Spiritbond

Spiritbond, or Spiritbonding, is the process of creating Materia. Equipped gear (Weapons, Tools, Armor and Accessories) will acquire spiritbond as you perform various activities, such as completing Duties or FATEs, crafting items, or gathering resources.

Once equipment reaches 100% spiritbond, a piece of materia can be   extracted from it, returning the equipment's spiritbond to 1%. Players can view spiritbond progression by hovering over the equipment and reading the spiritbond percentage from the item's information details. Once the spiritbond is complete, the player will be notified by an audible "pop" sound, a visual flash of light, and text notification in their chat log. Additionally, the gear-indicating pips (in the bottom right by default) will change from green to white.

To create 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).

Binding

When a piece of your gear reaches 1% spiritbond, it becomes permanently bound to your character. As a result, it cannot be traded to other players or sold on the Market Board.

A piece of gear will immediately bind to you if:

• (For combat classes/jobs) You kill a monster while wearing the gear.
• (For crafters) You succeed or fail to craft an item, while wearing the gear (quitting the craft does not count).
• (For gatherers) You gather an item from a node, or catch a fish at a fishing hole, while wearing the gear.
• You use the gear's appearance to Glamour a different piece of equipment. (The latter item does not become bound by this action.)
• You store the gear in the Glamour Dresser.
• You submit an outfit to the Fashion Report while wearing the gear.
• Your Retainer completes a Retainer Venture while wearing the gear.

Gear that is bound to you is indicated by the text "Binding" at the top of the item's info box. Items that are already untradeable will not display the word "Binding", as they are already unable to be traded.

Spiritbond Overview

Equipment will acquire spiritbond from performing eligible activities, regardless of the class of the player. Due to this, players can wear crafting or gathering gear as a Disciple of War and spiritbond it through combat, and vice versa. This will be catastrophically bad for your performance in those tasks, however, since you will have none of the relevant stats.

Spiritbond speed correlates to the level difference between the equipped item and the enemies slain - or in the case of crafters, the level of the item created. For example, if you are striving to spiritbond level 40 gear, you want to run dungeons around level 40, or craft items around level 40.

• Note that a piece of gear with 0% Condition (durability) will not gain spiritbond points.

Combat and crafting

At endgame, item level takes precedence for combat and crafting. For example, crafting the same level 90 item using item level 620 gear will provide much less spiritbond than when using item level 590 gear. Crafting higher-item-level items will provide more spiritbond (e.g., ★★ items > ★ items > common items).

At the start of an expansion, the highest-item-level gear tends to be eligible for spiritbonding in most level-cap activities. However, as higher-item-level gear releases, the new gear may outlevel older level-cap content in that expansion, to such a degree that they no longer earn spiritbond.

• Example: Level 100 combat gear with an item level of 700 can earn spiritbond from FATEs in Living Memory. Item level 720 and 730 can still earn spiritbond here, but at a slower rate. Item level 750 gear earns little-to-no spiritbond here.

Combat earns spiritbond upon completing an activity, such as an instanced Duty or a FATE - individual enemy kills do not give spiritbond.

Crafting earns spiritbond upon finishing a craft, regardless of whether that craft succeeded or failed - the amount of spiritbond gained is the same either way.

Gathering

When gathering, spiritbond is based on the gear's equipping level relative to the level of the gathering node, instead of the gear's item level. Spiritbond is gained with each gathering attempt (i.e. every time you "hit" the rock/tree/etc) - the actual yield of items collected does not matter.

Unspoiled Nodes and Legendary Nodes give significantly more spiritbond than normal nodes - about 10x at level cap.

When fishing, the player will also receive a bonus to spiritbonding if they hook a big or legendary fish.

Spearfishing tends to earn less spiritbond per fish than rod fishing, to balance the higher volume of fish that can be gathered by spearfishing in a short amount of time.

Spiritbond Formula

As of Patch 7.0, spiritbond obtained from an activity is estimated to use the following formula, according to research by The Balance:

FinalPoints = [Base + (SBGain/2)] * [1 + 0.25 * (Melds + GearQuality)] * RandVariance

The variables are defined as follows:

• Base - A value that depends on the equipped gear's level minus the activity's level. Combat and crafters compare item level, while gatherers compare the equipping level.
• SBGain - The sum of "Increased Spiritbond Gain +X" effects from medicine, food, gear, and buffs.
  • For gatherers, SBGain caps at +2 for normal nodes, and +5 for Legendary Nodes.
• Melds - The amount of materia currently melded to the item (value from 0-5).
• GearQuality - Has a value of 1 if the gear is  High-Quality, otherwise 0.
• RandVariance - A random value from 1.00 to 1.10.
• FinalPoints - The result amount of spiritbond points gained. To reach 100% spiritbond, a piece of gear needs to accumulate 10,000 points.

