Crafting noob asking for some help.

I'm wondering if anyone can give me advice on crafting

I'd like to exalt it but I heard there is ways to semi manipulate the outcome by crafting it before hand.

Seems you should just yolo exalt res. You could master craft 'prefix cannot be changed' but that would not preserve your intelligence mod and it would cost 2ex.

There is another thing called blocking...essentially crafting a mod you dont want, preventing it from rolling then exalt. Such as if you want to craft a higher ES% than your master craft... But that's risky- you might not get ES at all or maybe a lower version.

The crafted %ES was just there as a placeholder and to see if I could just keep it as is. With blocking would crafting a Suffix or Prefix be better before slamming it?

Ya that's what I presume, I wouldn't want to risk ruining it by crafting a bad prefix. So I would just yolo exalt as is and hope for res. If you miss, at least you have nice ES still.