[SIZE="1"]Spirits for things like wands and cylinders are different and not covered here.[/SIZE]
Cost
- Spirits need a constant source of food. If you do not feed them, as you hold/use them they'll get hungry, and if they get hungry enough their stats drop. Their stats will drop down to half at max hunger. For this reason keeping them well-fed is a requirement to keep them performing properly.
- Spirits are fed items to raise their stats. If we assume the least used items (that can normally be dropped or generated in-game) and the most growth per item, it'd be a diamond at each feeding. A 1cm diamond will work up until about level 12 stats. Taking into account the cap on gained EXP from feeding, the minimum number of items fed to each spirit appears to be 10 plus 1 per most levels (so we'll use this value). So level 2, with a cap of 14 exp and a requirement of 148, takes 11 items to pass. Level 3, with a cap of 20 exp and a requirement of 1206, takes 11 items to pass. Level 20, with a cap of 1,985 EXP and a requirement of 19,858, takes 11 items to pass... assuming each time that these are items that can reach the value cap.
- A 10cm diamond will cap out the stats of a spirit up until about level 27 (at 5,071 EXP), so until then the math is easy enough for an estimate. If you fed a spirit weapon the max size diamonds needed to cap per level, going from level 1 to level 28...
Levels 1-12 take 1cm diamonds. 132 of them.
Levels 12-16 take 2cm diamonds. 44 of them.
Levels 16-18 take 3cm diamonds. 33 of them.
Levels 18-20 take 4cm diamonds. 33 of them.
Levels 20-21 take 5cm diamonds. 22 of them.
Levels 21-22 take 6cm diamonds. 22 of them.
Levels 22-24 take 7cm diamonds. 33 of them.
Levels 24-25 take 8cm diamonds. 22 of them.
Levels 25-26 take 9cm diamonds. 22 of them.
Levels 26-27 take 10cm diamonds. 22 of them.
So that's 385 diamonds ranging from 1cm to 10cm to hit level 27.
Doesn't look bad, but that's when 10cm diamonds stop capping.
Levels 28-30 take 131,914 EXP. That's 27 10cm diamonds.
Levels 30-32 take 183,808 EXP. That's 33 10cm diamonds.
So the number grows from there.
After the diamonds hit the cap at level 27, it's a total of 854 10cm diamonds to hit level 50.
So 1,239 diamonds at the absolute minimum used. 876 of those diamonds need to be 10cm.
About 150mil worth of diamonds at current (Ruairi) market prices.
And that's assuming 100% growth rate (covered below).
Time
- Spirits have different growth rates depending on their mood. Happy cannot be fed, the first "fine" can be fed but only gets 20% of the EXP, etc. Spirits get 100% of the item's EXP starting at "unhappy" (and they drop after that).
- "Unhappy" starts at the 4th stage, meaning that if we assume a spirit drops a stage every maintenance tick (5 minutes from login/CC), it takes 20 minutes from "happy" to be able to feed an item. We'll actually ignore this initial value and just treat it as a starting setup because being fed one high-value item raises up to one stage per item, no more (so it only needs to drop one stage too).
- For the purpose of this example we'll assume that wavering between "fine 3" and "unhappy 1" is all that's done (as even a 1cm diamond will raise a happiness level). So the fastest feeding which also uses the least gems... is to feed one max-size diamond when the spirit hits "unhappy", taking it up to the edge of "fine", then waiting until the next 5 minute tick for it to drop to feed it again.
One diamond every 5 minutes is the theoretical fastest growth without horrible item inefficiency. With 1,239 diamonds needed to feed the spirit to max, that's 6,195 minutes total in-game time at the least. Assuming you play the game 3 hours a day, that's 34 IRL days spent entirely holding and feeding the weapon.
Results
So after 34 days and 150mil, your precious Leather Long Bow ego has 81-133 damage.
Meanwhile a Black Dragon Knight's Bow has 65-140 damage for ~750K instantly.
Your Liberty Saber, estimated to have 180 max if somebody would actually cap it?
Oh wait, a Focused Rainbow Beam Sword from the seal shop is 180 max too.
And this isn't even getting into normal weapons which can be enchanted and have special upgrades.
[SIZE="1"](Data/numbers mostly used from these pages.)
http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Spirit_Weapon
http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/Giving_to_your_Spirit_Weapon
http://wiki.mabinogiworld.com/view/User:Ikkisuki/Spirit_Weapon
http://mabinogi.x10.mx/spirit_weapon/gem_calculator/[/SIZE]