Finding goldsmiths armorers etc

Hi I am new to the game and I am completely baffled by the materia aspect of the game in terms of finding someone to bond it.

I am in zodiark and haven't spoken to anyone since starting the game so I thought I'd ask here. How do you go about finding someone to repair armour and mould materia to weapons etc? Do you have to go around asking or are there specific places to look? :confused:

There are npc's who will do repairs. They are labeled as Mender and are marked on the maps with a special symbol - I think it looks like a pick-axe.

For materia melding, there are 3 options:
1. Pick up those classes yourself - there are 2/3 crafting classes in each city. You get access to them after finishing the level 10 quest for your first adventuring class.
2. Use the player finder and specify which class and level you are looking for.
3. Use /shout

The market area in each city usually has crafters hanging out in it, so you can also keep an eye there.

I have no idea which craft would be best to learn first this whole system is kinda new to me lol, how exactly do you work the player finder?

Just go to the relevant guild HQ and /say that you'd like a meld. No need to shout and broadcast to the entire map.

How far does /shout go, incidentally? What's the range, I mean?

Eco

I wouldn't really worry about materia early on anyway. One thing to keep in mind is that each item has a cap on how high the stats can go. The stats on your armor will be at/near cap, and should be all the stats you care about if you're using appropriate gear (so, not wearing mage robes on a melee). So, it's not necessary until you get to the minmaxing of endgame.

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Originally Posted by Ecosmith

How far does /shout go, incidentally? What's the range, I mean?

Eco

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Zone wide, same with /yell

Most of the high level crafters don't hang out in the guild HQ (I don't at least) but that would work up to ~ level 15.

As a thaumaturge / black mage the best crafting classes are weaver and goldsmith. You can level them to 15 without even leaving the guild if you have a little gil.

The player finder is under the Social menu. You can specify a character name (first or last) or choose which classes and locations you are looking for. So you could look for all characters with the last name of Kasai or you could look for all goldsmiths of level >=22 in Western Thanalan. The display is pretty self-explanatory, I think.
It will only find characters who are logged in at the time, so it isn't great for finding friends but if you need a meld right then it can help.

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Originally Posted by Muzy

Zone wide, same with /yell

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Yell is not mapwide, its just a large area.

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Originally Posted by ForteXX

Yell is not mapwide, its just a large area.

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I stand corrected then. I never use it myself, and rarely see it used, so never really payed attention to it's range.

Thank you for all the help guys :)