Materia

Materia Tutorial 1 (6.51)

Materia Tutorial 2 (6.51)

Materia Tutorial 3 (6.51)

Materia can be used to enhance gear. You can attach materia into a piece of equipment with sockets to improve its attributes.

Players can acquire materia by extracting it from pieces of equipment with 100% spiritbond, as purchases from vendors using certain currency, or as drops from dungeons (combat materia only). Spiritbond percentage increases as you use that piece of armor in battle, crafting or gathering.

Extracting Materia

Main article: Spiritbond

To extract materia, you must first complete the quest: Forging the Spirit. The quest giver is Swynbroes, located at The Bonfire in Central Thanalan (X:23.9, Y:13.7).

You can extract materia from your weapons, armors and tools with spiritbond of 100%. You can increase the spiritbond percentage of a piece of gear by earning experience through battle, crafting and gathering while wearing that piece. You can tell gear has reached 100% spiritbond from the green equipment dots turning white at the bottom right of the screen (by default), and there is an audio cue sound effect plus a white visual flash effect when 100% is first reached.

The type of materia you create from a piece of gear depends on the gear's intended class. For example, when you extract from a piece gear designed for a pugilist or lancer, you will receive materia that is ideal for physical, melee damage dealing.

Acquisition Methods

Type	Acquisition
Combat	Spiritbonding Level-capped dungeons (current or historical) Vendor purchases Market Board / trading with other players
Crafting and Gathering	Spiritbonding Vendor purchases Market Board / trading with other players

For current endgame materia (XI and XII), the following are recommended "farming" methods:

• Combat:
  • Participate in Rank A Hunt "trains" in your data center to obtain   Cracked Prismaticlusters and   Cracked Novaclusters which can be exchanged with various Hunt vendors (see the item pages for a list) for grade XI and XII materia, respectively.
  • The Sacks of Nuts obtained from the hunts can also be used to purchase materia.
  • Complete a Leveling or Alliance Raid Duty Roulette as the role marked "adventurer in need" to obtain 2   Cracked Prismaticlusters and 1   Cracked Novacluster.
• Crafting: Farm scrips by exchanging  Collectables with Collectable Appraisers, then use the scrips to purchase materia from a Scrip Exchange.
• Gathering: Farm Spiritbond by gathering at level 90 or 100 Legendary Nodes or Unspoiled Nodes.
  • Using a   Superior Spiritbond Potion is recommended, as Legendary Nodes allow for up to +5 spiritbond gain from consumable items. When gathering from on-level or 10-levels-below-you Legendary Nodes, this is about a 5% increase.
  • Using  high-quality crafted gear (+25% spiritbond rate), pentamelded with cheap combat materia as placeholders (+25% rate per materia) can also increase the rate of spiritbonding significantly.
  • Spiritbond is gained each time the node is struck, regardless of the amount of items yielded.   Ageless Words or   Solid Reason can increase gathering attempts.
  • It is recommended to follow a teleport route (such as this one) to hit as many of these nodes as possible.

Grade XI and XII crafting and gathering materia can also be obtained by exchanging cosmocredits in Cosmic Exploration.

All materia types can also be purchased at a Market Board. Combat materia is usually much cheaper than crafting and gathering materia.

Materia market cycles

At the start of an expansion, two new materia grades are introduced, causing Market Board prices to be the highest due to low supply, but they gradually decrease over time.

Combat

Combat materia prices increase around the release of a new savage raid tier (the x.05, x.2, and x.4 patches), due to increased demand from players "pentamelding" new crafted gear for raid progression. Over time, raiders will obtain capped tomestone gear, along with gear from the raid itself. Both of these are superior to the crafted gear, but do not allow pentamelding, so the amount of materia demand from raiders steadily decreases.

For combat materia, hunt trains are particularly efficient at the start of an expansion because each overworld zone will be split into multiple instances (usually 3), allowing trains to defeat multiple times the number of marks. However, a downside is high player population and server congestion.

