Please don't make the new unique gear use capped tomes

[Felis]

AF gear should be quested by job quests again.

I think the i55 gear was supposed to be an exception, not the rule,

It was supossed to be the rule since they came ingame during 1.20

[Morningstar1337]

It was supossed to be the rule since they came ingame during 1.20

And yet, AST, MCH and DRK didn't get any AF gear from quests like the 2.0 Jobs. Instead of getting to 50 to get their iconic look they have to get to 60 AND grind tomestones. That suggests at the very least a paradigm shift regarding how SE thinks players should get the AF gearsets.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not against the idea of making the AF gearsets easier to get, but I get the feeling that Heavensward is supposed to be a refinement of the trends they employed during A Realm Reborn and thus a template base future expansions on. As evidenced by the arrival of new content types and the more organized structures of other content (such as all the tome gear being upgradable instead of just the last two tiers, 1 new trial and 2 new dungeons per patch and that The Anima weapon is wholly devoted to old and easy content form the get go as opposed to the Relic starting with 2 brand new trials and 3 then current ones followed by a capped tome grind) compared to 2.X. And that it means that the AF gear will be the second tier of toemstones and will not be obtained from quests until maybe the expansion after.

A related note would be in the prelude to Heavensward. The AF 1.5 gear (Mythology) was given as part of Job quests. The ilevel of said gear would be equal to the entry level for the 3 toughest dungeosn, meaning that all a playter would need are assessories to be able to access all the dungeons. Heavensward's AF2 Gear in comparison is i200-210, that means the gear is at the entry level for the current entry dungeons, not the 3.5 ones. And also that means they can go only as far as Sohr Khai and Hullbreaker HM without the respective accessories. The Job quests giving out Tome gear (and the MSQ giving the higher ilevel versions) is the final trend that we don't know if the devs are gonna uphold or break.

[Welsper59]

I'm not against the idea of making the AF gearsets easier to get, but I get the feeling that Heavensward is supposed to be a refinement of the trends they employed during A Realm Reborn and thus a template base future expansions on.

I'd wager you're right and wrong on that. During HW's era, that was likely either doing their own thing when they had no real plan regarding AF, or an attempt to break from what it was in ARR. With that said, it stands to reason that it's not set in stone on how they plan to do it. We might see it go back to ARR style, stay HW-like, or be something different not found in either eras.