High Quality is a better form of a Normal Quality item such as a weapon or piece of armor. High Quality items are occasionally produced through crafting.

For example:

• Normal Quality: Spatha
• High Quality: Spatha +1

In this example, the high quality Spatha has more attack power and a reduced delay compared to the normal quality one.

Identifying High Quality ItemsEdit

HQ versions of equipment often have a +1 in their names, for example:

• Wax Sword / Wax Sword +1
• Beak Necklace / Beak Necklace +1
• Red Cape / Red Cape +1

Some, however, have an entirely different name than their normal quality counterparts:

• Scale Mail (NQ) / Solid Mail (HQ)
• Eisenbrust (NQ) / Kampfbrust (HQ)
• Chestnut Wand (NQ) / Solid Wand (HQ)

Some items have multiple levels of HQ, and can be identified by the border around the item's picture:

• NQ has no border.
• HQ1 has a White border.
• HQ2 has a Blue border.
• HQ3 has a Yellow border.

Items with 4 variants (a possible HQ3) are rare and are usually only seen with items like medicines (for example, Hi-Potion +3). Items upgraded via Trial of the Magians currently have up to 3 variants of HQ (up to HQ2).

It is not always the case that the border around the item indicates a HQ item, recrafted items can gain the white border for a NQ synth, and the blue border for an HQ synth, for example:

• Legionnaire's Cap (NQ, no border) / Bastokan Cap (NQ, white border)
  • HQ of a Bastokan Cap is a Republic Cap (HQ, blue border)
• Royal Knight's Belt (NQ, no border) / Royal Knight's Belt +1 (NQ, white border)
  • HQ of a Royal Knight's Belt +1 is a Royal Knight's Belt +2 (HQ, blue border)

Crafting High Quality Items Edit

Testing has shown that the rate of high quality synthesis is correlated with your skill in the relevant craft, according to the following table:

Level Range	-10 - -1	0 - 10	11 - 30	31 - 50	51 - 70	71 - 90	91 - 110
Success Rate	50%
HQ Rate		1-2%	8-10%	25%	50%

Certain Guild items raise your effective craft by a maximum of +3, and advanced synthesis support by another +3. This results in a maximum crafting skill of 106, making 55 the highest recipe in tier 3, 75 the highest in tier 2, and 95 the highest in tier 1.

Your high quality rate is also affected by the current Vana'diel day and Moon Phase.

• Crafting with a crystal thats element is strong to the current day will decrease your chances of receiving a HQ result but increase your chances of success.
• Using a crystal that is weak to the current day will decrease your chances of succeeding but increase your chances of HQ.
• New Moon: Increased HQ rate, decreased success rate
• Full Moon: Increased success, decreased HQ rate

Source

Another test (directly unrelated to High Quality, but further proving the above table) can be found here.