Is it wrong to run Castrum Abania as a tank at ilvl 272

[Fynlar]

The developers give players upgraded gear for a reason. It’s not just for resell or GC Seals.

Opinion.

My take on it is more like, why would they make the quests give sellable gear if they didn't expect some people to sell it instead? Wouldn't they have just made it untradeable like the dungeon gear if that was their intent?

[whiskeybravo]

I have a very good question: why is this thread still alive?

Because we're better healers than the OP had in his dungeon run

[KaivaC]

Because we're better healers than the OP had in his dungeon run

Exactly. You and Fynlar are probably good players. I said it a few pages back, but I'll state it here again - the average playerbase in NA are not good. Of course a good player is going to know what to do, even while undergeared. Can you really say that the average DF player is going to be able to rotate their defensive cooldowns properly (and know when to use their immunities when they take an unexpected crit from a mob), know when to properly throw out a big heal, know when to stun a particularly nasty enemy in a mob, do things that experienced player would already know how to do? There are a disturbing number of players who won't use a cooldown til they are at about 30% health and will not use convalescence. There are players who do not use swiftcast for those emergency heals to avoid the cast time, or do not use Largesse. I mean, hell, we still have players in Expert Roulette who don't ever use simple buffs like Heavy Thrust, Hotshot, Straight Shot, Riddle of Fire, etc. At the very least, being properly geared mitigates some of the problems.

[Iscah]

Not really the same but I used Aug Shire on most of my classes until lvl 66, where I replaced by crafted HQ gear (made by myself). When I leveled my tanks, I already had most of the Bardam, Doma and Abania sets complete for them. If I was missing a piece, I'd complement it with crafted gear.

This was my approach too. I was taking HQ healer gear from most of the Stormblood quest rewards, also keeping my main summoner geared*, and leveled my WHM mostly through roulettes - which usually sent me to Stormblood dungeons. Then other healers and casters using the equipment I had on hand from those, and by that point I must have had a decent mixed collection of SB gear for other classes that I'd won from dungeons.

*I honestly can't remember what I did with my summoner gear exactly. I was taking healer rather than caster gear as quest rewards because it's more important for healers to be well-geared than DPS, but generally ran dungeons "for the story" as summoner so I wanted that to be well-geared too. I think I was buying vendor gear if it seemed like a decent improvement on my current equipment, but not if it was just a matter of a few points. (Vendor gear does tend to have lower stats than dungeon gear of the same ilevel.)

When it came to raising my tanks, I did spend the extra money on getting properly geared. It's a responsibility and I wanted to make sure I'm as ready as I can be.

(Also I do have to confess to taking my Shire weapon into Castrum as AST, but that was an oversight as I was in the mindset that I already have all my healer gear sorted and don't need to buy anything new for another healer! I think I made someone ragequit after a few wipes and I won't do that again.)

I haven't read every comment but the OP did not elaborate on their exact gear set, so everybody is just assuming worst case scenario?

I don't think much of the discussion has been focused on what the OP was wearing at all.

People have mostly been arguing against Fynlar's insistence that the i270 gear is fine all the way up to Castrum Abania.

Also the repeated argument that it's fine "because the game lets you do it" versus the fact that it also lets you queue wearing glamour gear, so that can't be used as proof that it's acceptable.

Story gives you hq gear but you only get one crack at it. For all your other roles its fairly expensive and in the case of the op, impractical at that stage--it was one of the rare times Leveling spits out a level-appropriate dungeon. They didn't que for it on purpose. Shame on them I suppose, but I've also grinded SB dungeons for gear (for other roles) only to get nothing over 59 doing roulettes. Its an annoyance but just one of the many curveballs DF likes to throw our way.

I think tanks are particularly likely to end up in high-level dungeons for the roulette - if people are queuing for those dungeons specifically and need a tank, you'll get roped into that. The higher level the dungeon, the less people in the roulette queue are eligible to help.

One way to work around the risk of paying for up-to-date equipment and then having that investment wasted in low-level dungeons, is to buy the gear but not equip it. (Though you may want to equip, apply glamours and then revert to your other gear. This doesn't bind the item to you.) Then IF you get a high-level dungeon in the roulette, you open your menu, "equip recommended gear" and you're all set. If not, keep using your other gear, and resell the purchased gear if you get to Lv70 without ever needing it.

Opinion.

My take on it is more like, why would they make the quests give sellable gear if they didn't expect some people to sell it instead? Wouldn't they have just made it untradeable like the dungeon gear if that was their intent?

