Quote Originally Posted by scaevola View Post
NQ stones have the same potential results as +2 stones. +2 stones have a better chance at getting higher augments, but they probably do not have a 40 times better chance.

People spend 100 million gil on augments because they have more money than sense, as far as I can tell.
Actually they don't have exactly the same potential from what I've seen. I've yet to see any wrong augments with a +2 stone while with nqs it's fairly common. So right off the back a decent portion of nqs wont even give you an augment in the category you are going for let alone the particular one you want let alone a high amount. Also HQs have higher min caps so you have will at least get a decent amount.

Anyways the reason why there is such a huge price difference is because the odds of getting a good augment are that different. After throwing tons of various stones at things Nqs are definitely not worth the effort/gil except maybe dusk just because of the low availability. There are times when I seriously consider whether the ones I get from skirmish are worth the time it takes to trade them vs tossing. Now +1s are fairly decent noticeably worse than +2s but nowhere near as extreme so often worth it if the price difference becomes too great