Item Level and You

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Originally Posted by Zumi

You need both. When I was going armed to the teeth when the game was first out I was running a lot of jobs through Titan HM with AK gear and some in AF. Titan HM is very doable with AK gear.

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You're disputing the baseline, not that there IS a baseline. I can't say with certainty what that is but I wouldn't want to do Titan HM with people who were in full AK gear, that's for sure. You would improve your chances of grouping with others and getting people to stick around for more attempts with better gear. Is that disputable?

That's the problem though, you are putting so much focus in upgrading gear than upgrading playstyle (which people can actually converse about and help each other with). I agree that whichever group we fall in, no one wants to waste time, but I also don't want it to be bland regardless if I've cleared once or multiple times.

Options to overgear content is beginning to be a popular trend in games nowadays. They can say it's game design but that's just a facade.

It's just that overgearing content takes out that feeling of being on the edge of your seat while progressing with your group slowly but surely, whether it be a test of gear or skill or whatever. Finally, proceeding with a "silent cheer" when you've cleared it knowing that you've done the best you could've with whatever gear/skill/group you had at that time. The sense of satisfaction is much greater the more effort you put in.

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Originally Posted by chocomaid

It makes much less sense to get full DL or better to get your relic. Why do people need to overgear content to clear it? Where is the challenge gone? A party with full dl or better as you said will literally breeze through Titan HM one handed while drinking tea, assuming they are decently experienced with the fight.

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The problem is most people don't like challenge, not everyone can do it eventually. That's why we get GRIND, pointless time consuming content designed for everyone.

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Originally Posted by Purrfectstorm

Yeah basically ;) Why not? Time matters. Why spend 10 hours wiping on something because I'm not geared rather than 9 hours 50 min getting gear I needed to get anyway, then win the fight in 10 min LOL

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Why spend hours farming gear to get all my pieces from 60->70 when I can already go from 55->80 on my most important piece and use that to farm everything else faster?

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Originally Posted by ispano

I think the people you ran with may not have been as good as you think they were

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pretty much this ^ : I personally cant stay alive in Titan HM yet, and i KNOW its because im not good enough yet, not because of my gear - i wear full DL gear as a WHM when i try to do him, i just dont move in time, thats all

Something I'd like to point out; it is really easy to get carried as a dps and people in the group, including yourself and other dps, don't realize it. If a tank underpreforms you see it by mobs not staying still, if a healer underpreforms you see it because people die. DPS can disappear in a group, not take their equal share of damage output and come out thinking they're good.

Titan HM is a good example of this. The soft DPS check is really generous. so people take the ability to dodge as the only requirement of the fight, and even go as far to call it a skill check and disregard gear. I've seen so many players who think they can do it because they can dodge, but they do it sacrificing too much dps and depend on other dps to carry them without realizing it. In my opinion a dps at the ilevel req would have to be doing optimal dps while dodging to meet the hard and soft checks, assuming all other dps are at the same level. This rarely ever happens, so you don't see this demonstrated. In titan EM though you do see it, and I feel its a flaw of the game design to let dps go this far into the end game before they hit a skill wall.

A good exmaple I had the other day was in garuda EM, we managed to clear it while carrying an absolutely terrible BLM dps who we were only able to call out on their lack of ability when someone was running a parser and noticed he was only doing 40% of the dps I was doing. Gear could only account for a fraction of that, and we passed anyway so even in garuda extreme BLM who don't even know how to output damage well are getting through. If that was a tank unable to play his class he would stand no chance.

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Originally Posted by Vhailor

SE also put Pharos Sirius as an iLevel 48 dungeon; I would pay good money to see their development team successfully complete that dungeon with gear that bad.

In response to the OP: You're right that gear is important. I don't think casual players or hardcore players would dispute this, though. I've yet to run into someone who acted as if skill was everything and gear nothing; I'd also wager that anyone who made a statement like that was simply venting and not being totally serious.

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You know PS is much easier than people make it out to be, right?

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Originally Posted by Purrfectstorm

Sure, 1 player w/ i57 isn't that bad, but the more players you have with that kind of gear the exponentially worse it gets. And I actually heard one player say they were hoping for a carry. But what if everyone joins a group hoping for a carry? LOL It gets quite absurd. And yes, I'm pretty sure my group was as good as I think they were. I've beaten it with far worse groups, too much struggle dealing enough damage.

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Agree. A single player can be carried with item Lv 57 but all other 7 must have decent gears to do so. ALL members in item Lv57 its simply not possible. Eventually healers will run out of MP, the 3 consecutive Turmoils will kill or almost kill anyone under 3k HP specially mages. Not enough DPS to destroy Hearts or Gaols on time. SE should rise the Avg item Lv of certain fights.

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Originally Posted by SarcasmMisser

*snip*

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Titan HM is only a good example of game design clashing with the technical limitations of the game to create an unfair disadvantage. I dare you try playing any caster or healer on Titan HM from the EU region and still think you're good at it. You will have to learn how to do the fight with a penalty to your dps output or healing capabilities due to the fact that you have to make a habit of dodging plumes and landslides BEFORE they actually happen on your screen. Pair this with a lack of routine on a specific fight which is relatively new to the player and you will inevitably end up spending more time not dying than fulfilling your role.

I don't know though, maybe that BLM was doing something fundamentally wrong when given the opportunity to burst dps. But just saying.

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Originally Posted by Shizato

pretty much this ^ : I personally cant stay alive in Titan HM yet, and i KNOW its because im not good enough yet, not because of my gear - i wear full DL gear as a WHM when i try to do him, i just dont move in time, thats all

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Honestly that's a whole other story. Even if you *could* dodge, if you're wearing all af gear with a white/ltn/crafted wep, as a whm, you *will not* survive stomps after heart phase, and if you do, its because either you were too busy healing yourself or your other healer was. Everything in this game is a gear check.