Is The Escutcheon Enchantment Even Useful?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the way HQ rate+ works effectively render the enchantment useless?

It might be more about not losing mats than improving HQ rate imo. If you make 40 NQ when you try to make HQ, you lose all the mats on each NQ and it's usually hard to sell. If you force break on NQ, you might lose some or nothing beside crystal (thats why this enhancement also has -15% material loss) and in 40 tries you might for example lose mats worth of 10 items.

Yep, this. NQs are generally considered worthless, so intentionally breaking on those and retaining mats for a potential future HQ is the way to go. Stacking -material loss with the shield enchantment, food, HQ crystals, Ionis, rings, standard Moglification (depending on HQ tier) gives you pretty good odds of keeping the mats unless it's something like a Superior recipe.

Welcome first-time poster, Tom Brady.

Thanks, after HQing many Super Bowls I decided to give FFXI crafting a shot instead.

100% worth it, I wouldn't waste mats for a JSE neck or weapon on a crafter without a shield unless you want the nq for some reason. It's all about preserving mats by avoiding non hq's.

from what I've observed, HQ+ increases HQ rate as well as HQ quality. HQ+=+1/256 rate; HQ+=+10% quality multiplier on the highest tier.

so instead of a 12/16, 3/16, 1/16 distribution of HQs,
you'll see ~11/16, 3/16, 2/16 HQs w/ HQ+10.

or for HQ2 max: 12/16, 4/16 to
1/2, 1/2 w/ HQ+10.

for sparkling stones, where it breaks the ingredient 100% of the time yet nq npc's for 200~ gil and hq3 sells for several hundred thousand... ya gonna be using shield charge. for say palladian brass chains, hq3's worth 4x nq price and it's a t1 hq rate. ya no, i'll take my nqs.