Savage requirements

Now that savage raids had been out for a while, is it acceptable for me to join O1S and O2S with level V material? I intend to use RF and play as a AST.

With grade 6 materia so easy to get there is no reason not to use it, especially since it is literally over 3x better than gr5. If you have any crafted gear use the gr 5 for overmelds

You could join with zero melds. I wouldn't suggest it but people care far more about how competent you are playing your job than your melds.

You can go in with whatever you like; you'll perform in the manner you are prepared to do, and people can easily be carried in V1S and V2S. Go in and see how you stack up, and you'd like to improve, it is advisable to do some hunts and get those VIs.

320s with V melded are fine IMO, below that, not look quite good.

While competency is the most important thing, you're hindering your potential by sticking with V's.
I consider it a little insulting when someone goes in with less than their most potential and expecting others to carry a portion of that weight.
This may possibly be due to my personal mentality of ensuring I am entering a raid with nothing less than my best effort.
This includes not using food as well..

Those "little bits" all add up and put less strain on everyone else to carry a portion of the weight that you're slacking on by not going in with your highest potential.
Those "little bits" are actually a "lot of bits" when you're talking V's vs VI's.
Do note - when I say "carry" I simply mean you aren't putting in as much effort as you can.

I don't really see any excuse to only use V's in safe slots these days.. Especially considering they are so cheap now (100k per, worst case on my server).
If you don't have the gil to spend on them, then they are easily obtainable through roulettes (if you have a tank at 60+) and hunts.

Why opt-out on free stats? It's honestly very little effort to meld properly these days.

• For learning, you're good to go with tome gear and nothing else. Rule of thumb: when x IL required, x+10 makes things much more easy;
• If you know mechanics and don't mess anything, you're good to make the kill;
• If you're on 90th and use melding, your kill will be faster. Some mechanic skip may also happen and kill will be more faster;
• More power always better. Fill that empty slots with useful stuff!

As they said, gear is not going to be a problem, specially in O1S and O2S, but there's no reason why you shouldn't try to go for VIs... Getting some VI materia is super easy with hunts or leveling roulette as a healer/tank.

If you've settled on AST as your main job, there's no reason for you to not meld VI on stuff that'll last you for a bit. Grade V is, imo, fine on the pieces you're planning to replace really fast though.

Last week I had a person I had to trick... I mean persuade to join us for OS1+ learning to get a full FC group. They only had one tank job at 70 and hadn't geared it at all since they were planning to main something entirely different. We got them to i318 and melded their gear with grade V direct hit materias. They managed fine (as off tank), and we cleard OS1 and OS2 and got to the end of book phase in OS3. :)

While you can complete both fights, I'd say it's still unacceptable. Even queueing in DF/RF I expect people to put in minimal effort - in this case, slot VI's. There's literally no reason not too.