Spiritbond

Not to be confused with "soulbound", which in other MMORPGs refers to gear that cannot be traded to other players. In Final Fantasy XIV that is called Binding.

Spiritbond, or Spiritbonding, is the process of creating Materia. Weapons, Armor and Accessories will acquire spiritbond as you gain experience points from defeating monsters (but not in the overworld), completing Duties or FATEs, crafting items, or gathering resources. Once equipment reaches 100% spiritbond, a piece of materia can be   extracted from it, returning the eqipment's spiritbond to 1%. Players can view spiritbond progression by hovering over the equipment and reading the spiritbond percentage from the item's information details. Once the Spiritbond is complete, the player will be notified by an audible "pop" sound, a visual flash of light, and text notification in their chat log. Additionally, the gear indicating pips (in the bottom right by default) will change from green to white.

• Only activities that would grant experience points will grant spiritbond. This means that doing a max-level dungeon that gives no experience will subsequently not give any spiritbond either.
• Note that when a piece of your gear reaches 1% Spiritbond, it becomes permanently bound to your character. As a result, it cannot be traded to other players or sold on the Market Board. Gear will immediately bind to you if you gain any experience while wearing it, or if it is used to glamor a different piece of equipment.

To create materia, you must first complete the quest: Forging the Spirit. The quest giver is Swynbroes, located at The Bonfire in Central Thanalan (X:23.9, Y:13.7).

Spiritbond Mechanics

High Quality gear and DAetherial gear will spiritbond 20% faster than regular equipment. Additionally, each materia melded into the gear will increase the Spiritbonding speed by another +20%, and each +1 from consumables is approximately an additional +20%. Spiritbonding rate is cumulative. For example, a piece of HQ gear (+20%) with two materia melded (+40%) will spiritbond 60% faster than a piece of NQ gear with no materia.

Despite HQ gear bonding faster than NQ gear, extracting NQ gear nets the same results as HQ gear. In short, the quality of the extracted item will not affect the materia gained.

Equipment will acquire spiritbond regardless of the class of the player – all that is required to gain spiritbond is for you to receive EXP points while wearing the item. Due to this, players can wear crafting or gathering gear as a Disciple of War and spiritbond it through combat experience, and vice versa. This will be catastrophically bad for your performance in those tasks, however, since you will have none of the relevant stats.

Spiritbond speed correlates to the level difference between the equipped item and the enemies slain or level of the item created by a crafter. For example, if you are striving to spiritbond level 40 gear, you want to craft level 50 gear, run level 50 dungeons, or kill level 50 enemies. At endgame, item level takes precedence. For example, crafting the same level 90 item using item level 620 gear will provide much less spiritbond than when using item level 590 gear. Crafting higher-item-level items will provide more spiritbond (e.g., ★★ items > ★ items > common items).

When gathering, spiritbond is based on the gear's equipping level relative to the level of the gathering node instead of the gear's item level. When fishing, player will also receive a bonus to spiritbonding if they hook a big or legendary fish.

• Note that a piece of gear with 0% Condition will not gain Spiritbond points.

Item Level Diff. (content ilvl - equipment ilvl)	Combat	Crafting	Mining/Botany	Fishing
< -31	0%	0%	0%	0%
-20	0.01%	0.01%	0.01%	0.01%
-15	0.20%	0.10%	0.01%	0.06%
-10	0.42%	0.23%	0.04%	0.12%
-5	0.52%	0.28%	0.04%	0.17%
0	0.62%	0.33%	0.05%	0.22%
5	1.00%	0.33%	0.10%	0.32%
10	1.50%	0.33%	0.10%	0.44%
15	1.00%	0.33%	0.10%	0.44%
20	0.10%	0.33%	0.10%	0.44%
25	0.05%	0.33%	0.10%	0.44%
30	0.01%	0.33%	0.10%	0.44%
> 31	0.00%	0.33%	0.10%	0.44%

• Therefore, according to this chart, the sweet spot for optimal combat-based spiritbond gain is to use equipment 10 item levels below the target content.
• If not exactly on the sweet spot, then combat spiritbonding slightly prefers equipment below the sweet spot.

