Augmented Scaevan gear: the true villain of Shadowbringers

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

Have seen this argument in WoW too in regards to heirlooms, which ended up with the heirlooms getting shafted... I got to say that the joy of replacing gear while levelling is a grossly exaggerated feeling. It literally adds nothing to the game than to force players to keep even more armor sets in their inventory than needed.

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You don't need more armor sets if you actually replace instead of hoard.

It isn't too powerful. People just use it for a lot longer than they should. If, after they reach lvl 76 and up and they can't be bothered to upgrade their gear either from dungeons or from the MB...that's on them. That isn't because of augmented Scaevan gear. That is people being lazy.

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Originally Posted by foyboy

I'll get straight to the point: the augmented scaevan gear's item level is too high.

You see people using this abysmal garbage gear all throughout shadowbringers, and despite the fact that everyone wearing it does 0 damage, has 0 health and dies if an enemy breathes on them wrong, this expansion old gear for some ungodly reason allows you to get into dungeons nearly TEN WHOLE levels above 70, with my worst example being a dancer wearing this LEVEL 70 GEAR in MOUNT GULG, A LEVEL 79 DUNGEON.

Please square, for hydaelyn's sake please LOWER THE SCAEVAN GEAR ITEM LEVEL so that people can't get into near max level content with gear from last expac. Thank you.

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You're actually and factually wrong on a few levels.

Let's look at some numbers.

Using Dancer
Augmented Scaevan Tabard of Aiming:
Requires ARC, BRD, MCH, DNC
Level 70
Item Level 400
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Defense 668
Magic Defense 668
Dexterity +371
Vitality +419
Determination +325
Direct Hit Rate +227
Materia: 2

Compare with the level 78 vendor/quest chest

Swallowskin Robe of Aiming:
Requires ARC, BRD, MCH, DNC
Level 78
Item Level 415
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Defense 660
Magic Defense 660
Dexterity +348
Vitality +382
Critical Hit +325
Direct Hit Rate +228
Materia: 2

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I marked in red the better stat.

When I did this on my Au Ra, I kept the Augmented gear until level 80. That was almost a year ago BTW.

Does it meet ilvl requirements?

If yes, it is more than is expected.

Players expecting more than the minimum is a player problem.

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Originally Posted by Hasrat

Does it meet ilvl requirements?

If yes, it is more than is expected.

Players expecting more than the minimum is a player problem.

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To be fair, you can meet the minimum for many duties when you really shouldn't be able to due to DF using your total ilevel average. If I wanted to, I could queue into Holminster switch with a level 5 NQ weapon.
Just because it's possible, doesn't mean I should.

People should endeavor to do more than the bare minimum preparation when entering a team-based activity, particularly with strangers.

Ok, but, context. This is a discussion on Augmented Scaeven.

Which is indeed more than the bare minimum.

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Originally Posted by Gothicshark

You're actually and factually wrong on a few levels.

Let's look at some numbers.

Using Dancer
Augmented Scaevan Tabard of Aiming:
Requires ARC, BRD, MCH, DNC
Level 70
Item Level 400
---
Defense 668
Magic Defense 668
Dexterity +371
Vitality +419
Determination +325
Direct Hit Rate +227
Materia: 2

Compare with the level 78 vendor/quest chest

Swallowskin Robe of Aiming:
Requires ARC, BRD, MCH, DNC
Level 78
Item Level 415
---
Defense 660
Magic Defense 660
Dexterity +348
Vitality +382
Critical Hit +325
Direct Hit Rate +228
Materia: 2

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I marked in red the better stat.

When I did this on my Au Ra, I kept the Augmented gear until level 80. That was almost a year ago BTW.

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You've cited the NQ version of chest, which is a little misleading. The quest awards the HQ version of the chestpiece, which has the following stats:

Swallowskin Robe of Aiming:
Requires ARC, BRD, MCH, DNC
Level 78
Item Level 415
---
Defense 733
Magic Defense 733
Dexterity +387
Vitality +424
Critical Hit +362
Direct Hit Rate +253
Materia: 2


One or two pieces won't make much of a difference either way, but when looking at full sets cumulatively it does start to add up. For tanks it ends up being something like 10% extra defense stat and +100 mainstat.

