Augmented Scaevan gear: the true villain of Shadowbringers

[LineageRazor]

I'm guessing SE implemented things in this way to ensure that no one has to "grind" gear on the way through Shadowbringers. Yes, there's gear available at higher levels along the way, but you either have to buy it, or run dungeons repeatedly to collect it.

They're catering to the crowd with low attention span, who get frustrated and irritated if they have to rerun older content just to progress. Unless they're a tank, older gear will be sufficient to get them through the dungeons, even if they're basically being carried by the other three. And even for tanks, lower gear can work if you pull mobs in small groups.

And if, by poor chance, you wind up in a group with other adventurers who are ALSO using older gear, well, even if the dungeon fails, that's just ONE rerun instead of the MANY required to grind up-to-date gear. That rarely happens, though; the vast majority of the time, you're gonna be in a group with three well-geared individuals, and can get through just fine!

I don't actually endorse this practice, of course, but from a business standpoint I certainly understand SE's desire to avoid alienating customers. It could be argued that allowing these people to mooch is alienating to the more dedicated players - but the fact that they're dedicated means they're less likely to quit and go find another game over such a small thing. It's smarter to cater to the folks on the fence, not the ones entrenched on either side.

[Aurelius2625]

Honestly like 85 percent of the people who play this game really suck at it because they don't visit places like The Balance for guides, look up videos for how to play their jobs, and have no idea what they are doing.

The problem you all are experiencing is NOT gear related. I, in FULL augmented scaevan, as a BARD, was doing far more, like WAY more than a blackmage, and then a summoner in MT. Gulg. That should NOT be possible. I did like over 20k on bard or something like that, which is more than sufficient for ONE dps player to be doing.

the BLM and SMN couldn't break over 10k with the BEST aoe rotations in the game.

It's an issue of:
Tanks not using arms length and reprisal with their other defensive CDs on rotation to mitigate trash packs...

It's healers being cure 1, benefic 1, physick bots that are idiots that don't use their good healing tools on a rotation.

It's dps players THINKING they are doing good, but really, not doing any damage at all, like free style SAMs, Ice Mages, RDMs that don't use melee combo with their big nukes, songless bards, DRG's that single target and never use life of the dragon, etc....

It's why I was able to RIP AGGRO from the TANK with the NEW STEROID TANK STANCE as a bard in mage's ballad. This means I was using aoe, and not focusing one mob to overpower their ability to gain threat, they were legit just not using enough aoes on DRK which has INSANE aoe potential.....

The problem is BAD PLAYERS THAT GET CODDLED BY THE TOS AND SE and have NO IDEA what they are doing. .It has VERY LITTLE to do with actual gear. The only time this is an issue is if you are rocking like i380 in SHB dungeons above holminster, then it's an issue for tank, healer, and dps.

The dude that said "healers don't matter they'd just ave to heal more" obviously doesn't heal very much, because your mainstat affects the strength of your heals, meaning at some point you literally will not be able to keep up at all, mathematically.

[wereotter]

The difference in gear from Malikah's Well and Augmented Scaevan gear is 12 item levels. (Which would be one of the best gear available to farm before going in to clear Mt. Gulg)

This argument that you're entirely too under geared, to put it into comparison, would be like someone saying you shouldn't go into Puppet's Bunker in 480 gear when 500 is the max right now.

It might require a little more work, but it's completely manageable to clear the dungeon with Scaevan gear.

[GrizzlyTank]

Have seen this argument in WoW too in regards to heirlooms, which ended up with the heirlooms getting shafted... I got to say that the joy of replacing gear while levelling is a grossly exaggerated feeling. It literally adds nothing to the game than to force players to keep even more armor sets in their inventory than needed.

[Ultimatecalibur]

The complaints about Augmented Scaevan gear really confuse me considering that, at launch, having someone in at least Augmented Scaevan in MT.Gulg was considered lucky because there were no minimum ilevel requirements for dungeons and people would be wearing random 4.X level 70 dungeon gear (i300 to i375) and HoH weapons (i365).

[MariaArvana]

Time for some math.

A full set of i418(Forgiven's) (melee/ranged have the same mainstats, while casters have same main offensive stat but less VIT) gives 3003 STR & 3264 VIT.

A full set of i400(Aug Scavaen/Omega/Voeburt) gives 2851 STR & 3224 VIT.

Substats are much harder to gauge due to the fact that as you go up in levels, each point of substats devalues as the lvlmodifier increases, on top of the fact the gear's stats are all over the place so while one set may have a decent amount of crit, the next set up may have little to none of it, so I'll be talking strictly about the mainstats.

