Materia Melding – Aleczan's New Diary (FFXIV: ARR)

I don’t get Meld Request often. Usually it’s because I don’t hang out in the cities, else it’s just that I’m doing something else and wasn’t fast enough to reply to the meld request shouts. Today, while walking to get the new dance emote quest in Limsa, I saw a shout for leatherworker lv 50, so I sent a tell.

This total stranger wanted to overmeld a pair of pair of “saurian crakows of casting” with heavens’ eye materia IV, heavens’ eye materia IV and savage aim materia II. (I didn’t know he wanted me to meld 3!)

So on my first meld, it was 29%, I didn’t like that red text saying this meld attempt has great failure rate blah blah blah, so I screamed “It’s 29%!” and he said “Do it.”

Cringing my face, I hit the meld button and of course, it broke.

I broke 2 of the heavens’ eye materia IV before a success kicked in. I said, nervously, if that one failed, I would be crying. He said don’t, it’s ok. (I thought to myself, it’s ok to you but it’s not ok to me because I am stingy and I hate wasting money, even if it’s not my money! LOL)

I was relieved to have successfully attached that materia, but nope, that wasn’t the end. He sent more meld request with more heavens’ eye materia IV, now with 16% success rate. I held my breath and did it again, and again, and again. In the end, I broke 9 11 heavens’ eye materia IV before my 2nd meld became successful. (I checked my log again and it was 11, not 9! So the total IV I broke today was 13, GULP!)

I was like phewwwwwwwwww there, finally, but then he sent yet another request. This time with savage aim materia II which was at 13% success rate. I broke 9 of it before it was finally attached safely.

I don’t think I have smashed that many valuable materias in one day before.

After it was done, he even asked me what I’d like from him. Egads! No, gentleman. If you saw my face while I broke your materia left and right, you would know that I didn’t want any reward but just wanted to dig a hole and crawl into it for breaking so many materias in public. /sob

It’s so embarrassing!

Well, I once broke so many IV materias in one day, but those were my materias, my money, and most of them were old materias I’ve kept from 1.0, so it didn’t feel like I was spending gil on them. Today it was someone else’s money I was wasting. Plus, I haven’t melded (and broken) materias in ages and I just returned to the game after a long pause due to real life being busy. So, today’s experience was somewhat strange to me.

Hopefully, next time I meld something for someone, I won’t break this many materias. /cross fingers

– This entry is not to tell the steps to making HQ items, I was just talking about my crafting day. However, I did mention a list of crafting skills which I used for making HQ items, but not in detail. –

Recently, I’ve made myself a full set of Miner’s gear for level 50, except the helmet, that is. It wasn’t that tough, but I was stressing the hell out of it, probably because it used a lot of difficult materials which I cannot make on my own, such as Twinthread and Darksteel Nugget. And I felt pressured and did not want to botch or NQ them, because it would feel like I wasted Corn’s materials and effort. I was anxious and was reluctant, then Corn suggested I should make HQ Hippogryph Leather to increase the HQ rate. So I made 3 of them and felt less worried.

And yup it went well. Got all 4 pieces of Miner’s outfit to HQ just fine. What boggles my mind was that I actually finished it at step 41 and 43, etc. I usually never go beyond step 29. So I was bulging my eyes earlier when Corn said he HQ Twinthread or something at step 42 or so. Then he shared me the general skill sequence, and I started using Hasty Touch more, so I saw how and why one would and could go over 30 steps in one sitting. But I didn’t quite grasp the real practice until now LOL.

ffxiv_10282013_110044s You see, as a cook, I usually finish HQ craft within 25 steps, or below 20 steps if I get lucky Good or Excellent. But with them starred recipes, it is tougher and requires more steps. Aetheryte Ring, for example, usually takes 35 or so for me, but when I got really lucky, I could finish at step 29.

My skills for HQ stuff used to be mainly just Inner Quiet, Steady Hand II, Waste Not, Hasty Touch, Tricks of the Trade, Manipulation if I could reserve enough CP, and Rumination to try to get extra CP for one more Waste Not, in order to squeeze as much as I could out of the last few Durability.

Then, my life got easier with Byregot’s Blessing from Carpenter lv 50. It consumes 24 CP, Durability, as well as Inner Quiet’s effect, but it could give me 700 Quality easily. So that’s a big Quality boost.

Also, I made Corn quad-meld my GSM shirt. I was reckless and greedy, so I used grade III materia on first 2 forbidden melds, and we got very lucky that both were successful on first try. XD

I was about to chicken out, but Corn hit the button and attached the 4th materia successfully LOL. I was so relieved and jumping in joy because that was my last Craftsman’s Competence III materia in stock.

Then I used a lower grade materia for 5th slot. Took a few tried. I’m really entertained by the facial expression of the crafter when melding fails LOL.

Hahaha.

The pic above was when I used Corn’s Mildwed’s Thighboots to try for Gambler’s Crown. I spent like 19 Materia (mostly just CP+1 ones) before I finally got the achievement.