Suggestion: make materia melds give a small boost to iLV

[Sedant]

What they should do is allow you to meld an additional little bit of your main stat into pieces with slots. Nothing crazy mind you but an extra 2-3 INT/STR/DEX or whatever would do alot to making the materia market viable again. Otherwise 'nobody aint got time for dat!'

[darkstarpoet1]

i do find it strange that a nq vanya robe with no materia is considered the same piece of gear as a hq vanya robe with 5 high end max melds.

[C-croft]

Is there anything that even limits you from iLvl? A few pieces of DL gets you above the cap anyway right?

[darkstarpoet1]

Is there anything that even limits you from iLvl? A few pieces of DL gets you above the cap anyway right?

the cap for df yes, but as people are saying the pf groups require higher ilvl. say you have a full nq vanya set on your blm with no melds at all. as far as party finder is concerned you are just as geared as another blm that has the full set of vanya gear that's hq and every piece 5 melded. sure that other blm can do twice the dps you do because of being so much better geared, but the system doesn't take the overall stats into account at all.

[PArcher]

sure that other blm can do twice the dps you do because of being so much better geared

Some extra materia isn't going to suddenly double a person's DPS. If anything, they gain maybe 15-30 DPS if they get really good damage RNG (not counting things like Thundercloud procs, since the person with no melds can out-dps even someone Full i90 if they get really lucky with those and the better-geared person gets nothing) over someone with no melds, same rotations. If the non-melded person has bad rotations and the melded guy has good ones, then yeah, that makes a difference. But gear alone on the same ilv range is not going to make a big difference.

Gear without skill is worse than someone with "poor" gear but lots of skill. Don't know how many times I've been in a party with someone with good gear but bad rotations (like an i80-85 BLM barely doing 150 DPS on Turn 4, while an i70-75 BLM was pulling over 250 DPS; same group, same attempts)

[darkstarpoet1]

Some extra materia isn't going to suddenly double a person's DPS. If anything, they gain maybe 15-30 DPS if they get really good damage RNG (not counting things like Thundercloud procs, since the person with no melds can out-dps even someone Full i90 if they get really lucky with those and the better-geared person gets nothing) over someone with no melds, same rotations. If the non-melded person has bad rotations and the melded guy has good ones, then yeah, that makes a difference. But gear alone on the same ilv range is not going to make a big difference.

Gear without skill is worse than someone with "poor" gear but lots of skill. Don't know how many times I've been in a party with someone with good gear but bad rotations (like an i80-85 BLM barely doing 150 DPS on Turn 4, while an i70-75 BLM was pulling over 250 DPS; same group, same attempts)

incorrect. you can get much more than 15-30 dps more with melds and that's not even taking into account the good boosts from the hq gear main stats over the nq version. sure the 2x the dps is an exaggeration to state just the gear, but not once you take into account someone that took the time to 5 meld their gear will be more likely caring for that class over someone with basic nq gear. it's not a far stretch to think someone with good melds and hq gear will have taken more time to learn their rotations over someone with nq gear with 0 melds.

you mention a 70-75ilvl doing 250 dps, but didn't take into account if it was nq/hq melded/non-melded gear. if it was hq melded gear it is comparable to ilvl90 stats wise and parsing wise.

[Skyhound]

quote

What YOU are hinting it is short sighted. There is a reason that DL, Myth, and CT gear don't have materia slots. Penta-melded HQ crafted gear is equivalent or superior to CT gear. It is also the reason why iLVL requirements on content is so low, to allow crafted gear users into them.

Honestly, the crafting and market issues have been caused by the players. Simply because crafted gear isn't BiS, everyone has completely missed the point of their advantage. It's really quite sad.

[PArcher]

you mention a 70-75ilvl doing 250 dps, but didn't take into account if it was nq/hq melded/non-melded gear. if it was hq melded gear it is comparable to ilvl90 stats wise and parsing wise.

Except that's not true. Melds alone will not boost DPS by a lot unless a person is really lucky, especially on accessories where people will meld Accuracy and Vitality (acc is only useful in Coil, and VIT has no direct effect on DPS except in fights with unavoidable DPS).

The difference between NQ and HQ i70 is similar to the difference between i70 and i80...and no, crafted i70 (with very specific exceptions) is not near i90, just thanks to the primary attribute difference. Especially BiS i90. The only way it becomes somewhat comparable is if you ONLY have properly pentamelded i70 HQ and nothing else, and even then it falls short.

I own several properly melded i70 HQs. And they're slowly getting replaced as I get the i90 I want. And everytime I replace something my damage or healing only gets better.

Also, just because someone has pentamelded stuff doesn't mean they know what they're doing. You can buy melded equipment off the market or pay people to make the "best" i70 they can, especially now since materia and philo mat prices are really low.