Synthesis (合成, Gousei?) is a feature in the series that revolves around customizing items and equipment, combining different types to create a new item altogether. It first appeared in Final Fantasy IX, where it is heavily used to acquire certain rare items and equipment.
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Appearances
Final Fantasy IX
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Synthesis in Final Fantasy IX refers to the Synthesis Shop (or Synth-Shop), where the player can combine certain items (for gil) to make new items that cannot be purchased at the present stage in the game (and with the last shop, at all). Many items can be crafted in a Synth-Shop, but it is most notable for being the best, and early on only, place where Zidane can create his polearm-weapons.
The most important Synthesis Shop is the one served by Hades; many rare items can be synthesized there, and it is the only place where the player can get a Pumice without having to defeat Ozma. There is also a master synthesist in the Black Mage Village that the player can return to on disc 4 to get some of the most powerful weapons and add-ons.
Final Fantasy X
Template:Sideicon Once Rikku explains adding new auto-abilities into equipment in Guadosalam, the "Customize" option will be unlocked in the menu and the player will be able to craft weapons and armor to their liking. Brotherhood, Celestial Weapons, and non-empty-slotted equipment cannot be customized.
Final Fantasy XI
Template:Sideicon Synthesis is the system used in Final Fantasy XI where a player uses a crystal plus other materials to create another object. Crystals can be, but are not always, obtained in the game when a creature is defeated by a player. Only creatures that will grant the player experience can drop crystals. These crystals, one for each of the eight elements, can be used opening an item synthesis menu. There are recipes for hundreds of items that can be made.
Example
Each crystal represents a different type of action. In the case of fire crystals, this represent adding heat. When the player adds heat to distilled water and animal bones they can create gelatin.
Types of Crafting
Each recipe of synthesis falls under a crafting category. Some recipes have a subtype, which basically dictate the high quality synthesis rate.
- Alchemy - The creation of potions and powders.
- Bonecraft - The creation of items made of bone, like armored harnesses, necklaces, gelatin, etc.
- Cooking - The creation of food for eating or bait for fishing.
- Clothcraft - The creation of cloth armor, like robes.
- Leatherworking - The creation of leather armor.
- Goldsmithing - The creation of jewelry and armor using precious materials (gold, platinum, silver, and gems).
- Smithing - The creation of weapons and metal armors.
- Woodworking - The creation of arrows and furniture.
Each recipe has a difficulty. If the player's skill is below the crafting level for the recipe, they have a greater chance of failing his synthesis attempt. If the player fails, they will lose the crystal and possibly some or all of the materials used in the synth, for short.
High Quality
If the player has more skill than is required to make the item, they have a greater chance of making a High Quality item, an improved version of the original. In the case of potions or other medicine, this means it will restore more HP, MP, and/or whatever other effect it has. In the cases of armor, it usually grants better Defense bonus. In the case of weapons it usually makes the weapon slightly faster or increases its damage. Special effects and ability modifiers are also greater on High Quality materials.
Final Fantasy XII
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The player can create new items in the Bazaar by selling loot dropped by enemies. Most of the best weapons are only obtained from the Bazaar, and some are meticulously difficult to obtain the items for. The notes in the bestiary give hints to the kind of items that are needed and the enemies they are obtained from. Most Bazaar items can only be made once.
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings
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Crafting is available at the beginning of Chapter 4. The friendly Yarhi Cu Sith sets up a synthesis shop in the airship Galbana after Tomaj rescues her.
Cu Sith is only able to craft weapons, and she requires the use of three Scavenging materials for each weapon, in addition to the instructions from a Recipe Book. Once a weapon is selected to be crafted and the materials have been supplied, Cu Sith will ask the player three questions. The answers to these questions and the Grade of the supplied materials will determine the weapon's statistics. Naturally, the higher grade of the Scavenging materials, the higher bonus to various stats. This gives the player quite a bit of versatility in weaponry. Once a weapon is crafted, the player can name the weapon.
Final Fantasy XIII
Template:Sideicon Template:See Also Each weapon or accessory has a Synthesis attribute, which can produce special attribute for the character if using the right combination of equipment pieces.
Synthesis Groups and Abilities:
- High HP - Synthesized into Power Surge ability when HP is above 90%.
- Low HP - Synthesized into Power Surge ability when HP is below 10% (critical).
- Physical - Synthesized into Physical Wall, ability to negate some physical damage.
- Magic - Synthesized into Magic Wall, ability to negate some magical damage.
- Elemental - Synthesized into increasing each elemental damage and resistance.
- Buffs - Synthesized into the ability to increase the duration of positive effects bestowed on character.
- Debuffs - Synthesized into the ability to increase the resistance of negative effects and decrease it's duration if inflicted upon character.
