Materia and Soulbinding

As a relatively new player. I'm still fairly confused on this. I know gear has "slots" for materia. But how do you make/acquire it? I know it has something to do with 100% soulbinding your gear, but past that I have absolutely no clue.

If anyone could enlighten me on the steps/process I'd be appreciative.

Well you need first to talk to a Goblin named Mutamix in Thanalan after you reach level 20. Then you get the ability to convert all your gear that is 100% spiritbonded into materia. :) That's how you acquire it. The type of materia you get is depended the the ROLE of the gear it's made from.

So if you are converting a healers item, you get healer materia, caster, caster materia, tanking gear? Tanking materia.. and so on and so forth. Once you convert your equipment into materia it's gone forever. :O

To spiritbond an item you need to do things that are reasonably difficult and gain experience with it. So don't think at level 20 you can just slaughter level one mobs and get spiritbonded.

Im not an expert but the beginning steps are you need to spiritbond your gear, to do this you simply wear it/use it till it reaches 100%. Then you need to raise a class to level 19 to get the quest to convert items into materia from one of the npcs at the bonfire in Thanalan. Once you do this you right click on your item and convert. This turns your items into materia. Next step is you need to have one of your crafting classes at level 19 (excepting Culinarian) and then do the other quest in the same place which will then allow you to bond your materia to new gear. I havent explored too much into melding but thats the basic start up process.

You obtain an item like a shirt.

If you gain any exp the shirt becomes binding and you can't sell or trade it and it starts spirit bonding.

After getting enough exp the shirt spirit bond gets to 100% and now you can turn it into materia.

Materia comes in grades and each grade can be attached to gear matching its level.

To attach materia you need a crafter, the materia you want to attach and a catalyst. Catalysts are glue for materia.

You can attach a maximum of 5 materias to any piece of equipment regardless of the number of slots.

Alrighties. Thanks for the info. As for getting 100% spiritbound, doesn't seem to hard at the moment. Had some already spiritbound pre level 18. O.o

But if the quest lines, things needed is at Thanalan, then I shall watch for it there. Appreciate the replies.

This is a very well made guide for beginners regarding materia system. It may be a bit outdated with P4 changes, but it will definitely teach you the first steps of what you need to know.

http://eorzeareborn.com/a-materia-overview/

How do I add sockets to a piece of gear? Say a piece has 2 spots for materia and I want to add 2 more sockets. How do I do that? Will adding the extra sockets risk me losing the whole piece of gear or just the materia I'm trying to add?

@ftw2177: Thank you for that informative reply. That will very much help me out with my materia melding.

@HiirNoivl Thanks for clearing up the socket part. Was wondering if it would be like wow where a jeweler can just add sockets. At least the materia can still be added. That is what matters.

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Originally Posted by WHS

How do I add sockets to a piece of gear? Say a piece has 2 spots for materia and I want to add 2 more sockets. How do I do that? Will adding the extra sockets risk me losing the whole piece of gear or just the materia I'm trying to add?

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Heard about this on mr happy's you tube channel. apparently there is a forbidden materia quest that allows you to bind two extra slots. the only stated risk involved was to the materia itself and the reagent used could be destroyed if it failed.

Right, you can't add sockets to gear. But you can take a chance and attach more materia than the slots you have. Please keep in mind, the gear's native stats are capped pretty low. So you want to try to do a forbidden meld with something that isn't on the gear already.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WHS

How do I add sockets to a piece of gear? Say a piece has 2 spots for materia and I want to add 2 more sockets. How do I do that? Will adding the extra sockets risk me losing the whole piece of gear or just the materia I'm trying to add?

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You can affix max 5 materia to an item. The number of slots of materia an Item has is the number of materia you can 100% it then it becomes forbidden materia.

Exemple a helmet has 2 slot, then the first 2 materia will be 100% success if you try more they have a chance to fail. But in ARR if you fail a meld you only loose the materia and the matter you do not loose the gear anymore

Also note you need at least 1 materia slot to be able to affix materia
Also please not that each gear got max stats so before melding, make sure that the materia will be used as his full potential