced.

Ahaha! That darn learning curve! I don't use macro's either but I came to ARR a couple months before HW's release. I got one class to 50 and the rest were leveled much slower. I didn't get them to 50 until a month or two ago. /sigh Perhaps because I didn't experience the lvl 50 crafting in ARR, I get some sort of a learning curve or something that's beating on me.

I loved crafting pre-50. I HQed everything I could. I did the daily GC and leveled my other classes together, and that was fun. Other crafters would laugh at me for making everything HQ but whatever. I liked getting the HQ process down. It's like a mini-game to me. Didn't use macro's. My gear wasn't great but it was okay. And now? It feels so frustrating. I know my craft class levels would be higher if I just stopped caring about HQ and would turn in NQ but that feels so cheap. There's no fun in it yet not matter how hard I try, it's still feels a bit like luck to HQ stuff.

I'm trying your suggestions and they seem to help more than what I was doing, so hopefully I can turn this around.

[Caimie_Tsukino]

Other crafters would laugh at me for making everything HQ but whatever. I liked getting the HQ process down.

Nothing wrong with a crafter trying to HQ everything. In fact, what's the fun if a crafter is only happy with NQ-ing everything! It's too easy! You just spam Ingen2+CS II and be done with? LOL!

And now? It feels so frustrating. I know my craft class levels would be higher if I just stopped caring about HQ and would turn in NQ but that feels so cheap. There's no fun in it yet not matter how hard I try, it's still feels a bit like luck to HQ stuff.

If you can provide your stats here (CP, craft, control), and tell me what item you're trying to make, I can suggest a rotation that is customized to you. You can then take it, and improvise on the spot.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

The way I have learned to craft, I can in fact HQ everything but it's a long ass process. I use HQ to make HQ.

Its not exactly a long process to HQ stuff. It *almost* sounds as though your gear is not being kept up-to-date, if you can HQ stuff but only with all HQ mats.

Start off with Comfort Zone and Inner Quiet. Then start adding Progress. Hit CS2 once. See how much it fills the Progress bar. Then hit it enough times that you are less than that from finishing. IE - if you get 97 Progress, and the recipe has 320, then hit it twice more (bringing you to 291 of the 320).

Then start adding Quality. Use Steady Hand 2 to boost the success rate of your Touches. It takes 99 CP to Steady Hand 2 -> Great Strides -> Innovation -> Byregot's Blessing. So, avoid going under that amount. Use CP you have over that for Steady Hand 2, and to both restore Durability (as necessary) and to convert ending Hasty Touches into Basic Touches.

If you have 150 CP left that means you have 51 CP more than the BB Finisher. With that CP you can convert two of the last Hasty Touches into Basic Touches, and have 15 left over. You have to bear that sort of thing in mind; but experience will tell you how many Touches you can convert. Once you know how many you can convert, and you get Precise Touch, you can start using the conversions on the Good/Excellent conditions for Precise Touch rather than saving them for the ending Basic Touches.

Its not a long, drawn out process to HQ stuff. It IS a matter of getting Inner Quiet as high as you can, in order to maximize your Byregot's Blessing Finisher. It is amazing how much Quality that move can and will add at higher IQ stacks.

[MN_14]

Start off with Comfort Zone and Inner Quiet. Then start adding Progress. Hit CS2 once. See how much it fills the Progress bar. Then hit it enough times that you are less than that from finishing. IE - if you get 97 Progress, and the recipe has 320, then hit it twice more (bringing you to 291 of the 320).

In this case, I'd recommend using RS as it would knock back 202 progress allowing progress to be completed in 3 steps (or 2 if you end with standard synthesis). RS would have to fail 2 times in a row for you to be worse off than if you were to use CS2 4 times. Generally, it's okay to use RNG based abilities as long you can make accommodations for misses (and you aren't using them too excessively). If your synth is going well, spend your CP on precise touches and basic touches. If things are going badly, spend your CP on durability restores instead. The process isn't difficult, but you do have to put some thought into what you're doing.

Edit: miscalculated progress earlier

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Starting off with SH2->RS is a bit more of an "advanced" level than I was trying to help reach. Yes, where it can be used it generally saves at least one Progress step (at the cost of adding another layer of RNG) but it was above and beyond the scope of the point I was illustrating there.