Which aspects do you value when choosing your gear?

[Zhronne]

I'm aware I've been taking pretty "peculiar" choices over the years, when it comes to gear. I was wondering what's the stance of other players on these issues, and how many of these players can be defined if not "the best" at least "good" players.

Which aspects do you consider when picking a certain item over another for a certain build?

For example, do you aim only for pure performance ignoring everything else? Do you aim for a good "compromise"? (if so, accounting which aspects?)
Usually I don't mind compromises.
Some examples of the ones I accepted (shame on me):

• MP pool convenience
  I'm a galka, and I'm pretty incompetent when it comes to mage jobs since I levelled them only recently to offer my LS a slightly increased versatility for events. I have MPpool issues of course, so during my gearswaps I tend to prefer items who in addition to the stat I'm looking for also have +mp. MND items for cures, stoneskin etc for instance. I picked up Celestial Rings (or even Star) over Aquasoul Rings. Less MND (less potency) but also less "lost MP" when swapping back and forth. I find that convenient for my small MP pool.
• Inventory convenience
  If for example there's a waist with STR+8 equippable by 3 of my jobs, I'd probably pick that one over three different belts with STR+10, each equippable by a different job.
  This may seem like the sillies of aspects to consider to some, but especially over the last months where I've found myself with 9 active jobs, it's become a big issue to handle pieces to bring around everytime I swap to a job. Ultimately it really kills a lot of my personal entertainment having to spend 20 minutes in MH looking and swapping items through all my repositories, and having to zone several times to retrieve items from the porter moogle. I also try to place items in Mog Safe/Locker/Sack/Satchel according to how often I'm gonna need them (i.e. how often I play on the relative jobs) and how many of my jobs that certain item serves.
• Gil cost of the item
  I tend to prefer r/e items of course, but for those you can buy, this is the more arbitrary of the aspects I listed so far. It depends a lot on how much I use that job, how much I would use that piece (is it for a macro I use every now and then? Is it for something I use often?), how better that piece is over my other current options (is the difference small? is it noticeable?), how high is the price and how much I think that piece would serve me.
  If the price is really small (as much as "small" is a different threshold for all of us) I usually don't care, if the amount is considerable I usually try to consider all these aspects. The "lasting time" of the piece is something that didn't matter much at 75 and hopefully won't matter much once we reach level 99, but it's been an important aspect all through the past year. I haven't been particularly keen on spending considerable amounts of money on pieces that were particularly likely to be overthrown by better and cheaper items in a few months. (as hard as that can be to tell, sometimes)

So again, do you consider any or other of these aspects, or just aim for pure performance? How bad do you consider players like me who try to look for acceptable compromises instead of constantly striving for the best no matter what?

[Brolic]

haste and str

[RAIST]

versatility....as in how many jobs can use the gear, and whether I will use it reguarly or just in rare instances.

10 jobs 90+, 6 at 51 (I am NOT getting rid of some of the harder to find stuff just in case I opt to level some later), 4 at 0. I'm also heavy into crafting too so I sometimes hoard the more expense/tedious items when I see them drop (like wild onions and such). I also don't store all my speciallized gears with the moogle if it's a job I get on frequently (empy armor and select AF1 pieces that still have utility like SAM head and such).

So inventory is usually pretty tight--4 storage containers stay at 80/80, sometimes sack is full too...so most the time my free space is only what I manage to free up in my gobby bag. Most all my acccessories are "all jobs" items unless it is something REALLY good that covers a lot of jobs (like ones for all my mages or ones for at least 5 of my melee jobs, etc).

REALLY looking forward to when the magian lines finally cap out and I don't need to hold on to any more geodes. That's about a dozen slots I'll kill right there. And yes, I have some full stacks of some elements stashed atm for when I get everything to caps. Just for level 95 it's over 1200 geodes to +3 everything. Yes...I have THAT many magian lines. Ending these geode lines will have a big impact on space when I can start selling the @#$@#$ things off instead of stashing them for future use.

