SO. CRAFTERING.

This is how I craft. Every time I make a set, I figure out the numbers first, and make new macros accordingly.


I figure out how much progress do each of these skills give:

Muscle Memory
The 2nd and 3rd Piece by Piece
Rapid synth II
CS2
CS3
Focused Synth

And then I figure out how much each of those skills give under Ingenuity II. After that, there are two ways to finish progress:

Leaving it so a single unbuffed CS2 will finish it
Oooooor
Modifying your "finisher" so that one or more skills are under the effect of Ing2

Example finisher: There is 35 DUR remaining on a synth. You use the following skills (yes this is part of a macro)

/ac "Steady Hand" <wait.2>

/ac "Piece by Piece" <wait.3>

/ac "Innovation" <wait.2>

/ac "Great Strides" <wait.2>

/ac "Ingenuity II" <wait.2>

/ac "Byregot's Blessing" <wait.3>

/ac "Observe" <wait.3>

/ac "Focused Synthesis" <wait.3>

/ac "Observe" <wait.3>

/ac "Focused Synthesis"

Steady Hand runs out just as BB is used, and there are 4 steps remaining on Ing2. The last bits of progress are 2 Focused Synthesis under the effect of it. There are other macros, but that's about as complicated as that finisher gets.

Once you figure out the progress, just shove as many Touch actions as you can into it to get the quality bar up.




Notes on new skills:

Careful Synthesis 3 is a neat skill, its a strictly better Standard Synthesis that costs less CP and doesn't need Steady Hand on. You can safely remove Standard Synthesis from your bar, as there will never be an instance where you would use that instead of CS3.


Focused Synthesis costs 5 CP more than CS3, and gives 50% more progress. Good filler skill.


Focused Touch is one of the best filler skills, when you have enough durability remaining to get one more action in, and Comfort Zone is at 2 stacks left.


Patient Touch is... an oddball. Its Hasty Touch, except really good early, and really risky late. If you succeed, you get 2x the IQ stacks per touch. 1 would go to 3, 4 would go to 6. IF IT FAILS (and it is very prone to failure), your IQ stacks are halved, rounded up. So if you were at 5 stacks and it failed, you'd go down to 3.

Personally I only use this skill early, or when its one of those "well its not going to HQ anyway if I don't use this" times.


Prudent Touch is freaking magical. Its Basic Touch for 3 more CP, that uses half as much durability. Combos VERY well with manipulation 2, speaking of which...


Manipulation 2 is the hardest skills to use properly, but also one of the strongest. for 96 CP, you restore 40 Durability. That's more than Waste Not 2 at its peak effectiveness. The most common use of it is as follows:

Muscle Memory (25/35)
CZ
IQ
Manip2
SH2 (30/35)
Piece by Piece (25/35)
Prudent Touch (25/35)
Prudent Touch (25/35)
Prudent Touch (25/35)
Prudent Touch (25/35)
Observe (30/35)
Focused Touch (30/35)

At this point, Manip2 and CZ have both fallen off. THAT BE EFFECTIVE CRAFTERING.


Lastly, Initial Preparations. That's a specialist skill, and isn't required for any synths at the moment. If you use this, you eat up your chance to use Muscle Memory, but this is what it does.

Costs 50 CP. RANDOMLY, very randomly, you will have your CP cost reduced on an action. Can happen twice in a row, can happen never. Its also % based, like if this thing reduced the cost of a Master's Mend 2, GREAT. If this reduced the cost of a Hasty Touch II from 5 to 4, thats nothing to be excited over. This fucker's fickle and not to be counted on, but its specialty actions are to use considered.

Refurbish restores 65 CP. 15 free CP, at the very least.
Reflect gives you 3 IQ stacks. Pretty good when used early.
Reinforce restores 25 DUR. PROBABLY the strongest DUR recovery in crafting, for 50 CP.

Most of the time I will use Reflect or Reinforce. Refurbish is good if the synth is beyond HQ or unable to be completed even with the other two actions, since it lets you reclaim.