The Escutcheons were meant to replace the Kupo Shield, while at the same time offering unique bonuses. While the Kupo Shield has one extra level of skill, as well as offers a bonus to every craft, Escutcheons offer a higher rate of High Quality synthesis results while at the same time offering a bonus to crafting speed.
There are four phases in which one must progress in order to fully complete a shield. Each phase offers a unique challenge which consist of countless hours spent crafting and gathering various materials to finally synthesize the shield each time from its component parts. The quest line is similar across all eight crafts, but obviously have their own unique aspects due to varying recipes. This being said, a few steps in some crafts are more tedious than other similar steps in other crafts.
The basic gist of completing a crafting shield is to do the following in all four phases:
Craft normal items while wearing the shield in order to skill it up.
You will need a grand total of 122,000 Crafter Points to complete your shield.
Spend Crafter Points in exchange for materials to synthesize a shield upgrade.
Complete a unique objective (or many) in each phase to gain special materials.
Synthesize the current phase's shield.
You will be synthing tons of items for a long time. This is the crafting equivalent of an Ultimate Weapon. Be prepared to dedicate blood, sweat and tears in order to complete your shield. If you have hopes of completing further shields on alternate characters, you will have a large endeavor in front of you.
As an additional note, there is no formal quest that appears in your log for the Escutcheon process. There are, however, steps that involve Records of Eminence objectives that do appear in your RoE menus.
Prerequisites
In order to begin creating your shield, you must first achieve the following requirements:
Speak to Mewk Chorosap in Port Jeuno at (G-8) after you have achieved the requirements in order to begin. She will explain the process to you briefly, and give you a brief background that the Inventors' Coalition is involved in creation of the Escutcheons, in collaboration with the Crafting Guilds.
She will give you a unique shield based on your Expert craft. Get to know her well, as you will be dealing with her throughout the entire shield upgrade process.
The next step is to trade the shield you received to your guild master. They will mention the recipe required to complete phase one and to synthesize your +1 skill shield. This will also unlock the Crafter Points system for you to begin accumulating points.
Analysis Crystals
In order to synthesize a set, you must use special crystals known as Analysis Crystals.
Crafter Points are a form of currency unique to a Crafting Guild for the purpose of purchasing synthesis materials for use in creating an Escutcheon.
In order to accumulate Crafter Points, you must deliver items called "craft sets" to your respective Guild member who specializes is the collection and distribution of Sets and Kits. Each set has a level number associated with it. This level matches the level cap of the item that the set is used to create. The maximum number of points you may possess is 50,000. Below is a list of the NPCs who handle Crafter Points for each Guild.
By turning in a "set" to your guild, you then give the opportunity to allow other players to purchase the corresponding "craft kit" from the Crafter Point merchant. These kits are the same kits that are used in conjunction with a crystal in order to make an item, instead of have every required material.
In order to be eligible for crafter points, you must be expert rank or higher in that guild.
To see your specific craft's set recipes, please view them on the main craft's page at the following links:
Making kits with your crafting shield on will add percentage tally points to your shield if it is equipped, as with regular crafting recipes. This is a bad idea though if your shield has success down on it.
Each set you make is tagged with a 'quality' and they do not stack, even with the same quality. The quality determines how many Crafter Points you get for turning it in.
The points you receive are related to synthesis result quality and the set's listed level, but are random within a range. Furthermore, the higher the set level, the more points each one is worth on each tier.
Data from 2 characters reveals some rough tiers:
NQ ranges from ~65-78% (e.g. 46-55 for a Smithing Set 71)
HQ1 ranges from ~97-112%
HQ2 ranges from ~116-130%
HQ3 ranges around 144-155%
As data is limited these should only be taken as rough guidelines when planning, however a Blacksmith at Tier 2 on the 71 set required 191 successful trade-ins to reach 11,000 points.
Note the HQ Signature crystal has a white border like HQ+1 items, while the artisan crystals to make kits are blue-bordered like HQ+2 items, which helps to identify the difference when selecting between them.
Abandoning the Quest
If you started the Escutcheon quest but wish to level a different craft, you must abandon the quest line. This prevents a player from having more than one shield.
