Crafting specific question thread. Moar undyed canvas.

[Jamison]

Not in any terrible rush to finish BSM anyway, I only leveled it for Greater Calling really (I don't use it as much as I thought I would since I have both 30% progress abilities but it's certainly a great ability in the right situations).

I'm not an expert in crafting, but in most crafts I get 50-60% progress using just one ability (Greater Calling) and not two. Wouldn't that free up another slot or something else you could use?

Unrelated, but I finally got CRP45 the other day and Byregot's is the shit.

Working on CRP right now for that very reason. Glad to hear it is so worthwhile.

[Niiro]

Greater calling is the most progress you can get in a single ability but it's flaws are that it is a. effected by elemental instability and b. will vary with the level of the craft you're performing.

My method is pretty simple, Careful spam (Byregot's, Culmination, Perfection mixed in when appropriate) until <10 dura, this will leave me at 40% or more unless I encounter instability (if I do I switch to Standard until it either goes away or I reach comfortable dura/progress ratio to resume Careful) then finish with Piece and Book.

The dura:progress ratio is so close to 2:1 that you should always wind up with 40-50 progress using 90+ durability.

Greater would give me 45-60% progress depending on the level of the synth/luck but is crippled by instability. Generally I just prefer to have the trump card progress abilities which are always guaranteed.

Using GC requires more strategy and while it + another ability (instead of 30% x2) certainly has a greater potential for quality I prefer to go the simple route (as described above) as I'm not willing to take the required precautions to get the most out of it, if I were trying for HQs I would work it in but I'm just not interested in paying the extra attention to squeeze a bit more quality just for leves and the like.

[Jamison]

That's all good info, thanks.

Right now I use a couple of abilities that bonus on instability, so I actually welcome when it happens. Assuming I don't get hit with a second one (which can happen, of course) I'll use a brand to clear it out before making that last push with GC. Not saying that's any better, just with the limited abilities I have it works well.

[Croy]

That's all good info, thanks.

Right now I use a couple of abilities that bonus on instability, so I actually welcome when it happens. Assuming I don't get hit with a second one (which can happen, of course) I'll use a brand to clear it out before making that last push with GC. Not saying that's any better, just with the limited abilities I have it works well.

I use a similar strategy when working with a bit higher level items, but if the item is closer to or under my level I replace them with pure quality enhancement abilities. Right now my leveling lineup looks something like this

Greater Calling for Rapid spam (I do this first for leveling purposes)
Manipulation for durability +20 (I don't have any other crafting class besides BSM at lvl 45+ but I will soon with GSM near lvl 45 now)
Improvise
Brand of "Element"
High Return.

If I get instability I get almost a guaranteed 200+ quality on two steps with potential of up to 400 + quality depending on my luck after the first high return (This is only on the first 4 steps of instability and doesn't include other careful synthesis's used). The risk of this process is of course being forced to depend on instability to happen but thanks to high return + improvise I'm guaranteed almost 120 quality automatically with potential up to 180+ quality on just one successful careful synthesis. On high level synths instability happens a lot more often for me and its rare for me not to have instability happen once on them. But anything 3 levels above me or less I go pure quality +% abilities since I can't depend on instability to always occur.

[Raldo]

Comfort Zone (ALC36, 3-turn no durability loss) is also a halfway decent option for pushing progress. However, you should probably use standard, not rapid, when using Comfort Zone for progress.

Certainly inferior to the other choices, but it's still an option.

[Niiro]

Idk what it is but I just don't encounter instability anywhere near often enough to warrant the abilities.

[Spider-Dan]

I heard that Brand of [element] gives 100 quality and ends instability. Does the 100 quality bonus require that you are using it on the associated element? If not, what is the bonus when you are using it on the associated element?

[Jamison]

100 quality if it's the correct element; 20 otherwise.

[Carraway]

Brands are amazing for grinding naked with a tool on +10 recipes. Instability occurs almost every synth. However, they're a lot less powerful when you're doing a synth that uses two or more different types of shards/crystals.

[Datonare]

Brands are amazing for grinding naked with a tool on +10 recipes. Instability occurs almost every synth. However, they're a lot less powerful when you're doing a synth that uses two or more different types of shards/crystals.

This, for sure. Even better when you can find an old recipe with one crystal type that requires synthesis support. In my case it was fleece. Without synthesis support and +8-10 levels above me, I almost never succeeded, it was great lol

[Spider-Dan]

So I go through all the work to get HQ everything to try for a Sarnga+1 (including some highly questionable double downs), and when I finally start the synth, my quality starts at 350something?

Flawless Sarnga Limb (you know, the HQ item that's REQUIRED to attempt the synth) does not count as an HQ mat.

The fuck is this bullshit?