Full augmented scaevan is absolutely within minimum viability in Mt.Gulg, but it'll either slow your parties run down or put extra pressure on the healer and hamper their ability to DPS if you decide to pull big. I've big-pulled gulg as a tank/healer pair with the tank in scaevan, and knowing what it feels like I wouldn't really wish that on randoms xD.

All that said, the OP of the thread is definitely super exaggerating the issue.

Nobody does constant full gear upgrades every couple levels- in virtually no MMO does that happen. People will use what they get, but nobody goes out of their way to make sure every time they reach a new dungeon during the MSQ they are fully upgraded. No, not even the people whining about it now- when they got to the points in the story where dungeons or trials were needed, the first thing they did wasn't go get the best gear they could, make sure it was full of materia- what they did was queued up for that duty.

This isn't some major casual conspiracy to make your duty last a little longer because they're a few ilvl behind optimal- this is normal behaviour, people focus on leveling while they're leveling, and on gearing once they hit endgame. If you don't want to play the game with leveling players- maybe don't join the leveling dungeon queues? Seems like a pretty obvious solution to this non-problem you've encountered.

Complaining about people not gearing before they start doing normal dungeons- I want to believe that you guys are trolling but I have a feeling you're actually serious.

Honestly? When I was playing the ShB MSQ, I didn't use the gear the quests gave me and I wasn't very lucky with dungeon drops (I did get few pieces here and there). I didn't farm any dungeon for gear either and only did every dungeon once. I had augmented Scaevan gear and some Omega Savage pieces, but my gear overall wasn't BiS. I managed just fine all the way through until I was able to get the new job set from Geralt. More often than not, I was actually doing more damage with my BRD than my co-DPSes, who usually had gear from MSQ and/or ShB dungeons. Moral of the story, the problem isn't the gear. Like someone else said, player skill can make up for it. This said, I don't know if this would still apply in the case of tanks and healers. I imagine these roles might suffer and struggle a bit more than DPS when it comes to being under-geared.

All this thread tells me is that my big brain strat of "get a class to level 80, buy a full set of gear and do every dungeon with it" makes me the objectively smartest person in FFXIV.

On a more serious note, bad people are just bad. I get put into dungeons undergeared all the time while doing roulettes and I do just fine. The problem isn't the gear, it's that the players themselves don't know how to play.

The reason why it looks like Scaevan is the problem is because that's what skip pots give you. There are people who have played the game before and skip pot, but there's also a large chunk who, well, haven't. Those players then jump into the high-tier content first thing they can and while some can adapt, others flounder.

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Originally Posted by linayar

You don't need more armor sets if you actually replace instead of hoard.

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You wouldn't need to hoard if this game had a proper glamour log.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

You've cited the NQ version of chest, which is a little misleading. The quest awards the HQ version of the chestpiece, which has the following stats:

Swallowskin Robe of Aiming:
Requires ARC, BRD, MCH, DNC
Level 78
Item Level 415
---
Defense 733
Magic Defense 733
Dexterity +387
Vitality +424
Critical Hit +362
Direct Hit Rate +253
Materia: 2


One or two pieces won't make much of a difference either way, but when looking at full sets cumulatively it does start to add up. For tanks it ends up being something like 10% extra defense stat and +100 mainstat.

Full augmented scaevan is absolutely within minimum viability in Mt.Gulg, but it'll either slow your parties run down or put extra pressure on the healer and hamper their ability to DPS if you decide to pull big. I've big-pulled gulg as a tank/healer pair with the tank in scaevan, and knowing what it feels like I wouldn't really wish that on randoms xD.

All that said, the OP of the thread is definitely super exaggerating the issue.

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Sure the quest does give the HQ version, but odds are that is only on the primary Class Roles, For me, that was Dancer on my Au Ra, on my much slower to level Elezen, and even slower to level Miqo'te that is Black Mage and Rogue.

