Materia

The Materia system was implemented in patch 1.19 and takes its name from Final Fantasy VII. In FFVII players could find and buy materia and slot it into their weapons. This gave your character new spells, summons and better attributes. The system in FFXIV: A Realm Reborn shares similarities with this in that materia slotted into equipment and gives you better attributes but unlike FFVII it is not a method of obtaining spells or summons.

The materia system was overhauled in FFXIV: A Realm Reborn and this guide now reflects this.



After completing the Life, Materia and Everything story quest you can unlock materia melding. You will be sent to The Bonfire in Central Thanalan at 23,13 on the map and told to speak to Swynbroes. He will give you the "Forging the Spirit" quest.

Upon completion of the quest you will receive a key item called a Materia Assimilator. This key item will allow you to create materia when certain conditions are met.




Creating Materia

Materia is created from equipment once its spiritbond has reached 100%. An item's spiritbond will increase through using it in your daily business by crafting, gathering and battling. Spiritbond will increase slower if you are below the optimal level required to equip it and if the gear is broken (0% durability) you will not gain spiritbond at all. The rate in which you gain spiritbond will be higher for high quality (HQ) items as well as those with materia already in it. Some equipment cannot be converted to materia, this is usually equipment that is obtained as special rewards from raids or primal battles.

In 1.0 the type of materia you would get upon conversion was based on the slot of gear, EG body or head piece. In FFXIV: ARR the materia that is created is based on the type of class the gear is designed for. For example, a tanking piece of equipment like a Cobalt Cuirass which is worn mostly by MRD and GLA is more likely to create materia for tanks, whereas gear intended to be worn by mages will create materia that is more suitable for mage classes.


By using your Materia Assimilator on a 100% spiritbonded item you will create a piece of materia. When an item is converted to materia the item is permanently lost.


Tiers of Materia

There are currently five tiers of materia, each giving a higher potency than the last. The higher the tier, the higher the potency on the materia. In FFXIV: A Realm Reborn there are no sub tiers of potency like there was in 1.0. Each tier of materia has its own potency now and that is the only one that exists. An example of the five tiers is below.

	Materia	Attribute	Potency	Catalyst
	Strength I	Strength	+1	Grade 1 Carbonized Matter
	Strength II	Strength	+2	Grade 2 Carbonized Matter
	Strength III	Strength	+4	Grade 3 Carbonized Matter
	Strength IV	Strength	+7	Grade 4 Carbonized Matter
	Strength V	Strength	+10	Grade 5 Carbonized Matter

When creating materia the tier you receive is largely affected by the level of the equipment piece. The higher the level of the equipment, the higher the tier of materia you can create. So for the best results of creating tier V materia you should be converting equipment of level 50 or above.


Catalysts

Catalysts in FFXIV: ARR have been replaced and simplified into grades in the same way repair materials were a long time ago. Each grade corresponds to the tier of materia with the same number. For example grade 5 Carbonized matter is used for melding tier V materia and below. Grade 3 can meld grade 3 and below but not above grade 3. Carbonized Matter is the only type of catalyst that currently exists.

Carbonized Matter is obtained from the Botanist, Miner and Fisher classes while gathering and you will need to be higher levels for higher grades of Carbonized Matter. We're not sure exactly what levels will obtain which grade but common sense tells us the higher your DoL gathering node, the higher the tier.


Attaching Materia

Before you can attach materia you must complete the "Waking the Spirit" quest given by F'hobhas at The Bonfire in Central Thanalan at 23,13. This requires you to be level 19 or above in Armorer, Blacksmith, Carpenter, Goldsmith, Leatherworker or Weaver.

Once you are ready to meld materia you have to take into account the item level on the materia and the item. The item level on equipment must be equal or higher than that on the materia. Tier 1 materia requires equipment with an item level of 15 or above, tier 2 30, tier 3 45, tier 4 75 and tier 5 90. It should be noted that equipment's item level is not always the level a player can equip it. This scales up to 100 and is based on the difficulty or rarity of obtaining the equipment. For example the Dodore Doublet has an item level of 63 but can be equipped at 48.

Additionally if you try attaching materia which is a bad match for gear on to it then your item level will need to be even higher to gain the full potency of the materia. For example attaching Vitality materia to equipment intended for magic players. We are unsure of the parameters on how this works.

Once you have your materia, your catalyst and a piece of equipment you will be able to meld it all together if your crafting class is high enough level. Each piece of equipment is assigned to a crafting class, usually this means the class who can create the item can attach materia to it. If your crafting class is not high enough level then another player can perform the meld for you. The required level for attaching materia is written on the meld window.

