Synergy Guide by Sherinmir

Synergy is a new type of crafting added to Final Fantasy XI in the December 7, 2009 update that uses a newly added device called the Synergy Furnace instead of traditional crystals for crafting. Synergy works together with other crafts in most of its synths, allowing for a multiplayer aspect in crafting as a party works together in order to maintain the status of the furnace and come together for the final end result. Being a new addition to the game, synergy is a bit limited at the moment, with a level cap of 50 (Journeyman) and a limited number of synths. It is the goal of this guide to explain the basics of the synergy system, as well as give any budding synergists a head start on the system. It is my hope that this guide will continue to grow and aid people even as the cap is raised and synergy continues to grow. - Sherinmir, Synergy Journeyman of Midgardsormr

Obtaining Your Synergy Crucible
First and foremost, you must complete the Synergistic Pursuits quest from Hildolf in the Bastok Metalworks to obtain a Synergy Crucible. Though you may participate in synergy crafting without the crucible, you may neither initiate crafts yourself nor get any skillups from assisting others. The quest is a simple fetch quest, requiring four items:


 * Earth Crystal: Either buy one from the Auction House or kill any earth-aligned monster that checks as Easy Prey or higher.
 * Flint Stone: The worms in North Gustaberg and South Gustaberg drop these regularly.
 * Brass Tank: While easiest to just buy from the Auction House, these can be crafted by a level 25+ goldsmith from 3x Brass Sheet, 1x Animal Glue, and an Earth Crystal.
 * Mythril Sand: The actual fetch part of the quest, getting the sand takes you to Palborough Mines. Take about half a stack of pickaxes with you, and go to (F-7) on the first floor to find a Mythril Seam. Trade a pickaxe to it as if you were mining; eventually, you will receive a Mine Gravel (your pickaxes may break before you receive the gravel, so again, take more than one). Once you have the gravel, either walk or take the elevator to the third floor and go to (I-6), where you will find a Refiner. Trade the gravel to the Refiner, then pull the lever next to it. It will make some noise, and tell you something happened down below. Jump off the cliff immediately to your left and fall until you can't fall any more. There will be a lever in this area; pull it to receive your Mythril Sand.

Once you have these items, return to Hildolf. Trade all four items to him and he'll hand over your Synergy Crucible, then tell you to get to work.

Obtaining Your Portafurnace
Once you have some experience under your belt and are Synergy level 5, you may obtain a Portafurnace. This handy pendant allows you to summon a Synergy Furnace while out in the fields, in order to craft closer to crystals and/or raw materials.

To obtain the Portafurnace, you must complete the quest The Wondrous Whatchamacallit for Selliste in Bastok Mines, next to the Alchemy Guild. The scatterbrained NPC asks you to bring her some Astral Matter, then says it can be created via Synergy with the following ingredients: Flamestone, Froststone, Galestone, Tremorstone, Stormstone, and Tidestone. To obtain these stones, travel to each of the six Cloisters of the avatars. There will be a shining ??? spot on the floor; simply target and use the spot to obtain that Cloister's stone. (If you are unable to travel to the Cloisters yourself, the stones can be bazaared and may occasionally be found this way.)

Once you have all six stones, find a public Synergy Furnace and fork over the stones. The Astral Matter synth is relatively simple, requiring 10 10 10 to successfully synergize, though this will likely be your first experience with competing elements (more on that below).

One you have the Astral Matter synergized, simply return it to Selliste and she will hand over your Portafurnace.

Extra Portafurnace Details
While the Portafurnace may be used in a number of places, there are some restrictions. The Portafurnace may not be used in:
 * any city. This includes Selbina and Mhaura.
 * any "dungeon," including outdoor areas such as Giddeus.
 * Treasures of Aht Urhgan or Wings of the Goddess areas.
 * the Lumoria region, specifically Al'Taieu.
 * Behemoth's Dominion, Dragon's Aery, or Valley of Sorrows.

The Fewell Supply
And now we come to the meat of the article: how synergy actually works. The main crux of synergy is your Fewell supply. Fewell is used for pretty much everything related to synergy, from powering the synth to maintaining the furnace. When you first receive your crucible, Hildolf will give you a free initial fillup:

99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99

As you synergize things, these motes of fewell will gradually (and usually rather quickly) be used up, and running out in the middle of a synth can completely wreck what you were trying to do. Fortunately, there are three ways to refill your fewell supply:


 * Speak with the Synergy Engineer near any set of furnaces in town and select the "Replenish fewell supply." option. He will offer to refill your supply to cap for 100 gil per mote.
 * Place your crucible into any furnace, then trade it elemental crystals. Each crystal is worth one elemental mote (the furnace will not accept clusters; you must break the cluster first, then trade the resultant crystals).
 * Place your crucible into any furnace, then trade it elemental fewell orbs (ex. Fire Fewell). These orbs are Alchemy 38 to craft, and each orb is worth 50 fewell motes.

