While the base stats for a weapon or armor piece primarily depend on whether it's of normal or high quality, in Final Fantasy XIV Materia can enhance an item's capacity further. Materia are magical orbs varying in color and strength that can enchant player equipment, boosting its initial stats. In addition, players can attach and detach Materia to integrated gear sockets, and they can even meld Materia beyond an item's available slot count with overmelding.

While Materia can be earned as a quest reward or bought from players and NPC vendors, it can also be crafted in Final Fantasy XIV by reaching 100% Spiritbond with one's equipment. Spiritbond can be thought of as the "XP" of a gear piece. Players can increase a weapon or armor's Spiritbond by simply using it for an extended duration. Once the "XP" reaches 100%, players have the option to extract Materia from the item, resetting the Spiritbond to 0% but granting the player a new gear-enhancing orb.

The player's ability to meld, extract, and overmeld Materia in FFXIV must first be unlocked though the following quests:

Quest Name

Quest Giver

Crafting Job Level

Forging the Spirit

Swynbroes

19

Waking the Spirit

F'hobhas

19

Melding Materia Muchly

Mutamix Bubblypots

25

Related: FFXIV: How to Find Purple Gatherer Scrips (& What They’re For)

How to Add Materia in FFXIV

Two images of the same FFXIV character talking to different quest-givers with the in-game map location of the NPCs superimposed between them.

Materia can be earned, purchased, or sold without restriction early on in the game. However, players who wish to attach or meld Materia to their equipment will need to complete a few brief prerequisite side quests in Final Fantasy XIV. First, finish "Forging the Spirit," the Level 19 quest from Swynbroes located at The Bonfire in Central Thanalan. He will teach players the "Extracting Materia" action, which grants the ability to craft Materia by extracting it from a piece of gear with 100% Spiritbond. Players can find Swynbroes at X: 24, Y: 13.8, northeast of Black Brush Station.

Next, players must learn how to add Materia in FFXIV by melding it to their weapons or armor. Speak with F'hobhas, another NPC at The Bonfire nearby Swynbroes. Complete her Level 19 quest "Waking the Spirit" to learn how to attach Materia to gear. Bear in mind that the player must be Level 19 of a crafting job in Final Fantasy XIV, not a combat job.

Finally, if players wish to meld Materia above and beyond their gear's available slots, they must complete the quest "Melding Materia Muchly" at Level 25. Mutamix Bubblypots, the quest giver, is located in the same area near Swynbroes and F'hobhas. Players should note that overmelding Materia isn't always guaranteed to be a success, and failure will result in the loss of the Materia.

Looking for a video guide on how to use Materia in FFXIV? Check out the YouTube walkthrough from Jolson below, which provides a great overview on how Materia works!

Once players acquire the ability to meld, extract, and overmeld Materia in FFXIV, they have full liberty over how they wish to boost their equipment, granted their gear is within the appropriate level range for the Materia's enchantment. Materia-related Actions can be found within the Character menu or accessed by opening the drop-down menu of any piece of gear.

More: FFXIV: How to Get Glamour Prisms (& How They Work)

  • Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker Poster
    Final Fantasy XIV
    Released:
    2013-08-24
    Developer:
    Square Enix
    Franchise:
    Final Fantasy
    Genre:
    MMORPG, Multiplayer
    Platform:
    PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, macOS
    Publisher:
    Square Enix
    ESRB:
    T
    Multiplayer:
    Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
    Summary:
    Final Fantasy XIV is the fourteenth entry in the Final Fantasy franchise. It is an MMORPG that initially launched in 2010 before it was completely rebuilt from the ground up for a 2013 release as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. After the events of the 2010 iteration's conclusion, where the primal dragon Bahamut brings calamity to the land of Eorza, the player survives and is sent into the future by five years in a world that has begun to rebuild, but now thrust into the middle of a war from the Garlean Empire. As a consistently expanding world with an ever-scaling storyline, Final Fantasy XIV's narrative grows with each expansion, with the core experience still surrounding working with other players and NPCs as they level and customize their characters, engage in real-time events, and coordinate teams to enter massive dungeons to face raid bosses. The game is available to play with people of several nations and has a massive translatable vocabulary for players to be able to work with one another despite language barriers. The most recent expansion pack, Endwalker, was released in December of 2021 and follows the trend of each title releasing roughly every two years. Final Fantasy XIV is available as a free-to-play title up to level 60, where the game then transitions to a subscription model. The game is playable on Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, as the PlayStation 3 version was shuttered in 2017.
    Expansion Packs :
    Heavensward (June 2015), Stormblood (June 2017), Shadowbringers (July 2019), Endwalker (December 2021)