The Illusion of Choice

[Jetstream_Fox]

Borderlands and destiny mmo? That's like saying warfare is mmo. So no.
The problem with ''choice'' you mentioned, the weapons. One of the weapons will always be better. Weapon dmg> If you lets say have ilvl 220 but raid weapon is ilvl 230 and you obtain it, you rather use that, because weapon dmg> all. That's not a choice, that's something you want/have to use.

Interesting. Because I'm pretty sure I said it has elements that are present in mmos, not that it is a true mmo. Diablo and Borderlands all have lobbies, bank systems, raiding, trading, pvp and character builds. These are Elena that generally are found in mmos like this one we play.

As for your example using this game I roll BRD and I have the 210 relic pants and the 200 Void Ark pants, but guess which one I use, the Void Ark pants. Why? Because it has crit rate and the relic pants have a ridiculous unnecessary amount of accuracy. So for me I take the crit rate, simply because something appears to be better doesn't mean it is.

Let me explain that, just because a weapon maybe better because it has high damage doesn't mean it works in every situation, if you actual played Diablo or Borderlands in depth, you'd understand that. In those games enemies have resistances to elements and overall damage, just because you have a gun that does 500 base damage doesn't mean you'll be doing more damage. The enemy might have a weakness to poison that grants 100 extra damage, so using that poison weapon that has 250 base damage and 150 poison on this said enemy with a poison damage debuff of 100 would total out your overall damage to 550 instead of just 500 using that weapon with 500 base damage.

This game doesn't offer anything like that but gives up the option to build on our stats to a very small portion by mixing and matching gear sets. Which is where the choice of the player comes into light, you can roll a full raid set or a full relic set and that's completely fine, but you also have the choice to use all the gear out of each gear table to customize your stats. Which is what end game players have done since T5.

[Seraphix2407]

This game doesn't offer anything like that but gives up the option to build on our stats to a very small portion by mixing and matching gear sets. Which is where the choice of the player comes into light, you can roll a full raid set or a full relic set and that's completely fine, but you also have the choice to use all the gear out of each gear table to customize your stats. Which is what end game players have done since T5.

Yes it's true what end game players have done since t5, they prefer stats over the ilvl (if it does improve your dps) But when it comes to weapons, no. Never did some one pick up a less weapon dmg weapon over a weapon with less dmg on it and better stats for the class.
This is only gear and I can see and understand why. I do own the VA pants for brd and I do also own the gear from diadem, and its giving me crit and det and acc, so those are better, including the 9 dex is also great. Ive done all raids and honestly never seen some one ever pick up a weapon with less weapon dmg over the other one because it has better stats. This isn't diabolo or borderlands, you cant compare how weapons works here vs the other games. If it did something what borderlands do, then I can see why, but it doesn't. I see your point, but comparing how weapons work in this game vs borderlands isn't something you can do. The gear setup in FF14 is linear, it really is. You slightly have some choices but they aren't that great or big deal to make it unique for each players.

[Reynhart]

Yes it's true what end game players have done since t5, they prefer stats over the ilvl (if it does improve your dps) But when it comes to weapons, no. Never did some one pick up a less weapon dmg weapon over a weapon with less dmg on it and better stats for the class.

It's mostly because WD trumps main stats, which, in turn, trump secondary stats.
BUT, we're seeing that now between Thordan weapons and Anima. Having only 5 lvl more doesn't compensate bad itemization.

[Seraphix2407]

It's mostly because WD trumps main stats, which, in turn, trump secondary stats.
BUT, we're seeing that now between Thordan weapons and Anima. Having only 5 lvl more doesn't compensate bad itemization.

For BRD and MCH the only difference is the main stats and different secondary stats. Id say thordan gun is better than the relic weapon for MCH. The ilvl 210 is still better than 205, 1 more weapon dmg and some extra stats.

[Reynhart]

For BRD and MCH the only difference is the main stats and different secondary stats. Id say thordan gun is better than the relic weapon for MCH. The ilvl 210 is still better than 205, 1 more weapon dmg and some extra stats.

For PLD, I'm really not sure if "1 WD, 3 STR and 3 Deter" makes up for "49 Crit" between Hauteclaire and Sword Of The Heavens...because who cares about the 51 parry

[Seraphix2407]

For PLD, I'm really not sure if "1 WD, 3 STR and 3 Deter" makes up for "49 Crit" between Hauteclaire and Sword Of The Heavens...because who cares about the 51 parry

It does, it wipes out the parry and the crit. Crit is RNG. Weapon dmg isnt.

[Kaurie]

For PLD, I'm really not sure if "1 WD, 3 STR and 3 Deter" makes up for "49 Crit" between Hauteclaire and Sword Of The Heavens...because who cares about the 51 parry

Generally speaking, WD is anywhere from 50-100x more important than any secondary stat, and the main stat is anywhere from 5-10x more important. In this case at the very least, 1 WD and 3 STR = 65 and is as high as 130 CRIT. So yes, "1 WD, 3 STR and 3 Deter" makes up for "49 Crit".

PLD I imagine would have higher weights for STR/WD than CRIT solely because CRIT doesn't give them anything special (such as 2x adlo shielding on SCH or bloodletter procs on BRD).

EDIT: I also wanted to add that though the first is superior, the difference is negligible. I upgraded my SMN book from 200 to 210, raising 3 WD levels among other things. I put out an awesome 10 DPS More from 1333 to 1343. If you set everything to their individual stat weights, then we are all sitting in the mid 3000's of the main stat (roughly, I am 3445 or so). So upping 1 WD 3 STR would up that a total of ~13-15 of your main stat or give you a 0.4% increase to your damage. To put 0.4% in perspective, if you do 800 DPS on your PLD, then it will up to 803.