The possible values for the "Base" variable are summarized in the following tables:

Crafting
Item Level Diff. (equipment ilvl - content ilvl)	Base spiritbond points
0	33
1	32
2	31
3	30
4	29
5	28
6	27
7	26
8	25
9	24
10	23
11	22
12	21
13	20
14	15
15-20	10
21-29	5
30-39	3
40-50	1
51+	0

Mining/Botany
Level Diff. (equipment lvl - content lvl)	Base spiritbond points
	Unspoiled/ Legendary Nodes	Normal Nodes
0	50	5
1-4	49	4
5-9	48	3
10-14	47	2
15-19	46	1
20+	0	0

Fishing
Level Diff. (equipment lvl - content lvl)	Base spiritbond points
	Rod Fishing	Spearfishing
0	24	4
5	21
10	20
15	19
20	18
25	17
40	13

Putting together the above information: suppose a Miner or Botanist gathers from an on-level Legendary Node, with +5 spiritbond gain from consumables, as well as HQ pentamelded gear:

[50 + (5/2)] * [1 + 0.25 * (5 + 1)] * [1.00 ~ 1.10]
= 52.5 * (2.50) * [1.00 ~ 1.10]
= 131.25 * [1.00 ~ 1.10]
= 131.25 ~ 144.375

• This maths out to 131.25 ~ 144.375 points per hit.
• To reach 100% spiritbond from scratch, this setup would require 70-77 hits:

10,000/144.375 ~ 10,000/131.25
69.264 ~ 76.190
70 ~ 77 (rounding up to next integer)

A calculator is available in The Balance's research spreadsheet, in the External Links section below.

Increasing spiritbond rate

Spiritbond rate can be increased through various means:

Requirement	Spiritbond rate increase
High Quality  gear or DAetherial gear	+25%
Materia is melded onto the gear	+25% per materia
Consumable and passive gear effects	+(X/2) points are added to base spiritbond points

Spiritbonding rate from HQ and melds is additive. For example, a piece of  HQ gear (+25%) with two materia melded (+50%) will spiritbond 75% faster than a piece of NQ gear with no materia.

Note that materia gained from extraction is not affected by the quality of the gear. HQ just increases the speed of bonding, it does not give better materia.

For consumable and passive gear effects, they add a flat value of +(X/2) to the base spiritbond points, before the HQ and meld multipliers are applied. Therefore, the relative gain depends on how high the base spiritbond was to begin with. For example, consider the following cases where a +1 effect (+0.5 points) is applied:

Activity	Base spiritbond	With +1	Relative increase
Crafting an on-level item	33	33.5	+1.5%
Gathering at an on-level legendary node	50	50.5	+1%
Gathering at an on-level normal node	5	5.5	+10%
Rod fishing an on-level fish	24	24.5	+2%
Spearfishing an on-level fish	4	4.5	+12.5%

Consumables

Item	Effect	Duration
Better Crowned Pie	Increased Spiritbond Gain +2	30m
Spiritbond Potion	Increased Spiritbond Gain +3	180m
Potent Spiritbond Potion	Increased Spiritbond Gain +4 /  +5	180m
Superior Spiritbond Potion	Increased Spiritbond Gain +5 /  +6	180m
Squadron Spiritbonding Manual	Increases spiritbonding speed. Spiritbond Bonus: +3	120m

The pie ( Well Fed), a potion ( Medicated), and the manual ( That Which Binds Us III) can all be stacked. The different potions will overwrite each other as they all apply Medicated.

Gear

Item	Level	Item Level	Effect
Patriot's Choker	26	27	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Patriot's Bracelet	30	31	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Meteor Survivor Ring	34	36	Increased Spiritbond Gain +3
Gambler's Crown	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Lily and Serpent Earrings	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Crimson Standard Earrings	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Tipping Scales Earrings	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Lily and Serpent Bracelet	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +2
Crimson Standard Bracelet	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +2
Tipping Scales Bracelet	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +2
Aetheryte Ring	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1 /  +1
Lily and Serpent Ring	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Crimson Standard Ring	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Tipping Scales Ring	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1

Achievements

Main article: Materia Achievements

Tips and Tricks

Who should spiritbond

• Intentionally spiritbonding is generally done by gathering classes, and to a lesser extent crafting classes. This involves equipping level-appropriate gear (for gatherers) or item-level-appropriate gear (for crafters), High Quality  and pentamelded, for fast spiritbond rates.

