Best in Slot (in general)

So I happened to come across a lovely analysis of a BiS opinion from a fellow white mage:

http://puu.sh/jWCes/0f3b9cba1a.png

and this got me thinking. All along, I thought that at level cap, people worked towards having a complete gear set rather than mixing and matching (due to aesthetics or the actual stats underneath), but with the threads that often surround this topic, it seems to not be the case.

So my question is what is the deal with best in slot? Does it actually matter?

Given that there's no "set bonus" in this game, having a complete set doesn't actually give you any benefits other than aesthetics. Mix and match gives you the best secondary stats for your job, especially since different jobs have different priorities. (Crit is amazing for SCH, not so much for WHM or AST for example.)
It definitely matters if you want to maximize your job performance and should influence how you spend your ESO.
DPS and Tanks also have to worry about accuracy cap, which also requires mix and matching. (Well, healers are affected by accuracy too, but you wont have any unless you use melded stuff)

Why would people gear for aesthetics when glamour exists?

Anyway, DestinovaTrueblade summed it up nicely.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eudyptes

Why would people gear for aesthetics when glamour exists?

Anyway, DestinovaTrueblade summed it up nicely.

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To be honest I generally prioritize glamour over stat priorities when it comes to spending Esoterics. I got my NIN body before the other pieces even though it's a Skill Speed piece, for instance, because I'd been wanting a good ninja-styled body for a long time (the NIN AF looks really awkward on females because of the muscle-formed plating).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eudyptes

Why would people gear for aesthetics when glamour exists?

Anyway, DestinovaTrueblade summed it up nicely.

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If they r using the said pieces for appearance I would presume. Af2 generally looks nice

woo me ! ^^ i do want to clear up that there i mean with alex loot alexander savage drops not normall alex pieces :3

Substats have never mattered for healers and still don't; it depends on your preference. BiS simply represents the gear set that maximizes any given stat or combination of stats. Want det? There's a BiS for that. Want crit? There's a BiS for that. Want piety/spell speed? There's a BiS for that too.

I'm no healer, I leave that to my betters and stick to getting faced pummeled while being the damage beast that I am.

Back on point; Top Meta usually doles out the Weapon and Chest piece on the final raid boss, so the general consensus is to save your tomes to buy those pieces first as they will be the last you upgrade through progression.

As an healer I always liked helping dps whenever I can, this used to be for challenging myself but now that it is absolutely mandatory for healers to help dps in savage (unless you want to wait for your dpses to be full ilvl210) I feel like my BiS is now more relevant than ever. I used to play SCH and now do WHM, as a WHM I would say from best to worst: accuracy->Piety->crit->spell speed->determination, but to be honest all of those stats are good on whm, that stat priority is taking into account healing, dpsing and mana management in savage but it is still just my opinion.
Since I used to play sch I guess I would say for sch accuracy->crit->determination->spell speed->piety, but I havent played much sch since heavensward so cant say for sure. :)

I don't believe in BiS for healing, simply because there's a lot of variables involved and getting extra 100 in healing output from a basic healing spell (Cure/Physick/Benefic) will not make a huge difference in your performance. What I usually do for AST (and what I did for WHM) is stacking piety/spell speed for progression and dropping those substats to get more crit/det as I got more comfortable with the fights. This is all personal, of course, and I'm only taking healing in consideration (since I'm the main healer and my partner is the one that does the dps). If you're the off-healer and will do most of the DPS, you should make WD your priority, as long with mnd/det/crit, just as any DPS.