In Final Fantasy XIV, materia is a way to customize and buff your weapons and gear to improve its effectiveness. These improve stats like Skill Speed, Critical Hit, etc. and allow players to greater specialize and optimize their character and job.
As you defeat enemies and level up, you’ll find your gear slowly gains Spiritbond. After reaching 100 percent Spiritbond, your gear will generate a piece of materia that can be extracted. But how do you get this materia extracted? Here’s a handy guide.
Extracting materia in FFXIV
As mentioned, materia can be extracted from fully Spiritbonded gear, whether that be weapons of armor items. Once the Spiritbond of a gear reaches 100 percent, its icon in your mini inventory will turn white, and you can extract the materia. You can also check a weapon’s Spiritbond percentage by hovering over it and checking the weapon details.
To extract the materia, right click the gear (Left Bumper and Right Stick click on controller) to open up the item’s menu. Under this option, you’ll see the Extract Materia option. If this option is greyed out, your Spiritbond hasn’t reached 100 percent, and there is no materia to extract.
Retrieving materia in FFXIV
When you meld materia to items, you’ll also have the option of retrieving it. This differs from extracting materia, for two reasons. First, there’s a chance you can fail, and in the process destroy the materia you’ve melded. Second, you can retrieve materia at any time, you don’t need the Spiritbond to have reached 100 percent.
Materia is a great way to either optimize or customize your job’s build. Some players will aim for carefully crafted Best-in-Slot materia melds, while others experiment with more outlandish builds, such as super-high skill or spell speed. Whatever you choose, remember to keep extracting the free materia you can obtain by maxing out the Spiritbond of your items.
