Optimo User Guide

Welcome to the user guide for Thal's Optimo Tool for Final Fantasy XIV!

Optimo finds the shortest possible macro for crafting an item using your character's stats. It works with what you have, so you decide how best to spend your free time and gil.

Optimo doesn't know anything about you, your character, or even other websites (by design!), so to use it, you have to do a little typing:

1. Enter Player Stats

Open your character sheet in the game and copy your level, cp, craftsmanship, and control values into Optimo's player panel. It is easiest to use desired food and medicine first and copy the buffed values. But if you want to save gil, you can do simple math in the text boxes, such as "656+100+27" for 656 base cp with food and medicine cp buffs added.

Then, check the following options:

  • Manipulation is unlocked by completing the level 65 class quest for your current class. It is worth the trouble, particularly for items with 40 or fewer durability, so the option defaults to "Allowed". But if you haven't unlocked it yet, change it to "Not Allowed".
  • Specialist actions are unlocked by equipping a Soul of the Crafter (note: this changes your cp, craftsmanship, and control). These actions will improve your macros, but require consuming a Crafter's Delineation from your inventory for every action. The default is "Not Allowed", change it to "Allowed" if you want specialist actions.
  • Synthesis (progress-generating) actions are allowed "Anytime" by default as this generates the best macros. But if your craftsmanship or level increase, early synthesis actions could finish the craft before the desired quality is achieved. Switching to "At the End" makes slightly worse macros that are safe from leveling or upgrading gear.

2. Enter Item Stats

Open the crafting log in the game and copy the item level, rating, durability, maximum progress (sometimes called difficulty), and requested quality into Optimo's item panel. Requested quality should be the item's maximum quality, subtracting any quality granted by HQ materials. You can do this subtraction in the text box (e.g. "21200-5378").

Item rating is either the number of stars next to the item level (can be any number from zero to five), or "Expert" if there is an orange bar with double red diamond nearby. The rating, along with the item and player levels, determines how much progress and quality each action generates. Double check these values if in-game progress and quality are different than expected.

Cordia Lumber has three stars next to its level, so its rating is "2-5 Star". Oizys Scrap Wood also has three stars, but its rating is "Expert" because of the orange bar with double red diamond.
There are many ways to identify "Expert" rating.

Then, check the following options (if available):

  • For certain items in Cosmic Exploration, a Stellar setting will appear controlling the use of stellar actions. The default "Auto" will only use them where recommended, but this can be overriden with "Allowed" or "Not Allowed".

3. Click Solve

Click the Solve button and Optimo will take a few seconds (using your computer's memory and processing power) to generate the shortest possible macro of crafting actions that achieves the requested progress and quality.

Optimo begins "Solving" (or "Overtime" if the search takes unexpectedly long) to find any solution. When a solution is found, Optimo narrows the search and begins "Validating" that it has the best one. When this completes, the solution will appear in the Actions panel (populating the Results panel) and the macro will appear in the Macro panel for convenient copy/pasting.

You can edit a solution (or create your own) by dragging, dropping, or clicking actions within the Actions and Hotbar panels. The simulated results of these edits are shown live in the Results panel.

Your solutions are saved periodically in the URL field of your browser, so you can bookmark them for later, or navigate between them with the forward and back button. You can create a copy of the current page with the Copy ↗️ button and load your stats into the Expert Tool with the Switch 🔀️ button.

4. Copy the Macro to the Game

The Macro panel has a text box where you can select, copy, and paste the text lines of a macro. The game limits individual macro parts to 15 lines each, so if there are enough actions, more than one in-game macro part will be required.

Numbered buttons (e.g. 1️⃣) appear along the right side, one for each 15-line part. Clicking a numbered button copies the corresponding part to your clipboard, so it can be pasted into the in-game macro editor efficiently.

These parts can be configured with the toggles next to the numbered buttons:

  • Space 🗂️ puts a blank line between parts that does not count against the 15 lines.
  • Lock 🔒️ begins parts with the "/mlock" command, which blocks other "/mlock" macros from running at the same time. This prevents misclicks and allows faster switching between parts (clicking the second part early simply does nothing).
  • Echo 🔔️ ends parts with a message and sound effect <se.9>.

5. Complete

Once you have created your in-game macros, you are ready to craft!

A. Solution Found, But It Didn't Work

When you use a macro, your stats must match the stats used to generate it.

If your stats decrease (e.g. your food or medicine buff runs out), macros can fail to generate the requested progress or quality. But surprisingly, macros can also fail if your stats increase! Many macros use synthesis (progress-generating) actions before the touch (quality-generating) actions are finished. If your craftsmanship or level increase enough, these early synthesis actions will complete the craft before the requested quality is achieved.

