I'll apologize for the giant Wall o' Text in advance! ;-)
As I've mentioned in other threads, I'm a devotee of the "always go for as much Quality as you can" school of XIV crafting. This is the only way to get a high quality result, of course, but also -- by far -- the cheapest way to level a craft. It's fast leveling, too, because of the huge XP bonuses for adding Quality.
For Advanced Crafters
If you already have a few crafts leveled, check out this post for a more involved rotation for achieving HQ results: http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1mh6um/crafting_guidetheorycrafting_dont_let_crafters/
Review of the XIV crafting system
In a nutshell: Skills consume two resources--CP & Durability--to fill the Progress bar and add as much Quality as possible before Durability reaches 0.
Once the either Progress bar is completely filled or Durability hits 0 the crafting mini-game ends, so any leftover CP or Durability is wasted. Getting the best result from your resources can be a balancing act, and --- because skills can fail and waste CP/Durability -- also a game of brinksmanship.
There are a couple of modifiers built into the crafting system that will impact your success:
- Condition affects how much Quality you can add with a skill. The better the condition (ranging from Poor to Excellent) the more Quality you get.
- Your crafting level relative to that of the recipe affects skill success. You'll see more skill failures when recipes are higher than your level, and more successes when they are lower.
Stats matter too!
- CP adds to your total CP (aka Crafting Points). Your CP pool is refilled for each recipe your craft.
- Control increases the amount of Quality gained by using a "Touch" skill.
- Craftsmanship increases the amount of Progress gained by using a "Synth" skill.
Finally, just to make the balancing act more fun, there are skills to restore some Durability (at the cost of CP), restore CP (at the cost of Durabilty), increase Success chance (costing both CP and Durability), and lower the level of the recipe (costing both CP and Durability).
tl;dr - LOTS of knobs to play with, most are for juggling resources and success in order to craft recipes with as much Quality as possible.
Cross-Craft Skills
Similar to the battle classes, crafting classes in XIV can slot a few skills from other crafting classes. These include the skills that squeeze more from CP and Durability, or have better success rates, or lower the level of the recipes. The level 50 cross-craft skills are the best, but a few of the level 15 skills are very handy. Here are the ones I consider most worthwhile, if used at the right time:
1 |
Careful Synthesis |
Weaver 15 |
Guarantee you'll be able to finish the recipe, even if CP is gone. |
2 |
Hasty Touch |
Culinarian 15 |
Guarantee you'll be able add quality, even if CP is gone. |
3 |
Rumination |
Carpenter 15 |
Restore CP proportionate to Inner Quiet uses; cancels Inner Quiet. |
4 |
Tricks of the Trade |
Alchemist 15 |
Restore 20 CP. |
Careful Synthesis and Hasty Touch are practically "must haves" in my book. Between Rumination and Tricks of the Trade, I prefer Rumination. As much as I hate to cancel Inner Quiet, it restores more CP than Tricks of the Trade and makes sense if used late in crafting session.
tl:dr - Get a few x-craft skills if you want to maximize quality.
High Quality Materials
Using high-quality materials and components for a recipes is the best way to fill a large portion the quality bar. If you are trying to craft an HQ item, definitely start with HQ mats!
From the XP perspective, however, it appears the XP bonus for Quality is based solely on the Quality you add using skills.
tl;dr - Use HQ mats to make HQ items, not for XP.
Crafting for Quality Flowchart
The following flowchart shows my best guess for good approach to maximizing quality from skills.
- TIP: Don't neglect you stats if you are crafting for quality. Use gear and food with CP, Craftsmanship and especially Control!
- TIP: Make sure your crafting level is equal or higher than the level of the recipe.
This flow assumes you've leveled your first craft to at least 13, when Condition starts to vary from Normal. The cross-class skills are optional, of course, but greatly increase amount of the Quality you can add.
tl;dr - Inner Quiet first, always. "Touch" skill on good and excellent. Don't fail to finish!
That's my take on Quality, based on what we've learned so far. I'm sure there are some more wrinkles and curlicues to master as we level up, but this should be a good starting point for folks.
~Shmi