Why No Melds?

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Originally Posted by Dement

For the most part, gear is upgraded every 6 months. 3.2 released a gear range of 220-240 which was the gear range until 3.4 came out 6 months later. Now the gear range is 250-270 until the expansion which we know won't be until Spring at the earliest.

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Eeh, I don't know if I can agree with the 6 months thing. New tome gear is released every six months, but it's not like you get it and are done with it. You get it and 3 months later you upgrade it, which works the same as being an entirely new piece of gear. And then you have new raid gear roughly every 3 months as well (8p / 24p raids alternating.) Sure the current ilvl bracket lasts 6 months, but it's not like you get a full set of gear on day 1 and get 6 months of use out of it.

Why do I not put any materia on my combat gear? Few reasons:

1) I sell materia for Gil. No matter what happens in the game, gil retains a good deal of its value. Goes hand in and with next point.

2) Gear is quickly replaced every 3 to 4 months. This also comes hand in hand with my next point.

3) You cannot remove materia from gear once placed. Again, also goes in hand with the next point.

4) The odds of having the melded gear fully spiritbonded by the time better gear is available is very low if you are a casual. So no new materia out of it. Just desynth and seal fodder. No thanks.

5) For someone who does not raid, the boost granted by materia is minuscule to say the least.

6) Over-melding is a nightmare. In order to get the most out of your gear and materia, you would need a truck load of grade 4 and/or grade 5 materia and that is a loss in gil, time and effort.

So yeah, those are the reasons I do no melding on my combat gear.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

would you invest in customising your car if you were gonna get a new one next month?

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Adding in materia has less to do with customising your car, and more to do with giving it tune ups, though the analogy still fails because you don't just trash your car, you sell it. That being said though, yes, yes I would if I had the spare cash. Gil is completely worthless in this game, so might as well use it for something!

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

Gil is completely worthless in this game, so might as well use it for something!

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Glamour Is The True Endgame™

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Originally Posted by SessionZero

Glamour Is The True Endgame™

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This is only true when you don't have a glamour you like. :'P I've had pretty much all my glamours set in stone once I got them, and there really aren't that many good looking sets at all in this game, especially for my tastes. Too much slutty beachwear, not enough tasteful sets.

But if it makes you happy, fine, gil is useless to me.

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Originally Posted by Dzian

It was a fairly hot topic recently that players do want to make there characters stronger. but Yoshi p responded and said he doesn't want that to happen. he wants players to focus on gear instead. the problem with this is that the gear is so short lived. Melding then doesn't make your character stronger at all. what it does is just make your gear stronger. that same piece of gear you will be throwing away in a couple of weeks because you've got some thing better. so there's no point in melding it.

it's kind of connected to why people don't raid because the rewards aren't worth it. the 240 midangear people got form clearing it was tossed for 250 crafted stuff soon as 3.4 hit. so seriously what value does gear hold? holds no value at all. and as a result it's not worth investing in. which is simply why people don't bother. glamour is a bigger motivator than strength.

would you invest in customising your car if you were gonna get a new one next month?

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You can put in tier 4s for a few min of doing beastman dailies then you are set for a few months before you replace that piece of gear. Its not a big investment of time at all. I am not saying use all tier Vs but you can get tier 4s which are really easy to get and don't take much time at all.

Can some explain why you "need" to meld the gear if you're not doing the latest raid or primal. Everything else is such a cake walk. Seriously the few extra points you get are not worth it. In the latest two dungeons you can easily run through them with old gear and burn down trash mobs. Alex normal is pretty easy even if you don't know the mechanics. If we needed to meld to help make runs easier people would. Like the other poster said the rewards of melding are not worth it. That's why less people are doing it just like raiding. You could give people materia just for logging in but if they don't see it as a necessity they won't use it. It's the same thing as food. Why don't people use food outside of raids or leveling?

