Anyone think materia is getting reworked in 6.0?

[Seraphor]

Tenacity isn't completely useless, it can still serve as an effective crutch in casual play. If you're melding for Savage then of course you shouldn't need or it, but if you never intend to tank savage, there's no harm in going for Tenacity. A full Tenacity meld is equivalent to an additional Rampart with 100% uptime, which can be useful if you don't trust your PUG healer.

But, in the interest of promoting Tenacity beyond this singular context:

Change Direct Hit into a DPS only stat. (it's already useless for Warrior)
Leaving tanks with Tenacity as tank exclusive and Critical Hit, Determination and Skillspeed as the ubiquitous stats.
Nerf Critical Hit a little, not by loads bit a little.

Tenacity then becomes relevant.
BiS will still be Crit first, but you will max out Crit and Det far more easily, and then only be left with a choice between Skillspeed and Tenacity as the viable options. With Skillspeed having break points, some Tenacity will be mandatory.

[linayar]

The kinds of content that I do does not justify going to the balance discord or some other third party resource or testing it myself.

So I want a QoL feature like crafter has this expansion where I can "practice" melding and see how different materia combinations would affect my stats in real time and really what it all means in the end. I want to know whether it's better to meld two of this kind of materia versus two of another kind versus one of each of two kinds of materia given my current gear and then make a more informed (even if still not the best) choice on my own without needing a third party source to tell me.

Otherwise, as long as I'm able to enjoy the contents I enjoy now without melding, then materia can continue to not matter to me and I'm fine with whatever they do (or not do) with the system.

In fact, the way I (not) use it now, it may as well be gone from the game (though I'm not saying it should be, but it can be as far as I'm concerned).

[Deceptus]

Tenacity isn't completely useless, it can still serve as an effective crutch in casual play. If you're melding for Savage then of course you shouldn't need or it, but if you never intend to tank savage, there's no harm in going for Tenacity. A full Tenacity meld is equivalent to an additional Rampart with 100% uptime, which can be useful if you don't trust your PUG healer.

But, in the interest of promoting Tenacity beyond this singular context:

Change Direct Hit into a DPS only stat. (it's already useless for Warrior)
Leaving tanks with Tenacity as tank exclusive and Critical Hit, Determination and Skillspeed as the ubiquitous stats.
Nerf Critical Hit a little, not by loads bit a little.

Tenacity then becomes relevant.
BiS will still be Crit first, but you will max out Crit and Det far more easily, and then only be left with a choice between Skillspeed and Tenacity as the viable options. With Skillspeed having break points, some Tenacity will be mandatory.

I'd go even farther than this. Remove Det from tanks as well and make it a healer only stat.

Change Tenacity to: Tenacity increases healing received / damage done (Tank catch all stat). Tenacity as it is currently affecting healing done by the tank is and always has been a baffling decision by SE.

Det increases healing done / damage done ( Healer catch all stat)

[ADVSS]

I'd go even farther than this. Remove Det from tanks as well and make it a healer only stat.

Change Tenacity to: Tenacity increases healing received / damage done (Tank catch all stat). Tenacity as it is currently affecting healing done by the tank is and always has been a baffling decision by SE.

Det increases healing done / damage done ( Healer catch all stat)

Well piety being healer only is weird to me as well. Make it a RDM only skill

More seriously though if theyre going to make role only materia, Det fits more for dps than it does healers or tanks.

[MariaArvana]

Why even bother when theres only one combo of materia thats the best and everyone can easily find out what it is, just give everybody those stats and remove materia completely...

Not really? BLM might use vastly different materia from other BLM & SMN/RDM depending on build choices. (sps vs crit builds)

WAR also uses different combination of materia from other tanks due to IR's interaction with DH. DRK/WAR also have many different tiers of sks that players with higher/lower ping might go for due to comfy zones due to IR, Delirium & Blood Weapon.

There's also the balance of piety on SCH vs AST/WHM, since WHM & AST just ooze out mana where SCH lags a bit. But people in general might also be more comfortable with different tiers of piety depending on their playstyle, the content and whether they want extra fluff or not if stuff hits the fan.

There's enough depth (even if its not a crazy amount) in the current materia system between many jobs that it doesn't need to be reduced to binary choices.

