Cracked Materia Guide

[Molly_Millions]

I reeeaaaalllllyyyy hope the exchange rate towards Darklight currency is decent.

Also, is it only gear that can be traded for the currency? Or can just unmelded Materia be used to trade for that currency too? Does anyone know?

Check the image in my guide, it's from the original lodestone post. Only melded gear can be traded for darklight. Un-melded cracked materia can be traded for new materia only.

[Themis]

I reeeaaaalllllyyyy hope the exchange rate towards Darklight currency is decent.

Also, is it only gear that can be traded for the currency? Or can just unmelded Materia be used to trade for that currency too? Does anyone know?

Cracked Materia can be traded for any new materia of the same tier. So a Cracked Materia III can be traded for a materia of tier III.

Equipment melded with Cracked Materia can be traded for either to the Materia NPC as above, or traded to the Currency Exchange NPC for some kind of tokens towards equipment. That equipment includes darklight but isn't limited only to it. It can be traded for other dungeon equipment or primal rewards.

[Chiapet]

So if you trade to the materia npc and not the let's call it the Darklight npc.. the materia npc will let me keep my gear but replace the cracked materia inside?

[Molly_Millions]

So if you trade to the materia npc and not the let's call it the Darklight npc.. the materia npc will let me keep my gear but replace the cracked materia inside?

That is one option, yes. But for the reasons I mentioned, I believe it's better to trade most melded gear for darklight tokens rather than swap the cracked materia for new materia. The exceptions would be if you have darksteel, vanya, or gryphonskin gear from 1.0.

[Chiapet]

Yea i was just thinking about stuff like my silver tricorn or my giantsgall stuff. Stuff im uncertain of how if how i will reobtain but thank you for the info i've been very confused by it. Its hard for me to understand if the one npc just took my items and materia and only have me materia or just mended it for me.

[Arkine]

Hm... great guide... makes me wonder if I should trade or keep my Sentinel stuff.

[Molly_Millions]

For rarer gear it's a judgement call. The stuff like Sentinel's gear doesn't have great stats in ARR, darksteel is much better. However, some of that stuff took forever to get like the Sentinel's Cuirass. Personally, I'm going to trade my more run of the mill stuff in and see how much darklight stuff I can get, then if I need to trade in more stuff, my sentinel's gear is next.

[Nikkita]

Can you show me where they mentioned that this is the "darklight" currency you speak of? Is that not an assumption? Also I was under the impression that the tokens that they spoke of that we would be getting from dungeons were tradable for lesser versions of the actual Darklight drops not the same things. Since it will be easier to obtain it won't be as powerful.

[Molly_Millions]

Can you show me where they mentioned that this is the "darklight" currency you speak of? Is that not an assumption? Also I was under the impression that the tokens that they spoke of that we would be getting from dungeons were tradable for lesser versions of the actual Darklight drops not the same things. Since it will be easier to obtain it won't be as powerful.

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...48a963d6e53673

8-1. Conversion of Version 1.0 Materia
1. All Version 1.0 materia will be automatically converted into cracked materia.

2. Players will be able to exchange their cracked materia for new materia of their choosing.
* Materia that has already been affixed to gear can be converted as is.

Even after converting cracked materia, there is the possibility certain gear will see a decrease in effectiveness when compared to Version 1.0. To compensate for this loss, players will have the option to exchange any gear affixed with cracked materia for a special currency. The amount of currency received is based on the type of gear as well as the number of materia affixed. This currency can be exchanged for a variety of gear, such as those obtained in dungeons and primal battles, or darklight gear.

No official source that I have seen has said it's a lesser version of darklight gear.

[Tinks]

There IS one more thing to consider when trading in melded cracked gear. Tier IV materia now come from items with an ILevel of 75+. This means the only thing you're going to get it from is things like Primal weapons, darklight, vanya, gryphonskin etc. So all of the tier IVs you have could be very precious. There's a few pieces of gear that I have with a single IV melded on them that I think I'm just going to pop that IV out of offload the gear itself. I imagine IVs are going to be pricey.