Materia (Final Fantasy XIV)

Artwork of Materia.

Materia (マテリア, Materia?) is a crafting system from Final Fantasy XIV implemented with patch 1.19 and carried over to Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. It allows players to upgrade their weapons, tools and armor by turning undesired pieces of equipment into materia, "crystallized memories of a piece of equipment that user possessed a spirit bond with", which can be melded to another piece of equipment to provide bonuses.

See also: Materia (Final Fantasy XIV)/Legacy

Story

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. (Skip section)

Origin

Artwork of Mutamix Bubblypots and his crew.

A strange goblin geomancer named Mutamix Bubblypots and his apprentices set up shop near the walls of Ul'dah, calling themselves the Carriers of the Cauldron, promoting a weird matter called 'materia', said to augment gear. Quickly, word about the new technology spread all over Ul'dah thanks to several adventurers who met the goblin. Merchants in town divided amongst those who welcome this new method, while others are vehemently against the presence of Mutamix near the city walls.

There are plenty of rumors about how Mutamix himself learned about materia. Some say that such advanced military technology could only have been developed by the Garlean Empire, while others believe it was born of Near Eastern wisdom that had long slumbered within the ancient tomes of the Great Library. What all agree, however, is that at some point, a fraternity of goblin scholars called the Illuminati acquired the secrets of materia, governed by a code of secrecy until Mutamix betrayed the order and, believing that materia should be allowed to benefit all folk rather than a select few, spread the word over Eorzea.

A Realm Reborn

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Items can be converted to materia as soon as Swynbroes (24, 13) is spoken to in Central Thanalan, as he teaches the adventurer to use it.

Spoilers end here.

Mechanics

Creation

To turn items into materia, players must equip said item and do activities like battling or crafting, which in turn will increase their spiritbond with it. Once this value reaches 100%, a materia can be extracted from the item using a key item called "materia assimilator", an apparatus which can be obtained via the quest "Forging the Spirit"; this rests the spiritbond to 1%. It should be noted that selling or trading an item, as well as storing it inside the innroom Armoire, will reset all spiritbond with it. Items that can be turned into materia have a "Convertible: Yes" tag in their tooltip.

Spiritbond speed can be increased by equipping high quality or Materia melded gear, jewellery with the Spiritbond+ subtstat, consuming a Spiritbond Potion or by having That Which Binds Us Company Action active, and will be reduced if the gear's Item Level is lower than the level of the encounter and gaining no spiritbond if the Item Level is too high compared to the encounter level.

The four original tiers of materia evolution.

There are several types of materia, divided into ten tiers ranging from I (lowest) to X (highest), and the same gear does not necessarily convert into the same materia, but the process will only generate materia the classes that can equip the gear will find useful (i.e. Battledance materia will not be produced from magic equipment, etc.). An equipment's level will have an impact on what materia tier will be created, along with the chance of creating a higher tier materia.

When creating materia, the level of the item being converted determines the possible tier of the created materia.

Melding

Materia can be melded on all gear slots. Materia cannot be melded onto equipment that does not have any materia slots to begin with (Not even via advanced melding). Multiple materia effects on the same item or different items stack, but each piece of equipment cannot exceed a stat cap determined by their item level.

Melding materia requires the "materia melder" key item, an apparatus which can be obtained via the quest "Waking the Spirit" available to Disciples of the Hand (excluding culinarians) of level 18 and above. The apparatus allows players to meld one piece of materia per item. Players must fulfill the class requirement for crafting / repairing the target item. The item level of the equipment being melded must be equal to or higher than that of the materia. Prior to the release of patch 4.0, carbonized matter was previously required to meld materia onto equipment, but now only exists for legacy purposes as part of Miner and Botanist class quests.

Type	Item level
	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII/VIII	IX/X	XI/XII
Most combat materia	15	30	45	70	160	290	420	560
Gathering/Crafting materia	15	30	45	55	160	290	430	560
Orange	55	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Players can also request materia melding from other players, providing the materia and catalyst required, as well as a payment in gil if desired. There exist Materia Melder NPCs in various locations as well, who will affix materia to any piece of equipment the player owns for a nominal fee.

