More interesting loot please! Here are some ideas!

[Teuciont]

This whole assumption that you'll need X piece of gear to do content is completely unfounded and I can't think of any situation in any MMO I've played that it's actually happened. It's an attitude like this, one grounded in inexperienced assumptions, that's going to keep this game bland.

[StouterTaru]

Gear currently has a 6 month lifespan. It would be nice to have a few pieces that are strong enough to survive a year, and be better than something 20 ilvls higher or more.

For example at current rates, each ilvl170 accessory will be very close to 4% of your main stat. Give an ilvl170 accessory +4% to main stat, and some nifty extra whatever. When you upgrade the rest of your gear it gains the main stat, but not fast enough to keep the main stat on par with new gear. The extra effect is enough to make it powerful right away, then viable through a couple upgrades.

[Songi]

I'm really hoping for stuff like this to happen in Heavensward. I will be very upset when things remain the exact same way they've been since 2.0 launch.

[LineageRazor]

This whole assumption that you'll need X piece of gear to do content is completely unfounded and I can't think of any situation in any MMO I've played that it's actually happened. It's an attitude like this, one grounded in inexperienced assumptions, that's going to keep this game bland.

In FFXI, I remember seeing a player trying to build experience parties who would ONLY allow Warriors using Bravura (the top-of-the line greataxe). While, admittedly, such an experience party would have been ridiculously awesome, the number of Bravura WARs on a given server at the time could be counted on your fingers. That's the only time I'd ever seen someone excluded from content for not possessing a specific piece of gear - and really, everyone regarded that person as a lunatic, and probably a troll. This was in spite of the fact that horizontal progression had MANY examples of gear with unique and distinctly useful stats, such as Refresh and Cure Potency on Noble's Tunic (for a long while the best WHM body piece in the game).

I do hope that SE decides to get a bit more adventurous in equipment attributes as we start to get into the expansions.

[kyuven]

Uh huh... you never played FFXI did you? Most of the higher level gear had unique effects, and we rarely ever had problems with one person needing a specific equip. The reason why is pretty simple, it's because there was plenty of other OPTIONS available which were just as good.

And do you remember how people would devise macros for switching gear mid-battle, going so far as to switch gear between attacks?
FFXI had a lot of "interesting" stats but it eventually ran into the same problems as EQ, compounded with numerous other issues.
There's a really good reason we can't switch equipment in combat.
In addition, inventory space in this game is limited as it is. Starting with this expansion, there will be precise one fewer jobs/classes than there are Armoury inventory slots. Having more "options" for gear, even in cases when it's not necessary.
In addition, many stats from FFXI simply aren't necessary in FFXIV:
Let's take your examples:
Gear which enhanced particular weapon skills: We don't have weapon skills. Even WoW got rid of these.
Gear which enhanced cure potency: Determination does that already.
Gear which could give you an advantage over a certain type of monster: Maybe, but do you really want to haul around 40 different items for each type of monster? Also, bosses in the game wouldn't be typed anyway to prevent exploiting this.
Gear which could refresh your mana: Again, superfluous since mana/TP regeneration is closely managed. FFXI was much slower paced and could get away with this, XIV is faster paced and thus we actually regenerate it faster in combat than XI did while out of combat. This is before getting into how certain classes have their own means of mana generation that having regen items would mess with. A BLM, for example, would basically be REQUIRED to get these items.
Gear which could regen your health: Again, useless since we regenerate health so quickly on our own, and unless it's a LOT of HP per tick, it's not going to make a difference. And since many boss fights rely on mechanics that involve DoTs, this would have item-select forcing akin to the BLM example.

Basically, FFXI's gear with unique effects was a means to let characters become stronger, since there were certain things in the game that NEEDED to become stronger, but none of the stats covered it. I'd even argue that many of these were superfluous within the game itself.

This whole assumption that you'll need X piece of gear to do content is completely unfounded and I can't think of any situation in any MMO I've played that it's actually happened. It's an attitude like this, one grounded in inexperienced assumptions, that's going to keep this game bland.