Speak with Mewk Chorosap and tell her you wish to give up. She will ask three times if you truly wish to give up. After confirming, she will tell you to throw away your shield. Until you do these steps, you are not given the option to renounce your Artisan rank at your current craft. Furthermore, you will only be able to level your new craft to level 100 until these steps are taken.
Improving your Craftsmanship
You will now need to improve your "Craftsmanship" skill stat listed on your shield to 100%. Phase One's shield starts off with "Synthesis success rate -30", and gradually it decreases the higher your Craftsmanship percentage increases. Every successful normal synthesis (not Desynthesis) will increase your percentage by a fraction of a percent. It is suggested to use the Ionis bonus, Kitron Macaron, Orvail Ring/+1, and Artificer's Ring when you are starting out and this percentage is still high.
It seems best to rotate between three different synths, as you will receive higher increases. High Quality synthesis will result in a slightly higher percentage increase than Normal Quality.
It seems that even rotating between 3 synths, at a certain point there are diminishing returns.
NQ results seem to range from 0.0 to 0.5 and HQ ranges from 0.5 to 1.0.
After a large number of rotating geode synths, 0.0 NQs and 0.5 HQs were common.
Note that HQ2 and HQ3 seem to have a higher 'lower bound' and are around 0.6 and 0.8 regardless of number of synths. Hitting the special bonus brings it above the minimum .
Overall, at a T3 HQ rate you will need roughly 200 successful synthesis results to reach your goal if cycling between 3+ recipes.
You will also notice that there are certain objectives that appear on your shield as you craft. These give bonus percentage points, but are not required to be completed and sometimes are very demanding. The objectives change every few synthesis attempts. (It is possible for it to change on a break.)
Some of the possible objectives appearing may be:
- Nothing -
Perform a synthesis. (any level of that craft.)
Use 2+ materials.
Use 3+ materials.
Use 4+ materials.
Use 5+ materials.
Use 6+ materials.
Use 7+ materials.
Craft on specific day, i.e. Firesday, Lightsday, etc...
Craft at specific time frame, i.e. between 6:00 and 17:59 game time, etc...
Craft using a specific element crystal, i.e. wind crystal, earth crystal, etc...
Make specific rank/ranks recipe, i.e. Expert or higher, Recruit/Initiate, Veteran, Novice/Apprentice, Artisan/Adept, etc...
After you hit 100% Craftsmanship, trade the shield to your guild master.
You will receive the first required ingredient: Craftsman's Crystal: <Craft>.
Your craftsmanship skill will also decrease on your shield by one-third (33.33%) to 66.66%
If you fail to craft the shield and lose the Craftsman: Crystal <Craft>, then you will need to relevel it back up to 100% to get another crystal from the Guild NPC.
The next step to upgrade your shield is to earn Crafter Points., as you will require two "Mythril Screw: Craft" (3,000 Crafter Points each) and one "Camphor: Craft" (5,000 Crafter Points) to create your shield. There no known daily limit of obtainable Crafter Points. The only roadblock is obtaining Analysis Crystals with Guild Points.
These three crafter point items will cost a total of 11,000Crafter Points.
Complete phase one by synthesizing your shield with the five required materials. It is unknown, but likely, you can fail. Be sure to use Ionis, Artificer's Ring, your craft-specific NQ ring and Kitron Macaron bonuses to help with success. You CAN skill up during the synth. Square Enix has officially confirmed that through Phase 3, only the Synthesis Crystal can be lost during typical synthesis conditions.
All materials CAN be lost by moving zones during the synth such as the Airship or Ferry departing. Note that you also CAN SELL the ingredients to NPCs too, so be careful!
The list of completed phase one shields are shown below. View their page for the specific synthesis recipe.
To finish up Phase One, trade your completed Ecu to your Guild Master who will then instruct you to trade it back to Mewk Chorosap.
To proceed to Phase Two you must zone after completing Phase One, or Mewk Chorosap will say she needs more time. Trade her your shield after zoning to begin.
Improving your Craftsmanship
Much like Phase 1, you will raise your craftsmanship from 0-100%. UNLIKE Phase 1, you will have the "Crafting Skill +1" to start with and every 6% of Craftsmanship you obtain, the shield will GAIN an additional "Synthesis Success -1" up to a maximum of "Synthesis Success -15" once you reach 100% Craftsmanship.
