General Idea
The general idea is to get your quality as high as possible before the synth ends, obviously. The real trick though is getting as many steps in as possible, and that means restoring durability. Most material synths have just 40 Durability, while most finished items have around 60-80, depending on the level of the synth. Every single action taken upon the orb (i.e. not including buff abilities) uses 10 durability.
It's also worth knowing before you start that if you reach 0 Durability at the same time you reach 100% Progress your synth will succeed, not fail. Opposite to how it worked in 1.0.
Progress
Before you can worry about boosting quality, you need to worry about actually completing the synth. The amount of progress gained from a single action is determined by your Craftsmanship stat. This is the only thing that stat does.
Basic Synthesis: 100% Efficiency, 90% Success, -10 Durability, 0CP Standard Synthesis: 150% Efficiency, 90% Success, -10 Durability, 15CP Rapid Synthesis: 250% Efficiency, 50% Success, -10 Durability, 0CP Careful Synthesis: 90% Efficiency, 100% Success, -10 Durability, 0CP Brand of ____: 200% Efficiency, 90% Success, -10 Durability, 15CP, Elemental Aspect Required
While I'm sure there's a formula, for any synth you should first work out how much progress you gain from using Basic Synthesis. This amount will ALWAYS be the same. This is extremely useful because it means you can plan exactly how many swings it'll take to finish the synth.
Basic Synthesis will be your bread and butter for progress, but do not discount the other abilities here, depending on your goal and the amount of progress your Basic returns.
For example, if you have 10 durability and one last progress is needed, consider using Careful. It's guaranteed to not fail, at the cost of only 10% less progress, free from CP too.
Restoring Durability
Obviously you don't want this to hit 0. There's a few abilities that can help with this. Using abilities does not waste durability, but it does cycle the orb condition; just something to consider.
Waste Not = +20 Durability (-5 per step for 4 steps saves you 20) -56CP (2.8CP Per Dura) Waste Not II = +40 (-5 per step for 8 steps) -98CP (2.45CP Per Dura) Masters Mend = +30 Durability -92CP (3.1CP Per Dura) Masters Mend II = +60 Durability -160CP (2.7CP Per Dura) Manipulation = +30 Durability, -88CP (2.9CP Per Dura)
Masters Mend is handy if you actually run out of durability, but using Waste Not earlier is much more efficient than using Masters Mend later. The two Tier II versions are also both better if you're doing a high durability synth.
Another ability of importance is Inner Quiet. Using this at the start of your synth for 18CP can get you around 40CP back near the end. Inner Quiet also boosts the amount of quality you get after each touch too.
Touch (Quality) Actions
Anyhow, as for HQing stuff, there's a little bit of luck involved. If you manage to land a doubled up advanced touch on a "rainbow" (Excellent) orb, you'll get 1200+ quality in one shot. Speaking of touch abilities, it's also handy to know the efficiencies of those. Remember that the actual amount of quality you gain from touch is determined solely by your Control stat, multiplied by the potency of the ability. The success rates are completely fixed, no stats, nor the condition of the orb, affects it.
Basic Touch: 100% Potency, 70% Success, -10 Durability, 18CP Standard Touch: 125% Potency, 80% Success, -10 Durability, 32CP Advanced Touch: 150% Potency, 90% Success, -10 Durability, 48CP
As Ratios, Assuming 100% Success:
Basic Touch: 1500 Potency = 15 Steps (-150 Durability) = 270CP Standard Touch: 1500 Potency = 12 Steps (-120 Durability) = 384CP Advanced Touch: 1500 Potency = 10 Steps (-100 Durability) = 480CP
Then when you consider the success rate of the three abilities, it's no contest. What this tells us is that as long as you can afford the CP cost, it is always better to use Advanced Touch. That is, unless your goal is to stall the synth, which I shall explain in a second.
On another note, Great Strides (2x Touch Potency) costs 32CP. You probably shouldn't really ever be using Touch without Great Strides up, unless you can't afford it. With Great Strides up you get 300% potency (2x Advanced Touch) for only 80CP instead of 96CP, and you get it for half of the durability cost. Only reason not to is if you're stalling.
Orb Condition
There are four kinds of orb conditions, listed in order:
Poor (Purple) Normal (White) Good (Red) Excellent (Rainbow)
Each of the orb conditions acts as a multiplier to your next touch action, if you use it. I do not know the exact multipliers yet (i'll work them out later) but I can tell you that the rainbow orb multiplier is pretty huge.
Red seems to be about 1.5-2.0x, and Rainbow seems to be 3-4x. Rough guess from experience.
These orbs now cycle on every step taken, including using abilities. This means that if you get Rainbow orb, you cannot use Great Strides (double quality next action) in time; the orb will change back to white. Stats do not change how often you get each orb, it's random. You ideally need your quality boosting actions already up when your get a good orb.