In EQ1 there were at least two major examples:
1) "Clicky" items. If you didn't have an item (and i mean it, "an item." You had a lot of choices in this regard. All of them expensive.) you could right-click to gain a temporary buff, you were useless in a raid. This was because the developers had a hard-on for giving bosses AOE dispels, and losing your buffs meant losing the fight. Having "junk buffs" was a way to mitigate this. No clicky, no raid.
2) The cleric epic weapon. Many epic weapons (the equivalent of XI and XIV's relic and zodiac weapons) ranged in usefulness from "pretty nice" to "only useful for the stats." The cleric epic, however, was a completely different animal: It gave a mana-free 96% exp restoring resurrection when right clicked. In a game where you could lose a day's worth of exp in a single death, it was incredibly useful. Being able to use it in combat (since EQ didn't have a distinction between "in combat" and "out of combat" at the time) made it indispensable. As in literally. You weren't considered a "real" cleric without it. And considering only one of these could enter the game per week, it was pretty rough being a cleric back then. It got so bad that when they added "AA points" (think XI's capacity points) one of the first ones they added was an insta-cast rez spell. The cleric epic was STILL better since it didn't have a recast time.

[Felis]

Put those effects on special materia and you have my ok ^^
To get those materias it can be something like spiritbinding primal weapons.

[StrejdaTom]

I really like the idea, it might gate some people from raid content as Alexander, because I can see statics recruiting only equipped people but I dont think there is anything wrong with that. Everyone would have a chance to get these items before participating in raids.

[randysquirrel]

Current gear is very boring

I like the idea of having additional effects on gear, but IMO it shouldn't be anything groundbreaking, just something to make it a bit more fun. a 5% chance that my fire proc will give a flare proc

[Gilraen]

Gear in 1.0 had special effects like what the first post described. Not exactly like it, but they had special effects. White Mage AF pieces had boosts to healing potency, regen duration... in fact, all but one piece of AF was desirable over crafted because these special effects. Yoshida, though, didn't want players to be locked to a specific few pieces of gear like they were in 1.0, and what is normal in XI. So, he had the gear benefits reduced to just stat boosts, so people could wear whatever and still be viable in their roles. Whether this is the case or not is open to debate (the iL people versus the stats people) but there is no one gear set to rule them all. Would I like to see the return of special gear effects... sort of, but only if it's done in a way that it doesn't invalidate what we have now. Otherwise, no thank you.

[Kiara]

I totally agree with the OP's request:

* Yoshi P, please add in more Gear with Unique Stats / Special Enhancements in 3.0.

The current Itemization in this game is absolutely the MOST BORING gear I've ever run across in any MMO / RPG I've played.

If we keep this up, your Item Level 700 Gear is - "surprise" - going to be... just more +VIT and more +[Main Stat].

There's no suspense, or interest at all when new Patch Notes come out for New Gear. We KNOW what it is (just higher amounts of the same core stats).

For those complaining that you'll be "forced" to carry around multiple sets, that's not true. As Lemuria and Stouter and others have said, it depends on how it's *Balanced*.

In fact, right now, players with lots of Gil can drop Millions to get...

* Platinum HQ Jewelry and Penta-Meld it with 5 Materia. This *does* make a small difference (but only to various same stats we have in all our gear).

I've NEVER seen a SINGLE Party exclude or kick people because, "Must Have All Platinum HQ Jewelry Penta-Melded or KICK!"

It just depends on how it's balanced.

Consider interesting stuff like having a 3.0 piece of gear that:

* Counterattack +1% - Chance to Counterattack after being hit. That 1% would NOT be "game breaking" and ruin any Boss Fight.

* Enhances Rampart - Allows Rampart to be applied to all players within 5 yalms (AOE) of the user. Again, NOT "game breaking" at all. It just reduces the stress of Healers by a little bit (and maybe instead of *1* extra Heal every few minutes, they might throw in *1* Attack Spell (gasp!)). And this effect was actually thoroughly tested and used by the players in 1.0 (and it was great).

These are just quick ideas, but they wouldn't "break" any Raid nor be too OP, force anyone to HAVE to use it.

Having more Unique Stats / Effects and Horizontal Progression would make it so there's more VARIETY of gear per "Item Level" (wider range of stuff to try for), and REDUCE the stupid Item Level Inflation we have now. It actually let's the Dev Team not have to force out (and invalidate) all Top Gear every ~5 - 6 months.

Thanks.