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Originally Posted by RukiaFae

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How many times, especially in PUGs, have you wiped on a boss at 1%? 2%? 3? 10? That's why I meld my gear. I can't always rely on PUGs to be half competent, so I meld my gear because not only do I enjoy it, it also lessens how dependent on randoms I am.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

Maybe you run the content way more or just have bad luck but does not happen that often in my experience

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I do tend to run content alot, but I personally rarely see it happen, especially as a sword oath tank. The last time it happened was on A12N a week or so ago, and unsurprisingly I was the only one melded. Course, then the dps started whining about not clearing it, and I giggled. It is funny to see people fail and blame everyone else. Incidentally, 'Once' is already one time too many.

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

How many times, especially in PUGs, have you wiped on a boss at 1%? 2%? 3? 10? That's why I meld my gear. I can't always rely on PUGs to be half competent, so I meld my gear because not only do I enjoy it, it also lessens how dependent on randoms I am.

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Maybe you run the content way more or just have bad luck but does not happen that often in my experience

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Originally Posted by Neophyte

Also I am raiding.

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So I'm not sure how your reply has any relevance to me then. You're raiding so every little stat boost matters. To non raiders it doesn't. I'm already blasting the enemies away in Xelphatol in outdated gear, so why on earth would I waste millions of gil melding my next set just to kill them ever so slightly quicker?

It's very easy to get grade 4 materia from beast-tribe daily-quests, so it's not that big burden to meld your gear. I could understand you gimping yourself if it'd only affect yourself, but there's a lot content that requires multiple players to complete it, and it's slightly annoying when people run with either 0 materia or have completely wrong materia melded in, seen too many BLM's with parry or strength.

You don't need to spend millions on grade 5 materia, grade 4 is good enough.

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Originally Posted by Anzaman

It's very easy to get grade 4 materia from beast-tribe daily-quests, so it's not that big burden to meld your gear. I could understand you gimping yourself if it'd only affect yourself, but there's a lot content that requires multiple players to complete it, and it's slightly annoying when people run with either 0 materia or have completely wrong materia melded in, seen too many BLM's with parry or strength.

You don't need to spend millions on grade 5 materia, grade 4 is good enough.

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No such thing as gimping yourself unless you raiding cause lot people already think non-raiding content is able to be face rolled

I swim in Materia V Grades basically... If you just do Weeping City you get one Materia, if you do Woundrous Tails you can get up to 2-3 Materias, if you do PotD you get Materia.
My Astrologian is melded, not fully yet due of new Gear, though atleast my Accessories get Materia everytime.

There is a huge difference between having 18.412 HP or 19950 HP (I can reach 21.000 HP in a Duty with VIT Bonus and Food...) thanks to VIT Melds on Accessories,... and yes, that 1.500 HP saved my Butt more than I could imagine it.

The same goes for Black Mages, you can't imagine how much Spell Speed you actually gain by having a fully melded Gearset with Spell Speed focused, and that's over 80-100 Spell Speed... if not even more

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Originally Posted by MrPresident

So I'm not sure how your reply has any relevance to me then. You're raiding so every little stat boost matters. To non raiders it doesn't. I'm already blasting the enemies away in Xelphatol in outdated gear, so why on earth would I waste millions of gil melding my next set just to kill them ever so slightly quicker?

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It's not millions. IVs are literally free from doing beastmen quests.

The damage increase you get from melding your gear with IVs is just as much as you buying your lore weapon. Why the hell would you say no to +100 crit and det that literally costs you nothing?

"Oh, there's this free upgrade i can get that'll boost my dps by roughly 6%?"

"Nah, no thanks. I don't need it."

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

It's not millions. IVs are literally free from doing beastman quests.

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Nothing is free.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

It's not millions. IVs are literally free from doing beastmen quests.

The damage increase you get from melding your gear with IVs is just as much as you buying your lore weapon. Why the hell would you say no to +100 crit and det that literally costs you nothing?

"Oh, there's this free upgrade i can get that'll boost my dps by roughly 6%?"

"Nah, no thanks. I don't need it."

