Disciplines of the Hand

Synthesis allows you to create new items from existing materials.

These items vary by class, and higher levels give you access to even more powerful items.

You can repair equipment anywhere with an item called dark matter.

Each piece of equipment has class and level restrictions on who can repair it. This information can be viewed in an item's help text.

You can power up equipment by affixing materia to them.

With the general action Advanced Materia Melding, you can even attach materia to gear that already has all its materia slots filled.

Materia melding becomes available after you reach level 19 as a Disciple of the Hand and complete the quest "Waking the Spirit." You can perform Advanced Materia Melding after reaching level 25 as a Disciple of the Hand and completing the quest "Melding Materia Muchly."

You can also break items down into their material components by desynthesizing them.

To unlock desynthesis, reach level 30 as a Disciple of the Hand and complete the quest "Gone to Pieces."

You can view all your available recipes in your crafting log. To get there, select Logs from the main menu.

Leveling up or using specific items will earn you new recipes.

To begin synthesis, choose the recipe for the item you want to craft, make sure you have the correct materials, then press the Synthesize button.

You must perform actions to craft an item.

Using Synthesis actions will advance your progress.
Once your progress reaches 100%, you will receive the item. Progress requirements differ between recipes.

Crafting actions reduce material durability.
If durability reaches 0 before progress can reach 100%, your synthesis will result in a failure.

Your chance of crafting a high-quality item depends on your HQ item rate.

The condition of the material used in synthesis greatly affects how effective your actions are in increasing item quality.

For example, if your materials are in "good" condition, any actions you take will increase item quality by 1.5 times the base amount. This will give you a significant boost in quality if you use a powerful action.

Material condition will fluctuate as synthesis progresses.

Reach level 11 as a Disciple of the Hand to unlock the trait Inner Quiet, which grants a stack of Inner Quiet each time you successfully perform a Touch action.

You can have up to 10 stacks of Inner Quiet at one time, and each stack grants a bonus to the efficiency of quality-increasing actions.

At level 50, you'll learn Byregot's Blessing, which consumes all stacks of Inner Quiet to greatly increase quality.

As a Disciple of the Hand, you may be required to barter items called collectables.

These items each have a collectability rating, and those with higher collectability will earn you better rewards.

Certain recipes will always result in collectables when used in synthesis. These recipes are indicated with a special mark in the crafting log.

(These recipes will not produce normal or high-quality items.)

When synthesizing collectables, using Touch actions to increase quality will boost collectability value instead of the HQ item rate.

To complete the process, advance synthesis progress using Synthesis actions.

Upon reaching level 55 as a Disciple of the Hand and completing the quest "Beloved of the Builder," you can acquire specialized crafter soul crystals.

Those equipped with crafter soul crystals are called specialists and receive various boons for their craft.

Specialist crafters acquire the Specialist Action Careful Observation at level 55.

This Specialist Action is very powerful, but it consumes one crafter's delineation with each use.