Question about melding

[Conradus]

Yep. There's a place for everything. Cotton Halfgloves only have Control on them to begin with, so they could take CP and/or Craftsmanship materia without bumping into their caps, for example.

You might be surprised. The cap is calculated based on both item level and item slot. The chart about melding top level gear shows that your hands piece can only take +4 Craftsmanship despite having none to begin with. The body piece can can take +16 Craftsmanship despite already having 92. The Militia off-hand tool can take +19 although it already has 107. That's why I suggested trying those slots if you're looking to fit a Craftsmanship materia. It seems likely to me that the main hand tool should also take Craftsmanship materia well, but the chart gives no guidance here since the top-level main hand tool is, of course, unmeldable.

Crafting and gathering materia seem to work different from battle materia. With battle materia, an HQ item specializing in a stat is generally already at its materia cap for that stat, but that doesn't appear to be the case in crafting and gathering.

[Bixby]

You might be surprised.

Indeed I am. I've got some reading to do sometime. Thanks for the information.