Atelier Sophie Newbie Questions

[Dashofpepper]

Hello! If there's a good newbie guide out there for this, I can't find it - I have the spreadsheet with monster / item / material locations, but am struggling with some core concepts.

1. Having just acquired the practice cauldron, I see people talking about resynthesizing it, but I don't know how to do that, or don't have a recipe for a practice cauldron *to* resynthesize it. What am I missing here?

2. I'm getting requests for things and monsters that the spreadsheet guide lists in locations I don't have access to, nor do I know how to unlock those zones - I'm guessing they'd come from Plachta's memory unlocks, but I'm not really sure how to unlock her memories; I'm on the third or fourth set of them.

3. The blacksmith finally offered to start making gear for me, but I can't tell the difference between gear. A formal Rapier Quality D vs. a formal Rapier Quality C. What's the difference? When should I start trying to make weapons and armor? Do I resynthesize them myself? Do I use the blacksmith? I don't understand the concept (like with the practice cauldron above).

If there is someone out there that is willing to let me friend them on steam / Discord / other to ask newbie questions and be a voice of experience, I'd be grateful.

[Gin-chan]

Hmm I'll try to answer everything based on what I remember. Sorry if I got some things wrong since it's been awhile since I was done with Sophie(playing Atelier Lydie and Suelle now though got sidetracked by recently released games XD)

1.You should be able to resysnthesize the cauldron even without the recipe for it I think? The cauldrons recipe are automatically in the synthesise list if you acquire them from what I remember. Though if you can't make them better yet(like adding more synthesise area or being able to fully rotate) then it's better to wait before trying it.

2.Yeah just keep unlocking more recipes and ideas and the story will advance automatically. You don't really have to worry about this one. Soon you'll have unlocked more areas than you'll actually be able to go since the monsters get exponentially strong lol.

3.I believe quality only affects the power of recovery/attack items. And certain traits. As for weapons instead of focusing on quality I think its better that you focus on getting good traits on them. Traits such as all stats boosts or all stats enhance on equipments can make you overpowered a bit early and is kinda a requirement if you want a bit of an easier time later on when you encounter a difficulty spike in the last area. I believe there are community guides that lists the trait combinations for weapons and armors somewhere. And yeah as long as you add good traits to the weapons they will always be superior than the default ones.

[Razgriz]

try Atelier Redit , they have a discord with a very active comunitty

[Mythily]

For the weapon part, it is not true that quality doesn't matter on weapons/armor. It does and makes a rather big difference between a quality 100 item and a 900 one.
Making equipment isn't straightforward. Early on it is likely not possible to make anything 200+ quality because you are limited by the recipes.

I'll list some traits to go for early on:
Weapons:

Increase agression
Any attack enhancing trait (like Power of the Beast)
X Attack (ex. Barrage Attack)
Well Rounded Power (if possible, otherwise use a lower trait)
Power of Faith

Note: damage increasing traits take priority over attack increasing traits. Well Rounded Power is a must to get because of how useful the stat gain is early on.
Armor:

Well Rounded Power (if possible, otherwise use a lower trait)
Any Defense enhancing trait (like Steel Defense)
Develops The Body (if possible, otherwise use a lower trait)
Overflowing Life (if possible, otherwise use a lower trait)

Same as for the Weapons, Well Rounded Power is the best trait to get early on. Then go for defense/hp (defense doesn't work with magic damage, but it is useful early on because there aren't many enemies with magic attacks)

I know this works with despair so it should also work for you. I didn't need any attack items to beat the final boss using only top tier weapons and armor.

Oh I forgot one thing, buy the Friendly Persona from Tess and equip it on Sophie (later on Plachta should have it)

If you want to know more then you can always ask :)