Monday, March 16, 2009

FF7 CC Materia Fusion - Method,Tactic,Strategy

Today I am finally able put to together my thoughts to write on a clear and simplified explanation about crisis core's Materia Fusion, as well as my personal experiences going through learning and using this process with great fun, so that people sharing the similar trait as I have, once again, a 'no-RPG person' are able to put their collected materias in good use. Without further delay, let's move on to...


Basics

1) Materia Fusion needs to be enabled, and it will as you progress around early-middle of the game.

2) You need an Item called 'Item Fusion Tome' (clear Mission 7-2-1) so that your Materia Fusion menu will then be complete, and you can start to mix and blend your materias.

3) Requires lots of time, patience, as well as Gil (FF7 currency), SP (Soldier Points), and relevant Items and Materias.

4) Understand the impact of different materia types, levels, and classes. Read up other web sources such as "http://www.finalfantasykingdom.net/crisiscoremateriafusion.php", "Absolute Steve's Crisis Core FAQ/Walkthrough"... Don't need to read entire contents, just zoom in to the materia fusion sections for self-clarification.

(Note: I did not mention 'attributes', which is the +10% HP or +2 MAG or +3 VIT or +4 ATK that may or may not appear beside the materia description, because they do not affect whether the resulting materia changes into another or not. However, the resulting materia does retain or changes its attributes, but not to worry as there will be working examples later on to elaborate this part.)


Using Materia Fusion

Depending on where you are and with what available resources (as in materia, gil, sp), you may take materia fusion at the level of your comfort. Personally, I only started this after I completed the normal story game once. And being the typical 'no-RPG person', I saved my games at many points, I decided to use the final save point to begin my quest to practice my materia fusion (this is so that it'd be convenient and faster for me to be able to watch the ending cutscenes whenever I want to ;] ).

Okay, now. I assume that you have done the basics, so let me share with you what I have learnt:-

We all know that there are big and wide assortments of materias available in the game. And you might have read from many other sources about very technical or even fundamental explanation on materia type/class/level/rank. Those are good information, for there are where I got my knowledge from, with due respect. However, do allow me to interpret it in an alternative way that perhaps enables greater understanding.

So basically, I identify materias best by colours as well as what I need or want Zack to be equipped with, and also which Materias or Items that will help boost the resulting materia to the desired effects. Alright, one of the items I want is the Costly Punch (by far the most efficient weapon in terms of damage, ease of use, and difficulty obtaining it). The materias required to fuse into Costly Punch will be any 'punch' materia plus any 'dmw' materia. I suggest referring to AbsoluteSteve's FAQ/Walkthrough to find out for example, what are the 'punch' materias available, as well as where or how to obtain them. Now at this point, assuming you have the 2 materias needed to fuse into Costly Punch, what is left is the attributes to the resulting materia. As mentioned in the basics point number 4 above, this is where you can fuse the attributes you want into the resulting materia, using relevant Materias or Items. In this instance, what are the relevant Items needed to max the attributes to the resulting Costly Punch? Okay, there are a handful of choices:

1) Hero Drink for ATK+1 (use 99 quantity to max into ATK+99)
2) Adamantite for VIT+1 (use 99 quantity to max into VIT+99)
3) Dark Matter for MAG+1 (use 99 quantity to max into MAG+99)
4) Mythril for SPR+1 (use 99 quantity to max into SPR+99)
5) Gysahl Greens for LUK+1 (use 99 quantity to max into LUK+99)

**There are dozens of other Items you may use to fuse the attributes in, some require more, some less, logically depending on how difficult it is to obtain them.

There you go, now you should have a resulting Costly Punch materia with e.g. ATK+99 attributes, assuming you have the required SP for this fusion process (should be about 1million SP for this bad-ass resulting materia). Lastly, if at any point of time you feel that you do not need ATK+99 and want to change to let's say LUK+99, fret not. Simply place your Costly Punch materia in slot 1, and any 'punch' materia (level should be lower than Costly Punch's though) in slot2 and add 1 quantity of Gysahl Greens in Item slot should get you a resulting Costly Punch LUK+99 with just a few thousand SPs this time round (as logically speaking, you have already spent loads of SPs to boost to ATK+99 already). I hope by now you see the idea and concept used in the entire process. :-)

[Note: this example is interpreted from Atma Xplorer's Crisis Core Materia Fusion Guide & Stat Modifier Trick.]


Experiencing Materia Fusion

The above is one great method to perform a Materia Fusion, and after reading more guides from other authors and sources, I will now share my individual experience using trial and error the exact steps I did with Materia Fusion. Remember, my ideology is still the same. Select a materia I want to use, and find out what other materias or items that I need and are available to do fusion.

