Materia and End Game gear

I noticed none of the end game gear has materia slot. So what's the point of materia ?
Is there something I am missing ?

Materia is supposed to be filler between raid sets.

Like currently, the lvl70 items(darksteel, gryphonskin) with 3 melds are about the same if not better than Darklight(sold from Rowena, not drops from WP).
Allagan and AF2 is better than that.

So the progression would kind of go like this
lvl55 -> Darklight(70) -> lvl70 w/ melds -> Allagan/AF2(90)

The lvl 70 crafted gear has far less defense than the lvl 55 AF (or the vermilion from wanderer's) so, for any other job I get how much better it is, since you get way more stats, but would you still say it's better for a tank ?
Would you say losing 17.4% defense while gaining 10 materia slot is still better while tanking ? And compared to Vermilion gear that has slightly higher def and stats ?

It's all about the HQs. HQ heavy darksteel armor body and legs parts are 14 resp. 17 defense points ahead of AF1.

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Originally Posted by ShouNamara

It's all about the HQs. HQ heavy darksteel armor body and legs parts are 14 resp. 17 defense points ahead of AF1.

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9 Cokes...

^My point still stands. It's a grind because it's the best gear in game pre raid. Plus 9 cokes are still cheaper than buying the darklight equivalent. It's a win win