So on my Elezen, while doing DPS Caster I'm going to have best in slot at any given time. But for Heals, Physical DPS, and Tanking, BiS only on the tens. Remember we play more than 1 job through these Dungeons. So the NQ version is more relevant, as the loot boxes with the HQ gear is a 1-time deal. Sure you can pay money to the Market for them, but have you seen the prices for that gear not worth it ESP since you have to get a full set of Neo-Ish on 80.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

You wouldn't need to hoard if this game had a proper glamour log.

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I completely agree. At least 75% of all my inventory slots (personal inventory; 2 retainers; and dresser, I guess) are dedicated to gear I'm keeping for glamour. And I'm only keeping my BRD gear and very, very few pieces for my WHM. I really wish they'd allow us to use whatever piece we come to possess at any point in time even if we discard it. There's never enough inventory space for all the gear this games offers, especially with so many classes. Not only do we have DoW and DoM, but there's also DoL and DoH. Oh, and there's also the all-classes gear too.

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Originally Posted by Eien713

I completely agree. At least 75% of all my inventory slots (personal inventory; 2 retainers; and dresser, I guess) are dedicated to gear I'm keeping for glamour. And I'm only keeping my BRD gear and very, very few pieces for my WHM. I really wish they'd allow us to use whatever piece we come to possess at any point in time even if we discard it. There's never enough inventory space for all the gear this games offers, especially with so many classes. Not only do we have DoW and DoM, but there's also DoL and DoH. Oh, and there's also the all-classes gear too.

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It's why I pay for an extra 3 retainers.

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Originally Posted by Gothicshark

It's why I pay for an extra 3 retainers.

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Yeah, I know a lot of people do that, but I really don't wanna pay extra (>_<). It's why I've been doing my best for the last 5 years and some to make do with what I have. But at some point, even extra retainers may not be enough, I think. We'll keep getting new gear for all the different classes and the level 1 gear, and I'm not sure if the extra inventory space one can get will be able to keep up with this or not.

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Originally Posted by Gothicshark

It's why I pay for an extra 3 retainers.

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Understandable, so do I. What you have to ask yourself though is "should that really be the case?". Why are we paying a monthly fee just to then pay (even if the amount is negligible) more to solve an issue we didn't even create ourselves?


Should we or anybody else really pay for extra retainers solely to solve the atrocious lack of inventory space or space in the glamour dresser?

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Originally Posted by ElciaDeiLinus

Complaining about people not gearing before they start doing normal dungeons- I want to believe that you guys are trolling but I have a feeling you're actually serious.

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The OF experience.

You dont need best in slot for flipping Mt. Gulg. I got to 80 the exact same way between 2 characters. And for the first, I had a competent tank, and a decent DPS friend with a rando healer. And wow, we pulled through just fine in under 20 minutes because my friends know what their buttons do. I did the same on an alt with a party full of DF randos featuring a lv80 MCH and single pulling 80 DRK in base AF gear and a SCH that seemed to only be healing. The run took over 30 minutes.

The players will always matter more than the gear.

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Originally Posted by Gula

The players will always matter more than the gear.

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Yes, but gear helps

It does seem strange, last time I played we were in HW and I'm pretty sure the Ironworks gear wouldn't be useful in the Vault or Gubal. Byt thenagain those dungeons didn't have min ILevel requirements IIRC, maybe they were the bare minimum for those dungeions and we didn't notice.

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Originally Posted by LittleImp

You've cited the NQ version of chest, which is a little misleading. The quest awards the HQ version of the chestpiece, which has the following stats:

Swallowskin Robe of Aiming:
Requires ARC, BRD, MCH, DNC
Level 78
Item Level 415
---
Defense 733
Magic Defense 733
Dexterity +387
Vitality +424
Critical Hit +362
Direct Hit Rate +253
Materia: 2


One or two pieces won't make much of a difference either way, but when looking at full sets cumulatively it does start to add up. For tanks it ends up being something like 10% extra defense stat and +100 mainstat.