• Combat materia is much more efficiently earned from doing hunt trains and is generally cheap to purchase from the Market Board compared to crafting/gathering materia, except at the start of an expansion where materia is more scarce.

Preparation

• Use   Spiritbond Potions! The benefit is especially noticeable during lower level spiritbonding sessions. If you are in danger of being killed, beware – the potion gives the Medicated status, not Well Fed, meaning it wears off upon death.
  • Note that when gathering from Legendary Nodes, there is a hard limit of +5 spiritbond gain from consumables or buffs. Regular nodes have a +2 cap.

• Only use High Quality  gear in your spiritbonding sessions, for the +25% spiritbond rate.

• Adding materia is very beneficial, as each meld increases spiritbond rate by 25%. This is particularly relevant for spiritbonding gathering gear.
  • The identity of the materia is not relevant, only the number of materia melded. Therefore, for gathering gear in particular, it is recommended to invest in cheap, low-quality combat materia for the purpose of spiritbonding to "farm" gathering materia.

• Wearing equipment with +1 spiritbond gain is generally not worth it, as they have low item level (meaning the materia they generate is low-grade), and they generally cannot be high-quality or have materia melded onto them (meaning their own spiritbond rate is slow. The   Aetheryte Ring is an exception to this point, but still has low item level.). They also take up a gear slot, when that slot could be better used on gear that can generate high-grade materia at a fast rate instead.

Methods to farm spiritbond

• Gatherers - gather at legendary nodes to gain spiritbond. Unspoiled and legendary nodes give significantly more spiritbond than normal nodes: about 10x at level cap. It is recommended to follow a teleport route (such as this one) to hit as many unspoiled/legendary nodes as possible.
  • Note that spiritbond is granted whenever a node is hit, regardless of how many items are obtained. Using actions that restore integrity, such as   Solid Reason or   Ageless Words, can increase the amount of possible hits on a single node.

• Crafters - early in an expansion, craft  Collectables for Scrips, gaining spiritbond at the same time. The scrips can be traded at a Scrip Exchange for additional materia. Also, note that the amount of spiritbond gained is the same regardless of whether the craft succeeded or failed.
  • However, this becomes inefficient later in an expansion, when higher-item-level crafter gear releases - it becomes more efficient time-wise to craft using this gear, but its item level is also out of range to qualify for spiritbond.
  • Late in an expansion, still craft  Collectables for Scrips, but use the strongest-available gear instead of weaker, spirtbondable gear.

• Combat - intentionally spiritbonding by doing combat is generally not recommended. Overworld enemies do not grant spiritbond, so FATEs and Duties would need to be farmed instead - and these forms of content only grant rewards upon completion. Intentionally wearing item-level-appropriate gear to optimize spiritbond will slow down the speed of completion, harming time efficiency, and this is generally an unnatural style of play.
  • Combat materia of grades 5 and above are easily available through various sources that fall within normal play, such as obtaining Allagan Tomestones, or doing Duty Roulettes, The Hunt, Allied Society Quests, or (in the case of Shadowbringers) Shared FATEs.
  • However, combat materia of grades 1-4 lack easy obtain methods, and they are required for the Novus step of Zodiac Weapons. Further, players on the Free Trial are unable to access the market board to simply buy the materia needed.
    • Low grades of materia can be farmed efficiently by doing lots of quick synthesis crafts with a high-level crafting class, using high-level tools, but low-level battle armor and accessories of  high quality, as well as using a  high-quality   Superior Spiritbond Potion.
    • Wearing the The Emperor's New Glamour Set also works very well for this approach. Since all of these items are item level 1, lower-level crafts can be used (such as   Table Salt, which is gil-neutral in cost beyond the shards used for the craft).

Zane Lionheart's grade I materia farming guide

External links

• Spiritbonding & Materia Guide - Teamcraft
• Grade 1 materia farming guide - Zane Lionheart
• 7.x spiritbond research spreadsheet - The Balance