GamingMaiden said:
By sidequests, do you mean the quests given by the Katz team or other type of sidequests? And do the items you add to store bought weapons give off new attributes to it? Is that why it's stronger? (Wow, I'm asking good questions. That's unusual for me most of the time...)
do you sell the weapons you don't use?... if you do then you won't be able to use them as materials... so always buy but never sell unless you have extra (or the weapon given by the synthesis is crappy)
there is other sidequests, the provide with sub-plots and extra dungeons... but to obtain good materials i mean the katz sidequests
synthesis weapons are not buffed versions of the store weapons, they are all new weapons that you most likely won't find on stores and they are extremely powerful... just try this out, go to the synthesis menu and press Z, then check the weapon you bought from the store and the product you will obtain from the synthesis.... you will see the difference in power.
where i am at right now weapons only give about 200 points of attack but the synthesis i got gives me a total of 398 points of attack and certain abilities like VS dark, the same can be said for armor, ALSO i have 2 mystic marks (i think they are called) that i synthesized... these give Marta the skill "speed cast 2" with this she can cast twice as fast (and like combo skills speed cast skills add up so the more you get the faster her casting is)
items like higher gels and red plants can be obtained in synthesis as well... when you get a blue plant (those that raise stats) it is recommendable that you save those so you can synthesize them for a better version (the red one)
last but not least, the only way i know to obtain monster statues is through synthesis... they are hard to synthesize because the most important item, the philosopher's stone, is very rare (when you equip statues to a monster with a locked evolution they will evolve into a different sometimes more powerful monster... some of them have a level cap of 200)