Materia questions

[Tovin]

I've got my miner at 32 and my botanist at 37 or 38 - is it worth it to meld stuff while leveling, or should I wait until I hit 50?

[Nutz]

I've got my miner at 32 and my botanist at 37 or 38 - is it worth it to meld stuff while leveling, or should I wait until I hit 50?

It depends on how much materia you have really. It was probably completely silly to do, but at some point I put a bunch of guerdon I materia on my BOT (in the high 30's or perhaps low 40's I think) and it made it so that any of the point system leves with a potentially large exp bonus were laughably easy without using cordials. Of course those leves aren't hard with good gear anyway, but I've run into bad luck before and failed to max out the bonus (using close to if not the best HQ gear for that level with no materia). It'll speed things up a little bit, but guerdon Is are fairly expensive for tier I materia. I was just sitting on a lot of them from leveling MIN and BOT and converting all of my gear to materia as soon as it reached 100%.

[Nyalia]

I've got my miner at 32 and my botanist at 37 or 38 - is it worth it to meld stuff while leveling, or should I wait until I hit 50?

I recommend investing in updated left side gear (maybe except belt) every 10 levels or so. There's a really, really nice 38 gatherer chest (Vintage Doublet Vest - ilvl 40) and good items for the other slots around there too. Updated gear will help you much more than materia will at low levels.

Actually, here's the best thing to do: When a piece of gear spiritbonds, update that slot and convert the old gear. Otherwise, if a piece of gear is 10 levels out of date without hitting 100% spiritbond, upgrade that slot anyway. In that case, take the old item and, if you have a lower level gatherer, store it until the lower level gatherer can use it. If you don't have a lower level gatherer class, sell it to a vendor.

This method keeps your gear new enough and gets you materia to spiritbond later. When you hit 50, you're going to need a LOT of materia to full meld your gear. While leveling, it really behooves you to collect as much materia as you can, and then blow it all on the ilvl 55 gatherer gear.