Help with Materia Changes

So, firstly apologies for the noob style question...

I am devoted tank but casual-ish player, I have nothing to do with crafting or synthesizing materia etc - I get all my stuff from the market boards to boost my str/vit etc to firm up my tank (which is right, right?)

How is 5.0 going to change how I manage my stats and keep my tank solid??

Thanks in advance

The major change is that we no longer meld strength. Other than that everything else will depend on the gear we have, after hitting our skill speed break points, but it is early to know what to meld without having a gear set.

So just focus on gear stats then?

I'm obviously clueless as don't even know what you mean by skill speed points.

How I've gotten this far is beyond me.

Don't worry too much about them,
Almost all defensive aspect comes from the gear (defense + vit)
You can be a little more tanky at the cost of damage by using Tenacity materia but most player would tell you its not worth the damage lost.
Materia wise nothing changes really, just more stats on them to accomodate the increased number of stats on the gear and keep them relevant.

Unless you're doing top tier raiding and concerned with 0.03% increase in dps, just add the highest level materia the gear will take to all the empty slots. Red materia, skill speed, and battledance are all fine.

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Originally Posted by Danman87

So just focus on gear stats then?

I'm obviously clueless as don't even know what you mean by skill speed points.

How I've gotten this far is beyond me.

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Yes, based on what we are told the changes are you mainly just need to worry about obtaining gear, the materia system is a distant second. If you are interested in learning more about job optimization, there are a few online tools and communities focused on making guides and rotations and even best in slot gear. Best of all they are all free.

Skill speed points are values of the GCD that allow you to safely hit, for example, 5 moves in a 10 second buff. This is more important on jobs like dark knight and warrior, and less important on paladin. On paladin it is possible to get 11 GCD's into fight or flight. As someone else mentions this is mostly for people who raid, this game is about accessibility so no one assumes you are melding unless you are doing savage or ultimate content. Though the gains are more than .03%.

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Originally Posted by Danman87

How is 5.0 going to change how I manage my stats and keep my tank solid??

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Basically, you no longer need to care about Str/Vit materia.

Your only concern will be Crit, Direct Hit, Determination, Skill Speed and Tenacity.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Danman87

I'm obviously clueless as don't even know what you mean by skill speed points.

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Skill speed break points refers to the amount of Skill Speed that one needs to have in order for their rotation to be optimized.

For example, a Warrior wants enough to be able to use Fell Cleave 5 times during Inner Release. So it wants enough SkS to offset their ping and enable them to do so.

If you want to just keep things simple, just prioritize Crit > Direct Hit > Determination. Based on what you can put onto your gear (Since each item has a maximum amount of points it can have in a stat). Since you'll often get enough innate SkS to cover the break points if you're not min/maxing gear.

Awesome- thanks for clarifying!!