Overmelding: Is it worth it?

[Aldagrate]

I've been thinking of getting into overmelding, but holy crap it seems like a hell of a lot of work for something that isn't guaranteed to work 100%. So I wanted to gauge opinions. Is this process worth it?

[Bernkastelx]

Depends raiding wise unless you are part of the world's first race no for battle gear. Not sure about crafting but gathering gear pentameld puts the dev team into question on why they waited so long to release the next scrip upgrade for gathering gear.

[Roth_Trailfinder]

Pentamelded crafting/gathering gear will be (assuming smart melds, no using all Tier 1’s!) better than the scrip gear, and is usually generic, in that the same body piece is usable by all crafting or gathering classes, not just one.

Pentamelded crafting/gathering gear also provides a significant advantage in CP/GP. Scrip options tend to be rather light on those, compared to what is attainable by overmelding.

[Vidu]

First things first: Overmelding, or even Pentamelding is only worth it on gear that will stay with you for a while. So, any endgame-gear, may it gathering, crafting or battle classes.

For Crafting its pretty much absolutly worth it to outright required - this is assuming that the crafted gear is shared by all classes (always the case for belt and right side, so those should always be stuffed with materia). You'll need to hit certain stat-caps, either outright given by the game (or you wont be able to craft the item) or required to perform rotations or use macros to craft highend-stuff. Even though its a huge investment and takes time, you'll be all the more thankful for being able to hit a 2-button-macro to craft the new raid-food instead of having to deal with a lengthy rotation because you didnt bother to put in enough CP, craftmanship or control to be able to use said macros.

For Gathering its not really needed or at least not to that extend - there are obviously certain caps you need/want to hit here aswell, but you can often do that without extreme overmelding. Hitting 700 GP aswell as the needed stats to gather new items in HQ is very useful though!

For DoW/DoM: It depends. For a tank, crafted and melded accessories are BiS for example because non of the tomestone/raid-stuff has DH on them and because they have to put in that one strength-materia, that fills the one slot they'll get on the non-crafted stuff.
For any other class: It might only be worth it if the substats on a piece are really, really shitty. There are always items that have a higehr ilvl than the crafted gear, which means they have higher mainstats. Unless the substats are absolute garbage you dont wanna lose out on those points! However, this is in general only "semi-required" or of importance if you're doing the current Savage-raids. You can do any content in the game just fine without pentamelded gear (even Savage, really - but if your group is struggeling and needs to push DPS, every point might count...)

So, the two general keypoints/questions here are:
-Are you gonna use the gear for a long period of time (about 6 months+)?
-Do the added stats enable you to progress further in the game with more ease or are they maybe required to progress at all?

If you can answer both questions with "Yes", then pentamelding (or at least overmelding) is worth it.
Keep in mind though that the materia-melder-NPCs wont help you with that! You either need to do it yourself (requires crafting classes of a certain level) or have someone else do it for you (its easiest if you give them the gear and materia so they can just throw those glittery stones at the freaking piece of armor until one sticks, without having to go through an annoying menu all the time...).

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So much for a general answer...
I'll admit to have peaked at your Lodestone-Profile and unless Aldagrate is an alt-character and you've wanted this information for your main one, I'd say: Pentamelding isnt worth it for you. Crafting and Gathering is out due to the lack of respective classes at level 70. I'm no expert on dragoon, but afaik that class doesnt has any substat that would outweigh an increase in your mainstat. You also dont seem to raid? (Even though I'm struggeling a bit right now to figure out how you managed to upgrade that headpiece then... ooooh, hunts, probably?) And as I said: Unless you need it to push raid-progress, its not worth it.
One last thing I noticed: That one crafted piece that you're having there is a Normal Quality one - you never ever want to overmeld that. IF you overmeld, you overmeld High Quality (HQ) gear. Overmelding NQ is absolutly and under no circumstances worth it!

So for you, in your current situation, its probably not worth it - generally speaking the usefulness ranges from "pretty much required" (crafting) to "better do some of it" (gathering; tanks) to "eeeh, if the other stuff has really shitty substats, I might bother" (healers, maybe bards and BLMs for crit and spellspeed - huge maybe though, highly depending on the piece of gear)

[Kaurhz]

Keeping this specifically on the topic of DoH/L, I would only overmeld if you're confident you can get the materia self sufficiently through Spiritbonding and Transmutation, or Scrip Grade IV/V, or if you can buy it and are able or willing to make the gil back.

I can say for certain I probably won't be overmelding again, depending on the requirements of 4* base-stat wise. I simply don't dedicate as much time to crafting right now, so the expense for me won't be levelled out by the gil I make. I will just meld CP on guaranteed slots, where significant, then make the stat difference from current stat to base-stat with Miso/Warrior's Stew and go from there.

[ManuelBravo]

I've been thinking of getting into overmelding, but holy crap it seems like a hell of a lot of work for something that isn't guaranteed to work 100%. So I wanted to gauge opinions. Is this process worth it?

Depends on what type, DoH yes, DoL some say no I say yes, DoW/DoM if you can spare the materia yes. How else will I get rid of all my Materia VI and V from current content -.-

[Aldagrate]

True, can you request this from someone else who has the necessary classes to over/pentameld and whatnot?

[Vidu]

True, can you request this from someone else who has the necessary classes to over/pentameld and whatnot?

Yes, you can - there would be two ways to do this:

1) Over the "Request Meld"-option when clicking on a character - if the person has the approptoate classes leveled (for example a goldsmith for a ring), they can try and overmeld your materia. After each fail, you'll have to go through the whole menu again to request a new meld though
2) This only works if you trust the person and havent bounded the item to you yet, but you can obviously just give some the gear and the materia and tell them to try to overmeld as much as possible - if someone is overmelding gear they have in their own inventory, they get a simple "try again" button after a fail, so no long menus involved. Its the easier way, but obviously it requires a trustworthy melder.