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Technically, it's not free. There's a thing called "Opportunity cost." Basically, by melding materia you're losing out on the potential gil you could have gotten by selling it.

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Originally Posted by Musashidon

the same reason why i watch netflix while i run content, because i can.

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that makes no sense, you shold play something you like.

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It's not millions. IVs are literally free from doing beastmen quests.

The damage increase you get from melding your gear with IVs is just as much as you buying your lore weapon. Why the hell would you say no to +100 crit and det that literally costs you nothing?

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It isn't free. It comes at the cost of not being able to sell them for money.

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"Oh, there's this free upgrade i can get that'll boost my dps by roughly 6%?"

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You're vastly overestimating the difference melds will make.

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Originally Posted by Fynlar

It isn't free. It comes at the cost of not being able to sell them for money.



You're vastly overestimating the difference melds will make.

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I am not. Check the stat weights for yourself.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme..._stat_weights/

The newest Monk and Ninja stat weights are:

Ninja:
DEX: 1
WD: 14.9445854570452
Crit: 0.283836380512
DET: 0.204644795536845

Monk:
STR: 1
WD: 14.8312045494837
Crit: 0.291785864914651
DET: 0.209996953500461

This means that every 3.5 crit is worth 1 STR/DEX and 15 STR/DEX is worth 1 WD. With non crafted gear, you have 18 meld spots. For the sake of simplicity, we'll say you can meld crit to all of those. 18 IVs is worth 162 crit. 162 divided by 3.5 is 46.2. 46.2 divided by 15 is 3. That means that 162 crit is worth 3 WEAPON DAMAGE.

According to Dervy, a very basic dps conversion is:

1 WD/MD = 4% DPS increase
9 INT/STR/DEX/AP = 1% increase

3 additional WD would be a 12% dps increase

I personally think that's too high so I said roughly a 6% increase (but it could be higher). Either way, melds make a SIGNIFICANT difference. You're vastly underestimating the difference they make.

Yae cause the pesky mobs have to die few seconds earlier....

Im waiting until i can upgrade the new vendor gear using the new tower like they did with weeping city

I think the decision to meld (or not to meld) should just be left up to the player. Some don't want to meld, some meld tier IV, some meld tier V, some pentameld tier V. I don't raid, but I recently got into melding, and yeah, maybe it's not a significant DPS increase or whatever, but I feel like I do more with the melds (plus I love seeing that 1,000+ crit when I look at my BRD XD). I couldn't do full tier V on my augmented lore, but I plan to do full tier V on at least BRD and DRK since those are the two jobs I main. I have plenty of potsherds saved up to help, and Gil doesn't really matter to me to the point where I am torn between melding and selling. I used to always sell my weekly tier V back when they came from VA, but now I'm happy with using them, even if it is only temporary. I play enough to at least make them worth the 3 months between patches (my opinion here).

Just let people who meld, meld, and those who don't, well, let them too. To each their own. :3

Edit: I don't do Savage content, but I have been getting more into EX primals, and been considering testing out some Savage. However, when I started melding, I wasn't doing savage or EX primals. XD

And I do question the usefulness of the elemental materia. But for some reason the tier V's sell for around 50k a piece for some on my server and I have gotten a lot of them from PotD so. Guess that works. XD

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Originally Posted by Thunda_Cat_SMASH

How many times, especially in PUGs, have you wiped on a boss at 1%? 2%? 3? 10? That's why I meld my gear. I can't always rely on PUGs to be half competent, so I meld my gear because not only do I enjoy it, it also lessens how dependent on randoms I am.

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I'm my experience most of those 1-3% wipes are from things that wouldn't really be aided by material. It's things like no one standing on the pads to catch meteors or something mechanical like that.

My last wipe was in a7 normal yesterday for tails. And the reason for the wipe was simply that everyone ignored the hearts and stuck on the boss.

No amount of melding will really prevent those wipes happening.

