Remember that this game is all about having multiple pieces of gear for each slot to swap during combat depending on which abilities you are using. Reforging Relic/Artifact/Empyrean depends on what job, and what slot. You rarely will wear an entire set of just one of them. With sparks armor, you should be able to join Alluvion Skirmish and get a level 119 set of armor from there for your job, which you then augment with stones from said skirmish. Then there's Vagary, which has its own better drops, and clearing it allows you to reforge Empyrean armor.

SParks gear is to get you to a baseline starting level, then you do events for better gear with that armor. IIRC< Oatixur is still pretty good if you can get into a Delve group.