Should the player desire, it is possible to have equipment purged of materia by paying a fee of gil to Mutamix. This destroys all materia melded to the target gear, leaving the item intact. Players can also retrieve individual materia from equipment with a chance that the retrieval may fail. Higher level materia has a lower chance of success, and if the retrieval does fail, the materia will break and will be lost.

Advanced Melding

After completing the quest "Melding Materia Muchly", players will become eligible to obtain the more advanced "augmented materia melder," which allows the attachment of Materia beyond the normal limit of the gear, up to five per item.

Players can never fail to meld Materia on the normally available slots. Melding on the extra slots can fail and each subsequent attempt has reduced chances of working. This process is called Advanced Materia Melding. Upon failure, the materia and the catalyst being used are lost.

Success rates for Advanced Materia Melding changes based on the tier of the materia and the quality of the item being melded. Equipment dropped from raids or trials or bought with Allagan tomestones are ineligible for advanced melding, regardless of whether or not they are eligible for normal melds.

Normal quality
Advanced Meld#	1	2	3	4
Tier I	80%	40%	20%	10%
Tier II	72%	36%	18%	10%
Tier III	60%	30%	16%	8%
Tier IV	48%	24%	12%	6%
Tier V	12%	6%	3%	2%
Tier VI	12%	Cannot meld
Tier VII	12%	6%	3%	2%
Tier VIII	12%	Cannot meld
Tier IX	12%	6%	3%	2%
Tier X	12%	Cannot meld

High quality
Advanced Meld#	1	2	3	4
Tier I	90%	48%	28%	16%
Tier II	82%	44%	26%	16%
Tier III	70%	38%	22%	14%
Tier IV	58%	32%	20%	12%
Tier V	17%	10%	7%	5%
Tier VI	17%	Cannot meld
Tier VII	17%	10%	7%	5%
Tier VIII	17%	Cannot meld
Tier IX	17%	10%	7%	5%
Tier X	17%	Cannot meld

Current Materia Types

The following Materia types can be melded onto equipment.

Red

Red Materia increases the character's offensive properties.

Name	Attribute	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	Tier IX red materia. IX	Tier X red materia. X
Heavens' Eye	Direct Hit Rate	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36
Savage Aim	Critical Hit	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36
Savage Might	Determination	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36

Yellow

Yellow Materia increases the character's tank- and healer-exclusive properties.

Name	Attribute	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	Tier IX yellow materia. IX	Tier X yellow materia. X
Battledance	Tenacity	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36
Piety	Piety	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36

Purple

Purple Materia increases the character's speed.

Name	Attribute	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	Tier IX purple materia. IX	Tier X purple materia. X
Quickarm	Skill Speed	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36
Quicktongue	Spell Speed	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+16	+8	+24	+12	+36

Green

Green Materia increases the character's gathering attributes.

Name	Attribute	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	Tier IX green materia. IX	Tier X green materia. X
Gatherer's Guerdon	Gathering	+3	+4	+5	+6	+10	+15	+12	+20	+14	+25
Gatherer's Guile	Perception	+3	+4	+5	+6	+10	+15	+12	+20	+14	+25
Gatherer's Grasp	GP	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+8	+7	+9	+8	+10

Blue

Blue Materia increases the character's crafting attributes.

Name	Attribute	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	Tier IX blue materia. IX	Tier X blue materia. X
Craftman's Competence	Craftsmanship	+3	+4	+5	+6	+11	+16	+14	+21	+18	+27
Craftman's Command	Control	+1	+2	+3	+4	+7	+10	+9	+13	+12	+18
Craftman's Cunning	CP	+1	+2	+3	+4	+6	+8	+7	+9	+8	+10

Deprecated Materia Types

Through various simplifications of the stat system, types of materia are rendered useless. When this happens, they are no longer obtainable through normal means, and are changed so that they grant 0 to their respective attribute.

Cyan

Cyan Materia increased the character's main attributes. Due to a rework of equipment that makes all gear come with their maximum allowed Vitality and main damage attribute in patch 5.0, this type of Materia was rendered useless and no longer obtainable.