Regarding the demand for different materia types:

• Red materia (Direct Hit Rate, Critical Hit Rate, or Determination) tend to be in highest demand, as these contribute directly to damage output for all jobs. With the exception of Direct Hit Rate, they also affect healing output.
• Purple materia (Skill Speed, Spell Speed) may see demand from specific jobs that want to hit a certain global cooldown timer. Skill/spell speed are relatively-niche stats, as not all actions are affected by them, and having too much or too little speed may cause rotations to misalign, depending on the job.
• Yellow materia (Tenacity, Piety) tend to have the least demand, as they primarily offer defensive benefits. Demand may be higher near the start of a raid tier, from players trying to progress with a safety net - but demand quickly decreases as raiders become more skilled and experienced with the fights, opting to increase their damage output instead.

Combat materia older than the current expansion are generally not used except in niche cases, such as Blue Mage gearing or old Ultimate Raid gearing. As such, they tend to be priced low on the market board. These low-priced materia still have some uses though, such as transmuting them into crafter/gatherer materia, or using them as placeholder melds on a gatherer gearset to farm spiritbond.

Combat materia of grades I-III tend to maintain their market board value, as they are required for Novus Zodiac Weapons, they don't have a vendor to purchase them in bulk, and generating them through spiritbonding can take a while.

Crafting and Gathering

Crafting and gathering materia prices increase when new endgame crafted gear is released for crafters and gatherers (the x.1 and x.3 patches). Crafting materia prices also increase when new crafted combat gear is released, since new meldsets will be posted after the recipe specs are known.

Crafters and gatherers generally use meldsets recommended by Teamcraft. These meldsets sometimes suggest using specific lower grades of materia - generally to cap a stat, rather than using a higher-grade materia that would overcap the stat; and in the case of grades I-IV, a higher chance of a successful overmeld. This can then cause the recommended lower-grade materia to increase in price.

Materia Tiers

Lower level gear produces lower-tier materia. Additionally, higher materia tiers require higher level gear for melding.

Tier	Levels of Gear	Item Level Requirements for Melding	Patch
I	1-14 for 100% 15-29 for 90%	15+	2.0
II	15-29 for 10% 30 - 44 for 90%	30+	2.0
III	30-44 for 10% 45+ for 90%	45+	2.0
IV	45-50 i60 for 10% i60-i130 for 75%-80%	55+ (DoH/DoL) 70+ (DoW/DoM)	2.0
V	51-60	160+	3.0
VI	61-70	290+	4.0
VII	71-80	420+ (DoW/DoM) 430+ (DoH/DoL)	5.0
VIII	71-80	420+ (DoW/DoM) 430+ (DoH/DoL)	5.0
IX	81-90	560+	6.0
X	81-90	560+	6.0
XI	91-100	690+	7.0
XII	91-100	690+	7.0

Heavensward and Stormblood only added a single tier of materia, while Shadowbringers added a new tier of "overmeld" materia that are much worse than the previous tier but are the only kind that can be added past the first overmeld. This tier of materia is typically only useful on BGreen-rarity crafted gear used right after the release of a new 8-player Raid tier. This is also the purpose of the "Ornate" armors offered by Khloe Aliapoh. By having 5 slots instead of 2, 5 full-power materia may be used.

Materia Extraction

Different types of gear produce different types of Materia.

Gear Type	Types of Materia Extracted
Disciples of War	Tenacity,   Skill Speed,   Direct Hit Rate,   Critical Hit,   Determination
Disciples of Magic	Piety,   Spell Speed,   Direct Hit Rate,   Critical Hit,   Determination
Disciples of the Hand	Craftsmanship,   Control,   CP
Disciples of the Land	Gathering,   Perception,   GP

Types of Materia

Main article: Types of Materia

Name	Color	Stat Increased	Tier I	Tier II	Tier III	Tier IV	Tier V	Tier VI1	Tier VII	Tier VIII1	Tier IX	Tier X1	Tier XI	Tier XII1
Savage Aim Materia		Critical Hit	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36	+18	+54
Savage Might Materia		Determination	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36	+18	+54
Heavens' Eye Materia		Direct Hit Rate	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36	+18	+54
Quickarm Materia		Skill Speed	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36	+18	+54
Quicktongue Materia		Spell Speed	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36	+18	+54
Battledance Materia		Tenacity	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36	+18	+54
Piety Materia		Piety	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36	+18	+54
Craftsman's Command Materia		Control	+1	+2	+3	+4	+7	+10	+9	+13	+12	+18	+15	+23
Craftsman's Cunning Materia		CP	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+8	+7	+9	+8	+10	+9	+11
Craftsman's Competence Materia		Craftsmanship	+3	+4	+5	+6	+11	+16	+14	+21	+18	+27	+22	+33
Gatherer's Grasp Materia		GP	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+8	+7	+9	+8	+10	+9	+11
Gatherer's Guerdon Materia		Gathering	+3	+4	+5	+6	+10	+15	+12	+20	+14	+25	+20	+36
Gatherer's Guile Materia		Perception	+3	+4	+5	+6	+10	+15	+12	+20	+14	+25	+20	+36

