Quote Originally Posted by Nepharite View Post
Its like people using ace's/askar helm over w.turban back in the day.
W.Turban is 5% haste with +30 HP&MP while Ace's is 4% haste with +7ACC, +4STR, and -7EVA. The ACC+7 was a good reason to obtain that piece for the sacrifice of 1% of haste. What's the point of haste if you can't hit? More chances to hit? 1% wasn't worth the difference. Askar Helmet is 4% Haste with +4STR/DEX/VIT. I can consider that a poor choice of wearing with effort to obtain.

Quote Originally Posted by rog View Post
On a limited budget you should always upgrade things in order of cost efficiency. If you have a kraken club, and an nq ruby ring, you're doing it wrong. However, if you don't have much money, a ruby ring may be a good piece, depending on situation, etc.

If there is something better than what you have, that is easier/cheaper to get, than you are doingitrong. Example: trying to get a dalmatica solely for the refresh, even though pluviale is much easier to get.

Basically, you want to get reasonable NQ gear (which is incredibly cheap), and then upgrade it as you are able to, starting with whatever gets you the most for the least gil/time. At no point should you ever downgrade anything. As long as your base sets are good, this will always be acceptable.

Base sets should be pretty simple: tp should be haste > acc/da > atk > etc. Ws sets should take advantage of appropriate modifiers, and/or atk+acc, as appropriate.
You never know, they may have gotten lucky enough to own a Kraken Club as a casual player, lol. (Even though I know a party doing that BCNM wouldn't allow someone to keep such an expensive piece for one person unless the party made a deal or the current owner became untrustworthy.) I never considered Dalmatica as a very good item in my opinion, so I'll give you that. And loading up on WS modifiers should be a given too. But you brought up TP>ACC when I believe you should have enough ACC, like I was implying earlier in this post, where you hit 80-100% of the time, then load up on haste.

Sorry that I disagreed with some of the examples, but I am more understanding of what was meant when you said "intelligent" gear. Guess as long as teaching others how to properly gear themselves is understood, they are informed and can make their own decisions based on what is actually beneficial.