Consumables

Item	Effect
Better Crowned Pie	Increased Spiritbond Gain +2
Spiritbond Potion	Increased Spiritbond Gain +3
Potent Spiritbond Potion	Increased Spiritbond Gain +4 / +5
Superior Spiritbond Potion	Increased Spiritbond Gain +5 / +6
Squadron Spiritbonding Manual	Increases spiritbonding speed. Spiritbond Bonus: +3

The pie ( Well Fed), a potion ( Medicated), and the manual ( That Which Binds Us III) can all be stacked. The different potions will overwrite each other as they all apply Medicated.

Gear

Item	Level	Item Level	Effect
Patriot's Choker	26	27	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Patriot's Bracelet	30	31	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Meteor Survivor Ring	34	36	Increased Spiritbond Gain +3
Gambler's Crown	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Lily and Serpent Earrings	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Crimson Standard Earrings	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Tipping Scales Earrings	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Lily and Serpent Bracelet	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +2
Crimson Standard Bracelet	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +2
Tipping Scales Bracelet	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +2
Aetheryte Ring	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1 / +1
Lily and Serpent Ring	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Crimson Standard Ring	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1
Tipping Scales Ring	50	55	Increased Spiritbond Gain +1

Achievements

Main article: Materia Achievements

Tips and Tricks

• Use   Spiritbond Potions! The benefit is especially noticeable during lower level spiritbonding sessions. If you are in danger of being killed, beware – the potion gives the Medicated status, not Well Fed, meaning it wears off upon death.
  • For consumables, each +1 is roughly equivalent to an additional materia melded, or about 20% faster bonding.
  • Note that when gathering, there is a hard limit of +5 spiritbond gain from consumables or buffs.

• Due to spiritbond rate being higher, only use High Quality gear in your spiritbonding sessions.

• Each meld increases the rate by 20%, so adding materia is very beneficial. This is particularly relevant for spiritbonding gathering gear.
  • The identity of the materia is not relevant, only the number of materia melded. Therefore, for gathering gear in particular, it is recommended to invest in cheap, low-quality combat materia for the purpose of spiritbonding to "farm" gathering materia.

• Wearing equipment with +1 spiritbond gain is generally not worth it, as they have low item level (meaning the materia they generate is low-grade), and they generally cannot be high-quality or have materia melded onto them (meaning their own spiritbond rate is slow. The   Aetheryte Ring is an exception to this point, but still has low item level.). They also take up a gear slot, when that slot could be better used on gear that can generate high-grade materia at a fast rate instead.

• At higher levels, intentionally spiritbonding is generally done by crafting and gathering classes. They can equip level-appropriate gear (for gatherers) or item-level-appropriate gear (for crafters), High-Quality and pentamelded, and use that to farm Collectables for Scrips, earning spiritbond in the process. The scrips gained can then also be traded at a Scrip Exchange for additional materia.
  • For gathering, note that spiritbond is granted whenever a node is hit, regardless of how many items are obtained. Using actions that restore integrity, such as   Solid Reason or   Ageless Words, can increase the amount of possible hits on a single node.
  • For crafting, spiritbond is granted after finishing a craft attempt, even if the attempt failed. The amount of spiritbond gained is the same regardless of whether the craft succeeded or failed.

• Intentionally spiritbonding for combat classes by doing combat is generally not recommended. Overworld enemies do not grant spiritbond, so FATEs and Duties would need to be farmed instead - and these forms of content only grant rewards upon completion. Intentionally wearing item-level-appropriate gear to optimize spiritbond will slow down the speed of completion, harming time efficiency, and this is generally an unnatural style of play. Combat materia of grades 5 and above are easily available through various sources that fall within normal play, such as obtaining Allagan Tomestones, or doing  Duty Roulettes, The Hunt, Allied Society Quests, or Shared FATEs.
  • However, combat materia of grades 1-4 lack easy obtain methods, and they are required for the Novus step of Zodiac Weapons. These can be farmed efficiently by gathering in The Diadem, since it has low stat requirements for gathering to succeed. Equip low-level "all classes" gear, HQ and pentamelded, with decent main-hand and off-hand tools to compensate for the lack of stats, and simply gather items to raise spiritbond.