What exactly is the penalty for wearing non-optimal gear for your rank?

[Physic]

From what I understand, you are equipping an item of higher rank, and noticing that it's giving you less stats than what's listed on the item itself, correct? Of course that happens, I never said it didn't.

What you need to understand is, despite the "high decrease in stats" from the listed stats on the item to the actual stats given to you on the character sheet, that the high rank item is still comparable or better than an optimal rank item giving 100% of it's listed item stats to your character sheet.

And of course I've tested on more than just two items, the ones I mentioned were just an example I used to show how the game scales gear.



I did exactly this, and my findings were as I said in my original post. If you use gear of the same type, such as a Scouting Jacket and Harrier's Jacket, you will get the same stats from either on the character sheet.

I have even personally tested the R1 Weathered Bone Hora vs the R50 Jade Hora and as a R1 PUG, and I can say with certainty that the Jade Hora was in no way inferior despite it's massive reduction in stats from those listed to what actually is given on the character sheet.

by an large, you are wrong, and he is right. comparing bone hora is no good, because bone horas stats suck greatly for their level.
It is kind of like you say, but you are usually best off wearing something that is your level, unless the peice you are equiping is way better than everything else in its class. IE you have a really special peice of gear that even weakened, is still better. But that wont change the degradation factor at all.

basically it works like this.
your a level 10 monk, the level 10 weapon is the best weapon, unless you are comparing it to a +3 of higher rank, but the +3 level weapon is still the best weapon. The high rank weapon would however most likely beat a level 6 weapon, if you were level 10.

gear that is non favored is really bad, its a huge drop in stats, you ld be better off wearing gear like 6 to 7 levels below you usually in terms of def and evasion.

And yes i have tested it out. like i said, bone hora wasnt a good test, because it is essentially a more garbage peice of gear than anything else no matter what.
this is ingame data right now
48 pugilist
op level 50 jade hora actual stat bonus 125 attack 144 acc
op level 46 crabshell hora actual stat bonus 130 attack 146 acc.

op level 42 iron bagnaks actual 127 attack 142 acc,
so even something 6 levels lower is comparable to something only two levels higher.

right now im am perfectly leveled between the two gears, and the level 46 one is still the better of the two. The level 50 one will also degrade way faster. there is no logical reason for me to use jade unless i just cant find or hate the look of crabshell, this is accurate for most gear.

un favored is way worse
level 35 lnc
kokoroons level 35 actual defense on body 139 evasion 48
toadskin harness level 43 actual defense on body 88 evasion 44

They need to make the optimal/favored downgrade more easily seen, but its there, and its signifigant, 90% of the time you are always better off wearing something 4 to 5 levels below you level than wearing something above it. and its a noticeable difference. Going outside of favored offeres drastic penalties, and gives you only token stats.