Quote Originally Posted by Roth_Trailfinder View Post
If you want to factor in Observe, or any other fishing attempt, you are still better off using GS on the later Touch than the earlier Touch. 100/300/800 vs 142/430/1116.
Yeah, but that's once you have enough CP to make those Observes possible, like I said. The point of the early pattern is that it gives you the triple chance at crit for free, which is useful when you can't afford Observe steps.

I suspect that if you have enough CP for even just one extra Observe step, getting two chances at a late GS->touch would be likely to beat getting three chances at an early GS->touch, but before that, when it's three chances at the beginning versus just a single chance at the end, I'm going with the three times as likely crit.

Then with a little more CP (when you can afford either a second GS, or a couple Observes, but not both), it becomes a choice between getting two Great Strides, one at the beginning with a triple chance at crit plus a second one at the end with a single chance at crit, versus just using one Great Strides but having it at the end with a triple chance at crit.

And then the calculations would change again once you get Byregot's Blessing and it becomes GS+AT early or GS+BB late, giving yet another reason to favor the late GS pattern. When you can afford it, GS->SH->Ob->BB is a powerful closing.

I'm now reaching the point where I can get both, doing an early GS for the free triple crit chance, and then closing with GS->SH->Ob->BB for a high IQ stack triple crit chance.

And I haven't even gotten to the level 51 - 70 skills yet. Those and the better gear available at those levels will undoubtedly change the patterns around again multiple times.


Anyway, the point is that there is no one single pattern that works best throughout, because as you level and gear up, so your CP and skill availability changes, the patterns available to you keep changing, and their likely results do as well. There are multiple points along the way where knowing how to get a free triple chance at critted GS can be useful even though there are other times when it's not going to be the best choice.