Materia...what exactly is it?

[Anova]

Here is a rough guide if you want one. The information on materia farming is a little outdated, but everything else is more or less correct. The basics of materia can be summarized in four points.

To convert materia, you will need to complete the Lv.19 story quest, Life, Materia, and Everything.

Any equipment (except blue and purple) will have a spiritbind % when you mouseover them. When you reach 100% spiritbind, you can convert items in to materia by selecting the item and right-clicking/menu.

To spiritbind items, you need to fight enemies on par with their item level or higher. This means you cannot spiritbind a Lv.45 item by killing Lv.1 enemies, but you must kill enemies who are at least Lv.36.

Once you convert an item in to materia, you will receive a random materia. Items that give tank stats will produce tank materia, and the same applies to dps/healers/crafters/gatherers. Materia are color-coded for your reference.

You will need a crafter to meld materia to your weapons/armor. A trade menu lets you find crafters willing to meld materia. Doing so requires a materia and an appropriately graded carbonized matter. Please try to provide the materials yourself. Until new materia are released, you will not need more than grade 4 carbonized matter. A tip of 1k to 2k is typical for melders you find using party search.

High level crafters can also overmeld, allowing you to slot more materia than the item have slots (to a max of 5). Doing so will drastically reduce the success rate of the meld, so please be aware of the risk.

Some more advanced tips are as follows:
Custom slotted materia in hq items can be better than the ilvl110 items for certain builds. If you're new to the game and not tweaking towards anything really unusual, materia isn't necessary.
When planning materia, don't forget that materia can cap and keep that in mind when planning your materia slots.
Failures will not destroy the item, but only the materia you are tryingto meld. Slot the most expensive materia first and use the cheaper and more expendable ones for the riskier melds.