After obtaining 100%, like before trade your Ecu to your guild leader and receive your Craftsman's Crystal.
Your shield will drop down to 80% after obtaining the crystal.
NOTE: It is strongly recommended you look at the following requirements and ensure you have all ingredients ready to go and sufficient crafting points before proceeding to rank up your shield. Otherwise, you will end up with a shield that gives +1 Craft Skill but lowers success rate. Until you can finish the process, you'll be worse off than before. That said even at 100% and success rate -15 it is manageable with kitron macaron, ionis, and success-rate crafting rings for the cheaper synths.
To finish up Phase Two, trade your completed Scutum to your Guild Master who will then instruct you to trade it back to Mewk Chorosap.
To proceed to Phase Three you must zone after completing Phase Two, or Mewk Chorosap will say she needs more time.
Speak to Mewk Chorosap in Port-Jeuno with your completed phase 2 Scutum equipped, she will ask to borrow the shield. Unequip your Scutum and trade it to her.
Here she will describe the process and the materials needed for the next synthesis to complete phase 3 and direct you to your guild master.
Increasing Craftsmanship
You will need to raise your Craftsmanship from 0-100% again. Unlike previous phases, repeating the same synth over and over is not the best way to raise craftsmanship. You should concentrate on completing the Craftsmanship Upgrade objectives on your shield as much as possible:
With no conditions met, the minimum Craftsmanship increase per craft is 0% for a NQ synth, 0.15% for HQ1, 0.20% for HQ2, and 0.25% for HQ3.
When the conditions are met, the minimum Craftsmanship increase per craft is 0.10% for a NQ synth, 0.30% for HQ1, 0.40% for HQ2, and 0.50% for HQ3.
While you can still spam the same synth and ignore the bonus objective, there is an additional penalty involved in this step: Performing a synthesis that does not match up with your objective (even if there is currently no objective) may cause you to gain a level of "Synthesis Success Down" added to your shield. This can happen regardless if your synthesis is an NQ, HQ or a break result. This penalty caps at -30% and can only be lowered by following the bonus objective on the shield. This will remove one "Synthesis Success Down" level effect for each successful bonus completion.
The bonuses do not always change every completion, but are highly likely to. The bonuses have been observed to remain the same for 10 or more synths.
Since repeating the same recipe now has an additional penalty, it becomes a less efficient strategy. For maximum efficiency, aim to complete the bonuses on the lowest-level recipes possible to maximize HQ synths and bonuses.
For Phase 3 you will require two "Platinum Screw: Craft" (10,000 Crafter Points each) and one "Sequoia: Craft" (8,000 Crafter Points) to create your shield. These three crafter point items will cost a total of 28,000Crafter Points.
New to this phase are delivery orders requested by various NPCs around Vana'diel, some may be a simple turn in X amount of items to this NPC while others require you to craft the items within range of the NPC. You need to craft the requested items at the NPC you are delivering them to unless the guild master tells you otherwise. If the requested items don't need to be crafted by the NPC, you can also turn in ones you've bought off the Auction House.
A dialog will be displayed in your chat log when you are in range for the traded items to count towards completion.
Items crafted outside of this range, or purchased separately, will not count. Be careful when progressing!
Trade items to NPC recipient before you leave the crafting area!
Leaving area, returning into it, and trading them the crafted item will not count, even if you had crafted it in the area previously.
I believe this has changed as I was able to successfully trade the items after leaving and coming back.
HQ items will not count, but recipes where the HQ results in more of the NQ item (e.g. Anima) are okay.
The items are divided into 4 categories per craft. To complete your 4 requests, you will have to do one synth from each category.
Some of the items may have materials that have rare or difficult to acquire materials. In this case, talk to the guild master and tell him that you've "had enough" and the contract will be cancelled.
Speak with the guild master again after zoning and a game day has passed and a new recipe from one of the categories you have failed to complete will be chosen at random.
Whenever you complete a recipe, all 3 recipes in that category are removed from the roulette.
Note: If the recipient NPC is in the same area as the guild master that issued the task, you will need to zone out and re-enter and talk to Guild Master, or he will not acknowledge the task completion until you do.