• ¹Tier VI, VIII, X, and XII materia "cannot be melded onto a piece of equipment past the first advanced materia melding slot."
• NOTE: Several categories of materia have been discontinued, including   elemental resistance materia and   status effect resistance materia during Stormblood. With Shadowbringers,   primary attribute materia was also discontinued.

Melding Materia

To meld materia onto a piece of equipment, the equipment must have at least one materia slot.

The easiest way to meld (attach) Materia is to find a Materia Melder NPC who will perform the service for a small gil fee. This method requires completing the quest Forging the Spirit, but otherwise has no level requirement. You can find them near one of the Market Boards in major cities, or in player housing if the owner has purchased and placed a   Materia Melder Permit.

To meld Materia yourself, you will need to complete the Waking the Spirit quest. The quest giver is F'hobhas, located at The Bonfire in Central Thanalan (X:23.5, Y:13.9). You will need to be level 19 or higher with at least one Disciple of the Hand (crafter) to accept the quest. Once completed, you will unlock the "  Materia Melding" action.

In order to meld actual equipment, you need at least one Disciple of the Hand (crafter) of the same level as the piece of equipment you are trying to meld. Any crafter will work, and you don't need to change your class to the crafter while doing the actual melding.

Stat budgeting

Materia is used to increase certain attributes referred to by players as "substats" in the case of combat jobs.

A piece of gear has a "budget" for how much of a substat it can give, depending on the gear's type and item level. For example, a   Kirin's Osode of Fending (an item level 300 chest piece) can grant at most +110 of any one substat. This maximum is handled separately for each substat, and is listed in the materia melding interface.

Most gear (excluding Relic Weapons) increases at most 2 substats by default, with one of those substats already at the maximum allowed for the gear's item level. Therefore, the value of melding materia comes from maximizing the second substat, as well as potentially adding a third and/or fourth substat that would otherwise not be on the gear.

When a parameter value turns red in the Materia Melding interface, some or all of the benefit from the selected materia will have no effect. This is because the affected stat has exceeded its budget.

Removal and retrieval

Materia that has been melded to a piece of gear can still be removed later. Materia is removed one-at-a-time, with the most-recent meld being removed first.

Starting with Patch 4.1, when removing materia, there is also a chance of "retrieval", meaning the materia returns to your inventory. If retrieval does not occur, then the removed materia is lost. Prior to this patch, materia removed were always destroyed.

Retrieval rate depends on the grade of the materia. Materia older than the current expansion have a 100% retrieval rate.

Grade	Retrieval rate
Before current expansion	100%
Low-tier of current expansion	80%
High-tier of current expansion	40%

Forbidden melds or Overmelding

It is possible to meld more materia to a piece of gear than the available slots. Doing so requires completing the Melding Materia Muchly quest given by Mutamix, also located at The Bonfire in Central Thanalan (X:23.7, Y:13.6). You will need to be level 25 or higher.

The quest involves melding 8 materia to gear in front of Mutamix. To save time, you can use one piece of materia and one gear socket. Simply meld the one materia, then right click on the item and retrieve the materia you just melded. Then, meld that same materia back into the same slot. Repeat for a total of 8 times.

Once complete, the "  Advanced Materia Melding" action replaces the standard "  Materia Melding" action. Advanced melds are better known as forbidden melds or overmelding.