[Raldo]

Ah, I had meant to ask whether or not that was the case, but then I forgot to. I can't say I'm surprised, honestly. Even worse is that the material level of that "HQ" item is level 80, so it further deflates your initial quality.

That said, I prefer it this way. HQ is supposed to be hard to make. You can bet this statement is coming from someone who couldn't give two shits about the fancy new gear though, so I'm sure that makes a difference.

[Spider-Dan]

Um, HQ is already "hard to make." I used HQ mats throughout the whole process (and I have a pretty good selection of abilities), and even with that, I needed three successful Double Downs (at ~40% each) to get to the point of having a full set of HQ mats for the Sarnga synth.

It's one thing to make HQ tough. I get it. But this kind of backdoor gaming-the-system (where an item that's required to be HQ doesn't "count" as HQ, just to screw over your HQ rates) is asinine.

[Raldo]

and yet, if they hadn't gone that route, a good 1/3 (or more?) of the Sarngas in existence would be HQ. I don't think very many people are going to be wasting their Flawless Sarnga Limbs alongside some NQ materials. Flawless Sarnga Limbs aren't easy to come by, I'll grant you that, but unless you're dead-set on HQing enough that you'd blow it up on a double-down, you'll still have an NQ Sarnga to use or sell in the end.

I think they would have been smarter to make the synth Lv60 instead and keep the initial quality as if the flawless item was HQ, but it is what it is. At least you can DoL up all your materials. I cringe to think how the people trying to HQ the Gryphonskin stuff feel, unless there's a nice hippo camp I'm unaware of (there probably is).

What was your ending HQ rate on the Sarnga, by the way? I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that you surpassed 10% at least, but then again I've never tried to make one of these things.

[cyrus]

I haven't crafted in months, what's the fastest way to level up now? What type of abilities should I be equipping for most XP. I have BSM at 50 and all the other crafts at lvl 10-30

[Raldo]

Fastest way to level is to make things with as large a level gap as you can whilst pushing the quality as high as you can. Quality-based exp gains are huge now. Crafting abilities can't fail anymore, so most people set themselves up to deplete their durability as much as possible, then use a crafting ability or two to finish the synth off. For instance, Greater Calling can be used at the end of a synth if you want to spam Rapid since successful rapids no longer incur durability losses.

Leves are also still an excellent way of gaining exp. Don't forget to eat food -- all foods give a +3% exp boost now.

For a BSM50, I would say you'll want Greater Calling and Sublimation and then use your best judgement for the remainder based on what you have available. Don't set more than 5 abilities, because the system will just select 5 at random. The selection is done at the beginning of the synth and doesn't change during the synth, so setting more than 5 abilities is never helpful.

[cyrus]

Fastest way to level is to make things with as large a level gap as you can whilst pushing the quality as high as you can. Quality-based exp gains are huge now. Crafting abilities can't fail anymore, so most people set themselves up to deplete their durability as much as possible, then use a crafting ability or two to finish the synth off. For instance, Greater Calling can be used at the end of a synth if you want to spam Rapid since successful rapids no longer incur durability losses.

Leves are also still an excellent way of gaining exp. Don't forget to eat food -- all foods give a +3% exp boost now.

For a BSM50, I would say you'll want Greater Calling and Sublimation and then use your best judgement for the remainder based on what you have available. Don't set more than 5 abilities, because the system will just select 5 at random. The selection is done at the beginning of the synth and doesn't change during the synth, so setting more than 5 abilities is never helpful.

Wow this really helped, thanks! One last Q, has it been determined which crafts are affected by m.craftsmanship and craftsmanship?

[Spider-Dan]

I don't have the link, but basically, it was re-stated as: every craft has a minimum value for craft and m.craft (maybe control too, I don't recall) that you must exceed in order to be able to complete that synth effectively.

[Enygma55]

My rule of thumb is ALC, CUL, and maybe CRP favor M.craft while the others favor Craft. I believe even every recipe within a class is subjected to m.craft or craft so its really hard to tell. I only have BSM and ALC to 50 so cant comment on the other DoH what is better.

Its mostly a trail and error to see which is better. You'll know its correct when you start seeing higher average numbers across the board in your crafts when you stack either m.craft or regular craft.

For regular leveling purposes, it wont matter much. With enough of the proper abilities and an up-to-date tool, you should have no problem completing any synth 5-10 ranks above you with 200+quality for 1-2k xp per. By the time you reach lv 50, you'll get a feel of which is better and how you should gear.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Makes you wonder why there is even a differentiation anymore. Abilities determine synthesis status more than anything else right anyway so there's really no reason to have a different type of craft attribute.

DoL bonuses are better with gather/output/per. Wish we had something closer to that idea with DoH.