They probably can't make it unsellable without making an entirely new set of gear that's programmed to be unsellable. It's sellable because it's craftable gear. Though I suppose NPCs could give out dungeon gear instead, if it made sense in the context.

It could also allow for players to sell gear if they actually didn't need it - say they're only raising the one class, or they only like playing mages so all they need is caster/healer gear. What are they going to do with the quest rewards that give them a choice of fending/maiming/striking/scouting armour? Take those and sell them, while making use of the free gear they can use.

Ultimately it seems like we make so much money over the course of this game. Even if I'm not making an effort to earn money, my gil total just keeps going up and up from roulette rewards and challenge log bonuses.

I try to remind myself to not be stingy about in-game prices because long-term I won't even pay attention to it. I still remember, not that long ago, when it was a massive investment for me to pay 300,000 gil for that expensive-but-gorgeous High Allagan coat. Now that seems quite cheap (but still gorgeous) and I wouldn't even hesitate to pay that amount.

The amount you can sell that gear for is pretty small in the long-term scheme of things, versus being better geared here and now where the game is handing you up-to-date equipment for free. I think there's a natural tendency to cringe as you equip it and think "I could be making money out of this" but ultimately it's gear that the game expects you to be equipping at this point, and in the end it's such a forgettable thing. I'd much rather be sure I'm supporting the people I'm playing with than have a slightly bigger number in the corner of my screen.

[Nestama]

If you don't know how to play your job by this point in the game (which is already unacceptable for a multitude of reasons), you're going to lose hate and die no matter what you're wearing. That's a fault of you not knowing how to play the game, not your gear.

No doubt, but with better gear, it'd take a fair bit before a DPS/healer grabs hate, whereas it would be almost immediate on lower gear, especially the weapon.
It's a "bandage" that (puts you at the ilevel SE expects you to be) makes life for the healer and DPS (and even the tank themselves) easier... and less likely to have the tank instantly thrown onto three players blacklist once the dungeon is over.

[Fynlar]

No doubt, but with better gear, it'd take a fair bit before a DPS/healer grabs hate, whereas it would be almost immediate on lower gear, especially the weapon.

The difference made here (from i270 stuff vs. the max possible for Abania) is really not as extreme as many people here are making it out to be. If this were the case, I would have struggled to tank through Abania myself (I wasn't exactly the fastest person to make it through the MSQ; I specifically avoided starting MSQ for like a week from when early access hit because I was busy with other things and people were getting held up by Raubahn EX and Pipin Savage anyway, so I figured, why rush?), and my 370 tank would similarly struggle against the numerous DPS it encounters in i390 and i400 in ex roulette nowadays. But neither of these happened.

I just think people need to stop using perfectly reasonable gear as a scapegoat for poor performance or otherwise simply not knowing how to play their job (whether they're talking about themselves or another party member). Obviously there is a threshold where the gear definitely becomes the problem, but 270 in Abania is not it.

The amount you can sell that gear for is pretty small in the long-term scheme of things, versus being better geared here and now where the game is handing you up-to-date equipment for free.

Personally though, I appreciated the gil I got (which for me wasn't exactly a "pretty small" amount; maybe to the people who regularly carry around a 9- or 10-digit figure it would be, but I am not one of those people) a lot more than I would have appreciated having marginally better stats for a couple of already-easy dungeons prior to hitting 70 and shitcanning the gear anyway. So it can go both ways here.

[RokkuEkkusu]

I'm going to repeat what I said in a different thread earlier:

I'd say the small problem with vendor gear is that it can a bit pricey for the average player. For some, 100K just to get a full gear set for 2-3 dungeon levels is quite a steep price to pay.

And if we go by the auto item drops, it benefits tanks and healer more due to faster queue times for SB leveling dungeons, so dps is usually going to have to wait longer for this route.

The Shire gear and its augmented versions from the poetic tomes are basically ways to get started and can be used as a compromise for gearing up if gil for vendor gear and/or time for SB leveling dungeons are not suitable for the players.

[Hamada]

I just think people need to stop using perfectly reasonable gear as a scapegoat

Well guess what? you think wrong, and it was explained several times, I will quote them for you explaining the math:

This is absolutely 100% WRONG.

If you kept the Shire gear all the way to 70, you'd have 2286 Defense while doing so. Roughly 29,991 hp from gear from 1463 Vit.

