New player questions part 2..

[Anova]

Armor and weapons become character-bound the moment you gain xp when wearing them. At that point, I would recommend you either sell the armor to a npc or spiritbond them, turn them in to materia, and either use or sell the materia on the market. If they are aetherial or green dungeon drops, you can turn them in to the gc, sell (if you haven't worn them), or repair and store in your inn's armoire (assuming you're a clotheshorse like me and just keep them for the sake of appearances).

Materia can be slotted in to any equipment lvl15 and higher. To assimilate materia, you need to complete a lvl19 story quest and gain enough exp while wearing the equipment that it becomes spiritbonded to you (left-most green/white bar when you mouse over the item, next to durability).

To meld materia, you need a crafter lvl19 or higher and complete a side-quest in the same area where you learned to assimilate. Alternatively, you could just search for someone willing to meld using the player search function or shouting. If you can, try to provide the carbonized matter for the melders to use. Most will carry some around though, just because it is common for players to forget, but you might have to pay more for it then. Be aware when melding that items do have caps to stat boosts, so it might not be feasible to boost all str or crit if you're using high-grade materia. You can always remove the materia yourself so don't worry about wasting them.

For crafting materials, most materials up to level15 nodes can be bought from the npc. You might see some rarer ingredients beginning from level15 and up, so your priority is to gather and sell those if you're looking to make money. Similarly, you can sell all hq versions on the marketplace as those are only provided by gatherers.