Defilberating the Dead Horse

[Ibi]

You guys do realize that crafting has always been 20 ilevels behind 'poetic' gear, right? The main difference here is that we don't have accessories, but unless -all of you made money by selling accessories- back then, which I doubt just judging by Gilgamesh's old market, losing i180 accesories isn't the end of all time.

When i90 was the cap? i70 was the craft. i110? i90.

i130? You guessed it; i110. You are always losing primary stats in crafting selection for the goal of more substats that make up for it. For Tanking classes this might be a little unacceptable because 'moar defense', but everyone else? You still got a market, especially on belt, boots, pants, and helmet where you're sacrificing less main stats for the same number of materia slots. People are not going to be in full 200 for a while. They won't be in 210 for even longer.

When i90 was the cap, you could gear up through philosophy (i70) or the weekly capped myth (i90). Melded i70 was superior to philosophy (same primary stats, more secondary stats), so it was always worth wearing while acquiring i90 if you could afford it.

When i110 was the cap, you could gear up through myth (i90) or the weekly capped soldiery (i100, upgraded to i110 if you raided). Melded i90 was superior to myth (same primary stats, more secondary stats), and occasionally a viable alternative to soldiery (lower primary stats, more secondary stats), so, again, it was always worth wearing while acquiring i100/110 if you could afford it.

When i130 was the cap, you could gear up through soldiery (i100, upgraded to i110) or the weekly capped poetics (i120, upgraded to i130 if you raided). Melded i110 was superior to soldiery (same primary stats, more secondary stats), and occasionally a viable alternative to poetics (lower primary stats, more secondary stats), so, once again, it was always worth wearing while acquiring i120/130 if you could afford it.

Now, i210 is the cap. You can gear up through Law (i170, upgraded to i180), weekly capped Esoterics (i200, upgraded to i210 if you're a raider), or Alexander (i190). Melded i180 is superior to Law (same primary stats, more secondary stats), but because primary stat weights (as compared to secondary stats) are much higher in 3.0 than they were in 2.x, it's rarely a viable alternative to i190, and never a viable alternative to i200.

tl;dr:

- There's now a tier of gear available between the crafted gear and raid/weekly-limited tomes right from the start
- Primary stat weights being higher mean that crafted gear is considerably less competitive with higher ilvl gear than it was in the past