red writing After Materia Melding?

[Goobus]

Hi, so I just got my goldsmithing to 19 and just started melding a few items. After melding a materia to an item I noticed that the bonus stat is in red writing e.g. Craftsmanship +1 in red writing. What does this mean?

Cheers!

[Drivont]

the item level is too low to recieve the full benefit... not sure how to find out at a glance what causes that on the actual weapon, but when it's in red, you're limiting that materia's usefulness, sometimes by ALOT.

[Goobus]

ah right hahaha thanks for the help. Looks like I gotta do a bit more research lol.

[CianaIezuborn]

The wording is pretty bad, if you see a red number on the gain to that stat, you are not getting the full potential by going over the stat cap on that item.

Every item has a stat cap based off of item slot, level, and stat in question. This stat cap includes base stats on the item. For instance(just an example and not accurate) lets say a level 20 hat has a stat cap of 10 mind.

Level 20 hat with 8 base mind + a 3 mind materia => Red warning with +2 mind
Level 20 hat with 10 base mind + a 3 mind materia => Red warning with +0 mind
Level 20 hat with 5 base mind + a 3 mind materia => No warning, full +3 bonus

One thing to note from my experience is that every HQ item I have made and tried to meld has had it's base stats at the stat cap. For instance:

Level 20 HQ helm might have 8 vit and 8 str and 10 determination
If I try to slot vit, str, or determination I'll get a warning with a +0 bonus. However I can slot dex, crit, parry or skill speed up to a large amount until I hit that stats cap.