Accessories

What's the stats caps on Rose Gold stuff and Gryphonskin stuff (HQ)? What are the ups and downs of each one? Would you replace a 5 melded one with Allagan for the bit of extra VIT? I'm trying to add to my mitigation, because well that's what a PLD is after all.

Every Gryphonskin or Rose Gold HQ accessory can get you 10 Vit instead of 15 Vit, but add 9 STR and either 9 (Gryphonskin) or 7 (Rose Gold) DEX.
You can fit 12 Parry/Crit, 9 Acc and 8 Det on each one too... but all that is a lot of gil for a lot of forbidden melds.

Basically, at endgame going for full Gryphonskin accessories over Allagan/Heroes stuff will give you a little over 15% DPS, 1-2% Block/Parry strength and ~0.5-0.6% extra Block/Parry chance in exchange for a little over 5.3% HP.
It's not really worth it for additional mitigation unless you think you have "too much HP", but it is for additional DPS and enmity (if you have oodles of spare gil!)

STR = Mitigation, Stonger blocks, Killing stuff faster, Getting aggro faster so someone with less eHP has to be healed.
DEX = Mitigation, More blocks and parry
VIT = Insurance, More HP cushion

Even with full Allagan Vit stuff you are still vulnerable to Twintania (Coil 5) Crit gimp, and if you are AF2 + crafted accessories you can MT Twintania too. Problem only lies whether you are lucky enough. Though 5 Meld accessories can be overcome by sheer amount of Gil =P

With that said Gryphonskin is always the better than Rose Gold, it's just that it will literally shatter your bank account trying to meld them. Whilst 45 STR and DEX might not seem much in a full party along with the 3% bonus you're looking at a good 93 extra stats of STR + DEX vs 26 VIT going Allagan and Heroes VIT.

I just like the fact your getting a lot more stats. The accessories (DL and Allagan) just seem so...light on stuff. I mean I hope SE just doesn't really expect us to only go for one state (VIT as it would seem)