Tier IV Crafting / Gathering materia still too scarce?

[Lilyth]

SE increased the availability of the combat tier IV materia so much, why not crafting/gathering?

I was really hoping SE would make it somehow easier to acquire them since you now need them more than ever to reach the three star requirements, all this while keeping the Tier V as an "special goblin lottery" reward. But for some reason, tier IVs are still hard to get for DoH and L.

Is there any way to get enough of them to fully meld our equipement without going broke?? :/

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Spirit bonding i46-i55 gear.

The drop rate is only around 25% (may be a little less). The rest will be T3 Materia. But I can think of only one faster way, and that involved a lot more luck : Diadem spoils.

[Alistaire]

Spirit bonding i46-i55 gear.

The drop rate is only around 25% (may be a little less). The rest will be T3 Materia. But I can think of only one faster way, and that involved a lot more luck : Diadem spoils.

It's 10%. Also it's i45+, not 46+, which would add at least the earrings.

[PirateCat]

The level 55 crafting gear set has much better odds of giving tier IV materia (~75% at a conservative estimate.) You can buy NQ versions of these from the vendor in Moghome. You'll need to craft items above level 50 or gather items from HW areas to spiritbond it though.
I haven't tried this with the gathering gear (mostly since you need a lot more crafting materia, especially if you're melding the class-specific gear) but I'd imagine it's similar.

There's also airship missions, if you happen to be in an FC with access to a workshop (and which lets you use them or distributes the results to its members.) I'll admit that I'm pretty lucky with this myself since I'm the only person in my FC who is as focused on crafting as I am as well as the only person who bothers with sending out the airships, but it's still a possibility.

[Emraell]

The level 55 crafting gear set has much better odds of giving tier IV materia (~75% at a conservative estimate.) You can buy NQ versions of these from the vendor in Moghome. You'll need to craft items above level 50 or gather items from HW areas to spiritbond it though.
I haven't tried this with the gathering gear (mostly since you need a lot more crafting materia, especially if you're melding the class-specific gear) but I'd imagine it's similar.

There's also airship missions, if you happen to be in an FC with access to a workshop (and which lets you use them or distributes the results to its members.) I'll admit that I'm pretty lucky with this myself since I'm the only person in my FC who is as focused on crafting as I am as well as the only person who bothers with sending out the airships, but it's still a possibility.

Is it the recipe level that affects spiritbonding? I was hoping to make some spruce plywood and sb gear while I do that.

[PirateCat]

Recipe level definitely affects it. It seems to work along the same lines as the DOW spiritbond window where you gain more SB the closer your gear level is to the gear level the content was designed for. I seem to get slightly more SB from recipes right around the 55 mark (e.g. dhalmel leather, ramie cloth, hardsilver nuggets) than from recipes that are several levels in either direction (rainbow cloth on the low end, chrysolite on the high, for example) but the latter will still build it.

There does appear to be a split where the recipe level needs to be above 50 though. I haven't tried spruce plywood specifically, but I've gotten basically nothing from stuff like darksteel nuggets. On the bright side, you do get SB from master recipes that are actually above level 50, like airship repair materials.

[Culfinrandir]

I've not seen IV in any decent quantity since 3.0 dropped & the spiritbonding changes came in (I think it was partly introduced at the end of 2.x too). Gear at i55 seems more likely to give II & III than the IV it used to give. IV doesn't become frequent until i100, even then it's not in huge amounts. I've not seen Tier V yet.

It's annoying that Tier IV battle materia is being hurled at us from many directions but DoL/H is still rare unless you have an Airship.

[Sir_Hermes]

my friend sent 4 airships out for 3 weeks and got 3 stacks of crafting materia, I'm guessing people are just hording them

[TahoeMax]

My FC has 4 or 5 mastercrafters; doles a few out to each of us with each airship haul, then leaves the rest in the chest. But definitely not finding its way to the MB at all to bring down prices

[Roth_Trailfinder]

My experience with it was a bit better than 10%, but ok. My point remains, it is still a potential source of Materia that does not involve the board (or the airships).