- Boost - Synthesized into ATB Rate ability, increasing percentage of filling the ATB Gauge.
- Gestalt - This group has 2 abilities, randomly instant stagger to opponent and increasing Gestalt/TP gauge fill.
- Adamancy - Synthesized into Vampiric Strike ability to absorb 1% of damage dealt to opponent into own HP.
- Ultimate Magic - Synthesized into Magic Damper ability to block magical damage but the damage can only be healed by items.
- Ultimate Physic - Synthesized into Ethereal Mantle ability to block physical damage but the damage can only be healed by items.
- Independent - This group doesn't have synthesis ability.
Final Fantasy XIII-2
Template:Sideicon Template:See Also Similar to its predecessor, Final Fantasy XIII-2 also possesses several synthesized abilities, developed when equipping accessories and/or a weapon of the same synthesis group.
- Buff Duration - Extends the duration of buffs cast by the user.
- Buff: Duration - Extends the duration of buffs applied upon the user.
- Damage Wall - Subtracts a certain amount of damage off each physical hit the user suffers.
- Debuff: Duration - Reduces the duration of debuffs inflicted on the user.
- Fire Damage - Fire-elemental attacks deal more damage.
- Ice Damage - Ice-elemental attacks deal more damage.
- Lightning Damage - Lightning-elemental attacks deal more damage.
- Wind Damage - Wind-elemental attacks deal more damage.
- High HP: Power Surge - Increases damage when HP is above 70% (green bar).
- Low HP: Power Surge - Increases damage when HP is below 30% (red bar).
- Improved Cure - Restorative spells restore more HP.
- Improved Raise - Raise restores more HP.
- Improved Stagger - Increases the duration of stagger periods. Also recharges one ATB segment whenever the user defeats an enemy.
- Siphon Damage - Recharges the ATB by one segment when the user suffers a given amount of damage.
- Strength & Magic - Increases Strength and Magic by a fixed amount.
- Vampiric Strike - Drains a small percentage of damage dealt, restoring the user's HP.
A slightly more advanced of equipment synthesis from Final Fantasy IX is also present as some weapons and accessories require materials in order to be bought from shop aside of gil.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Template:Sideicon The player can Synthesize Abilities at Sorcery Shops, which offer two main services:
- Synthesis - Synthesis allows the player to "fuse" two abilities of the same level and type to boost their parameters.
- Level Boost - By synthesizing abilities with strengthening components called malistones, one can level up abilities which have reached their limits.
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Final Fantasy XIV
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There's no gettin' off this train we on 'till we reach the end of the line.
Synthesis is one of the major aspects of Final Fantasy XIV's gameplay, heavily tied into the Armory System. While the basis of it is similar to the Final Fantasy XI's counterpart - requiring materials and crystals to create a new item - it also has some differences.
Crafting disciplines
- Alchemist - Creates poisons, glues, spices and some weapons.
- Armorer (raising hammers) - Creates many weapon types and armors.
- Blacksmith (cross-pein hammers) - Creates all things metal - except jewelry.
- Carpenter (handsaws) - Creates everything involving wood.
- Culinarian (skillets) - Creates food.
- Goldsmith (chaser hammers) - Creates jewelry and bone stuff.
- Leatherworker (headknives) - Creates leather equipment.
- Weaver (needles) - Creates robes and outfits.
Crafting Process
Once a player changes to a Disciple of the Hand, they may open the main menu and choose "Synthesis" to start crafting.
After choosing the required materials and the recipe, or from a list of previously used recipes, a window will appear on the bottom of the screen, with the following values:
- Progress: A bar representing current synthesis progress. The synth is finished hen it reaches 100%.
- Durability: A number representing the synthesis durability. If it ever reaches zero (even if the progress bar shows 100%!), the synth is failed; every item and crystal used will be lost.
- Quality: A number representing the synthesis quality. If this number is high, it increases the chance of a High Quality result. Increasing quality also gives a bonus to the experience points received at the end.
On the left portion of this window, the player will be able to choose the following options:
- Standard Synthesis: The basic synth option. It will have a moderate impact on every synth stat, and also has the highest success rate.
- Rapid Synthesis: Synthesize with an emphasis on efficiency. It will greatly increase progress if successful, but with no quality increase.
- Bold Synthesis: The exact opposite of the Rapid synth; will greatly increase quality on success, but with little progress increase.
- Wait: Uses 1 durability point (and one extra for every wait). The player will simply "skip a turn", watching possible changes on the crafted item.
- Touch Up: Gives a chance to turn the item into a High Quality item or break the synthesis.
- Up to five crafting abilities the player has equipped may appear.