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Originally Posted by Lexia

Yae cause the pesky mobs have to die few seconds earlier....

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With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

The new raids don't have any deadly dps check so I think we don't need to meld materia anymore. I did it for i240 gears but will probably not doing it this patch.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

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So far, you also needed it to access the next level of alexander right off the bat - Creator was 230, Midas 200. That's full tome equip with 1 upgrade to balance out the ring. Sophia NM also needed 220, so you need at least Proto-Midan gear. Not the same with scripture, tho, unless they make MSQ trials or sth dependent on it down the line.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

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SE sets item level requirements to enter content. If we don't meet those requirements, we can't enter (or at least not in a non-premade).
So yes, there is a reason to raise the item level, but there is no reason (for a person who does not raid) to go for BiS and melds other than to kill things slightly faster.


I'm also amused people keep saying "tier 4 is free, you get them from beast tribes", completely ignoring the incredible amount of time it takes to even rank up beasttribes in the first place.
I have not even one of the ARR tribes ranked up (except for Ixal, which are a bit special since they are for crafters/gatherers) so I get absolutely no "free" materia at all.
Even if I started ranking them up now, I can raise one by 15 points per day. 15 out of 150. That's already half a month just to reach rank 2 on ONE tribe, assuming I can play everyday.
Not even starting on how long it will take to reach a rank on which their daily quests reward tokens/materia :rolleyes:
And that is assuming I want to do said content at all. Now you want to force me into content I do not want to do just so you can sleep in peace, knowing every player on every server has at least tier 4 materia in all of their gear?

NOTHING in this game is free. You get rewarded for an effort you already put in in the past, that's all. So stop saying you get it for free when it's not.

I don't meld materia to gear that either isn't upgradable, or isn't already upgraded. It's a waste to meld those pieces, but then again the gain is marginal at best. I don't do savage raids, but I like killing shit quickly. That's my bag. That's why I meld, but it's all optional anyway. I can't for the life of me understand why these forums are chalk full of people who are so concerned with what others are doing or not doing. For Gordias savage, I see why melds would be required. But all the new content (save for creator savage, not sure how that stacks up yet) can be cleared efficiently without materia.

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

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To be absolutely fair, we're talking about secondary stats here - they do contribute to a very small DPS gain and are only absolutely necessary in prog raiding (and even then you'd have to be going for world first on a tightly tuned tier). Main stat is far more impactful, and especially Weapon Damage. I personally have most of the old 2.0 dailies maxed out so it's not too much trouble for me to get any IV materia I need, but I also recognize that not everyone's in the same position I am. If I didn't have a lot of gil and I didn't have access to these dailies then I probably wouldn't bother to meld my gear, especially if I'm not raiding. I guess it largely depends on how much time you have to devote to the game.

The irony with people who sell their materias on the market boards instead of melding few of them is that, not only they think their Gils are more important than raising the chances of succeeding for their whole party, but the ones who buy these materias are the players who do care.
In short, not only these caring players have to carry the greedy ones, but they also give them Gils to do so.

I couldn't stop laughing after reading this because it automatically translated into "So you pay me and you do my work for me???? What kind of fairy-tale is this?!?!?"

But to be more towards your point, everyone will always carry someone regardless. No one is ever going to have the same level of gear and/or care nor can you convince them to. Even if we could get everyone to meld every piece of gear they find, someone will still be carrying because there will still be people with lower ilvls. As someone mentioned earlier, its less about your actual gear and more about knowing mechanics because I don't know if anyone ever knew this or not, but you can't DPS when you're dead. People could easily find information on raids when they have been out for a while (even within the week of their first iteration) but they still don't and that only cost them time (this sounds like a good topic for a new thread "Why don't some people research fights before trying to do them?").

No point in melding on gear until it gets upgraded. By time gear is upgraded new gear comes out with better stats anyway. Or new gear comes out where melding won't have any big effect anyway because the stats on it are complete garbage to begin with.

Self fulfilling prophecy of materia ultimately not mattering.

