Converting and Melding Materia

Can anyone tell me or refer me to a link that explains the converting and melding of Materia in detail. I unlocked these side quests last night, and I understand that I can covert gear that is 100% spirit bound and it puts the materia in my inventory. Then I saw the little guy that you can give 5 pieces of materia to and he does something with it but I don't know what. I put 5 pieces in and confirmed and then that big machine started running, but I didn't get anything back in my inventory from it.

I'm just looking for a better explanation of what that guy does with the materia you give him and also a guide for the melding for different disciples of hand.

He gives you back one piece of random materia of the lowest tier that you gave to him (usually) or of one tier higher than that (rarely - you get an achievement). It should have appeared in your inventory, maybe added to an existing stack? There should be a line in the chat log letting you know what it was too.

It can be any type of materia - it's totally random. Good if you have a large amount of cheap materia that you want to gamble into making something worth a bit more.

As for melding, you won't need to do that until you reach the top tier of equipment at the level cap. Instead of eking out a couple of extra points of the crafting stats with materia before then, ensuring you have gear appropriate to your level (which you may well be able to craft yourself) and a solid crafting rotation will be more than enough to succeed at all the synths you need to do to level from 0-60 (same goes for Disciples of the Land).

He gives you a random material no higher than the level you gave him( 1 II and 4 Is, you might get a II) more than likely he gave you a random material you already had so it was added to that inventory slot, check the number in the lower left corner.

http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/wiki/Materia

That is a link that covers most of it.

Basically it's as Mjollnir summarized:
specific stats are randomly generated depending on who can use the gear (DoW, DoM, DoH, DoL)
Tiers are dependant on item level.
Spiritbinding materia requires a minimum monster level to work (so you have to kill something decently hard)
Melding materia requires a carbonized matter (obtained from mining/botany) of equal grade to the materia tier you are melding.
You need a level 25 crafter associated with the item you're upgrading to overmeld materia (all crafters except cul can overmeld)

Oh ok, I see so really there not much reason to ever use that guy unless I want to take a gamble with my materia?

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Originally Posted by Seeker0fTruth

Oh ok, I see so really there not much reason to ever use that guy unless I want to take a gamble with my materia?

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^^ he's a cool extra, but pointless, as you'd be using crappy materia you do not want to meld your desynths, or meld nq crafts youre looking to SB anyway.

My Dragoon is a level 32 so there is really no point in melding materia to my weapon or gear until i'm max level right? Since I will be upgrading it to higher levels as I progress

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Originally Posted by Seeker0fTruth

Oh ok, I see so really there not much reason to ever use that guy unless I want to take a gamble with my materia?

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That's right, but later in the game you may well end up with a huge amount of comparatively worthless materia (eg through airship ventures or spiritbonding runs) that it makes sense to gamble. I head up there with 50-100 at a time and always come back richer than if I'd sold them directly on the Market Board.

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Originally Posted by Seeker0fTruth

My Dragoon is a level 32 so there is really no point in melding materia to my weapon or gear until i'm max level right? Since I will be upgrading it to higher levels as I progress

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Other than that if you have it, you may as well do it as it means the piece that has materia melded to it Spiritbonds 20% faster for each materia. There are achievements for quantity of meld, if you care about that sort of thing. There is also a small weekly repeatable bonus available in your Challenge Log (if and when you have it unlocked) for melding five materia.

Well, if you ever get elemental resist materia (surprisingly common), those are almost always vendor trash. You can exchange them with mutamix and hope to get one that will improve an actual stat (primary attribute or any secondary stat).

Also, you may want to use lower tier materia for a higher success rate at overmelding and cheaper materia when you're trying to reach specific attribute caps on items. There's no need to waste 1mil on a 10% chance to overmeld a+5CP materia when it caps out at +2CP and has a 24% chance of success using a +2.

awesome, thanks for all the helpful info