Materia

[CodeCass]

Alrighty, so here goes:

So I'm a little confused on the workings of Materia. I understand that once an item is 100% Spirit Bonded, you can then transform that old piece of equipment into a piece of Materia, which can then be fused to another piece of equipment to make the latter piece stronger. I've undertaken the quest to learn how to transform equipment into the Materia, but I'm having trouble understanding why I cannot attach the new Materia to another piece of equipment. From what I understand: I need to employ the help of a crafter to help. I assume this means a PC with the correct stats in certain crafting classes. What I'd like to know is: 1. Can I myself join a crafting guild and then use said stats to work the Materia myself? and 2. Exactly which crafting class would I need to employ to work the Materia? Blacksmith? Weaver? This is all just a little confusing and a bit above my head currently. Haha.

Any constructive help or hints would be appreciated! Thanks all!

[Bixby]

1. Yes. When you get any crafting class (except cooking) to level 19, another quest unlocks at the same place as the materia-making quest that will teach you meld materia to gear. (Then another at level 25 to overmeld, adding up to 5 materia to any item that accepts materia, with a chance of failure past the built-in sockets.)

2. Depends on the gear you're melding to. Every piece of equipment has a specific craft that is used to repair it, listed on the tooltip for that item. That's the class that can attach materia to it as well. For example, cloth armor is pretty much always repaired by a weaver, so you need to be/find a weaver of the appropriate level to meld materia onto a cloth robe.

[Meshico]

It will actually tell you what level and class you(someone) needs to be in order to attach it.

Also it will tell you if the level of Materia is too high for the piece of armor your about to equip it too.

And lastly and possibly most important, it will tell you the amount which is going to be applied.

example: Crit +3 materia being attached to a ring...adds +3 Crit. Second Crit +3 materia being attached to same exact ring, adds 0 Crit

because there are limits of what you can put on it.

I hope this helps ^.^;;

[CodeCass]

Thank you both so much! this helps enormously!

[Estellios]

Just to add to what Meshico said, make sure to look at the stat numbers before melding. If you are adding stats to gear and won't get the full value listed on the materia, the numbers will be red and it will tell you how much the meld will give you. In some cases you will want to use lower tier materia instead as it would be more cost-effective.

Don't be that dope that has 3 +0 Strength melds!

[Meshico]

SNIP

Good catch Estellios, and that was me when is started out ^.^; lol true story

[Sisqi]

I just got my crafting classes to 19 over the weekend and have been going materia meld crazy! Is there any way to tell just by looking at a materia what level of gear it should go on? I cannot see any rhyme or reason to this. Sometimes a materia that is too high level for one item can go on another lower level item in a different slot (waist vs feet for example) without penalty? If I'm melding it myself, I can see the warning but what if I trade to another crafter? How will I know what materia works and doesn't?

[Naberrie]

They would see it, and if they're conscientious at all would tell you there's an alert. But the only way to be 100% sure is to do it yourself.

This is how I started doing it. First, I looked at what stats were already in the piece and ignored those for materia. If it had STR, I'm not going to bother trying to add more STR. If it had ACC, I'm not going to bother with ACC. You will usually get an alert when trying to add the same stat to a piece that already has that stat. Particularly if you're dealing with HQ gear.

The next thing I'd do is start with a higher grade materia. If it's a low level piece, I'd try a grade 2, and see what alert I got. If I didn't like what I saw, I'd back out and try a lower grade to see what happened. It will tell you before you attach the materia how much of the materia will actually attach.

After you've done it several times you'll get a feel for it, and will be able to tell before you even start the process whether it's going to work, based on the gear's level and the stats already on the piece.

[Niwashi]

First, I looked at what stats were already in the piece and ignored those for materia. If it had STR, I'm not going to bother trying to add more STR. If it had ACC, I'm not going to bother with ACC. You will usually get an alert when trying to add the same stat to a piece that already has that stat. Particularly if you're dealing with HQ gear.

This isn't always the case. For instance, when I first unlocked materia melding, I tried it out on the HQ Cotton Chausses I was wearing at the time. Since they already had Control +13 boost without materia, I figured I probably couldn't add any more Control but would be able to add other stats like Craftsmanship. Nope. It turns out I could not add a tier 1 Craftsman's Competence Materia (Craftsmanship +3), but could add a tier 1 Craftsman's Command Materia (Control +1). So the "avoid already-present stats" rule didn't apply there.

[Urthdigger]

DoL/DoH gear is different. That rule DOES apply to battle gear