Materia Converting/Degrading

Does stat bonuses from materia degrade when you meld them into lower armor (earrings, rings, necklaces and the like) ?

I melded an Intelligence Materia III to a lv.50 earring and it came out with "Intelligence +1" in red writing.

A lv.50 goldsmith whisped me and said you won't get the full benefit of the materia if the item level of the armor is lower than the materia level. However, the item that the materia was melded to was a lv.50 earring with an item level of 55, while the materia is item level 45.

Can anyone provide some info, I'm rather confused :(

It is impossible to socket materia into an item whose iLvl is lower than the materia.

The issue you ran into is that there's a hidden cap for all stats on all pieces of gear. The earrings you were melding into must've already been near their cap, so it couldn't add the full materia bonus.

Ahh I see, it's proportional to the armor type then, like a chest piece would have a higher cap due to the larger stats? One more thing since I'm already asking, does the hidden cap apply to all possible materia meld? Like for example, the earring had +6 Intelligence already (and assuming the cap was 7), all melded int materia would only give +1. What about offensive stats? Like if the earring didn't have any Spell Speed or Crit, if I meld that materia to it, would it also give +1 Spell speed, or would it extend as long as it is within its own cap assuming hidden caps are stat exclusive? Thanks again for answering btw!

Every item has separate stat caps for each stat. It might be that it was 7 for Int but it might be 10 for spell speed or 6 for determination. The caps are different for different stats. Generally speaking, you will have more success melding stats that aren't on the item already. It should show you before you complete the meld if it's going to be reduced because of a cap, so you just have to experiment.

Plenty of space for upgrades then :D Thank you both for clearing all the confusion :D Really helped a lot!