Either this recipe is wrong

[Aeni]

Or there's something else at work here.

Trying to synth a bronze bed and apparently, according to FFXI Somepage, it's a main Smithing craft with a cloth subcraft (The recipe caps out at 19 and my smithing skills are way beyond that at this point, but cloth is at zero)

I remember how people would argue that one could synth HQs without the need for a subcraft ... or something similar.

Well, I got a message that this recipe was beyond my skill to do. One of two things is possible here:

(1) Either this recipe is a main clothcraft skill and not smithing as FFXI Somepage reports or

(2) You do need subcrafts and that you need appropriately leveled subcrafts to HQ recipes consistently as well.

I just wasted money on materials. Sigh.

[LoneGamer]

You need subcrafts.

[Jei]

ffrecipe says this is 19 smith 19 cloth. I don't think you can even attempt it at 0 cloth can you?

[LoneGamer]

You can only attempt a synth when your craft levels are no more than 15 below the recipe's caps, so, no. You can't try it until you have Clothcraft 4, but success is very unlikely.

[Aeni]

Then if that's the case, this is more fuel for the argument of having higher levels of subcraft can make or break your chances of HQ'ing a recipe. It's probably best then that everyone get their subcrafts to 60 (+ any bonus from GP) and their main as high as possible (100+bonus) to get the best chances for HQ'ing these recipes.

[LoneGamer]

Yeah.. that's common knowledge, at least on the Alla tradeskill forum before they got bought out by IGE.

[Taskmage]

I thought it was common knowledge as well until Icemage aka Irrrefutable Captain Research said subskills have no effect on HQ%. Now I'm not sure. I still think they do, but I haven't collected any data to back up my assumption.

Edit: I haven't noticed how long that's been your sig, Aeni, but grats on your vermy and rope.

[Jei]

I believe sub craft affects HQ. I never done any test but it makes sense when you think about it.

[Wertyone]

I don't know how much testing you would consider enough, but while attempting to make seer's tunics I noticed that on my mule(cloth 56 +1, leather 60 +1) I was able to HQ about 22 percent, but on my main character (cloth 60 +2, leather 25) I never have received an HQ.

This is over about 15 synths each. I did this as my own little test on subs effecting HQ rates, and it satisfied me.

[Taskmage]

3 HQs vs 0 HQs could be normal statistical variance. You might have just gotten lucky with one set and/or unlucky with the other. We'd need samples larger than 15 synths to be "sure" but that's definately on the right track.

When making Snoll Gelato (cooking 61, alchemy 11), sometimes I will go through a stack of crystals and get 5 or 6 HQs, sometimes none.

[Haggai]

Simple solution is to just get your clothcrafting to 19-ish. It's really easy. I got mine to 20 in one day.

Then again, getting any craft to 20 is easy.