Why No Melds?

This is something that's been bothering me ever since the materia melder NPC was introduced. Why do people still not meld their gear? I'm asking this genuinely and honestly since I still see many people without a single meld in any of their gear.

Tier Vs can be acquired through Weeping City or potshards from Palace of the Dead. People don't have to level crafts or find a crafter in order to have it melded, only pay a 2k fee. I like to try and understand other points of view, but this one continues to baffle me. Do people not know that it's easier to meld up your stuff now?

Edit: Forgot to mention Tier IVs can be acquired through beast tribe quests.

Personally, some of my gear is currently melded and some it not. This is due to the fact we've just had new tiers of gear come out, and in my mind it's a waste for me to fill up the remaining meld slots when I'll be upgrading gear in the coming weeks.

If gear lasted us a much longer period of time, I suspect you'd see more player investment in each individual piece.

1. Don't have any materia to spare.
2. Don't want to waste Gil on them.
3. Just don't care about melding in general.
4. It's optional.

Take a pick OP, personally I meld my gear straight away due to easy materia from beast tribes and crafter friends free of charge. But like I said above, completely optional.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zafrei

Personally, some of my gear is currently melded and some it not. This is due to the fact we've just had new tiers of gear come out, and in my mind it's a waste for me to fill up the remaining meld slots when I'll be upgrading gear in the coming weeks.

If gear lasted us a much longer period of time, I suspect you'd see more player investment in each individual piece.

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This, I'm not even going to put anything in the Alex gear and save up stuff for the Shire stuff.

I would imagine it is because of the rapid leveling progression of classes under 60 and the cost of materia in general. People don't see the need to spend money on materia for gear they will only use for a couple of levels and just discard it to upgrade to a higher level or dungeon gear.

Also I think lack of info as to the benefits of melded gear vs non or dungeon gear prior to lev 60.

I tend to meld my lower classes for dol/doh if I will be reusing the gear and if I will be using it for a while. My melding is primarily on lev 60 jobs/classes.

Main thing for me is the price of materia. With tier 5s running in the 3-400k per each, melding your gear (even guaranteed slots) is too pricey.

Materia in this game is overrated. Full V melds barely give 1.5% dps increase for a dps job. It matters for world first groups, but for people casually running expert dungeons or story mode Alexander it's not important (they can, for example, increase their dps by 30% just by doing optimal rotations and they are not doing it either). So why they should care about 1.5% when they don't care about 30%?

To be honest? I keep forgetting. And by the time I remember it's too late. And then I forget again. >.>;;;

Do I absolutely need to if I'm not raiding?

No.

I would add materia to my tome gear if the materia stuck when I upgrade it. Since it doesn't, it's a waste of gil.