I mean I have the guide but I have no fucking clue what its talking about when I look at that big ass fold out.

I have a Fire+Jump materia and that gives me a fire blade but I have no idea how that chart works.

Is there a video of how it works?I read the brady games fold out but I really have no fucking idea what its talking about it just goes on and on and shit make my brain really hurt. The charts are really confusing. Some one please break it down?

Edit/side note

From a few post down i guess you do NOT do fusion unless Both Materia are mastered? For always best results?

Yes.

your meant to just try different ones together + with items and see what you get? the game is easy and most materia thats good and you need you will find in the game ie doing the missions

I meant don't bother with fusion unless both materia are mastered.

Direct response to the thread title: Through a stupid dance or Potara earrings.

Ignore this post.

Each materia has its own 'grade', depending on the strength of the materia, as well as the level.

e.g. HP Up++ lvl 1 is grade 6, lvl 2 is grade 7, then up to MASTERED is grade 8.

When fusing, the materia with the highest grade stays the dominant / base materia.

e.g.

fusing MASTERED HP Up++ (g8) with HP+150%,
and lvl 3 Darkness (g6) with HP+50%
would result in MASTERED HP Up++ with HP+180 - 200%.

Other factors are taken into account, such as stat boost.

e.g.

lvl 3 ATK Up+ with ATK+13 would be weighted higher than
lvl 4 ATK Up with ATK + 8, so fusing would result in
lvl 2 - 3 ATK Up+ with ATK+14 - 16

And then, to make things even more complicated, you have two types of materia - Base, and Material.

Base materia will usually want to stay Base materia.
Material materia, however, will usually have the traits of the Base materia passed on.

e.g.

Fire (Base) +
Elemental Ward (Material) =
Fire Ward (Base)

Fusing with items will NOT change the output of the materia, only the stat boost! So using Fat Chocobo Feather (1 = 10%HP boost) in fusion will add 10%HP per feather, up to a certain point.

The limits for stat boosting with materia is:

ATK = +100
VIT = +100
MAG = +100
SPR = +100
LUK = +100
(Max stats total 255)

HP = +999%
(Max 99,890hp)

MP = +999%
AP = +999%
(Max 9980mp/ap)

One trick you can use, is you get 99 Phoenix Downs (steal from Minerva), and fuse them to get +999%HP. With that new materia, fuse it with some other crappy materia, and fuse ONE x1 item (Hero's Drink, Mythril, Adamantite, etc) and it will boost the stat straight to the max, either +100 or +999%, it even works with LUK!

LoL that about wraps it up... if I think of anything else that effects it, I'll put it in later.