Unable to remove Materia without leveling a crafter?

[Estellios]

One of my FC members is new to dealing with materia and melded an extra crit materia on her Vanya hat without realizing that it was giving her +0. Thankfully she came to me for her forbidden melds and I caught it. Anyway, she apparently cannot get the option from Mutamix Bubblypots to remove Materia and from what it sounds like, that option is blocked until you get a level 19 crafter and do the initial melding quest.

Is this the case, or are we just mistaken and there is some other requirement she is missing?

If this is the case, can this be changed? 19 in a craft doesn't take very long but it is an unnecessary requirement to remove materia when you don't have to get 19 in a craft to request others to meld for you. I'd imagine it's also fairly confusing to new players if they hear about materia removal as an option and can't access it.

[Enkidoh]

It was my understanding that you can never remove materia from an item once you've melded it - that's why it's called 'materia melding' or 'materia assimilation', it's not like FFVII where you simply clip in a piece of materia or can remove it again at will like batteries in an iPod. Of course though as I've never done materia melding (due to not bother with crafting), I have no experience with this so maybe someone far more knowledgeable on the subject can clarify this.

[Estellios]

No... you can remove materia and have always been able to since 1.0. It removes all materia on the item though.

But apparently in ARR the removal requires you to level a crafter, unless someone knows if there is some other requirement.

[sylin]

If you need to be a crafter to meld, shouldn't you also need to be one to remove? Personally in favor of this

[Estellios]

You don't need to be a crafter to meld stuff. You can request others to meld for you. If that wasn't the case then I could see the point to the restriction but it wasn't this way in 1.0 and it makes no sense when you can request a meld but cannot remove the melds afterward without a crafting class leveled.

[Lemon8or]

You can't use request meld option if you haven't done the quest to meld yourself. I've had many people coming to me for relic precursor with this problem.

[Estellios]

You can't use request meld option if you haven't done the quest to meld yourself. I've had many people coming to me for relic precursor with this problem.

That can't be true as I've had several members not touch a crafting class that are able to request melds.

[Dakre]

Removing a materia does require a high enough level to finish the quests, but mutamix won't remove them unless you complete all of the materia quests first. That requires like a lvl 25 crafter, check this out http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comments/1qpig2/

[Ilmoran]

You can't use request meld option if you haven't done the quest to meld yourself. I've had many people coming to me for relic precursor with this problem.

Incorrect: You can't request meld if you haven't done the quest to *convert* materia yourself.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

So cant you get someone else to remove it for you at the npc or by a crafter ?(not sure if possible). If you can only makes sense you had to ask someone to meld it that you should also have to ask someone to remove it.