It depends for Manipulation. If you're gonna pop a non-synth/touch ability right after, then using it at 10 is fine.
And about WNWN efficiency...that's not true. There's only 2 cases where WNWN is less efficient than manipulation: (1) you started with an odd amount of remaining durability and only 1 TotT shows up or (2) you're using WNWN improperly by spending non-touch/synth/TotT abilities while WNWN is up.
Waste not Want not does not fit well with tricks of the trade. If you get a good condition right after hitting steady hands, it's either waste the good, or go into WNWN with only 3 stacks of SH. Or if you get a good condition during WNWN you have to waste a WNWN buff using tricks of the trade. You can only use up 3 of the 4 WNWN buff and get the same result as if you used all 4, because staying at 5 durability effectively gives you the same benefit as being at 10. However, you can only do this for one WNWN, any other time you use it you'll have to use all 4 ticks, or you lose out on the full benefit. So it's either waste a good condition (20cp) or only get 1 extra synths out of WNWN instead of 2. So in this circumstance, WNWN gives 1 extra round for 56 CP, whereas Manipulation would give 3 for the same 29.3 CP/round. Or lets say you use all 4 WNWN buffs, but at the cost of 1 good, (20CP) and now you get 2 extra round at a cost of 76CP, or 38 CP/round. As such, it's not reliable to use ONLY WNWN as your durability increasing skill. WNWN is great to have in certain situations where you need just 1 or 2 more synths, and you're low on CP, but manipulation should be the skill you use as your bread and butter durability increaser on 40 durability synths.
Prioritizing for TotT to gain 20 CP is not worth it...at all. For every DoH I've been through (all of them are ~20+ now), every synth has turned out much better when I'm not focusing on TotT and only hitting it in certain scenarios.
Condition of the synth only affects quality gains, not progress. So, any good/excellent condition you want to utilize gaining more quality. Good doubles it, Excellent quadruples it. There is zero reason why you should be focusing on hitting TotT everytime condition is Good. You're missing out on a lot of easily gained quality.
The only time you want to use TotT is when you don't have SH on (any buffs, really; because it burns a round on that buff) or don't have Rumination and really need those 20 CP to help you complete the synth; which is almost never.
Knowing how many Basic/Standard synths to complete a synth is necessary to adjust for progress. If it only takes one, then you do all Touch until your last durability round, obviously. Otherwise you hit Synth rounds on Normal/Poor conditions, and try using Good/Excellent to the best of your ability with Touches.
From my experiences, every time I've synthed using Manipulation, it never ends as far in quality as WNWN (this is up to 37ish with every synth ranging from 40-80 durability).
If I get a Good condition in between hitting SH and WNWN, then I ignore it. Because at that point, it's not worth wasting both a SH round and having a WNWN round without SH (or hitting SH again and wasting a round of WNWN as well). Excellent is a different story. Excellent is worth gambling on even if you don't have any buffs on. Plus, I don't want to spend all day just gaining 20CP at a time. That's a terribly infficient way to play a game, lol.
I'm willing to guarantee, if we crafted alongside each other, on the same recipe, with the same gear, and the same skills; you utilizing TotT and Manipulation and me using TotT situationally and WNWN, I'd craft more, faster with the same if not higher quality.
Let's have a craft-off!
Just to add to this, when you start hasty touching an item, you are getting like 110-120 quality per touch. Adding 50% to this isn't going to make much of a difference when you are trying to get to 2600. If you hit 4 ToT during your synth that will basically pay for a strides>standard touch at the end and if you have 5 you can basically pay for a strides>advanced touch (this is assuming you don't have byregot's). One nice thing about using the regular touches is that the 60 CP from rumination really comes in handy...basically you can rumination>ingenuity>wnwn and finish any synth from 20 durability. I still think it's better to use byregot's if you have it though.
Yeah, send me a tell or Maniacal. We do titan runs every night and have 3 dedicated coil groups. We are progressing and we like to help each other out.
Be prepared for a mature group with lots of adult-rated joking going on.
And we do FC fate grind groups from levels 25-45.
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/character/2834114/
Changes will be made to the way equipment is bound.
Introducing additional servers and enhancements to act as a countermeasure against the congestion to enter "Amdapor Keep."