The Furnaces
There are two types of furnaces you can use for synergy: public and private.

Public furnaces are scattered throughout the four cities and are usable by anyone that lays claim to them. At each furnace location are two furnaces and a Synergy Engineer. Furnace locations are as follows:


 * Bastok Mines (G-6) and (J-8)
 * Bastok Markets (F-7) and (H-8)
 * Port Bastok (I-8)


 * Windurst Waters (L-11) (north map) and (G-8) (south map)
 * Windurst Walls (I-12) and (J-9)
 * Port Windurst (C-7) and (H-6)


 * Southern San d'Oria (D-7) and (M-7)
 * Northern San d'Oria (F-3) and (J-7)
 * Port San d'Oria (H-9)


 * Upper Jeuno (H-9) and (G-8)
 * Lower Jeuno (H-8) and (G-9)
 * Port Jeuno (H-8) and (I-8)

Private furnaces are simply your own furnace as summoned by the Portafurnace, and as such can be found anywhere the Portafurnace can be used.

When using a public furnace, you must first lay claim to it by clicking on it; this will reserve the furnace to you for one minute, giving you time to prepare your group and insert the ingredients. Private furnaces are automatically claimed when you use your Portafurnace to call it, and you have three minutes to insert the ingredients before the furnace disappears. Claim will also be lost on either furnace if the owner of the crucible wanders too far away from the furnace.

The Engineers
At each set of furnaces is a Synergy Engineer, the "guild representatives" for synergy. By speaking with them, you can accomplish a number of things related to the craft. Options are as follows:


 * No thanks.
 * Cancels the conversation.
 * Learn recipes.
 * Like other guilds, this will give you the ingredients, elemental levels, and necessary subcrafts for a synth that you can potentially make with your current synergy level.
 * Check fewell.
 * Gives you a readout of your current fewell levels.
 * Replenish fewell.
 * Fills your fewell levels to 99 for every element for 100 gil per mote.
 * Purchase materials.
 * Allows you to buy flasques of Mordant 15 for use in low-level Evolith augmentation. 1 costs 500 gil, 6 cost 2500 gil, and 12 cost 4500 gil, giving a minor bulk discount.
 * Receive training.
 * Only usable at synergy levels of multiples of five, this increases your skill in a facet of synergy. See Improving Synergy Skills for further details.
 * Trade cinder.
 * Allows you to trade cinder earned in synergy synths for Mordants 30, 45, 60, and 75, as well as Revertant, for 25, 50, 75, 100, and 25 Pz, respectively.
 * Get information.
 * Allows you to ask various questions about synergy.

Let's Get Synergizing!
Now, the fun part: actually getting the work done. As you probably already know, synergy is a lot more involved than the "select crystal, select materials, wait" of traditional crafting. There are a few numbers to keep track of during synergy, and with the synths that require large amounts of elemental energy, you'll want multiple people keeping track of things.

The ultimate goal of synergy is to get the elemental energy levels as close to the given numbers as possible. You generally want to get the levels within 2-3 of the target number, though complications can arise (see Fewell Feeding).

Setting Up the Synth
When you claim a furnace, everyone in the party will get a notification that you have done so, regardless of where they are in the zone. At this point, anyone can trade fewell into your crucible, but only you may trade the ingredients for the synth. Once you have traded the ingredients, a readout will appear of the expected synth result, the elemental energy required, and the synergy rank required.

If a synergy craft requires at least one subcraft, you yourself do not have to meet this prerequisite. As long as someone in the party has the required subcraft levels, the entire party is considered to as well. This will be important later on.

After clicking yes in the confirmation box that pops up after this, synergy will commence, and the furnace's health will start ticking down. You have until the furnace runs out of health to complete the synth. By clicking on the furnace while synergy is proceeding, a menu will appear with the following options:


 * Feed fewell.
 * See Fewell Feeding.
 * Operate furnace.
 * See Operate Furnace.
 * View furnace readings.
 * Displays current pressure, impurity ratio, status of the synergy image, and elemental energy levels.
 * End synergy.
 * Ends the current synergy and displays results. Only available to the synth leader.
 * Review objective.
 * Replays the expected result, difficulty, and elemental energy goals for the synth.
 * Toggle command confirmation on/off.
 * When toggled off, the game will not ask you to confirm entered commands. I recommend leaving this toggled off at all times, for extra speed when entering commands.
 * Close menu.