Trade your shield to Mewk Chorosap, she will explain about the the final crafter points items and raising the craftsmanship.
Afterwards, trade your shield to your Guild Master.
Increasing Craftsmanship
It is time to start the last journey back to 100% craftsmanship. Fortunately, this time your shield will not be plagued by success rate -% as your level.
This time around, you will not receive the synthesis success down effects on your shield. This means you can use it full time while you work on upgrading it. In lieu of that, you will only receive up to:
NQ: 0.00~0.10%
HQ1: 0.03~0.17%
HQ2: 0.05~0.17%
HQ3: 0.07%~0.17%
NQ results will still decrease until you receive no skill increase if the same recipe is repeated long enough. A variety of synths as well as meeting the shield objectives are in your best interest.
Craftsmanship bonuses are back and function in the same manner as they have before, but they only give a 0.04%~0.05% bonus which stacks with your NQ earnings and any potential HQ earnings.
After you have raised the Craftsmanship rating on your shield to 100%, trade it to the guild master to be rewarded with a Craftsman Crystal as in the previous phases. Your shield's craftsmanship rating will be reduced to 66.6%. However, this time you do not simply use it in a recipe as you did in the previous stages. Skip to the Synthesis Focuser step below to continue.
Crafter Points
You will need two Adamantite Screws, and one Duralumin Frame. These three crafter point items will cost a total of 70,000Crafter Points.
Return to Mewk Chorosap and trade her your Craftsman Crystal. This will trigger a long cutscene in which she explains Synthesis Chains and Spirit.
At the end of the cutscene, you will be granted the Key Item Reassembling technique, which is used to perform Skillchain Sphere synths.
Examining the Synthesis Focuser II will bring you into a instanced cutscene with Mewk watching on and a menu.
What do you want to do?
Begin the synthesis. 1*
Check items placed within the device. 2*
Change order of materials. 3*
Come back later. (Exits you out of instanced cutscene)
1*
Select which crystal you wish to use, or select Exit. to return to previous menu.
Now select the sphere you wish to use to perform synthesis, or Exit. to return to crystal selection.
Select Yes to begin synthesis, Yes. (Do not ask again) for faster progressions; or No. to return to sphere selection menu.
You do not get to select which catalyst; that is automatically selected based on which sphere you select.
2*
Crystals/catalysts. This lists out how many of each crystal and catalyst (MC-I-SR01/02/03) you have traded & stored inside the machine.
Selecting a certain crystal will ask you how many you wish to generate. Enter a number equal to or less than the amount you have stored. This just removes a quantity you have stored into it and places that amount into your inventory.
Materials. This lists how many of each synthesis sphere you have traded & stored inside the machine.
Selecting a certain sphere will ask you how many you wish to generate. Enter a number equal to or less than the amount you have stored. This just removes a quantity you have stored into it and places that amount into your inventory.
Go back. Returns you to original menu.
3*
Toggles you between how you view items in synthesis menu: 1: Crystal; 2:Sphere (default), or 1:Sphere; 2:Crystal.
Spirit
You will have to imbue your Craftsman's Crystal with some amount of Spirit. You are notified when you increase Spirit, by how much.
As of the June 2018 Version Update, your total Spirit is now visible in the main menu of the Synthesis Focuser II. You are also told amount imbued after completing any Synth or Synthchain, followed by your total running amount.
Mewk may like to horse around, but obtaining Spirit is no joke.
You will need to build your Spirit up to 100,000 to obtain your Apex Crystal. There are 64 pixels in the Transmutation bar, and each pixel is worth 1,562 spirit. See the talk page for further information.
Spirit is obtained from Synthesis Chains. Synthesis Chains are similar to skillchains where each Synthesis Chain corresponds to a skillchain property
Such as Induration, Reverberation, Darkness, etc, and have levels just like ordinary skillchains do.
Spirit Synthesis is not like normal synthesis, and is actually closer to Synergy. To initiate such a synthesis, you need to use the "Synthesis Focuser II" near Mewk Chorosap. Materials are stored within the Synthesis Focuser II (up to 255 of each).
You will need 3 ingredients for each synthesis: a crystal, a catalyst, and a Synthesis Chain Sphere.
Crystal: Ordinary crystals, trade to the Focuser to add to its inventory.
