Craftaholics Anonymous/Guide/Crystals Details

Each crystal is connected to an element. Each element has an ability and weakness. Each element has a day of the week and falls under a category of being influenced by day or night. This sub page will go into further details. Please feel free to add comments or feedback in the discussion page. This is a sub-page of the Craftaholics Anonymous Guide

Ability

Each crystal has a energy able of working with ingredients. While not essential in being able to synth it is important to understand that a Wind Crystal won't work in a spell to burn.

Burning or Heating	Bonding	Diluting, Dissolving, or Liquifying	Carving or Cutting
Freezing or Congealing	Disintegrating or De-synthesizing	Mending, Repairing, or Blessing	Decaying or Aging

Weakness

Elemental Ascendancy

Becoming a craftaholic starts in learning the basics about elements. Within the Vana'diel there are three Adventurer’s Assistants: Villion, Julio, and Yuhito-Kubhito, who offer further information on the relationships of elements. Each assistant displays the Elemental Relationship Chart. They refer to "cyclical ascendancy" or the way these basic forms of energy relate to each other. This relating comes in the form of domination or, more commonly, weakness. Each element is weak to one of the other elements. One assistant says; "They are like six serpents in a circle, each biting the tail of the one before it." That describes six of the eight elements. In the Elemental Relationship Chart, the two elements not in the ring rest in the middle of it, dividing the ring’s interior: top and bottom.

You can craft with success for a long time, never working with this the Elemental Relationship Chart nor understanding how the elements dominate one another. As a craftaholic you will want to memorize this ring of ascendancy and understand how it is an all-pervading system that is your ‘everything’ as a crafter in Vana'diel. It will propel your forward much faster knowing that not-knowing.

To remember ascendancy I use this anachronistic phrase:

Days of the week

The elements also make their appearance in the weekly calendar

A common acronym is

but having used that I could never remember what W and L it was to come next

Weekdays and Holidays

Try this instead:

These acornymistic phrases are supposed to be nonsensical enough that you remember cause they are strange.

Elements of Day and Night

Day and Night

I give full credit to crafting forums for pointing this idea out.

In the chain of ascendancy chart light and dark stand apart from the other elements. Subjectively put, Light and Dark represent Night and Day. The chart can be divided into a light realm (top) and a dark realm (bottom). In relation to synthing, elements in the Light realm (Day Elements) are stronger during the day and elements in the Dark realm (Night Elements) are stronger at night. I made a graphic that represents how this theory plays out. Cross-comparing it to the weekly elemental chart it is possible to see days alternate Light and Dark realms.

In Vana'diel the night starts at 18:00 and the day starts at 06:00.

By that schedule and according to my subjective perspective:

Night Elements grows strongest just before the change of day and Day Elements grow strongest around mid-day.

To specify:

• Night Elements are dominant from 18:00 - 05:59 are Lightning, Earth, Wind, and Dark

-Strongest during first half of dead at night 20:00-23:59

-Weakest during dusk 16:00-18:00

• Day Elements are dominant from 06:00 - 17:59 are Water, Fire, Ice, and Light

-Strongest during mid-day 11:00-13:00

-Weakest during last half of dead of night 00:00 - 04:00

This is obviously a pattern of subtlety many are not even gonna care to consider. It may only be evident when crafting well above your skill level. Alone this may make little difference in crafting, but if you combine it with other advanced crafting theories then greater success and quicker skill ups may be evident. Experiment for yourself.