Forbidden melds allow you to meld up to 5 materia (i.e., "pentamelding") to a piece of gear. However, the chance of success is low, typically starting at 17% for higher grade materia. The probability of success decreases further depending on the number of materia already melded, and the grade of the current materia you are attempting to add. Going for a full five melds (pentamelding) typically ends at 7% or 5% for the final meld. Players attempting pentamelds often lose lots of materia during the process unless extremely lucky. Materia Melder NPCs cannot perform   Advanced Materia Melding.

Grade	Overmeld slot
	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
I	90%	48%	28%	?
II	82%	44%	26%	?
III	70%	38%	22%	?
IV	58%	32%	20%	?
V+	17%	10%	7%	5%

• The table above assumes the gear is  high-quality, as that has higher success rates than normal-quality, and there is no reason to meld normal-quality gear anyway.

Certain grades of materia (namely, grades VI, VIII, X, and XII) have restrictions when overmelding: they can only be applied to the first overmeld slot. This restriction is indicated by the phrase "cannot be melded onto a piece of equipment past the first advanced materia melding slot." The remaining overmeld slots will need to rely on slightly-lower-grade materia (usually grades V, VII, IX, and XI respectively).

Due to its high cost, overmelding is not necessary in most gameplay situations, except when attempting savage raid progression in the first few weeks of a patch, for crafters attempting to make Endgame gear and consumables reliably or tackling Expert Recipes, or for gatherers who want to maximize gathering yield and efficiency.

Note that some equipment is not eligible for Overmelding - this is indicated by the phrase "Advanced Melding Forbidden" on the gear. Any gear that has no materia slots to begin with is also not eligible for Overmelding.

Historical

Carbonized matter catalysts were once used for   Materia Melding. This requirement was removed in patch 4.06.   Grade 1 Carbonized Matter remains in the game due to class quests requiring its collection, but is useless aside from completing these quests.
Prior to Patch 5.2, getting materia from fully spiritbound gear resulted in the gear being totally lost, and the process was referred to as conversion. The language was changed to extraction to reflect that it is now non-destructive.
Meanwhile, way back during Patch 1.19 when forbidden melds were first added, failure to overmeld destroyed both the materia and the piece of equipment.

Interaction with Item Level Sync

See also: Item Level, Item Level Sync

When level synced in a duty, any gear that exceeds the duty's maximum Item Level will deactivate all materia melded to it, and the gear's default stats are synced down to the maximum that the duty's Item Level allows.

A high-level piece of gear that's synced down may be able to maximize both of its substats for the target item level, despite not having access to materia. For example, suppose an   Augmented Cryptlurker's Earring of Fending (item level 530, +99 Critical Hit, +69 Determination) is synced down to item level 300, which has a budget of +55 for each substat. The earring will now effectively grant +55 Critical Hit and +55 Determination.

However, a synced-down piece of gear will be missing out on the third or fourth substat that materia can offer. This gap of potential stats generally doesn't matter when running synced-down casual content, but can be important in high-difficulty synced-down content such as old Ultimate Raids. Gear that can maximize substats when synced-down also tends to not be available until one expansion's worth of patches after the release of the target content, meaning materia can hold importance for a while.

Materia Transmutation

Materia Transmutation was released in Patch 2.25. To unlock Materia Transmutation, players must complete the level 19 quest Marvelously Mutable Materia. Players can talk to Kokosamu in Central Thanalan (X:23.8, Y:14.2). Players must have completed Life, Materia and Everything before starting Marvelously Mutable Materia.

Mechanics

Players can trade Mutamix Bubblypots in Central Thanalan (X:23.7, Y:13.6) 5 pieces of any kind of materia, and he will give one random materia in return. The returned materia is guaranteed to be a different type than the starting five, which can be mixed to improve the odds of getting the type the player wants. For example: submitting a Piety materia ensures that the result materia will not be Piety. Occasionally, players will get a materia of a higher grade than the ones they traded in, which will trigger a cutscene.

The grade of the resulting materia will match one of the grades you put in. For example, if you put in grades III and IV, then the result can be III or IV. If the upgrade cutscene is triggered, then the resultant materia will add +1 grade. Therefore, it is generally recommended to put in 5 materia of the same grade, to ensure you either get the same grade or higher in return. For example: put in 5 grade X materia for a chance at a grade X or XI.

Achievements

Main article: Materia Achievements

Materia are associated with several achievements.