Compared to a tank that took the HQ quest gear (285) literally given to you while leveling. Or equipped any gear that was given to you automatically when you completed a SB dungeon. Or bought the NQ gear sold by vendors in Kugane.

They'd have 3828 Defense. 31,918 HP on gear from 1557 Vit. They have 67.45% more defense than the person in 270 gear. While that doesn't mean you'll take 67% more damage than the better geared tank, that does mean you'll take a ton more damage from every single hit every trash mob does to you. All those hits add up to a quickly dying tank. All the Vit in the world doesn't mean anything when mobs are taking chunks out of your HP pool instead of nibbles.

Just for reference: The Defense gain from 310 to 380 is LESS than the defense gain from 270-285. It's an 18% jump in defense from 310 to 380.

So no. Do your healers a favor and upgrade your darn gear so you don't melt during dungeon trash pulls.

To OP. Is it wrong to be in CA at 272. In my opinion yes it is, but that's just my opinion. Just realize you're making your healers life really hard to keep you alive if you do decent sized pulls.

Edited: for better, more accurate numbers

I already answered the first part: the difference in DEF/M.DEF upgrades in i290 to relevant gear is LESS than that of the difference in leveling gear, and the entire conversation has revolved around how Stormblood leveling gear offers higher DEF/M.DEF than Augemented Shire. (VIT was also considered and discussed, albeit to a lesser extent. I acknowledge that the VIT gains from Augmented Shire to level 64+ HQ gear are also extremely important for tank survivability as it allows for more healing room while they’re eating autos to the face.)

It kinda can be, though. A tank who doesn't quite understand how to play their Job in i270 gear in Abania will likely lose hate left and right and potentially get one shotted (not using buffs, or doing a Sic Eos and blowing everything at once. I'm sure no one does this at level 69, but that's just an example of improper buff usage), whereas if they're geared somewhat appropriately, they'll be able to hold hate better than they would at i270 and survive the one shots, even without proper buff management. Bad gear + lack of skill = no fun for everyone. Good gear + lack of skill = yeah's'fine. Full level 68 HQ + lack of skill = no problemo.

Once more, no one is saying levelling dungeons are difficult. However, a tank who doesn't quite understand their Job and i270 (or even i260 or lower if they never bought/upgraded tank Shire gear) is going to make things obnoxious for everyone else (as I've experienced first hand).

it is funny how much you are repeating yourself. All I have to do is dig up old posts that pretty much refute anything you say at this point.

How you define "reasonable gear" is undergeared, and you can see this by various different prospectives already explained to you. (You can upgrade i272 gear in 2 different dungeons before Castrum Abania. That degree of laziness is wrong, period)

If you disagree with this, tell SE to remove all gear except current endgame gear since gearing for MSQ dungeons is too hard for you apparently.

[JohnSpawnVFX]

Opinion.

My take on it is more like, why would they make the quests give sellable gear if they didn't expect some people to sell it instead? Wouldn't they have just made it untradeable like the dungeon gear if that was their intent?

Opinion.

Why would they give you Gil along with the gear, if they were expecting you to just sell the gear instead? Wouldn't they just give you the gear and forgo the Gil?

[Hamada]

Opinion.

Why would they give you Gil along with the gear, if they were expecting you to just sell the gear instead? Wouldn't they just give you the gear and forgo the Gil?

I do not see how this is a good argument to address that with, I think Iscah did a better job in replying to it:

It could also allow for players to sell gear if they actually didn't need it - say they're only raising the one class, or they only like playing mages so all they need is caster/healer gear. What are they going to do with the quest rewards that give them a choice of fending/maiming/striking/scouting armour? Take those and sell them, while making use of the free gear they can use.

Ultimately it seems like we make so much money over the course of this game. Even if I'm not making an effort to earn money, my gil total just keeps going up and up from roulette rewards and challenge log bonuses.

I try to remind myself to not be stingy about in-game prices because long-term I won't even pay attention to it. I still remember, not that long ago, when it was a massive investment for me to pay 300,000 gil for that expensive-but-gorgeous High Allagan coat. Now that seems quite cheap (but still gorgeous) and I wouldn't even hesitate to pay that amount.

I say that because forgoing the gil hand out on top of that is not really proof of anything. Being able to sell/trade is simply there in case someone does not need any of the gear they list. If SE was expecting players to sell it, they would just hand you more gil, with no gear. Fynlar is only saying that to scramble for something to say in a losing argument.