Smithmagic
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- Smithmagic professions are specialisations within weapon-crafting and equipment-crafting professions.
- Smithmagic lets you modify item characteristics.
- Smithmagic lets you change a weapon's attack element from Neutral to Fire, Water, Earth or Air.
- If you want to use Smithmagic on an item, you'll need specific runes or potions – and most of all, an experienced craftsman.
What are the Magic professions good for?
Smithmagic (and all of the other "magic" professions) is similar to other professions; you can level it up to increase its efficiency. In order to alter an item's stats, the level of your smithmagic profession must be equal to or greater than the level of the item you are trying to mage.
Changing a weapon's attack element
This skill, which is known as ‘elemental Smithmagic’, involves the use of an elemental potion on a weapon that deals Neutral damage to change its attack element to Fire, Water, Earth or Air. This transformation will result in the weapon's damage being reduced, depending on the strength of the potion that was used.
Alchemists can create these potions using regular Metaria (the weakest potions; weapon damage reduced by 50%), Triam Metaria (regular potions; weapon damage reduced by 35%) or Mage Metaria (the strongest potions; weapon damage reduced by 20%).
Elemental Smithmagic does not work all the time, and several attempts are sometimes necessary before a transformation takes hold. The weapon's damage will not be reduced unless the transformation is successful.
Warning:
- Elemental changes cannot be reversed.
- Only a weapon's regular damage can be changed. Health steal elements cannot be modified, not even Neutral ones.
- If a weapon deals more than one line of Neutral damage, they will all be changed to the new element at the same time. It is not possible to change them on an individual basis.
Modifying item characteristics
The other thing that Smithmagic lets you do is modify item characteristics. If you feel the item bonuses generated when an item was crafted are too low in relation to the maximum possible amount, you can modify the value of one or more of the item’s characteristics using Smithmagic.
It is also possible to exceed these maximum amounts (referred to as an ‘overmaging’) or even add characteristics which the items would not normally have (e.g. adding an MP to a Gelano – this is known as an ‘exotic Smithmagic’), although this process is a lot more complicated.
What type of Smithmagic for what item?
There are 5 Smithmagic professions: Smithmagus, Carvmagus, Shoemagus (belts and boots), Jewelmagus (amulets and rings), and Costumagus (hats and cloaks). The only crafting profession not to have this specialisation available is the Shield Smith.
Smithmagi in the above professions can only work on a specific type of item. This means that you have to contact a specific type of craftsman depending on what type of item you want to mage. Even the best Costumagus in the whole World of Twelve would have a lot of problems trying to work Smithmagic into your boots or your axe.
Runes? Pa, Ra, Dam, Prospe, Wis, How, Now, Brown, Cow?
To mage items, you will need runes. For each characteristic, there is one type of rune with several power levels (normal runes, Pa runes, Ra runes). So for example, you would use Dam runes to augment an item's Damage, Agi runes for its Agility, and Prospe runes for its Prospecting. The more powerful the rune you use is, the more the value of the respective characteristic will be augmented. The value of the runes varies according to each of the characteristics.
Runes can be obtained by crushing items using the crushers found in Smithmagic Workshops. The type of runes you get will depend on the crushed item's characteristics. If the item has a high level of a certain characteristic, there is a good chance that the corresponding rune will be powerful as well.
Every rune is specifically ‘weighted’ according to its bonus type and its power. This weighting has an effect on bonus reductions in the event of a neutral success or a critical failure (see below).
The total weighting of the item’s characteristics has an effect on the maging success rate (the closer the item’s bonuses are to their respective maximum values, the lower this success rate will be).
Smithmagic won't work every single time!
Once the runes and items are ready, the Smithmagus has to combine them using the magic anvil in the Smithmagic Workshop (we can't stress enough that clients should use the cooperative crafting system rather than entrusting their items and runes to the craftsman). The higher the Magus's level of Smithmagic is, the higher the success rate will be. The Magus will also be able to modify high-level items if their Smithmagic level is high enough. Do proceed with caution, though – even at level 200, the success rate is not 100% and there will still be potential for failure. If this happens, you will need to restart the maging process as many times as required until you end up getting the bonus of your dreams.Maging items can yield three possible results:
- Critical success: the rune works properly and augments the selected characteristic without altering any of the others.
- Neutral success: the rune augments the selected characteristic but noticeably reduces one or more of the others.
- Critical failure: the rune does not work, none of the characteristics is augmented and several of them decrease in value (the total loss value depends on the weighting of the rune that was used).
The success rate for exotic maging, however, is very low by default and may decrease all the way down to 1% if, for example, you're trying to add an exotic AP or MP.
