Guide: How-To HQ all the things

[tymora]

In other words, Instability abilities are more useful on higher level recipes than lower level ones.

Initial tests considered, it looks like there is an HQ nerf but not by very much. It is just enough to let people do +500 quality on equal rank recipes. I would say HQ-ing on higher recipes got a little boost whereas HQ-ing on lower recipes got more of a nerf.

Getting +800+ quality on low ranked recipes appears possible but not common. It depends on whether Byregot decides to bless you with a Magnus Opus combo...
+500-600 is common, after trying out several combinations of skills.

In perspective, 1.22 standardized it such that you can (relatively easily) get 500-600 quality on equal and lower recipes. On higher recipes, the average quality drops, perhaps linearly.

Not too happy with a HQ nerf on lower recipes and the need to adjust skills for other every recipe but on the balancing done...I would say the dev who did it is pretty darn good.