Fewell Feeding
Priority number one in any synergy craft is getting the elemental levels to the given values. As mentioned, these values are given to you when you begin the synth. If you forget, you will see the target values whenever you feed fewell, view furnace readings, or review the objective, in this format (Astral Matter used as an example):

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 10 10

The top row displays current elemental levels, while the bottom row is the goal.

Each feeding raises the element's level by approximately 5, with the chance for an "elemental surge" that can raise the number by up to 12. Occasionally, the fewell combustion rate for a particular element will increase when you feed the furnace that element of fewell; if you feed the furnace that same element again, the gain will be slightly higher.

A side effect of feeding is that the element weak to the element you feed's energy will lose 2 energy (ex. feeding fire will raise fire's energy, but lower ice's). This is the only way to reduce an element's energy outside of explosions and leaks, so if you overshoot the target number and wish to fine-tune, this is the way to go about it.

Adding fewell also raises the pressure and impurity levels of the furnace; the further below the level cap of the synth you are, the higher these numbers will rise. If these numbers get too high, an explosion will occur.

Operate Furnace
There are five operation techniques under this option, most of which will see some use in your synergy career.

Thwack Furnace
Using this option will deal a small amount of damage to the furnace. While this doesn't look too useful, it has a low chance to stop an explosion in effect. Occasionally, if used outside of a possible hazard, the furnace will "take on a straighter silhouette." This seems to heal the furnace by a significant amount.

Operate Pressure Handle
Using this option spends 3 to release built-up pressure within the furnace. Generally, you want to try to keep this number below 100 Pz/Im, or you're risking an explosion.

Operate Safety Lever
Using this option spends 6 to clean out the impurities of the furnace. An important option for long synths, as impurities are more likely to cause an explosion than pressure. Keeping this under 40-50% is ideal.

Repair Furnace
Using this option spends 6 to restore a small amount of health to the furnace. This has no effect on leaks, instead merely lengthening the amount of time you have to work on the synth.

Recycle Strewn Fewell
Used after an explosion, this option increases the amount of cinders received after completing the synth, and costs no fewell.

Smock/Cuffs Commands
Wearing another craft's smock or cuffs, crafted via synergy itself, adds additional commands to the operation technique list. In group synergy, only the person actually wearing the Apron or Cuffs has access to the additional command.


 * Woodworking
 * Carpenter's Smock - Cyclical Smarts: Spends 10 to lower the damage taken by the furnace over time for a brief period.
 * Carpenter's Cuffs -
 * Smithing
 * Blacksmith's Smock - Combustion Smarts: Spends 10 to briefly increase fewell combustion rate.
 * Blacksmith's Cuffs -
 * Goldsmithing
 * Goldsmith's Smock -
 * Goldsmith's Cuffs - Wind Affinity: Spends 5 for a large chance to stop a wind-based explosion.
 * Clothcraft
 * Weaver's Smock - Restorer's Touch: Spends 10 to restore a large amount of health to the furnace.
 * Weaver's Cuffs -
 * Leathercraft
 * Tanner's Smock -
 * Tanner's Cuffs -
 * Bonecraft
 * Boneworker's Smock - Carbonization Smarts: Spends 10 to briefly increase chance for an elemental surge.
 * Boneworker's Cuffs - Dark Affinity: Spends 5 for a large chance to stop a dark-based explosion.
 * Alchemy
 * Alchemist's Smock -
 * Alchemist's Cuffs -
 * Cooking
 * Culinarian's Smock - Heating Smarts: Spends 10 to gradually restore the furnace's health for a short period.
 * Culinarian's Cuffs - Water Affinity: Spends 5 for a large chance to stop a water-based explosion.
 * Fishing
 * Fisherman's Smock - Lunar Smarts: Spends 5 to briefly increase chance for an elemental surge. The effect of this ability is greatly affected by the current moon phase, with full and new moons giving the greatest boosts.
 * Fisherman's Cuffs - Precision Thwack: Spends for a higher-than-normal chance to stop an explosion of any element.