When I was selecting my materias, I asked myself what are the 6 best or most practical materias I would like Zack to use permanently? I would suggest referring to Absolute Steve's FAQ or other authors you can find and zoom into the Materia sections. For myself, I decided to use a Curaga, a Smart Consumer,a Costly Punch... I haven't decided on the rest at the point of writing. To illustrate my experience, let's see what I did with Smart Consumer materia:

Firstly, why Smart Consumer? Well, it's part of my personal game strategy. I learnt from the materia guides that Smart Consumer materia boosts item effectiveness, and since I prefer using potions to heal (as that will leave me loads of MP for offensive materias). Furthermore, I have the resources needed to fuse one out (yep, this 'no-RPG gamer' missed out Dash materia as he missed the entire Mission 4-3-1 ~ 4-3-6). So, 1x Steal (Master level) + 1x Libra (lvl 1) spent to make me 1x Smart Consumer materia. Next step will be the attributes booster part. It's slightly different this time, as I used the resulting Smart Consumer materia in slot 1 to fuse with a Hp Up+999% materia in slot 2 with no Items in the fusion (this is because my Hp Up+999% is already heavily boosted. Furthermore, SP needed is very little now as the approx. 1million SP was already spent in making the Hp Up+999%).

Hey, how did you max Hp Up materia to +999% then? Ah... I have to thank the many other sources such as Atma Xplorer for the concept. What they share is that you take 2x Hp Up or 2x Hp Up+ materias and fuse them with 80potions to get a resulting 1x Hp Up or 1x Hp Up+ materia with slightly increased attribute. And repeat the process until you get a Hp Up+999% materia. This is correct and I agree that it is a good early game method to gain a Hp Up+999% materia.

Before I move on, it is good to know some maths involved in this. Check out your Hp Up materias and look at the attribute. Assume that you got your Hp Up materia from Shop, it should be a Hp Up +10% HP. If you have Hp Up+ instead, check its attribute and it should be a Hp Up+ +20% HP. Let's use the Hp Up+ +20% as an example: the formula is - "resulting materia attribute = {materia with higher attribute} + {half times the materia with lower attribute}". [Note: If both materias are of similar attributes, then apply logical maths give you "20% + {0.5x20%} = 30%". However, be cautious of FF7's 'round down number rule', meaning a 30% + 30% will give you 40% as 30% + {0.5x30%} = 45%, round down to 40%.

Phew... confusing? But it is important to understand this so that you will enjoy your Materia Fusion, so re-read again if you must to grasp the concept. :-) Anyway, my recipe was this:

1) Prepare 1x Hp Up +150% materia. You need to fuse 2x Hp Up +100% materias to obtain this, and will cost you 2375 SP.

2) Prepare 17x Hp Up +100% materias. Each Hp Up +100% is obtained by fusing 2x Hp Up +50% and 60x Potions. A Hp Up +50% is obtained by fusing 2x Hp Up +10% and 80x Potions. So theoretically, you pay 2x1000gils plus 80x50gils plus 124 SP. And to fuse 2x Hp Up +50% into a Hp Up +100% will cost you another 60x50gils plus 875 SP.

3) Once you worked your 'finances', the idea now is this - Remember the simple mathematics from above? Now, your slot 1 will permanently fit in that Hp Up +150% materia now. And what you do is to fuse every Hp Up +100% in slot 2 one by one and fuse into that in slot 1. Your resulting Hp Up +150% should increase +50%, +50%, +50%... untill 999%. Got the idea? :-)


Materia Fusion Flexibility

Next, I would like to show you my method of fusing attributes into my Curaga materia. Thanks to Atma Xplorer once again for sharing a good SP farming trick in Mission 1-3-2 (you must have Mog Amulet Item [buy at Sector 7 Shop - treasure chest in Mission 4-4-3] equipped for rare Item drops) that lets you gain loads of Ap Up+ +20% materias with ease. So, assuming you have access to loads of Ap Up+ +20% materias, this was my recipe:

1) Fuse each couple of Ap Up+ +20% until you have 19x Ap Up+ +100%. The process of fusing up to a piece of Ap Up+ +100% costs you [419 + 437 + 461 + 491 + 527 + 569 + 617 + 671 SP].

2) Fuse the first couple of Ap Up+ +100% so that you get 1x Ap Up+ +150%, which will cost you 2775 SP.

3) Then place the resulted Ap Up+ +150% into slot 1, and one by one fuse each Ap Up+ +100% in slot 2, eventually you will get Ap Up+ +999%, same concept as the previous example of getting Hp Up +999% materia. The process will cost you [5025 + 8025 + 11775 + 16275 + 21525 + 27525 + 34275 + 41775 + 50025 + 59025 + 68775 + 79275 + 90525 + 102525 + 115275 + 128775 + 143025 SP].

With your Ap Up+ +999%, and assuming you would like a Curaga materia like I do, place Curaga into slot 1, and Ap Up+ +999% into slot 2 and start your fusion! OR, alternatively if you do not fancy adding 999% Ap to Zack's stats, place the desired Independent purple stats boosting materia that you want (e.g. MP Up+/ATK up+/MAG Up+/VIT Up+/SPR Up+) into slot 1 and the Ap Up+ +999% and start fusing! Only costs you a few thousand SP and an Up+ materia now :-)


Wow! What a blog load today! Hope everything I mentioned helps in your game. All the best, till next blog! :)

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