When crafting, the player also must pay attention to an extra factor: The color of the orb representing the crafted item. Each synth starts with the orb colored white, which gives the highest success rate for every action. After each action, this color may change to yellow (reduced success rate), red (even more reduced), "chaotic" (blinking colors, effect still unknown), sparks (reduced success rate and increased durability loss) and even lose control over one of the elements, each one with it's own negative impact on the synthesis.
High Quality
Just like Final Fantasy XI a synthesis may also result into a High Quality item, which is just a improved version of the original. However, a High Quality Synth may also wield different results than expected, either giving a higher amount of items than normal or a completely different item altogether.
To make high quality items, players must increase the "quality" value while crafting. As that value goes up, a display showing the current % chance of getting a HQ item is increased accordingly; a HQ synth starts being possible at around 300 quality, but only reaches 100% at 1000 quality.
Using HQ items as the materials increases the initial quality, up to a starting bonus of 507 quality (7% HQ chance). If the end result is not high quality, but the player had at least 1% HQ chance, the touch up option will appear, which gives half off the original odds (if the synth ended at 30%, touch up will have 15% success rate) to turn the item into HQ or break it.
Crafting Stats
Disciples of the Hand have three special status that are exclusive to them and affect synthesis:
- Craftsmanship, which affects the success rate and amount of progress with synthesis actions on most synthesis.
- Magic Craftsmanship, which has the same effect as the above but only affects the so-called "magical" synths.
- Control, which affect the likelihood of getting negative synth effects.
Crafting Abilities
When leveling up disciplines of the hand, players may learn special abilities that can be used during the synthesis process. These abilities have several different effects, ranging from increasing the likelihood of success for a certain crafting command to instantly completing the synthesis on the first turn.
Each ability may be used only once per synth, and is available at all times until used (with the exception of Hasty Hand, only available on the first turn) and have no kind of cost attached to them. This is planned to change on the 2.0 update, as crafters will be required to spend "CP" to use crafting abilities.
A Realm Reborn
The 8 crafting classes mentioned above make a return and the requirement to craft an item remains the same i.e. finish the progress bar at 100% before the durability of an item reaches 0. However, unlike v1.0, as long as the progress bar is at 100%, even when the durability reaches 0, the synthesis will still be successful. To increase the chances of obtaining a High Quality item, the Quality bar can be increased using Touch actions, a new addition in A Realm Reborn.
All 8 crafting classes have common skills between them. Nearly all skills cost crafting points (CP) and it is careful management of CP and choice of abilities to use that guarantee success.
- Basic Synthesis: Has a 90% chance to succeed but provides 100% of the effect of Craftsmanship. Costs 0 CP.
- Standard Synthesis: Has a 90% chance to succeed but provides 150% of the effect of Craftsmanship. Costs 15 CP.
- Basic Touch: Has a 70% chance to succeed but provides 100% of the effect of Control. Costs 18 CP.
- Standard Touch: Has a 80% chance to succeed but provides 125% of the effect of Control. Costs 32 CP.
- Advanced Touch: Has a 90% chance to succeed but provides 150% of the effect of Control. Costs 48 CP.
- Inner Quiet: Increases Control for every successful Touch action thereafter. Costs 18 CP.
- Steady Hand: Increases the success rate of the next 5 actions by 20%. Costs 22 CP.
- Great Strides: Doubles the effectiveness of the next Touch action within the next 3 actions. Costs 32 CP.
- Master's Mend: Restores 30 durability. Costs 92 CP.
- Master's Mend II: Restores 60 durability. Costs 160 CP.
- Observe: Do nothing for 1 step. Costs 14 CP.
Each Disciple of Hand also has 3 skills unique to their class that are incredibly useful during the crafting process. They are learnt at level 15, level 37 and level 50 repsectively. Moreover, all of these abilities are cross-class abilities and having some of them are essential to crafting high-level recipes.
- Alchemist - Tricks of the Trade, Brand of Water, Comfort Zone
- Armorer - Rapid Synthesis, Brand of Ice, Piece by Piece
- Blacksmith - Ingenuity, Brand of Fire, Ingenuity II
- Carpenter - Rumination, Brand of Wind, Byregot's Blessing
- Culinarian - Hasty Touch, Steady Hand II, Reclaim
- Goldsmith - Manipulation, Flawless Synthesis , Innovation
- Leatherworker - Waste Not, Brand of Earth, Waste Not II
- Weaver - Careful Synthesis, Brand of Lightning, Careful Synthesis II
Condition of the synthesis also change the effectiveness of Touch actions. They appear randomly and always last for 1 action only. Normal condition has no effect on Touch actions, Good condition gives a bonus to the next Touch action while Excellent condition provides the largest bonus of all. However, a Poor condition will always appear after an Excellent condition and reduces the effectivenss of the next Touch action.
Final Fantasy Agito
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Etymology
Synthesis refers to a combination of two or more entities that together form something new; alternately, it refers to the creating of something by artificial means.
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