Is Materia useless?

It seems like it almost serves no purpose considering all the gear worth having doesn't posses any slots. Not to mention that hardly anything can even be converted either. Now that old darklight cowl and boots can just idle away in my inventory because they now serve no purpose beyond taking up a slot in my bag.

I thought the idea behind Materia was to give players room for diversity among their jobs. One White Mage prefers stacking Spell Speed for swift casting in messy boss encounters, while the other prefers high crit chances for tank healing.

Though with the same stats, everyone is just like their neighbor and it feels a tad bit stale. I mean, it's certainly not game breaking but I admit that I feel a bit let down by Materia's lack of importance here in ARR.

Sadly, it seems crafted + Materia'd gear exists as a parallel solution to drops/AF/purchased greens/blues.

I'm pretty sure everything you hoped Materia could do (customize gear, etc.) can still be done with it, it just needs to be done on crafted gear instead (Vanya, etc.)

As a main crafter, I certainly have been passing everything in dungeons when I realized all greens couldn't be turned into useful materia. Heck, even wearing my level 45 AF pieces is annoying me, because I could be spiritbonding actually "useful" gear instead, and building my stack of materia for the day I make myself a full Vanya HQ set (That's.. not going to happen before a long time)

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Originally Posted by Docent

Sadly, it seems crafted + Materia'd gear exists as a parallel solution to drops/AF/purchased greens/blues.

I'm pretty sure everything you hoped Materia could do (customize gear, etc.) can still be done with it, it just needs to be done on crafted gear instead (Vanya, etc.)

As a main crafter, I certainly have been passing everything in dungeons when I realized all greens couldn't be turned into useful materia. Heck, even wearing my level 45 AF pieces is annoying me, because I could be spiritbonding actually "useful" gear instead, and building my stack of materia for the day I make myself a full Vanya HQ set (That's.. not going to happen before a long time)

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Wait til you look at how much a full set of Vanya, or the others cost, compared to just getting Darklight. Most pieces need 9 of the Tomestone bought items, some need 18. And those are 125 a pop. THEN you have the ilvl 90 items from Mythology and Coil, Crafted items only hit ilvl 70.

Oh, I know full well the cost. Good thing I'm a healer, and am ready to run the dungeon millions of times if needed. AFAIK, there's no cap on those tomestones, just mythology, right?

I'll get my full HQ Vanya set, if it's the last thing I do on earth.

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Originally Posted by Docent

Oh, I know full well the cost. Good thing I'm a healer, and am ready to run the dungeon millions of times if needed. AFAIK, there's no cap on those tomestones, just mythology, right?

I'll get my full HQ Vanya set, if it's the last thing I do on earth.

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For most people it's the effort required for minimal gain over DL. Gotta buy the items first of all, with costs more than any single DL piece. Gotta get a crafter built up to the level to even MAKE the gear. And then you want it HQ so it has the same base stats DL would and your materia can go to other things.

Yep, and that means HQing my Weaver outfit, and getting the materia, and HQ panfried Mahi-Mahi, and luck on the craft and sub-crafts! But I'm ready to go very far for that outfit, and I'm ready for a lot of sacrifices (such as leveling botany and gathering lots and lots of HQ crawler cocoons in my free time)

I haven't socket one piece yet. Then again, my crafting isn't high enough. I was thinking about stopping my leveling to get the crafts higher...but yeah, thanks for this post :)

SE needs to drop some raid gear with slots maybe.

Materia is so expensive. are you real feel they are useless? crafting actually bring best DPS gear with best unique look into the game since they have socket there. you can melt +40 STR(10,10,7,7,4,2) into a piece of gear with two sockets. none of lvl90 gear has that attribute with 40+ STR since they don't have any socket. that's big different. if you looking for best gear,that's crafting gear with tons of materia melted in. not darklight, not artifact+1. but can your gil offer that?

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Originally Posted by neoreturn

Materia is so expensive. are you real feel they are useless? crafting actually bring best DPS gear with best unique look into the game since they have socket there. you can melt +40 STR(10,10,7,7,4,2) into a piece of gear with two sockets. none of lvl90 gear has that attribute with 40+ STR since they don't have any socket. that's big different. if you looking for best gear,that's crafting gear with tons of materia melted in. not darklight, not artifact+1. but can your gil offer that?

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Except you can't do that. The stats on an item and its ilvl will make a cap on a stat. If you had a HQ ilvl 55 Lance for example, any STR Materia you try to put on it will give you ZERO.