Quote Originally Posted by Demlix View Post
The AF gear is the basic armor to being end game / hard mode ready. They reward you this armor just for leveling and completing your job quests, and it's EASY for everyone to get. Do you think the best armor in game should just be given to everyone this easily? The stats on this gear are better than anything else I'd worn before it, and I'm pretty sure they give you this armor so you look like a BAMF (Bad Ass Mother Fucker) during cut scenes as you power through the final 8-man duties for the main story line.

Better gear will come from running actual endgame content, and I strongly feel that's the way it should be. Otherwise every Joe can get the best gear, and that ruins an MMO IMHO.
I think you are missing the point... We are not asking for AF to be the best gear in the game. What we mean is for AF (and other gear) to have it's job specific (or additional) special effects. Like for example, in 1.0 Bard hands (I think it was the hands) had a "increases ballad" effect on them which would increase the mana regenerated by ballad by a small amount.

Dragoon feet had the effect "enhances jump effects" which increased the damage of jumps.

AF wasn't the only armor to have effects like this too, the moogle weapons used to have some sort of hp regen per hit I believe as well.

All of this simply creates interesting variety in the gear. You still had gear tiers (you wouldn't use AF over darklight) but things were more interesting than simply x has higher stats than y. It also allowed you to gear according to your playstyle or a fight.

Like to support more as Bard than DPS? Use the AF hands.

Going as Dragoon against a boss you won't be able to melee as often as normal? Use Dragoon AF feet for the extra ranged jump damage.

Currently there's no variety like that. It's simply boring.