In 1.0 only the first materia attachment was guaranteed to be successful, but in FFXIV: ARR equipment can have up to 5 slots where melding is guaranteed to be successful, how many depends on the piece. If you would like to attach more materia than there are slots, this is called advanced materia melding and this comes with risks.


Advanced Materia Melding

If you wish to go beyond the safety of attaching materia to the designated slots then you can expect to be taking a risk. While it is less risky than in 1.0 it will still be risky if the chances of success remain the same. The reason it is less risky is because upon failure you no longer lose your item or the materia attached to it. Once you have your triple melded item you can not lose it. So you can then attempt to attach a fourth as many times as you like. You will however lose that new piece of materia on a fail.

Due to the fact you are not starting from scratch every time we can expect this to have a different effect on the materia economy. People will try and try until they are successful and materia prices will rise, whereas before it was perhaps too much of a risk to try attempt a higher tier meld when you may lose what you have.

Make sure you guys go to YouTube and like and sub to this guy/watch his other videos. This is how he makes his living and and said he does not get credit for hits on forums and asked me to tell everyone this. I know most of you already did this.

There are currently 24 kinds of materia in the game, each representing a certain stat. There are 5 colors of materia, each corresponds to a grouping of stats.

Primary Stats (Blue Materia)
Strength – Strength Materia
Dexterity - Dexterity Materia
Vitality - Vitality Materia
Intelligence - Intelligence Materia
Mind - Mind Materia
Piety - Piety Materia


Secondary Stats (Red Materia)
Accuracy - Heavens’ Eye Materia
Critical Hit Rate – Savage Aim Materia
Determination – Savage Might Materia
Parry – Battledance Materia


Secondary Stats [Speed](Purple Materia)
Spell Speed – Quicktongue Materia
Skill Speed – Quickarm Materia


Crafting Stats (Green Materia)
Max CP – Craftsmans’ Cunning Materia
Craftsmanship – Craftsmans’ Competence Materia
Control – Craftsmans’ Command Materia


Gathering Stats (Green Materia)
Max GP – Gatherer’s Grasp Materia
Gathering - Gatherer’s Guerdon Materia
Perception - Gatherer’s Guile Materia


Elemental Resists (Grey Materia)
Fire Resistance – Fire Materia
Ice Resistance – Ice  Materia
Water  Resistance - Water  Materia
Wind  Resistance – Wind  Materia
Lightning Resistance – Lightning  Materia
Earth Resistance – Earth  Materia


Today I Learned: Guerdon, from the green materia “Gatherer’s Guerdon” means Reward or Recompense (Compensation). Giving the Gathering stat, which is the most basic stat to successfully gather an item – the name is fitting!


How do I know what Materia comes from what Item?

We are still gaining more insights on how we can better predict this, but here are our current findings.

Blue Materia comes from any Disciple of War or Disciple of Magic item. The specific stat that comes out is more heavily weighted on the type of item it came from. Example, caster gear has a higher chance to give out MND, PIE and INT

Red Materia is quite like blue materia, but a lot more random. Determination can come from any DoW or DoM gear, Same with Critical Chance. We can assume this trend extends to Accuracy and Parry. You can’t really predict what red materia you will get. We’re trying to find out if the stat that’s found on the item gives weight on the result.

Green Materia is pretty simple. Crafting Gear gives crafting materia, Gathering gear gives gathering materia. I don’t think I’ve noticed a break in this trend. Please correct us if we’re wrong, we could have had an extremely skewed sample size.

Purple Materia , come in only two types. Quickarm and Quicktongue. Quickarm seems to convert with a low rate from any DoW item (More likely from accessories?). Similarly, Quicktongue comes from DoM items. These seem to have the lowest conversion rate.

Grey Materia can come from any DoW or DoM item, with a low chance. We can assume items with inherent resists have a higher chance to drop grey materia. We can also theorize that the resist found on the item can weigh towards the specific resist materia that it will convert into.

We will be studying this more, Subscribe to us so you wont miss out, or chime in on the comments if you got insights on materia! We’re pretty sure we made some off assumptions! (We could only spiritbond/convert so many items during beta…)

Spiritbond / Materia Farming Guide

We will be posting an awesome materia and spiritbond farming guide soon, with some pretty unique findings!

Summary

• You need to be at least level 18, and have a Disciple of Hand (crafting) class level 19 or higher (Except Culinarian)
  
• Materia comes from items, which you can choose to convert if their spiritbond reaches 100%.
  
• The base item converted heavily influences the type and quality of the resulting materia.