I thought I’d document a couple of the ways you can leverage cross-class abilities to almost always craft High Quality stuff. So right off the bat, the bare minimum you need for this is a Level 15 Culinarian for Hasty Touch (50% Success, 100% Quality, 0 CP), Higher Level Crafter (any) for Master’s Mend II (Recover 60 Durability, 160cp), and Level 15 Alchemist for Tricks of the Trade (restore 20  CP, only during “Good” status, 0CP, doesn’t effect durability).

A couple other notes: This method can be used for non-50 crafting, and even non-AF gear, but for the higher level recipes, especially any of the 1 or 2 star stuff, you really want to have the best gear you can get first, High Quality AF gear and Jewelry. Melding isn’t necessary, but it can help remove some of the RNG involved.

So here’s how this works, and it relies on Inner Quiet, Hasty Touch, and Tricks of the Trade, follow these steps:

1. Inner Quiet
2. Tricks of the Trade, if “Good” (Trumps everything else unless you’re at 100% Quality, or get an Excellent in which case Advanced Touch)
3. Steady Hands (II, if you have it)
4. Hasty Touch x5 (or until Steady Hands runs out)
5. At 10-20 Durability, use Master’s Mend

Now you’re at 70 or 80 Durability and have nearly half or more quality filled, you have a couple of options here: Repeat steps 3 and 4 until 20-30 durability (depends if you can finish the craft in 1 or 2 durability) and then finish the craft (hopefully you’ll have hit 100% quality). The other option is to do something like Great Strides -> Steady Hands I -> Innovation (if you have it) -> Advanced Touch. That SHOULD get you 800-1000+ quality unless your Hasty Touches failed too many times. At that point you can then finish off the craft.

This method can be applied to 40 durability recipes, but relies on Manipulation (Goldsmith, 15). Follow the steps above, but use Manipulation at 20 durability (unless you get an Excellent). Please note: Manipulation used at 10 durability WILL BREAK if you try to use a skill that lowers durability when you’re at 10 durability. However the lucky thing is that you don’t NEED HQ mats like Ingots to achieve 100% quality, so these 40 durability recipes don’t necessarily need to be HQ’d.

For the record, I do something like the following (Even macro’d) when trying to HQ lower level recipes or 40 durability stuff:

1. Great Strides
2. Steady Hands I
3. Innovation
4. Advanced Touch
5. Great Strides
6. Advanced Touch

Then, depending on quality, I’ll use a 3rd Touch, then finish it. If I use a 3rd touch, and it’s 80%~ quality, I’ll use a mend and see if I can get it to 100%, but the goal here I’ve discovered is to finish the craft asap. I almost never use this method when I’m crafting intermediate mats at level 50, sometimes I’ll even use quick synth. But for leveling purposes this can be useful for the 40 durability recipes, though you’re unlikely to guarantee a HQ craft. THe goal while leveling is just to increase the quality a few times — you get 100-200% more experience for increasing the quality even a little bit!

Other Thoughts

This is the way that I do things, it’s not necessarily the best way. There are some very good cross-crafter skills available from those I’ve not leveled yet, such are Byregot’s Blessing (makes it easier to increase progress), there’s another that increases progress by a third, and then there are the “Brands”, but I’ve not leveled those crafts yet. I may revisit this topic in the future if I discover that any of those abilities I don’t have turn out to be useful.

Oh, I don’t have it yet, but there is an ability (Rumination, Carpenter Level 15) that can “eat” Inner Quiet stacks and return CP based on how many you had — this IS useful (And I’m definitely going to pick it up next). This ability is very useful after you’ve hit 100% quality, because at that point Inner Quiet becomes useless, your only goal at that point is to fill the progress up all the way — which for 1 or 2 star crafts can actually take 30-40 durability. That restored CP can help you use a mend (for more durability), or to use Standard Synth multiple times (which costs 15 cp).

So, how do you HQ stuff? Am I doing it wrong? Let me know in a comment!