Why No Melds?

[Dumbledoremd]

Im waiting until i can upgrade the new vendor gear using the new tower like they did with weeping city

[HyoMinPark]

I think the decision to meld (or not to meld) should just be left up to the player. Some don't want to meld, some meld tier IV, some meld tier V, some pentameld tier V. I don't raid, but I recently got into melding, and yeah, maybe it's not a significant DPS increase or whatever, but I feel like I do more with the melds (plus I love seeing that 1,000+ crit when I look at my BRD XD). I couldn't do full tier V on my augmented lore, but I plan to do full tier V on at least BRD and DRK since those are the two jobs I main. I have plenty of potsherds saved up to help, and Gil doesn't really matter to me to the point where I am torn between melding and selling. I used to always sell my weekly tier V back when they came from VA, but now I'm happy with using them, even if it is only temporary. I play enough to at least make them worth the 3 months between patches (my opinion here).

Just let people who meld, meld, and those who don't, well, let them too. To each their own. :3

Edit: I don't do Savage content, but I have been getting more into EX primals, and been considering testing out some Savage. However, when I started melding, I wasn't doing savage or EX primals. XD

And I do question the usefulness of the elemental materia. But for some reason the tier V's sell for around 50k a piece for some on my server and I have gotten a lot of them from PotD so. Guess that works. XD

[Dzian]

How many times, especially in PUGs, have you wiped on a boss at 1%? 2%? 3? 10? That's why I meld my gear. I can't always rely on PUGs to be half competent, so I meld my gear because not only do I enjoy it, it also lessens how dependent on randoms I am.

I'm my experience most of those 1-3% wipes are from things that wouldn't really be aided by material. It's things like no one standing on the pads to catch meteors or something mechanical like that.

My last wipe was in a7 normal yesterday for tails. And the reason for the wipe was simply that everyone ignored the hearts and stuck on the boss.

No amount of melding will really prevent those wipes happening.

[LunarEmerald]

Yae cause the pesky mobs have to die few seconds earlier....

With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

[Evangela]

The new raids don't have any deadly dps check so I think we don't need to meld materia anymore. I did it for i240 gears but will probably not doing it this patch.

[Zojha]

With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

So far, you also needed it to access the next level of alexander right off the bat - Creator was 230, Midas 200. That's full tome equip with 1 upgrade to balance out the ring. Sophia NM also needed 220, so you need at least Proto-Midan gear. Not the same with scripture, tho, unless they make MSQ trials or sth dependent on it down the line.

[Atoli]

With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

SE sets item level requirements to enter content. If we don't meet those requirements, we can't enter (or at least not in a non-premade).
So yes, there is a reason to raise the item level, but there is no reason (for a person who does not raid) to go for BiS and melds other than to kill things slightly faster.


I'm also amused people keep saying "tier 4 is free, you get them from beast tribes", completely ignoring the incredible amount of time it takes to even rank up beasttribes in the first place.
I have not even one of the ARR tribes ranked up (except for Ixal, which are a bit special since they are for crafters/gatherers) so I get absolutely no "free" materia at all.
Even if I started ranking them up now, I can raise one by 15 points per day. 15 out of 150. That's already half a month just to reach rank 2 on ONE tribe, assuming I can play everyday.
Not even starting on how long it will take to reach a rank on which their daily quests reward tokens/materia
And that is assuming I want to do said content at all. Now you want to force me into content I do not want to do just so you can sleep in peace, knowing every player on every server has at least tier 4 materia in all of their gear?

NOTHING in this game is free. You get rewarded for an effort you already put in in the past, that's all. So stop saying you get it for free when it's not.

[whiteblade89]

I don't meld materia to gear that either isn't upgradable, or isn't already upgraded. It's a waste to meld those pieces, but then again the gain is marginal at best. I don't do savage raids, but I like killing shit quickly. That's my bag. That's why I meld, but it's all optional anyway. I can't for the life of me understand why these forums are chalk full of people who are so concerned with what others are doing or not doing. For Gordias savage, I see why melds would be required. But all the new content (save for creator savage, not sure how that stacks up yet) can be cleared efficiently without materia.

[SpookyGhost]

With that philosophy then there's no reason to buy better gear at all. Who needs scripture weapons and gear? All it does is make the mobs die a few seconds faster...

To be absolutely fair, we're talking about secondary stats here - they do contribute to a very small DPS gain and are only absolutely necessary in prog raiding (and even then you'd have to be going for world first on a tightly tuned tier). Main stat is far more impactful, and especially Weapon Damage. I personally have most of the old 2.0 dailies maxed out so it's not too much trouble for me to get any IV materia I need, but I also recognize that not everyone's in the same position I am. If I didn't have a lot of gil and I didn't have access to these dailies then I probably wouldn't bother to meld my gear, especially if I'm not raiding. I guess it largely depends on how much time you have to devote to the game.

[Fyce]

The irony with people who sell their materias on the market boards instead of melding few of them is that, not only they think their Gils are more important than raising the chances of succeeding for their whole party, but the ones who buy these materias are the players who do care.
In short, not only these caring players have to carry the greedy ones, but they also give them Gils to do so.