Hi all! There's been a lot of worry and questions over the new Spiritbond changes and after doing some tests and posting them on the official forums I decided to share my findings with the reddit crowd.

For this experiment I used the 8 sheep and 1 Ice Sprite in Coerthas as they are all lvl 37 and gave a me a decent 'mid-range' to test all levels of gear both above an below. These were the results of one pull of all nine:

i17 Hard Leather Shep's Belt ~ 1% (no bond)

i18 Brass Ring of Craft ~ 3%

i19 Cotton Coif of Gat ~ 7%

i20 Cotton Workgloves ~ 11%

i21 Cotton Doublet Vest of Craft ~ 15%

i22 Goatskin Espadrilles ~ 18%

i23 Velveteen Bandana ~ 21%

i24 Iniate's Gown ~ 22%

i25 Silver Magnifiers ~ 24%

i26 Velveteen Coatee of Craft ~ 26%

i27Velveteen Wedge Cap of Craft ~ 28%

i28 Velveteen Half Apron ~ 26%

i29 Silver Chocker ~ 24%

i30 Velveteen Gown ~ 16%

i31 Steel Goggles ~ 15%

i32 Velveteen Doublet V of C ~ 14%

i33 Linen Halfgloves ~ 12%

i34 Myhtril Magnifiers ~ 11%

i35 Wolf Earrings ~ 10%

i36 Mythril Gorget ~ 9%

***i37 Mythril Ring ~ 8%

i38 Linen Shortgloves ~ 8%

i39 Linen Bliaud ~ 8%

i40 Woolen Sash ~ 7%

i41 Woolen Dress Gloves ~ 7%

i42 Boarskin Toolbelt ~ 7%

i43 Boarskin Survival ~ 7%

i44 Cobalt Preserves ~ 6%

i45 Felt Coif of Gat~ 4%

i46 Electrum Wrists of Craft ~ 4%

i47 Electrum Ring of Craft ~ 3%

i48 Tourmaline Chocker ~ 3%

i49 Electrum Choker ~ 3%

This section was tested on the level 20 mobs in East Shroud to gauge the upper threshold before SB stops.

~13 Velveteen Doub ~ 3%

~14 Linen Halfgloves ~ 3%

~15 Myhtril Mags ~ 3%

~16 Wolf Earrings ~ 3%

~17 Mythril Gorget ~ 3%

~18 Mythril Ring ~ 3%

~19 Linen Bliaud ~ 1% (no bond)

From this we can gather a few things.

• Gear will SB 19 levels below the mobs' level and 18 levels above

• Bonding 'peaks' at exactly 10 levels below the mob

• Bonding 15-8 levels below the mob gives a huge increase to SB rate

• Overall bonding seems to have gotten a nice boost until you bond items 8 levels over the mob

I haven't done any controlled tests in dungeons yet but from what others have reported in the SB fact thread that the ilvl of drops seems to also dictate the level of mobs. Combining this information with the above findings it seems the formula holds so far ie. ST dropping i100 gear would bond gear i71-i118 with i90 being the 'peak' bond. Some reports have found i90 crafted gear gaining +20% in one ST run (even with the party penalty to SB rate).

If you would like to follow the discussion the thread is here and starts about halfway in.

So what does this mean for those worrying over novus? I'd advise against buying materia atm as most servers seen a jump in price due to speculation over the new rates. However looking at these numbers, the supply of materia I's and II's will almost double while the supply of III's (and by virtue IV's) will see around a 30% increase if your server's market is healthy. So wait a bit as chances are prices will drop lower than they were pre-patch as the supply starts kicking-in.

I think that's all, happy bonding! :)