Refilling Fewell
Though not an official command in the main menu, you can trade crystals or fewell orbs mid-synergy in order to refill fewell supplies that are running low.

Complications
While synergizing, a couple complications can occur; namely, leaks and explosions.

Leaks
A minor annoyance at best, leaks occur randomly during the synergy process and cause the elemental energy with the highest strength to begin decreasing at the rate of about 1/tick.

To stop a leak, simply feed the furnace a fewell mote of the element the leak is strong against. For example, if you have sprung an ice leak, feed a wind mote to have a chance to stop the leak.

Explosions
Now, for the biggest problem that can arise while synergizing: explosions. Explosions occur when the pressure and/or impurity buildup within the furnace gets too high. An impending explosion is denoted by the monster TP animation, and may be interrupted by thwacking the furnace, using Fishing: Precision Thwack, or using the related Affinity ability.

Explosions cause a significant amount of damage to everyone working on the synth, causes a debilitating status effect that messes with your ability to use the furnace, does a significant amount of damage to the furnace itself, and releases a bit of the elemental energy of the element in question. An explosion is difficult to recover from, and usually means a failed synth.

Each elemental explosion has a different effect on the players performing the synths. The status effects are familiar, but they have differing effects on the furnace in addition to their normal effects.


 * Plague - While feeding fewell to the furnace, additional fewell of that element will be used up.
 * Paralyze - Occasionally, attempting to feed fewell or operate the furnace will fail.
 * Knockback - Everyone working on the synergy will be knocked away from the furnace.
 * Slow - Furnace operation techniques cannot be performed.
 * Stun - You may not open the main synergy menu by targeting the furnace. Lasts slightly longer than regular stun.
 * Poison (6 HP/tick) - Feeding fewell or operating the furnace will deal significant damage to the furnace.
 * No status - Some, , , and fewell will be immediately ruined.
 * No status - Some, , , and fewell will be immediately ruined.

I recommend having a white mage along for difficult synths, who cancels out of the menus during an impending explosion and begins preparing to cast Esuna to clear the incoming statuses. Barring this, everyone should sub white mage to save as much time as possible clearing statuses.

End Synergy
When all of the elemental energy levels are as close to the target numbers as possible, select "End synergy" from the main menu to stop all work on the synth and let the furnace do the last steps.

Generally, as long as the target numbers are within three on either side, the synergy has a good chance of succeeding. The closer to exact the numbers are, the better the chance of success, and if all elemental values are exact, you have a good chance of getting "Smooth synergizing!," the synergy version of an HQ synth. Some synergy synths, such as juices, even have HQs where their normal synths do not, giving multiple of the item back as a result.

If the synth fails, all is not lost. Unlike other synths, ingredient breaks never happen as a result of failed synths in synergy, so after the furnace breaks down, you may retrieve all of the ingredients intact by selecting the furnace again. If the synth succeeds, selecting the furnace will retrieve the completed item(s). After either event, your reservation of the furnace will expire and, if you used a private furnace, it will disappear.

Group Synergy
As you have probably gathered, harder synergy recipes are best done in groups. Group synergy isn't much different from solo, only each party member generally has a single role that they stick to instead of trying to keep an eye on everything at once.

As a general rule, for each person feeding fewell, you want one person releasing pressure and repairing the furnace, and one person clearing impurities. If in a smaller group, one person can handle pressure release and impurity cleaning if the fewell feeder takes it slow and assists occasionally.

When performing a group synergy, the person who lays claim to the furnace/summons the furnace via Portafurnace is declared the synth leader. Only the synth leader may provide ingredients for the synth, end the synergy, and retrieve the synth result. In addition, everyone draws from the synth leader's fewell supply when performing actions.

As mentioned above, only one person in the group has to meet the subcraft requirements for the entire group to be able to perform the synth. So, for example, Yagudo Drink requires Craftsman-level Cooking. If you have a Craftsman-level cook in the party, your own Cooking level could be 0, and you could still perform the synergy.

Getting Skill Levels
Skilling up in synergy works a bit differently than other crafts. Any time you perform a successful action in a synergy synth, be it feeding fewell, releasing pressure, or stopping an explosion, you have a chance for a skillup. This can and usually does lead to multiple skillups per synth. Since failed synths can be induced by either actually failing the synth or simply walking away from the furnace and ingredients aren't lost on a fail, you can skill synergy for only the cost of fewell.

The "sweet spot" for skillups works similarly to fishing, with a higher range of ideal skilling levels for a given synergy level. I found the ideal spot to be around 5-8 levels behind the synth, not taking day, direction, or moon phase into account; your experience may vary, but I have listed the skillup path I took below.