Name	Attribute	I	II	III	IV	V	VI
Strength	Strength	+1	+2	+4	+7	+15	+25
Vitality	Vitality	+1	+2	+4	+8	+15	+25
Dexterity	Dexterity	+1	+2	+4	+7	+15	+25
Intelligence	Intelligence	+1	+2	+4	+7	+15	+25
Mind	Mind	+1	+2	+4	+7	+15	+25

Gray

Gray Materia increased the character's elemental resistances. This type of Materia has little effect and mainly used for Materia Transmution or speeding up Spiritbond speed of the gear they are melded into. Due to the removal of elemental resistances in patch 4.2, this type of Materia was rendered useless and no longer obtainable.

Name	Attribute	I	II	III	IV	V	VI
Fire	Fire Resistance	+1	+2	+4	+6	+9	+12
Ice	Ice Resistance	+1	+2	+4	+6	+9	+12
Wind	Wind Resistance	+1	+2	+4	+6	+9	+12
Earth	Earth Resistance	+1	+2	+4	+6	+9	+12
Lightning	Lightning Resistance	+1	+2	+4	+6	+9	+12
Water	Water Resistance	+1	+2	+4	+6	+9	+12

Orange

Orange Materia increased the character's status resistances. Originally designed for use in PvP modes until several successive overhauls of how equipment worked in PvP made materia melds pointless, these were not available beyond rank I, and can no longer be obtained. While status resistance (outside of temporary buffs/debuffs) was never explicitly removed from the game, the part of the user interface that showed a player's status resistance was removed in patch 4.0, and any Orange Materia that still exist lack any description, implying that they have been made useless.

Name	Attribute	I
Cactuar Foot	Slow Resistance	+2
Coeurl Eye	Blind Resistance	+2
Aurelia Kiss	Poison Resistance	+2
Bison Hoof	Stun Resistance	+2
Funguar Shriek	Sleep Resistance	+2
Treant Root	Bind Resistance	+2
Chocobo Down	Heavy Resistance	+2

Cracked

Due to the overhaul of the stat and Materia systems in A Realm Reborn, any Materia that was transferred from version 1.0 became cracked and useless. Players could originally trade these Materia for new Materia of the same rank; however, this feature was removed in Heavensward.

Tier I cracked materia.

Tier II cracked materia.

Tier III cracked materia.

Tier IV cracked materia.

Etymology

[view · edit · purge]Materia means "matter" or "substance" in Latin, Spanish, and Italian; it also means "subject" in Italian and Spanish, and is the root of Catalan "Matèria" and Portuguese "Matéria".

In Japanese the materia tiers are named in a way similar to the magic tier system seen throughout the series up to tier V, then shift to Potion tier naming schemes until tier VIII, then switch to Omega and Ultima up to tier X, before switching to "high" versions of Omega and Ultima up to tier XII.

From lowest to highest, the tiers are called materia (マテリア, materia?), materira (マテリラ, materira?), materida (マテリダ, materida?), materiga (マテリガ, materiga?), materija (マテリジャ, materija?), Hi-materija (ハイマテリジャ, haimaterija?, lit. high materija), Mega-materija (メガマテリジャ, mega materija?), X-materija (エクスマテリジャ, ekusu materija?), Omega materija (オメガマテリジャ, omegamaterija?), Ultimaterija (アルテマテリジャ, arutematerija?, lit. altimaterija), Hi-Omega materija (ハイオメガマテリジャ, hai omega materija?, lit. high omega materija), and Hi-Ultimaterija (ハイアルテマテリジャ, hai arutematerija?, lit. high altimaterija).

[view · edit · purge]Omega (capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Greek Ωμέγα) is the twenty-fourth and last letter of the Greek alphabet, representing a longer Latin "o" as well as the "oo" and "ou" IPA vowel clusters. In mathematics, it is synonymous with a set's end or limit. In physics, uppercase omega is the SI abbreviation for the ohm, a unit of electrical resistance. [view · edit · purge]Ultima means "the last" in Latin and many Latin-based languages. The word is an inflection of ultimus which is the superlative of ulter, which means "that is beyond". In the Spanish versions of many Final Fantasy games, the spell Ultima's name is written as "Artema", a close transliteration of the Japanese katakana.