FFX Dark Matter: How To Farm & Common Uses

The only real method to farm Dark Matter is to pick one of the Species Conquest or Original Creation monsters in the Monster Arena, and continuously farm it. All those fiends have Dark Matters as their rare drops (12% chance).

But there are a lot of options, so which fiends are the best for this?

Well it’s definitely a good idea to pick a fiend that you can reliably defeat, and that also has a common drop item that can earn you money (we’re all about efficient farming).

One-Eye and Fenrir are good choices for this.

One-Eye drops weapons with Triple AP, which can be sold for premium price. And Fenrir drops Agility Spheres, which are needed to max out that stat (it’s one of the more important ones).

Both of those enemies are on the lower end of challenge scale, especially when it comes to Species Conquest and Original Creation monsters.

One-Eye is unlocked after capturing x4 copies of every Eye-type enemy in Spira (full list below):

• Floating Eye (on the Mi’ihen Highroad)
• Buer (on the Thunder Plains)
• Evil Eye (in the Macalania area)
• Ahriman (on Mt. Gagazet)
• Floating Death (in the Omega Ruins)

Fenrir is unlocked after capturing x3 copies of every Lupine-type enemy in the game (full list below):

• Bandersnatch (on Mt. Gagazet)
• Dingo (on Besaid Island)
• Garm (on the Djose Highroad)
• Mi’ihen Fang (on the Mi’ihen Highroad)
• Sand Wolf (in the Bikanel Desert)
• Skoll (in the Calm Lands)
• Snow Wolf (on Lake Macalania)

You also get a one-time reward of x99 Dark Matter by unlocking Ultima Buster at the Monster Arena. Ultima Buster is unlocked after capturing x5 copies of every monster in Spira – so yeah, this one will take you a while to unlock.

What is Dark Matter Used For?

Dark Matter is one of the rarest items in the game, and for good reason, because it lets you customize two of the best abilities in the game.

Break Damage Limit and Ribbon come from Dark Matter.

Break Damage Limit allows a character to attack for more than 9999 total damage, allowing them to hit for a total up to 99999. This damage cap increase is vital for tackling any content outside of the main story.

Ribbon, as it does in every Final Fantasy game, protects against every negative status effect. This is something so handy that you won’t remember how you ever lived without it.

• Break Damage Limit requires 60 Dark Matters to customize
• Ribbon requires 99 Dark Matters to customize

You can even teach an Aeon the Full Break ability by using 2 Dark Matters.

And as with any item in FFX, Rikku can use Dark Matters in her mixes, such as these:

Trio of 9999 (Bomb Core + Dark Matter): The party’s attacks and abilities all deal 9999 damage for the duration of battle.

Final Elixir (Al Bhed Potion + Dark Matter): Fully restores the party’s HP and MP, as well as revives KO’d members to full and cleanses negative status effects.

Sunburst (Blessed Gem + Dark Matter): Deals a fixed 19,998 damage to all enemies.

Is Dark Matter Worth Farming?

Yes, but honestly only for Ribbon.

All Celestial Weapons come naturally with Break Damage Limit. And teaching Full Break to an Aeon is pointless when anybody else can learn it.

Plus Rikku’s mixes can be achieved with other less costly items.

So Dark Matters can be boiled down to “that item used for Ribbon”. And that’s okay.

Ribbon is such a good ability that it’s just about required on any ultimate armor build.

Using Dark Matter for any other purpose just kind of gets in the way of that.

So, yes, go farm your Dark Matters – but prioritize getting Ribbon with them before anything else.