Here are some common reasons why Optimo and the game might disagree:

  • Does your gear need repairing? Broken gear does not contribute its stats.
  • Does your macro require food or medicine? If your player stats included food or medicine when you made the macro, those specific buffs must be active when you use it. Medicine is easy to forget: it only lasts 15 minutes and consuming multiple doses does not stack.
  • Did you use the proper item rating? Rating is either the number of stars next to the item level (can be any number from zero to five), or "Expert" if there is an orange bar with double red diamond nearby. Note that "Expert" rating will also protect your macros against Malleable or Primed conditions as needed.
  • If you set Specialist to "Allowed", do you have a supply of Crafter's Delineation items in your inventory? Saddlebag or retainers do not count.
  • Did you gain a level or buy better gear? While you are leveling, consider Synthesis "At the End" to prevent improving stats from breaking your macros. Don't forget to switch back to "Anytime" when you're done.
  • Are you near level 65? Manipulation is unlocked by completing the level 65 class quest for your current class. If you don't have it, make sure Manipulation is set to "Not Allowed".
  • Did you get a Poor condition on Byregot's Blessing? Optimo ignores conditions, which unfortunately includes this 4% chance. For HQ items at otherwise maximum quality, this results in a ~0.5% chance of getting NQ. I simply accept this risk, but you can increase the requested quality, or set up a System > Cancel Macro keybind or /macrocancel macro so you can stop when you see an Excellent condition on the step prior to Byregot's Blessing and try to adjust.

B. Solution Not Found

Many crafts cannot be macroed with their maximum quality, even with the best possible gear. Here are some common workarounds:

Switch 🔀️ to the Expert Tool

The Expert Tool can typically double the quality of a macro, but it requires more attention and time. Click the Switch 🔀️ button to load your current stats into the Expert Tool, and the tool will provide step-by-step condition-based instructions that maximize your chances of success. Read the guide there for more details.

Use HQ Materials

Most crafts use other crafted materials as inputs. Every input material that is HQ adds quality to the craft, up to a maximum of 50% if all inputs are HQ. You can subtract this amount from the Quality field (e.g. "21200-5378" or "21200-50%") and try again.

If you are making current-content raid gear, inputs are typically:

  • One input you can HQ before the patch (e.g. Thunderyards Silk).
  • One or more alchemist inputs that you can't make pre-patch, but you can make them HQ three at a time (e.g. Gemsaps).
  • One or more non-alchemist inputs that you can't make pre-patch and can only make one HQ at a time.

It is typically the case that for best-in-slot properly-pentamelded gear, the pre-patch HQ and alchemist HQ's together are enough quality to generate a macro with the other inputs NQ. If you don't have the best gear, that's still fine, just make some of the other inputs HQ as well.

Increase Your Stats

There are a variety of ways to spend gil to increase your stats. Use Optimo before you buy anything to see if the new stats are worth the expense.

Your stat priority should be cp >>> control > craftsmanship, with the caveat that many items have a minimum required craftsmanship.

  • Use food and medicine. The best food and medicine for your level will roughly increase your cp by ~20%, resulting in even larger gains in quality.
  • Use specialist actions. This will typically give you ~10% more quality, try regenerating with Specialist "Allowed" to see if that's enough. If it is, equip a Soul of the Crafter (note: this changes your cp, craftsmanship, and control) and put a supply of Crafter's Delineation items in your inventory.
  • Get the best gear and meld it as well as you can afford. Making your own crafted gear is a fun rite of passage for new crafters, and if you don't mind gathering, it's essentially free. If you have 5-10 million gil, a full pentameld is absolutely worth doing. But if you don't, you can get much of the benefit just by capping every item with the most cp it can support. Use Craftsman's Cunning XII (or similar) to keep costs below 50k, you will not need the more expensive Craftsman's Cunning XI, since you are doing at most one overmeld per item.

Advanced Techniques

Optimo ignores conditions. For Poor conditions, this results in an unexpected ~0.5% failure rate on HQ items. But what about Good conditions? Can we use their unexpected benefit to lower the requested quality without noticeably affecting failure rate?

The answer is yes, but it's up to you to decide what you're willing to accept. Here are some reasonable starting points:

  • For HQ items (e.g. raid gear), try subtracting 10% from the requested quality.
  • For collectibles where getting close is acceptable (e.g. would result in mission silver instead of gold), try subtracting 5% from the requested quality.
  • For collectibles where getting close is unacceptable (e.g. achieve a minimum value or the craft fails), don't risk it. Use the full requested quality.

Note that the Quality field supports percentages, so if your request was "21200" you can lower it with "21200-10%". Or if your request was "21200-5378" you can lower it with "21200-5378-10%".