The difficulty for level 50 dungeons will be adjusted.
The number of areas where you can acquire Allagan Tomestones of Philosophy and Mythology will be increased as well as the amount you can acquire.
Implementation of a population cap for each field.
* The population cap is planned to be introduced separately. (Added on October 11th, 2013)
Adjustments to the spawn rate of monsters that drop diremite web and additional locations where Karakul can be found.
The amount of experience points that can be acquired on botanist and miner, as well the experience points that can be acquired from their fieldcraft leves, will be increased.
User interface elements related to materia and target information will be adjusted.
woooooooooooooooooooo. Fleece and Diremite webs for everyoneeeee!
The number of areas where you can acquire Allagan Tomestones of Philosophy and Mythology will be increased as well as the amount you can acquire.
Adjustments to the spawn rate of monsters that drop diremite web and additional locations where Karakul can be found.
Follow common sense for simple stuff like this, mmk?
oh please
While the specific details will be announced separately, I would like to give you an overview of what will be done ahead of time
Since you can have a crafter meld for you, without the trade window ever closing, you can have bound items melded?
"Announced separately" usually means "when maintenance starts"...but sometimes even their specifics aren't very specific. We'll see.
You for sure can meld bonded items. Done it multiple times before. The quest giver keeps the weapon you trade to him, so have a backup ready.
What is your highest level crafter? Are you crafting 1star or 2star items at level 50? These items are significantly more difficult than crafting while leveling up. We are level 50 crafters in multiple classes, what we are talking about isn't for doing crafting at level 20.
I ALWAYS hit 100% quality. Always. If I don't it's almost pointless to even attempt completing the item.
I don't think you understand the method we are using for crafting, it has been posted about significantly, and any crafter at 50 trying to make expensive items uses it, or some variation.
Here is a couple of posts, which I'll kinda summerize below:
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1mh6um/crafting_guidetheorycrafting_dont_let_crafters/
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1moje4/indepth_crafting_mechanics/
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1n7tlf/indepth_crafting_mechanics_part_deux/
Inner quiet - Every time you complete a touch ability you get a stack of inner quiet, each stack boosts your control. At the maximum of 10 stacks this is better than a "good" quality.
Rumination - Uses up the Inner quiet buff to give back CP.
Byregot's Blessing - Efficiency: 100% plus 20% for each bonus to control granted by Inner Quiet. (Consumes the inner quiet) So at 10 stacks of inner quiet, this is 300% efficiency . Basically a free excellent condition when you want to use it. (I really wanna see a lucky Byregot's Blessing during an excellent, with both great strides and innovation up!!!)
The synergy between these 3 skills is what we use to maximize our quality gains for a synth. Hasty Touch is used in conjuntion with Steady hands II in order to maximize success and minimize CP use. This way we can save all our CP for durability. The goal isn't to maximize the quality gains on each hasty touch, the goal is to have MORE hasty touches. So the point is to use TotT every single time it's up. This gives more CP, which gives more durability, which allows you to use more hasty touches. More hasty touches lead to more stacks of inner quiet, which means you get ever increasing amounts of control. After just a few stacks, inner quiet is better than missing a few goods, and at 10 stacks, you open up the greatness that is the synergy between these 3 skills.
If you use Great strides + Innovation + Byregot's blessing you will get 2000-3000 quality. MASSIVE boost, that generally maxes out any quality, even on 2 star items.
Otherwise you can use Rumination to get 60 CP back with 10 stacks of inner quiet. So if you hit 100% quality already, this gives CP back to easily complete the synthesis of an item.
If you are afraid of losing some steady hands II buffs, don't worry, you will more than make back the CP cost of that buff using TotT. SH2 is 25 CP, and has 5 stacks, so this is an effective 5CP per buff. TotT gives 20 CP, so you are afraid of losing 5CP for 1 stack of the SH2 buff to get 20CP back. You are COSTING yourself 15CP. There may be a few times towards the end of a synth where I use the good condition because I know I don't need any more CP, and it'll help me complete a synth quicker, but during the quality building phase of a craft, it is nearly always best to use that TotT during good.
I hope this helps explain the crafting method we are using, and why not using TotT is a bad idea. And as a result, why WNWN is not a bread and butter skill to "increase" durability, because you have to skip using TotT.