@dopelsona, your friend might make this post unvalid.

I only have 1 main compounnder whos alchemy is 21 atm. but i sometime use a friend of mines that has lvl 30+sup and what i can say is that it makes some compounding a lot easier.

The higher your alchemy, means the less chance of failing(getting a lower rank than the original eq). But alchemy is just based on luck. Even with maxed alchemy, you can get plenty of fails. Even a superior at lvl 9 can probably make anything. IGG just does that to piss us off.

There are times when the success rate are good/bad in the game.
You should at least check the success rate by compounding fishes/simple eqs before you start on the hard ones. If it fails a lot, try the next hour. there are good days and bad days. Try not to let the bad days get the best of you. I like compounnding since it's like a gambling thing hehe. You can never stop.