Crafting help! Please!

[GwapeSoda]

While I am not new to the game I am very fresh to crafting. currently level 47 on weaver and I'm having a hard time heavily with crafting HQ items, especially for class quest- It's beginning to eat up all my gil getting material I can't gather >_<'' Please tell me if there's any easy way to understand or craft HQ items, I'm a bit of a slow learner thank you for your help and patience.

[Frizze]

So there are a couple things that might help. Firstly, it never hurts to check the market board. Some of the items you need to turn in for these quests end up getting sold for fairly low prices. If you were struggling with the level 45 weaver quest as an example and could buy the hat you need to turn in for a couple hundred gil that means you only have to focus your crafting talents on the shirt and pants. For most of the quests the game doesnt check if you crafted it yourself(and for the ones that it matters, the items arent tradable). Secondly, you can use high quality materials to get a boost on your crafts. A craft where you use all HQ mats will typically start you with the quality meter half filled for the resulting craft, meaning you only have to do half the work to get it to 100%. Sometimes spending the extra 5 minutes(if you can) to gather high quality cotton(or flax or whatever) before you turn it into threads(and the threads into cloths and then the cloths into finished items) is worth it. And im going to talk about skills but keep in mind that you might just be under-powered to complete the craft in question without luck. If your gear isnt up to date that makes a big difference. Additionally your level matters(both in the crafting formula and in terms of having more/better skills to use), so if all else fails level up a little more then come back and try the quest craft again. Oh, and try to get into the habit of using some sort of crafting food both for the bonus exp and the bonus stats. Even something cheap like stone soup(30 gil on the vendor at the gold saucer and a few other places) can give you a few extra CP that might mean the difference between a success and a fail.

Ok, but lets look at skills. So the basic crafting mini-game is to fill the quality bar as far as you can and fill the progress bar to finish the craft, with the durability meter as your timer. If you open the calculations tab, you can see how much progress each synthesis skill will add and how much quality each touch skill will add. One of the first moves to use is Inner Quiet. Every successful quality move increases its stack(maxes at 11), making quality moves more powerful. High level crafting is mostly about building a high IQ stack, then using a powerful "finishing move" to finish off the quality bar(the level 50 skill you dont have yet is great for this). At your level the strongest finish you could do would be Great Strides(100% boost to next quality move) + Innovation(boosts quality moves for next 4 turns) + Standard Touch(strongest quality move you currently have). The turn sequence for your "finishing move" would look like: Inno, Touch(hasty basic or standard depending on how much CP you have), Touch(same), GS, ST. That would use 30 durability, and 88+ CP. It can help to "finish" the craft before working too much on quality. So you would start with IQ, then use your synth skills(possibly with Veneration - the progress version of Innovation) until you only need 1 more synth to finish, then switch to quality(Final Appraisal can help with this - for up to 5 steps after you activate it any synth that would finish the craft will leave you 1 point short instead therefore guaranteeing you only need 1 more usage to finish). Waste Not(1/2) and Masters Mend give you more durability to work with to finish everything up(either by refilling or by making skills burn half as much), and Tricks of the Trade lets you turn good or excellent material conditions into extra CP to use more moves(otherwise these conditions act as critical hits for your quality moves - avoid using a touch skill on the poor condition if you can because this is more like the opposite of a crit).

I have no idea if that block of rambling will help in any way. When in doubt, try out the option to simulate the craft and try using the skills for practice before committing to burning actual mats in an attempt. Otherwise, continue to ask questions. The more specific, the better the answers will be.

[SentinelBasch]

Great info above.

Something else to add - in addition to the great skill that was mentioned that you get at Lv. 50, once you hit that level you can also buy artisan gear for seals from your grand company. This makes a HUGE difference.

Gathering HQ materials as mentioned previously can be a really big help, but if you are still struggling, you can do tradecraft levels until you hit 50 and can get the artisan gear. I'd recommend doing the highest level leves that you are able to comfortably craft HQ on, as you get double XP for these. Of course that depends on how many leves you have available.

This is the rotation I use for all 8 crafting classes, who are all level 50+ (I'm still in ARR - as you move on to each xpac the mechanics will change). This is not completely optimal since I build quality first, but with this I am able to craft any Lv. 50 item up to 2 stars with 100% quality even if I get no greats or excellents:

Inner Quiet
Innovation
Waste Not II
Basic Touch
Basic Touch
Basic Touch
Innovation
Basic Touch
Basic Touch
Byregot's Blessing (Obtained at Lv. 50)
Basic Synthesis until progress is done (with my current setup items up to Lv. 50 2 star take no more than 2 basic synthesis to complete)

I have just enough CP to do the above actions and usually have 3-4 moves left. If you don't you can use Hasty Touch, but this is a risk and I instead recommend to update your jewelry. Even the Lv. 40's jewelry items should give you enough CP for this rotation. At Lv. 54 you will get Precise Touch, which you can use in place of Basic Touch to finish the craft even faster as you get greats and excellents.