If you get a Poor condition orb, consider using any ability you were already planning on using, even Great Strides. The orb will cycle (usually back to white) once you use your ability. You can use Observe for 12CP if you have nothing else, but it's less of a waste to use one of your other buff abilities.
Tricks of the Trade
This level 15 alchemy ability restores 20CP if you use it while the orb is Red, but also cycles the orb again, so you miss the chance to use it to boost your quality. While 20CP is nice, you must consider whether it's currently worth using the red orb to boost your quality.
Once I know exactly what the red orb multiplier is, I'll be able to provide the math between using Tricks vs. using Touch. Stay tuned.
Stalling the Synth
So the really important thing to boosting your quality is getting Red and Rainbow orb more often. Unfortunately, these are random. However, this means that the longer you can prolong your synth, the more chances you get of having these orbs.
Every ability you use counts as a step. While your orb is white, consider using your buff abilities in succession. Many abilities that work on "the next action" will actually last several steps. For example, Great Strides doubles the effect of your next Touch, but lasts 3 steps. This means that you do not have to use Touch straight away. This is important because it means after using Great Strides, if the orb is still white, and you're early on in the synth, there's no need to waste it. Use another couple of buffs afterwards, and stall the synth. If you're lucky, that red or rainbow orb might appear after two steps, with your Great Strides still active.
On a similar note, however: try not to waste steps on certain abilities. Waste Not will last for 4 steps, but using Great Strides and Inner Quiet afterwards will waste two of those steps, not good. The order you use your buffs is important!
To stall your synth further, basically use any ability that uses only a small amount of CP. The Basic Touch ability can be useful for this. 18CP gets you a little quality as well as cycling the orb. Much better than using Observe for 14CP. But consider your durability, because using Basic Touch will lose -10. Depending on the amount of CP and durability you have left, you may want to use Observe anyway. By this point of your synth you probably know which you're going to run out of first.
Gear
CP, CP, CP, CP, CP, and more CP. Get those CP accessories up to date, get some HQ ones, put some CP materia on them. After that, Control for boosting your quality helps. Craftsmanship isn't needed so much due to the ease of boosting progress. Unless the synth needs a minimum amount.
In my experience, Electrum Rings of Crafting are easy to spirit bond, easy to make, and always convert into Tier III crafting materia. Good source of the stuff.
My Current Regime
I don't have a lot of the other crafts high level abilities, so I might be missing out on something. hopefully the above notes will help you pick out something I can't. Anyway, considering all of the above, my regime for HQing stuff so far goes like this:
- Great Strides immediately, have 3 steps to use it. - If the orb is still white, use Inner Quiet. - If the orb is still white, use Waste Not. - Use Advanced Touch now (last Great Strides step). Use it earlier if a good orb comes up before. - Use Waste Not / Inner Quiet if they were missed.
- With Waste Not active (should be 3 steps left), use progress abilities. The amount to use depends on how much progress you get from each hit. If you get a colored orb during this, use a Touch. The goal is to get the synth within 1 more hit. Try not to waste too much CP, or any at all, doing this. On a low level synth, you might not need to do this at all.
- Repeat the first 4 steps as long as you can with the CP you have. - Once you run out of all options, have no CP or durability left, you can just Basic/Careful Synthesis to completion. Priority to Careful if you're pretty close since it can't fail.
If you get a red orb: - If you have Great Strides up, use Touch. - Whether to use Tricks depends how much it will help you. If Tricks will help you upgrade from a Basic Touch to an Advanced Touch, use Tricks. - If red orb is a 2x multiplier, using Advanced Touch is better than using Tricks.
If you get a rainbow orb: - Use the most powerful touch action available to you immediately. - If you're lucky, you already had Great Strides up. Do NOT use it if you don't. - Do NOT waste a rainbow orb on any buffs, abilities, or anything else.
Once you run out of CP: - Use Rumination. If you've done a lot of Touch after Inner Quiet, you should get ~40CP back. - If you're lucky, the orb may go red and you can Tricks of the Trade another 20CP back.
Once you only have 10 Durability left: - If you can afford it, Masters Mend. If this leaves you with 0CP though this is a waste. - If you can't quite afford that, Waste Not can help you get 1 more low level Touch in, because it will only drop to 5 Durability. If you're lucky, you'll get a red orb.
If your Durability is low and progress isn't high enough to complete: - Use steady hand if you can afford it, only 22CP. Won't use any durability. This will boost the success rate of Rapid Synthesis to 70%. Gamble your last hit away. - If you're not that far, use Standard Synthesis for 15CP.
Once you're out of both CP and durability: - You're done. Give the synth that one last swing to finish it.
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