Full augmented scaevan is absolutely within minimum viability in Mt.Gulg, but it'll either slow your parties run down or put extra pressure on the healer and hamper their ability to DPS if you decide to pull big. I've big-pulled gulg as a tank/healer pair with the tank in scaevan, and knowing what it feels like I wouldn't really wish that on randoms xD.

All that said, the OP of the thread is definitely super exaggerating the issue.

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+10% Defence/main stat doesn't tell much since the game is not transparent at all about how stats work, and I hate it because it causes more harm than not. Just see this thread.

Full scaevan on tanks is:
5796 Defenses
3210 Strength (+- job and race modifiers)
3642 Vitality (+- modifiers)
74681 HP (+- modifiers)

Full Forgiven is:
6908 Defenses (+1112)
3362 Strength (+152)
3686 Vitality (+44)
75563 HP (+882)

Defenses give +1% resistance to damage per X points and that X varies per level (to keep values from bloating). So at lv 79 those defenses are 27% and 32% respectively (Shoutouts to Allagan Studies Discord, their math dudes and spreadsheets for numbers).
All in all, you guys are severely overestimating the difference between Gulg and Scaevan gear, not to mention that you need to do Gulg to get Gulg gear so the difference between obtainable gear is even lower.

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Originally Posted by GrizzlyTank

You wouldn't need to hoard if this game had a proper glamour log.

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If you're hoarding for glamour, then your initial post is irrelevant as you'll hoard either way.

Any piece of Augmented Scaevan is better than any vendor NQ item. During this expansion that set is good enough to comfortably clear any of the leveling dungeons, in special if people mix a few drops here and there.

People complaining about this remind me of those complaining about having 270 gear at Bardem's Mettle, when is the ILvL dropped by Shisui of the Violet Tides.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Forgiven gear is 420. Scaevan is 400.
Even the 79 Crafted HQ armor is 415.

For one or two slots? Eh. No big deal. But missing 15 - 20 item levels worth of Main and Substat on every slot combined with diminishing effectiveness of substats on their relevant percentages, meaning your Crit, DH, DET etc all get weaker with every level.

if its a DPS, They will piss the healer off by getting near one shot due to lack of expected HP values. If its a Tank, they're getting smashed hard with a smaller HP buffer than they should. If its a Healer, it doesn't matter too much, since it just means they'll be spamming more heals out or getting scraped off the floor by the RDM after every mechanic.

All while doing much less DPS than they should be at that level lol.

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i think you greatly overestimate the value of ilevels between the x0 levels. Yes, Forgiven gear is 420....Buuuut....What do you need to do to get the 420 gear from it? Yes, thats right, clear it! So that means, if you're 20 ilvls down then you're more than fine. Even for tanks, 20 ilvls at lvl 79 is only a difference of...maybe 10,000 health AT MOST, which really isnt that much. That's like 3 basic attacks from trash mobs. The difference between the crafted 415 and the augmented 400 stuff you can get is basically dismal. You know why? Well, think back on the start of the expansion when people were doing the new lvl 80 dungeons in AF4 gear. Now think about what it was like when people started doing it in Ronkan gear a week later. Was it any easier? Not really, no. 10 Ilevels is basically nothing from levels X1 to X9 and in early expansion endgame due to the way scaling works.

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Originally Posted by foyboy

Please square, for hydaelyn's sake please LOWER THE SCAEVAN GEAR ITEM LEVEL so that people can't get into near max level content with gear from last expac. Thank you.

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I cleared numerous toons with Scaevan Gear and made lots selling the quest gear along the way. About to take another character through SHB and plan on doing the same thing. Sue me.

About to run a main story roulette to get some poetics to buy just that.

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I cleared numerous toons with Scaevan Gear and made lots selling the quest gear along the way. About to take another character through SHB and plan on doing the same thing.

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Precisely what I did in 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0. People paid ridiculous amounts for this stuff and it's safe to assume it'll be the same way again in 6.0 because SE is nothing if not consistent, and so are players' willingness to blow tons of gil on stuff that they'll wear for 3, maybe 4 dungeon runs tops.