Like with the Ephemeral Moogles, you may mix and match crystal type.
Catalyst: Sold by Mewk Chorosap. There are 3 tiers of catalysts, with price in gil increasing per tier. The tier of catalyst must match up with the level of the Synthesis Chain Sphere for the synthesis to work.
Note: By completing only level 6 synthchains, it will cost approximately 130,000,000 Gil in catalysts alone. This figure varies greatly based on breaks, high quality, and variety of synthchains you choose.
For example, if using a Distortion (level 2 chain) sphere, you must use a tier 2 catalyst.
When you buy the catalyst from Mewk, she places them directly in the Focuser for you; they never appear in your inventory.
Catalyst Item
Cost
MC-I-SR01
300 Gil
MC-I-SR02
8,000 Gil
MC-I-SR03
40,000 Gil
Synthesis Chain Sphere: These may be traded between players, sold in bazaars, and bought from the Auction House under the category "Misc. 3".
You may also farm them yourself, and will probably have to.
Each sphere refers to one of the 14 types of skillchains.
Mewk will give you the recipes for two of these. A list are in the table below.
The skill level of these syths are unknown, but appear to be the same in all crafts.
Breaks are frequent, even with maximized skill and are believed to be desynthesis recipes.
An NQ/HQ1 result will produce a sphere corresponding to a level 1 skillchain, an HQ2 will result in a sphere corresponding to a level 2 skillchain of that same element, and an HQ3 will result in a sphere for Darkness or Light.
Note: The following items in the table below are not recipes, but merely a list of individual items you may use to create spheres.
Initiating a synthesis chain is a lot like a skillchain. Combine an appropriate elemental crystal with two spheres that contain the essential elemental properties.
Try to avoid Light and Dark Crystals unless you are using Transfixion or Compression.
After the above Fusion synthchain, you should then be able to use a Wind Crystal + Fragmentation Sphere to create a Light Synthchain.
Continuing Level 3 Synthchain:
You may then combine this with Light Crystal + Light Sphere for another Light synthesis chain.
Although this is technically Double Light, you only receive 15 spirit.
Note: The time allowed seems to be a lot more strict than performing a skillchain with actual weapons. It is very hard, if not impossible, to successfully perform a double light with the above synthchain. It is for informational purposes only.
Note: If you fail a synth and break your crystal during the chain, you may get the message "The Synthesis Focuser II exploded!", and the amount of spirit you would have imbued is instead removed.
For example: Doing Fire Crystal > Liquefaction Sphere for tier 1, then Lightning crystal > Impaction usually imbues 5 spirit. If the lightning crystal breaks and you fail, you'll remove 5 spirit instead.
Immediately redo the Lightning > Impaction Sphere and you'll continue the imbuing of 5 spirit, making net zero loss of spirit.
You may synthesize an HQ result while doing the synthesis. This will grant bonus spirit.
For example HQing a Tier 2 → 3 synthchain grants 23 spirit.
Initial sphere synthesis: NQ=1, HQ1=2, HQ2=2
Tier 1 Synthchain : NQ=2, HQ1=3, HQ2=4
Tier 2 Synthchain : NQ=5, HQ1=8, HQ2=10
Tier 3 Synthchain : NQ=15, HQ1=23, HQ2=29
After the Transmution bar on the Synthesis Focuser II is filled, you will receive your craft's Apex Crystal.
There exists in the game -1 versions of all phases of the Escutcheon except for the final form. In the past, it was theorized that failing an Escutcheon upgrade synthesis would result in the -1 shield being obtained, but this has concluded to be false. Another theory was that they are intended to be used in the future to "skip" phases, perhaps Bonanza rewards.
In actuality, these shields exist in case a player somehow disposes or loses their phase of a shield, but wishes to recover it. Because of the way a GM's One Time Account Recovery tool works, items with augment data on them cannot be recovered directly into a player's inventory. Instead, these items were added so that they can be generated on a player's character and they will not have to start over on the shield upgrade process.
Trading these -1 shields to Mewk Chorosap will result in her "repairing" the shield in a brief cutscene, and then providing you with that stage's base shield with no progress made on that stage. Additionally, any Records of Eminence completed objectives will be reset.
