I've had better HQ luck after changing up my abilities a bit, but i still have to use more HQ mats than before. Now i'm starting with one careful > blessing x3 careful > master's mend > comfort zone x3 careful and then i just keep on doing careful. I set w/e brand i need and while i don't always get to use it every synth (maybe 60-70%% of the time?), i like having it there. Usually with this setup, on my string of carefuls after comfort zone i can get to 70-85% progress and then just use By the Book or Piece by Piece to finish it off when dura gets to low for another attempt. Sometimes i will have to use one standard in there for extra progress, like if i have many failed attempts or element destabilizations. This method gives me around 400 quality depending on my luck with success rates and whether or not the brand was used....so really, i have to use nearly all HQ mats to get 80-90% HQ chance. These are on 40-low 50 synths. I rarely hit 1000 except on like lvl 30 and lower synths.

I would probably use greater calling in place of comfort zone, but i don't have it yet :x

I was doing the 3x undyed felt synth with only the snurble tufts NQ and i HQ'd 3 or 4 of those in a row (low 40s synth). I then went on to make HQ felt gaskins (low 50s synth) and made 3 or 4 of those successfully, but with complete HQ mats. And i never hit 1000 quality on them. I think the highest chance i got was in the low to mid 90s. Granted i don't have many quality abilities set, but that's what i liked about the old system. It allowed you to set abilities as contingencies, and make your HQ chances more reliable. I would rather use abilities to give me more consistency than relying on luck, especially when you are pretty much relying on luck already for success/great success/fail. Now it's like if you have one snag in a synth, you are screwed. Everything has to be perfect. They changed it from having to (and being able to) adapt to certain situations with specific abilities to just mindless "set these abilities, do this order, maybe you win maybe you don't". I hope that when the level cap is raised, DoH will be able to use more than 5 abilities again.

Yeah leves and leveling are hella easy and fast, especially if you don't care about quality (Piece by Piece, By the Book, Grand Design, Unerring Hand and boom you're done), but the HQ system just seems really....limited. I miss my abilities that boosted the effect of my stats on quality. I thought the stats didn't make a big difference before, but it seems even worse now.

But i do like the increased animation speed.