[scaevola]

haste and str

1234567890

So inventory is usually pretty tight--4 storage containers stay at 80/80, sometimes sack is full too...so most the time my free space is only what I manage to free up in my gobby bag. Most all my acccessories are "all jobs" items unless it is something REALLY good that covers a lot of jobs (like ones for all my mages or ones for at least 5 of my melee jobs, etc).

moogle portero

(that's porter moogle for you bros that don't habla espanol)

[cidbahamut]

MP pool convenience
I'm a galka, and I'm pretty incompetent when it comes to mage jobs since I levelled them only recently to offer my LS a slightly increased versatility for events. I have MPpool issues of course, so during my gearswaps I tend to prefer items who in addition to the stat I'm looking for also have +mp. MND items for cures, stoneskin etc for instance. I picked up Celestial Rings (or even Star) over Aquasoul Rings. Less MND (less potency) but also less "lost MP" when swapping back and forth. I find that convenient for my small MP pool.

MP pools really shouldn't be an issue at this point. Hunt down some refresh gear for an idle set. You can keep a maxMP build on hand but I wouldn't devote pieces to it, just cobble it together from whatever you have for all your other gearsets. If it is really such a problem, look into staggering your gear swaps so you only swap out a piece of gear once you've used up the MP+ it was providing you. I swear it drives me batty to know there's so many mages out there who will put together maxMP builds, and then proceed to cast stuff that swaps out 100+ MP before it can even get spent.

I only maintain two jobs(working on a third), so I go for pure performance. It's what you should be aiming for.

How bad do you consider players like me who try to look for acceptable compromises instead of constantly striving for the best no matter what?

You're ok as long as you're aware of your shortcomings and make efforts to improve when possible.

[RAIST]

1234567890



moogle portero

(that's porter moogle for you bros that don't habla espanol)

Porter moogle is not all that convenient. It's more convenient for me to have all my universal items in satchel/sack, and the rest in safe/locker. That way, I just go to one location and swap all my crap out in one spot regardless of what city I'm in without having to track down some storage NPC elsewhere. Storage has all my other stuff that I rarely need and can't store with a moogle/NPC, so if I need to get at that oddball stuff I can just use tabs, OP, or warp taru to hop to home nation real quick.

[Deadvinta]

I go gaga for gear that enhances specific job traits or abilities, so all the artifact stuff is my favorite. Other than that, I love seeing haste or double attak %.

[Greatguardian]

Opportunity cost, relative gains, and realistic means.

I don't look down on non-ideal players. I do look down on people who don't try at all and wear retarded shit that has no place on anyone who cares.

Take the time to work out what's best for you to wear in each situation right now, what pieces would impart the most noticeable/potent gains, and how much work each of those pieces is going to take. Know what the best is, then know what the best is for you right now and how you can best work towards the ideal.

When comparing opportunity cost, remember that your time is valuable. If you're choosing between camping a 2-3 hour NM with a 50% drop rate or farming 200k gil for an item, farm the gil. You can make more than 200k/hour easily through multiple avenues which are all accessible to players of any "status". Cruor farming and Dynamis lowman/solo are both very easy, viable avenues for free gil.

Pursue large gains before small ones. No one cares if you have a Pyrosoul for WS if you lack a Zelus Tiara or relevant AF3+2 for TP. Likewise, you don't need MND+7 rings on a mage when MND+5 rings are dirt cheap and you need the gil for more relevant gains elsewhere. Be smart about your money, and be smart about your time. They are both valuable, and don't deserve to be wasted.

No one has any dirt on a player who's smart about what he does and puts in the effort to do well.

Edit: Oh yeah, and macros. Even if you don't have awesome gear, or even very much gear to swap yet, make sure to swap what you can around when you do stuff. More than anything else, it shows that you give a damn.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Porter moogle is not all that convenient.

Extremely convient, but my claim slips never leave my inventory.

[Meyi]

I prefer to get the best I can. If it's a lot of money I really don't mind dropping the money into it because it makes me happy to have that piece of armor. If it's rare/ex and I need a lot of support to kill it, I will sometimes pass it up depending on just how good it is and if there's anything close enough to it.

I don't mind if anyone plays for convenience sake. From my experience it doesn't seem that the +2 MND will make that much of a difference on cures, and some extra MP is great for races that don't have decent MP pools. As long as you actually have beneficial equipment pieces in slots they belong in, I'm happy.

Gear swapping is also a great way to show you care.