Quote Originally Posted by Frankie14 View Post
I am hoping someone can give me a rotation I can use to HQ a Dark Chestnut Rod. This is not about leveling its about getting the HQ item. Currently my levels are ALC 53 ARM 53 BSM 54 CRP 56 CUL 51 GSM 54 LTW 53 WVR 53. My CRP stats are Craft 496 Control 417 CP 327. I have tried various guides, sites etc but cannot seem to find what I need therefore I am asking the community to please post a rotation that might work for me in this case. Thank you!
Guides can give you very nice ideas of combos and ways of fitting the skills together. But ultimately, you gotta come up with the best rotation that fits your own stats. So you gotta do the math yourself.
496 craftsmanship is a tad bit lower than what's needed to complete the item in 4 strokes of CS II (see below):

*BTW, do not trust the calculation 100% on progress on a calculator. It is sometimes a tad bit off, so never get just enough craftsmanship to "just complete" the item. You will likely need a bit more than that.

To circumvent with this problem, you can use Ingen2 to buy a bit more progress. The best way to use it of course is to fit it inside the finisher phase, so it buffs the Blessing a bit too:


But as you can see, even with 9 successful Hasty Touches, you're still unable to HQ it with confidence. Unfortunately, all CP is already utilized (with only 3 CP left). So there is not very much you can do with this amount of stats unless you take a few Trick of Trades a long the way to gain more CP.

But check this out, even if you eat a 37-gil NQ Stone Soup (purchased from the Gold Saucer) to get 17 more CP, you can already add in Innovation to your rotation:


And that greatly increased your HQ rate by another 10%.

It is obvious at this point that more craftsmanship and more CP will help you tremendously.

So, I think the ultimate solution for you is to just eat a Baked Onion Soup.
https://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/wiki/Baked_Onion_Soup
Even an NQ one will add 4% craftsmanship and 10% CP to you.

And with all that extra craftsmanship and CP, you now no longer need Ingen2 to finish the item in 4 strokes. And by removing Ingen2, you now have a lot more CP to be used for Precise Touch and Basic Touch:

In fact, because you now no longer need Ingen2 to push progress, you can scatter your CS II everywhere in the rotation. This buys you more steps in the middle of the rotation, allowing you to use a second Comfort Zone, which grants you EVEN MORE CP!

With this much CP, you can now freely use more Precise Touches and Basic Touches to secure the IQ stacks. This is quite important as you can NEVER expect 9 to 10 Hasty Touches to all land successfully. So the Precise Touches (which grants 2 IQ stacks), will be of a big big help.