Recently, I found myself in a bit of a pickle while playing Star Ocean: Anamnesis. My issue was that the game only gives you 50 inventory slots, and over the course of playing it every day since release, I’ve amassed a good amount of 5-star weapons from all of the events that I’ve grinded.
So I found myself stuck in a situation of not wanting to get rid of my top-tier loot, but also not being able to do missions because I had no available inventory space. This finally forced my hand into having a go at transmutation.
Transmutation is scary to me because it gives you one 5-star item for sacrificing six 5-star items. So the biggest hurdle to get through is finding out what to sacrifice.
Up until this point, I hadn’t thought about weapons too much. I just chose whatever weapon had the highest stats and threw that onto whatever character I was using that day. Well, I have finally taken some time to research what items are worth keeping and which items are just transmutation fodder, and here I am to share with you what I have found.
Related Content:
- Beginner’s Tips and Tricks
- Jie Revorse Boss Guide
- Augmentation and Leveling Guide
- Crystal Guardian Event Guide
Which Weapons are Worth Keeping
If you’re going to start sacrificing items, you should probably know which weapons you should keep and which ones to get rid of. For the most part, all weapons are pretty viable, so when it comes time for you to find out what to get rid of, take this information as a recommendation, as opposed to set-in-stone rules.
So what makes or breaks an item is something called a factor. All 5-star weapons have two of them, and unlock a third after leveling it up a bit. List below are the different types of factors you will see.
Elemental Factors
This is the most important factor and should be your priority when looking for weapons. If you want to sacrifice one of these, you should do some heavy consideration before you decide to do so.
For melee-based characters, the main factor that you want to look out for is the one that says “Imbues attacks with (insert element here)”. These weapons are great because they give characters that don’t have elemental attacks a method with which to cause an elemental break on a boss, which stuns them.
On the other hand, when it comes to Invokers and Healers, you want to look out for things that say “(Insert element here) damage dealt +15%.” Since mages’ auto attacks matter much less, and most of their attacks are already elemental, this factor helps them out much more.
There can be some weird cases, for example Faize, whose auto attacks are melee but is an Invoker who casts skills from range. When you aren’t sure which factor to prioritize, just think about how important auto-attacking is to their damage output.
In the case of Faize, even though he auto attacks, he still puts out a majority of his DPS through his skills that deal dark damage, so it is best to go with a factor that increases dark damage dealt.
Stat Buffs
The next big factor to look out for are flat stat buffs. This includes factors that read like “Critical Hit Damage +20%” or “ATK +5%.” If you don’t have an elemental weapon or for whatever reason a character doesn’t need it, weapons like these make a fine replacement.
Racial Factors
Another factor to look out for is racial damage abilities. These are factors that read a little something like, “Damage dealt to (enemy type) +20%.” These factors don’t make an item a definite “do not transmute,” but if you see a weapon with a factor like this, and you don’t have an ideal elemental weapon for a specific character, it might be worth to consider holding onto it.
Move Factors
The factors that shouldn’t influence your decisions to keep weapons are the ones that buff a particular move. These factors are fine in addition to one of the above factors — if the move they buff happens to be a move for the character you’re equipping it to. But in terms of whether or not to keep the item, this should have very little weight in that decision.
All most weapons are pretty viable, and it’s difficult to say for certain that any weapon is absolute transmutation-fodder, so when making these decisions be sure you’re 100% ready to lose whatever you’re about to sacrifice.
Now that that’s settled, let’s move on to the actual process of transmuting an items.
How to Transmute an Item
First, you need an item that has been leveled up to at least level 10. If you need resources to level up your items, consider using any lower tier items you’er not using, or farm some hammers from the weekly Hammer Event.
In addition to that, you need 5 additional items of the same rarity level. For example, if the item you are transmuting is 3-star, you need five additional 3-star items to transmute it.
Note that these items do not have to be the same type of weapon as the one you are transmuting and these items do not need to be Level 10. The only requirement is that it is of the same rarity of the item that you are transmuting.
If you have met all of the conditions above, it’s time to get started. Simply tap on the items tab, and once that screen pops up, click Transmute.
After that, select the item that you want to transmute. In my case, I’ll be transmuting one of the wands that I got from spending some Frost Tree coins.
Once you’ve selected the item, tap on of the squares that says “select material” and go about choosing five items of the same rarity. In my case, I used the Aurora Blade that I got from coins earned in the Jie Revorse Event.
After that, all you have to do is tap “Begin Transmutation” in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and tap through all the warnings that will say something along the lines of “you’ll lose these weapons forever, yada yada.” After that, your weapons will be gone and in their place will be something better.
Depending on the rarity of the item you transmuted, you will get different results. If the item was 1-star to 4-star, then the result will be a random weapon of the same type that will be a rarity tier higher. For example: If I were to transmute a 3-star wand, I would get a random 4-star wand in return.
If you transmute a 5-star weapon (since that is the highest rarity) instead of a weapon, you will get a 5-star weapon coin. The type of coin is dependent on the weapon that you transmuted. So if you transmuted a 5-star wand, you would get a 5-star wand coin.
These coins can be exchanged in the item section of the shop. Just tap on the tab of the weapon that coincides with the coin you received and you will be able to trade it for any of the available options. Personally, I was going for a Lightning Wand for my Myuria.
And that’s it. I only really recommend transmuting if you have a specific item in mind, or you desperately need to clear up some inventory space. Either way, just be sure you’re okay with what you’re sacrificing, because once it’s gone, it’s gone.
Make sure to check out our other Star Ocean: Anamnesis guides while you’re here!