Improving Synergy Skills
At every synergy level that is a mulitple of five (5, 10, etc.), you may speak with a Synergy Engineer and select "Receive training." to boost one of your synergy skills by one level. Each skill caps at level five, so the highest skill rankings you can have currently are two level fives.

The effects of these skillups are still a little murky, and I only have personal experience with two of them; verification tags mark the ones I have not personally confirmed to be true.


 * Fewell feeding - Lowers pressure and impurities added for synths that are higher level than you when adding fewell.
 * Furnace thwacking - Raises the chance that a thwack will successfully interrupt an explosion.
 * Pressure handle operation - Raises both the maximum amount of pressure released when using the pressure handle and the rate at which the maximum amount is released.
 * Safety valve operation - Raises both the maximum amount of impurities cleaned when using the safety valve and the rate at which the maximum amount is released.
 * Furnace repairing - Raises the amount of health restored when repairing the furnace.
 * Strewn fewell recycling - Raises the percentage bonus to cinders earned when recycling strewn fewell.

Skillup Guides
There are two general paths you can take while skilling synergy: the Evolith path, and the juice/leaves path. I personally took the juice/leaves path, but you may take either at your discretion.

Evolith Path
Many people are taking this path, which involves getting a single high-level weapon and a flasque of Mordant 75 and repeating this over and over until you are level 40. I personally cannot speak for this route, having taken the route listed below, but I personally believe the skillup rates would be a little slow until the 30s due to the synth's high level. You are welcome to try, though, as this requires the least amount of actual work.

Juice/Leaves Path
This path uses juice synths to start and metallic leaves later to get your levels. At level 40, you should shift to this path even if you used the Evolith path, due to the cap for the Evolith synth being around there.

As a warning, you either need to have Craftsman-level cooking or a friend with it to follow this path exactly. If you cannot meet this requirement, either shift to silver nuggets early or return to the Evolith path. As a rule of thumb, I stopped working on a synth when the skillups slowed down or seemed to stop; the actual caps for these items tend to be 4-5 levels higher than my recommended maximum level, so you may continue skilling up on them if you wish.

Due to the large number of water crystals involved in the first thirty levels or so, I highly recommend getting your Portafurnace as soon as possible, then relocating to Pashhow Marshlands near one of the ponds. The high occurrence of water weather in the area will keep your furnace funded without having to pay the NPC or Auction House for fewell.


 * 1-5: Apple Juice - 4x Faerie Apple: 40 (Subcraft: Cooking Initiate)
 * Though orange juice is available as a starter synth, I had better luck by skipping it and starting on apple juice. Skillups blazed until around level 5, where I upgraded to:
 * 5-11: Pineapple Juice - 2x Kazham Pineapple: 50 (Subcraft: Cooking Novice)
 * 11-16: Melon Juice - 1x Thundermelon, 1x Watermelon: 60 (Subcraft: Cooking Apprentice)
 * 16-23: Grape Juice - 4x San d'Orian Grapes: 70 40 (Subcraft: Cooking Journeyman)
 * The first multiple-element skillup, this may put a cramp in your efforts to stay in Pashhow Marshland. I still recommend staying here for as long as possible.
 * 23-29: Yagudo Drink - 1x Yagudo Cherry, 3x Buburimu Grape: 80 50 (Subcraft: Cooking Craftsman)
 * 30-40: Silver Nugget - 4x Silver Leaf, 2x Vitriol: 45 27 35 (Subcraft: none)
 * For this synth, if you haven't so far, you will want to fail every attempt. Silver leaves, as a failure result from gardening elemental ores, and a cheap one at that, tend to not sell very often, and the synth itself is a terrible loss.
 * 40-50+: Mythril Nugget - 4x Mythril Leaf, 2x Vitriol: 54 27 40
 * Same rules apply here as for Silver Nuggets. Fail this synth. Even if you took the Evolith path to get this far, you will want to do this synth, so snap up any Mythril Leaves you see well before you get to this point.

Conclusion
Hopefully, this guide has proven of some use to you in explaining the wide world of synergy. If I made any mistakes or you have any extra advice to add, feel free to make any changes necessary; I only ask that you sign the page under the revision history to receive proper credit. Thanks, and happy synergizing!

Revision History

 * 12/12/2009: Version 1.0
 * Initial version of guide posted. (Sherinmir of Midgardsormr)