One final recommendation - try to resist the urge to restore your CP when you see greats and excellents (except after the very 1st move of Inner Quiet, if needed). Using quality actions when this happens is a much better option. Again, keeping your jewelry up should alleviate any CP issues you have.

Happy crafting!

[WolfRider]

Here is a link that will make your life as crafter a lot easier :
http://ffxiv-beta.lokyst.net/index.html#/simulator

You choose the crafting class you're using. Then you go to the "crafter attributes" tab to fill the attributes numbers and to choose the available actions. Then go back to the "simulator" tab to choose the recipe you want to craft. You can choose the kind of food you use, if you use any too. Then click on the "Solve" button. And the site will calculate which skills to use and in what order to use them to achieve the best result.

Other than that try to always wear the best stuff available at your current level. That can really make a big difference. Use the preview synthesises before crafting to see if you'll get an high enough HQ %age. Above 80% there's a good chance the result will be HQ.

[ChameleonMS]

While I do not know your stats, I took a guess on the simulator with your level.

1 Name of the Elements 80 252 0 0 0 125 0 0 0 0 Normal 1
2 Brand of the Elements 70 246 0 111 0 125 0 111 0 0 Normal 1
3 Inner Quiet 70 228 0 111 0 125 0 0 0 0 Normal 1
4 Innovation 70 210 0 111 0 125 0 0 0 0 Normal 1
5 Basic Touch 60 192 118 111 1 125 118 0 118 0 Normal 1
6 Basic Touch 50 174 250 111 2 150 132 0 132 0 Good 1
7 Basic Touch 40 156 468 111 3 175 218 0 145 0 Normal 1
8 Basic Touch 30 138 627 111 4 200 159 0 159 0 Normal 1
9 Master's Mend 60 50 627 111 4 225 0 0 0 0 Normal 1
10 Innovation 60 32 627 111 4 225 0 0 0 0 Normal 1
11 Basic Touch 50 14 799 111 5 225 172 0 172 0 Normal 1
12 Hasty Touch 40 14 985 111 6 250 186 0 186 0 Normal 1
13 Hasty Touch 30 14 1184 111 7 275 199 0 199 0 Normal 1
14 Hasty Touch 20 14 1398 111 8 300 214 0 214 0 Normal 1
15 Hasty Touch 10 14 1550 111 9 325 152 0 152 0 Normal 1
16 Basic Synthesis 0 14 1550 155 9 350 0 44 0 0 Good 1

Crafting for Beginners: (longish)

With the release of Shadowbringers 5.2, the single crafter has become viable because it marked the death of the cross-class system
The single crafter success is limited by a few factors.
* CUL and ALC are generally independent and can be soloed with ease.
* All other DoH are heavily interdependent on each other for item completion. A weaver will usually need reagents from ALC, and component parts from LTW, CRP, and BSM to complete a craft.

Always attempt to achieve as much Quality as possible because your XP increases greatly for quality.
e.g. A craft done at 0% quality will earn 100xp, if you can increase the quality to 100%, 300xp will be granted. A 200% additional XP bonus. It is a non-linear sliding scale down for the XP.

Leveling all your DoH classes is expensive, you pay with time or GIL.
Lower Gil with higher time, if you gather your own materials.
Truckloads more Gil, with way less time, if you buy your materials from the market board.
You will need a lot of GIL at least until you have the skills to make items HQ that the population wants to buy from you.
DoW Gil Strategies. Nice recently updated GIL making strategy guide for DoW/DoM players.
DoW Gil Guide. A much older guide but several principles are still true today.

Maps are another great source of income:
Treasure Hunt maps. The high-end maps for Heavensward, Stormblood, and Shadowbringers each can give you very valuable glamour products.
Map location site

Many, many base materials can be purchase from in-game vendors at significantly lower prices than the Market Board.
Do the Beast Tribes to unlock additional vendors and materials.
The following Beast tribe also off DoH / DoL XP quests
A Realm Reborn: Ixali
Heavensward: Moogles
Stormblood: Namazu
Shadowbringers: Dwarves
The Firmament in Foundation

References:
Caimie's Crafting Guide something every crafter should read at least once.
Crafting Simulator for practicing different rotations without burning your materials. This is a fan-generated site so the accuracy of the results can be a little suspect from time to time. It is generally pretty accurate.

End game gathering from timed nodes:
FFXIV Clock
Unspoiled Nodes
Fisher Reference.
Desynthesis Guide a source of rare materials for the very ambitious.

End game Gear setups:
Ariyala Toolkit


Crafting HQ follows some basic rules:
1. Turn on Inner Quiet very near the start
Each successful quality touch will increase your Inner Quiet stacks. Each increase makes your next quality touch stronger by 20%. Inner Quiet has no effect on completion.

2. Start your craft by getting your completion to within one Synthesis of 100%, then work on quality.
Using skills such as Muscle Memory or Brand+Name of Elements for very large completion gains at the start of a craft.

3. Use skills to restore/conserve your DUR.
Waste Not I & II
Manipulation
Master Mend I & II

4. Use Haste Touch to prolong your manual rotations when you have limited CP to work with