The limitations of exotic Smithmagic
Certain types of exotic Smithmagic have intentionally been made impossible. For example, you cannot add an AP or an MP to an item that already has these bonuses.
Exotic Smithmagic involving AP, MP and Range is further limited by the character that equips the items. Where a character has several items with exotic bonuses such as these, only 1 AP, 1 MP and 1 Range will be counted. The items can be equipped as usual, but the surplus exotic bonuses will not raise the character’s characteristics any further.
Residual magic and sink?
When using a rune, the value of characteristics lost in the event of a neutral success or a critical failure is usually equal to the weighting of the rune used. In certain cases, however, the loss value will be higher than the rune’s weighting value. This leads to residual magic building up on an item, an occurrence which is also known as ‘sink’.
Residual magic on an item is an invisible characteristic with a value equal to the difference between the loss value (in the case of a critical failure or neutral success) and the weighting value of the rune used. When sink has built up on an item, subsequent failures will decrease this residual magical value, thus protecting the item's other characteristics. This is commonly known as ‘absorption’.
Warning: If an item has an ‘overmaged’ characteristic or an exotic bonus, these characteristics will be reduced first before any residual magic is drawn away, unless the rune used is of the same type as the ‘overmaged’ or exotic characteristic.
You will see alert messages in your discussion window when residual magic forms on an item (+ sink) and when it is drawn away (- sink).
Warning: Equipping an item or putting it up for sale at a Market will cause it to lose all of its residual magic (although it remains on the item if exchanged or if you disconnect).
If you wish to completely reset an item's sink and characteristics you can use a New Leaf Orb. Be aware that these orbs will re-randomize all of the item's stats and any exotic mages will be lost!
A good Smithmagus has to be ready for the unpredictable
Even though the most experienced of craftsmen will be able to develop a thorough understanding of Smithmagic and become experts on how to modify items to meet their needs, this skill will always be somewhat affected by the unpredictable. It is up to you, the player, to not take too many risks or be greedy when trying to get better, unless you are prepared for a great deal of loss and having to rework your transformations from the beginning countless times!
List of Smithmagic runes
Last but not least, here's the list of different Smithmagic runes:| Characteristic | Name | Normal Rune | Pa Rune | Ra Rune |
| Initiative | Ini | 10 | 30 | 100 |
| Pods | Pod | 10 | 30 | 100 |
| Vitality | Vit | 3 | 10 | 30 |
| Strength | Stre | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Intelligence | Int | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Agility | Agi | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Chance | Cha | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| % Damage | Per Dam | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| % Trap Damage | Tra Per | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Fixed resistance | Neutral Res | 1 | 3 | |
| Fixed resistance | Earth Res | 1 | 3 | |
| Fixed resistance | Fire Res | 1 | 3 | |
| Fixed resistance | Water Res | 1 | 3 | |
| Fixed resistance | Air Res | 1 | 3 | |
| % resistance | Neutral Res per | 1 | ||
| % resistance | Earth Res per | 1 | ||
| % resistance | Fire Res per | 1 | ||
| % resistance | Water Res per | 1 | ||
| % resistance | Air Res per | 1 | ||
| Wisdom | Wis | 1 | 3 | 10 |
| Prospecting | Prospe | 1 | 3 | |
| Lock | Loc | 1 | 3 | |
| Dodge | Dod | 1 | 3 | |
| Elemental Damage | Neutral Dam | 1 | 3 | |
| Elemental Damage | Earth Dam | 1 | 3 | |
| Elemental Damage | Fire Dam | 1 | 3 | |
| Elemental Damage | Water Dal | 1 | 3 | |
| Elemental Damage | Air Dam | 1 | 3 | |
| MP Reduction | Mp Red | 1 | 3 | |
| AP reduction | Ap Red | 1 | 3 | |
| MP Resistance | Mp Res | 1 | 3 | |
| AP Resistance | AP Res | 1 | 3 | |
| Pushback Damage | Psh Dam | 1 | 3 | |
| Pushback Resistance | Psh Res | 1 | 3 | |
| Critical Hits Resistance | Cris Res | 1 | 3 | |
| Trap Damage | Tra | 1 | 3 | |
| Damage | Dam | 1 | ||
| Healing | Hea | 1 | ||
| Summons | Summo | 1 | ||
| Critical Hits | Cri | 1 | ||
| Reflected Damage | Ref Dam | 1 | ||
| Range | Ra | 1 | ||
| MP | MP Ga | 1 | ||
| AP | AP Ga | 1 | ||
| Hunting Weapon | Hunting Rune | Hunting Weapon |