May as well sell it and use it on glamour.

*shrug*

Lose all delusions of control.

I always meld everything even if it gets replaced fast because i simply cant stand seeing those empty slots in there.

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Originally Posted by Atoli

I'm also amused people keep saying "tier 4 is free, you get them from beast tribes", completely ignoring the incredible amount of time it takes to even rank up beasttribes in the first place.
I have not even one of the ARR tribes ranked up (except for Ixal, which are a bit special since they are for crafters/gatherers) so I get absolutely no "free" materia at all.
Even if I started ranking them up now, I can raise one by 15 points per day. 15 out of 150. That's already half a month just to reach rank 2 on ONE tribe, assuming I can play everyday.
Not even starting on how long it will take to reach a rank on which their daily quests reward tokens/materia :rolleyes:
And that is assuming I want to do said content at all

NOTHING in this game is free.

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I'm in the same boat, no arr tribe leveled so tier 4 are not free

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Originally Posted by LunarEmerald

With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

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Totally not the same concept as other have pointed out in their posts.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

In short, not only these caring players have to carry the greedy ones[...]

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If 32,4 main stat worth of stats is called "carrying", what do you say to black mages who don't priorize spell speed? A full loadoud of IV materia is worth about 162 secondaries tops, which have a main stat weight of around 0.2. That is the same difference as between spell speed (0.4) and the next highest secondary (Crit, 0.2) for black mages.

I got baaad news for you black mages: If you have 162 spell speed less on your gear than you could with the same INT, you are getting carried.

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Originally Posted by Zojha

If 32,4 main stat worth of stats is called "carrying", what do you say to black mages who don't priorize spell speed? A full loadoud of IV materia is worth about 162 secondaries tops, which have a main stat weight of around 0.2. That is the same difference as between spell speed (0.4) and the next highest secondary (Crit, 0.2) for black mages.

I got baaad news for you black mages: If you have 162 spell speed less on your gear than you could with the same INT, you are getting carried.

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Let's be realistic, the people who buy Grade IV are usually the ones trying to overmeld crafted gear. They are also generally more willing to use food buffs and stat potions. They are usually players who care about their performances in combat, doing researches about rotations, openers and overall combat mechanics.
Whereas in this thread, you have a bunch of people who don't give a f**k, thinking that their gils are more important than improving the chances to beat an encounter for their party. Will they use food? Heck no. Wasted gils! Will they use stat pots? Heck no. Wasted gils! Will they take the time to improve their gameplay? Why doing so, they can already clear fights doing whatever!

Out of these two types of people, who do you think are the more likely to be on top of the other? Generally speaking. I don't care about special snowflakes.
(It's a rhetorical question, you don't need to answer it.)

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To the greedy people who are now trying to find excuses such as "B... But I don't have beast tribes leveled up!". Others in this thread already suggested Palace of the Dead. The only "cost" is 2-3 hours of your time for at least one Grade V that you can sell to buy a handful of Grade IV.

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Originally Posted by Fyce

[...]thinking that their gils are more important than improving the chances to beat an encounter for their party.

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These people are also not participating in Savage content. The only content these people are participating in where the probability to fail at all is greater than zero are Alexander and Sophia normal.

I'm not sure what game you are playing, but in my FFXIV, I can spend 90% of an expert dungeon in cleric stance because nobody even needs a heal for the most part. I can only use half my rotation and still easily beat DPS checks. If that is different in your version of the game and you need those 162 substats to considerably boost clear rates, well...sucks to be you I guess? You have my sincere pity. It's not the same in my game and consequently, I don't value those stats as highly.

Why not form a party of like-minded individuals with full melded gear to run theses dungeons and trials with?

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Originally Posted by Lexia

Totally not the same concept as other have pointed out in their posts.

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It is the same thing, though. You're keeping yourself at a minimal chance for success and leaving wipes as a more likely outcome by unmelding. You might as well be at the bare minimum ilvl.