Final Fantasy XV Guide: Elemancy, Catalyst Effects, and Crafting Third-Tier Spells

Elemancy is the the art of crafting Magic Spells in Final Fantasy XV. You use it whenever you need to get some Fire, Ice, or Lightning magic. But there is much more that you can do with it than meets the eye, because you can craft higher level spells and even add effects with catalysts when crafting.

There is a lot that can go into Elemancy, so I’m here to explain everything — and give some tips to help you make the most powerful magic you can think of.

This guide will go over everything about Elemancy in Final Fantasy XV including:

• Elemancy Basics – How to craft using Elemenacy.
• Magic Ascension Board – What’s there and what you should get early on.
• How to Craft Third-tier Spells Early On – What you will need to craft Firaga, Blizzaga, and Thundaga.
• Catalyst Effects List – Every bonus effect you can add with catalysts.

Elemancy Basics

Before you can use any magic, you must craft it. You can do this by opening the menu and selecting Elemancy.

Magic is equipped like a weapon and takes up a slot. You must craft it, however, and it only gets a limited number of uses. When you run out, you must replace it with another weapon or magic.

Elemancy allows you to craft Fire, Ice, and Lightning magic.

• You must have an open Magic Flask to craft Magic.
• You get these throughout the story and sometimes as item pick-ups.
• You must use elemental energy to craft magic.
• You get this from elemental nodes scattered all over the world.
• You can also get them by defeating certain enemies.
• The amount of energy you put in crafting, determines how strong the spell will be.
• You can add extra items to give bonus effects or potency.
• You can do this by selecting the bottom circle, right above craft. You will get a list of items that you can add for bonus effects and potency.

You can also equip your teammates with magic by going to gear and selecting the Secondary Arm/Spell option. Just choose whichever spell you want to give them, and they can cast in during battle.

It will still take up the uses though, so keep that in mind. From my experience, they also will not use the magic very often, so it might be more beneficial to just keep it to yourself and let them have their secondary weapons.

It can be useful though since spells have a cooldown and you could potentially have a teammate cast a spell as well.

Magic Ascension Board

The Ascension Board is how you get stronger by using AP to purchase new passive and active skills.

The Magic board has important abilities when it comes to crafting and using Magic from Elemancy. If you plan on using magic early on, there are 3 nodes you will want to get immediately:

• Powercraft (Costs 20 AP) – Increases the Potency when crafting Spells by 10.
• Elementalism (Costs 24 AP) – Absorb more energy from elemental deposits.
• Magic Action (Costs 24 AP) – Gain AP for using Elemancy.

These allow you to quickly craft stronger spells — and get more energy so you can craft more often. You will also be crafting a lot of magic, so getting AP for doing something you are already doing is a good deal.

When you save up enough AP, you will want to continue down the Powercraft line to craft the most powerful spells more easily.

You will also want Magic Level, which increases your magic based on the number of levels you’ve gained. This helps a lot as you get further in the game and level up a bunch.

How to Craft Third-Tier Spells Early On

Let me start by saying you can get higher tiers depending on how much potency you put into your spells. 100 gives you second-tier, and 200 gives you third tier.

There are a few ways you can do this early on.

• Make sure you have at least the first Powercraft to increase Potency by 10, try to get the second one that increases it by 30 if you can.
• Make sure you get max of each element energy, which is 99.
• Combine them all and you will get Unicast III, which randomly casts the third-tier -aga spell for whichever elements you added.

Now this is the easiest, but it will cast a random spell. If you want a specific spell, there are ways to do that as well.

• Gather multiple Magitech Boosters
• This will give it the Quintcast effect, but it also is great for raising potency.
• These can be found around military bases and other important areas.
• Other rare items work as well, you want items that start at a high level so that each additional 1 adds extra potency.
• After adding 99 of your desired element, select the Magitech Booster or other rate item as a catalyst.
• Add multiple until you get the -aga spell.

You can also add other elements like in the first option, just make sure your desired spell has more energy that the other 2 combined.

Adding the Failcast effect is another fast way to raise potency because it has higher than normal when crafting. The only problem is that Failcast causes your spells to sometimes not work.

Catalyst Effects List

Below is a list of everything you can craft in Elemancy by adding catalysts.

• Dualcast – Gives spells the chance to cast 2 times instead of once.
• Tricast – Gives spells the chance to cast 3 times instead of once.
• Quadcast – Gives spells the chance to cast 4 times instead of once.
• Quintcast – Gives spells the chance to cast 5 times instead of once.
• Healcast – Chance to heal the caster.
• Venomcast – Chance to cause the Poison effect.
• Stopcast – Chance to cause the Stop effect.
• Cursecast – Chance to cause the Mollify effect, which lowers enemy attack.
• Killcast – Chance to instantly kill enemy.
• Expericast – Adds an experience bonus.
• Freecast – Chance to not consume a use when casting.
• Failcast – Stronger spell with a chance of failure.
• Powercast – Powerful spell without increasing range.
• Blastcast – Damages both enemy and and caster.
• Maxicast – Removes the limit of 9,999 damage.

Limit Break Spells

The last one, Maxicast, is how you can make the strongest spells that go beyond the damage cap, Flare, Freeze, and Electon.

You need specific items, many of which are rare and hard to get, to make these spells.

• Adamantite
• Dragon Claw
• Hardened Hide
• Hunter’s Medallion
• Rotten Splinterbone
• Wind-up Lored Vexxos
• Zu Beak

The last one is the easiest to find, but you need to be level 5 in Hunt and able to defeat a level 67 enemy.

The Verinas Mart – Ravatogh has the hunt, Feathered Giant of the Firesmoke, which requires you to go to The Rock of Ravatogh dungeon. You must defeat the Zu monster, which has a 60% chance to drop the item. It can also drop up to 3! 

If you leave your car at the mart and rest at the camp inside the dungeon, you can fast travel between the 2 locations with ease to complete the hunt multiple times.

All you need is to combine your desired element with one of the above items. Flare is created from Fire, Freeze is created from Ice, and Electon is created from Lightning.

That’s all for my Elemancy guide for Final Fantasy XV. Let me know if you have any questions! For more help, check out my Beginner’s guide.