So long as you made sure to deck yourself out in capped gear prior to each xpac (130 for 3.0, 270 for 4.0, 400 for 5.0), it was more than sufficient for getting through the msq for the following .0 patches.

Goanna have to say - unlike StB where the gear difference jumps significantly from ilv 270 at lv 60 to ilv 276~ at lv65-67 and beyond, ShB gear is relatively stable throughout. Augmented Scaevan can be used as long as a person knows how to play their job effectively since the difference between ilvl for augmented scaevan doesn't lose out too much compared to green equipment dropped in dungeons. Heck, I can usually hit 2nd for aggro list very stably and sometimes contest the tank in the list (which is a little concerning to say the least) as a DPS with agumented scaevan and one or two lv 73-75 accessories. This is compared to people with lv 80 gear in ShB dungeons from Holminister to Mt. Gulg.

Rather than the gear needs to be swapped out, it's really a player skill level that needs to be checked out since people can still not know how to play their job/role in ShB content and still get out classed by people with worse gear. Weaving/Slidecasting/muscle memory rotation/continuous GCD usage does a huge difference compared to someone who doesn't do any of those overtime.

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Originally Posted by foyboy

I'll get straight to the point: the augmented scaevan gear's item level is too high.

You see people using this abysmal garbage gear all throughout shadowbringers, and despite the fact that everyone wearing it does 0 damage, has 0 health and dies if an enemy breathes on them wrong, this expansion old gear for some ungodly reason allows you to get into dungeons nearly TEN WHOLE levels above 70, with my worst example being a dancer wearing this LEVEL 70 GEAR in MOUNT GULG, A LEVEL 79 DUNGEON.

Please square, for hydaelyn's sake please LOWER THE SCAEVAN GEAR ITEM LEVEL so that people can't get into near max level content with gear from last expac. Thank you.

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Why not just raise the ilvl of the dungeon?

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Originally Posted by Puremallace

Why not just raise the ilvl of the dungeon?

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I think the ilvl is already determined based on gear drop when applicable. It doesn't make sense to go closer to the reward you'll get for clearing it.

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Originally Posted by foyboy

I'll get straight to the point: the augmented scaevan gear's item level is too high.

You see people using this abysmal garbage gear all throughout shadowbringers, and despite the fact that everyone wearing it does 0 damage, has 0 health and dies if an enemy breathes on them wrong, this expansion old gear for some ungodly reason allows you to get into dungeons nearly TEN WHOLE levels above 70, with my worst example being a dancer wearing this LEVEL 70 GEAR in MOUNT GULG, A LEVEL 79 DUNGEON.

Please square, for hydaelyn's sake please LOWER THE SCAEVAN GEAR ITEM LEVEL so that people can't get into near max level content with gear from last expac. Thank you.

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Sorry but this is never going away. Ever. And I'm positive you know someone and perhaps even were someone who qued for leveing in less than stellar gear and got the highest duty your level afforded you. It's embarrassing and huge kudos to you if you've been meticulous with your gear but there's little point in putting that much effort into it unless you're struggling to get through duties.

We saw this in the Vault in augmented Ironworks, we saw it in Doma Castle with augmented Shire and now we're seeing it in Malika's Well/Gulg with augmented Scaeven. Typically once you get to the x7 level (57, 67, 77) its time to start looking for gear but when you get HW or ARR leveling duties or Alliance 60-80% of the time, most people aren't going to put that much effort into leveling gear and instead they're going to focus on the next highest base tier.

I feel for you. Because it is a hugely annoying when its tank or healer (because that's when you feel it the worst) but this has been going on for ages and I don't see it stopping anytime soon.

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Originally Posted by linayar

I think the ilvl is already determined based on gear drop when applicable. It doesn't make sense to go closer to the reward you'll get for clearing it.

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Although I think I once suggested changing the gearing system so that the gear is not for capping stats at the dungeion you get said from,but instead meeting the entry requirements of the next one.

Of course at least one guy pointed out the issues in that approach (IIRC it was to the effect of making gearing too much of a hassle than its worth)