This means going from a full set of scaevaen to a full set of Forgiven's translates to roughly a 5% increase in your offensive mainstat, while giving you about 1% extra VIT(Yes, VIT on SHB gear does indeed scale that bad, the HP value increasing you see as you level is almost entirely the increasing scaling of how much each VIT is worth than any actual VIT you're getting). That's assuming you're also going from literally a full scaevaen set (so literally no other gear from 403-418) to a full set of 418 and nothing less, having even -some- non-400 or 418 pieces mixed in on either side further shrinks the miniscule gap. Skill infinitely matters more to damage/healing/tanking in Mt Gulg due to how small the gap is between Scaevaen & Forgiven's. For a lovely analogy to illustrate how small this gap is in the grand scheme of things: Normal damage variance in this game is 5%.

TL: DR: Lrn2Rotation/Heal/Mitigate, gear ain't carrying you by any stretch of the imagination. If someone is taking tons more damage, doing bad dps, or is struggling to heal normal pulls, ask them if they need tips on how to play their job instead, since that's the actual issue.

[Fynlar]

Suspicion is not proof.

Do not assume who the sockpuppet belongs to. It doesn't matter. Take the topic for what it is regardless. You can make your case without shutting down another person's argument just because you assume they made the thread.

I don't even like John and I think you're being completely unreasonable.

Don't care. Still gonna do it. Nyah nyah.

On a side note, I don't particularly appreciate your singling me out for being "unreasonable" when I wasn't the one initially making a go at him in this thread to begin with.

The difference in gear from Malikah's Well and Augmented Scaevan gear is 12 item levels. (Which would be one of the best gear available to farm before going in to clear Mt. Gulg)

This argument that you're entirely too under geared, to put it into comparison, would be like someone saying you shouldn't go into Puppet's Bunker in 480 gear when 500 is the max right now.

It might require a little more work, but it's completely manageable to clear the dungeon with Scaevan gear.

Truth.

Time for some math.

A full set of i418(Forgiven's) (melee/ranged have the same mainstats, while casters have same main offensive stat but less VIT) gives 3003 STR & 3264 VIT.

A full set of i400(Aug Scavaen/Omega/Voeburt) gives 2851 STR & 3224 VIT.

Substats are much harder to gauge due to the fact that as you go up in levels, each point of substats devalues as the lvlmodifier increases, on top of the fact the gear's stats are all over the place so while one set may have a decent amount of crit, the next set up may have little to none of it, so I'll be talking strictly about the mainstats.

This means going from a full set of scaevaen to a full set of Forgiven's translates to roughly a 5% increase in your offensive mainstat, while giving you about 1% extra VIT(Yes, VIT on SHB gear does indeed scale that bad, the HP value increasing you see as you level is almost entirely the increasing scaling of how much each VIT is worth than any actual VIT you're getting). That's assuming you're also going from literally a full scaevaen set (so literally no other gear from 403-418) to a full set of 418 and nothing less, having even -some- non-400 or 418 pieces mixed in on either side further shrinks the miniscule gap. Skill infinitely matters more to damage/healing/tanking in Mt Gulg due to how small the gap is between Scaevaen & Forgiven's. For a lovely analogy to illustrate how small this gap is in the grand scheme of things: Normal damage variance in this game is 5%.

TL: DR: Lrn2Rotation/Heal/Mitigate, gear ain't carrying you by any stretch of the imagination. If someone is taking tons more damage, doing bad dps, or is struggling to heal normal pulls, ask them if they need tips on how to play their job instead, since that's the actual issue.

Also truth.

I remember when putting on a set of Ravel gear on my WAR (my last tank to be leveled to 80, therefore by this point I'd acquired the full set by just running the dungeon enough times), my HP didn't even go up by 1k. That's how little of a difference this stuff makes. Same sort of story with the Malikah's Well gear.

Just as it was before with Abania and people with full augmented Shire, the main issue here isn't the gear but people simply not knowing how to play their job effectively. Only when it's stuff that's lower than augmented Scaevan can you really start to blame the gear for their performance.

[Infindox]

Really, I've seen people in far WORSE gear then Augmented Scavean running ShB MSQ dungeons, so it's whatever to me.

[SavishSalacious]

I'll get straight to the point: the augmented scaevan gear's item level is too high.

You see people using this abysmal garbage gear all throughout shadowbringers, and despite the fact that everyone wearing it does 0 damage, has 0 health and dies if an enemy breathes on them wrong, this expansion old gear for some ungodly reason allows you to get into dungeons nearly TEN WHOLE levels above 70, with my worst example being a dancer wearing this LEVEL 70 GEAR in MOUNT GULG, A LEVEL 79 DUNGEON.

Please square, for hydaelyn's sake please LOWER THE SCAEVAN GEAR ITEM LEVEL so that people can't get into near max level content with gear from last expac. Thank you.

As someone about to get this gear. No. This is what's called: Leveling gear.

[Floortank]

The problem isn't the gear letting them into the dungeon, it's that they're not doing their rotation correctly once they get inside. If you want people to be better at the game, help them rather than demand they be excluded from the thing that will get them more experience playing their job. Sometimes you gotta put up with a player who isn't that great. Tough.