[Canadane]

I feel like we need to go back to the roots.
Bring back enmity+ materia. Stun resist materia. Enmity- materia. Elemental resistance materia!
Of course we'd need to change the rest of the game to match up...

[Wyakin]

Not really? BLM might use vastly different materia from other BLM & SMN/RDM depending on build choices. (sps vs crit builds)

WAR also uses different combination of materia from other tanks due to IR's interaction with DH. DRK/WAR also have many different tiers of sks that players with higher/lower ping might go for due to comfy zones due to IR, Delirium & Blood Weapon.

There's also the balance of piety on SCH vs AST/WHM, since WHM & AST just ooze out mana where SCH lags a bit. But people in general might also be more comfortable with different tiers of piety depending on their playstyle, the content and whether they want extra fluff or not if stuff hits the fan.

There's enough depth (even if its not a crazy amount) in the current materia system between many jobs that it doesn't need to be reduced to binary choices.

There is very little to zero depth in the materia system. It’s all the same, all BLMs have the same build. All melee aim for the same two stats. The variations are very very small because all jobs have one single BiS each patch. Materia... is... pointless. It used to mean something because it was expensive and tougher to acquire, accuracy builds for healers for example. Now, who cares just put crit/DH and win

[SnowVix]

It’s all the same, all BLMs have the same build.

no, no they do not. there's speed BLM, crit BLM, and even a variant that lets you more easily swap to RDM/SMN and they're all perfectly viable, it's just the speed you're comfy at and if you play the other casters

[Lunalepsy]

Materia is a legacy system that has no place in the FFXIV universe anymore. If anything, it's out there for pretty looks and something to do.

[Shougun]

I personally have a bias to more abstract play but certainly is one of the harder things to balance- so for example you might have only one, two, or even three materia a gear but each one has an actual effect (affix). Amazing if they could bring back some of the FF7 linking and other interactions between materia too. Perhaps like you have a materia that has an effect with a particular part of the effect that could be modified, such that you've slotted two materia together and it gets that connected effect that FF7 had (chance on hit gets paired with an aoe materia that lowers the potency of said effect a little but makes it aoe, or whatever).

On terms of balance and in general, not just for more abstract ideas, I think if they shifted materia into more QoL / survive-ability that they could let players have more choices (as well as perhaps add more abstract ideas with less balance issues). Since damage is king in FFXIV so currently, unless you just don't care to be optimal, there is almost always only one good choice and many bad choices (almost always).


Because of how gear is currently they could almost get away from gear stats and also just make Materia now the stat allocation of the game, no primary stats only secondary. There is a relatively pointless difference from one gear to the next, especially on weapons where if the damage number is higher then it's pretty much 'who cares' about the stat allocation it has. That'd certainly make materia have some more emphasis lol. Only stats on an item are from materia. They could easily keep ilvl progression mechanics but bake it into power level instead. In such a scenario progression would also be made smoother / easier since you'd just have things like by completing X dungeon your power level increases, and when it's time for "catch up" they can adjust whatever tasks were needed to get stronger. (Obviously now gear becomes glamour).

I do find it a little unfortunate that if you've tank gear the best stats for one tank are not for the other (applies to other jobs too). While the stats don't kill your job if you mess them up it does sort of make specializations, it's a concept I don't really care for since these specializations often are just number and not play differences (like if you have DH on Paladin vs CH on Warrior, same job play.. just better/worse damage numbers). Due to our unique composure (seems we don't follow the normal rules of anything) could always have materia slot into our body, a bit like what you see in FF7 Advent Children, then you could have materia builds not associated to the gear but the job (or I guess materia slotted into the soul crystal).

Anyway, my thoughts on the materia system are probably summed up as:

"I am thankful that it no longer breaks our gear like it used to, but I don't derive much joy, if any, out of interacting with the system and if possible would love to situation where that changes; however, I don't think it has to, just unfortunate that the itemization in this game tends to be rather forgettable".

To clarify on forgettable, it means no item has any sort of unique value for memory- even relics have difficulty standing out (although they do better certainly), it's all just slightly larger numbers from other numbers with differences that matter if you're into bean counting but at that point you might as well just follow what those who are better at it suggest, so .. it's a rather "forgettable" part of the game (itemization, the game as a whole is not forgettable and I'm not suggesting the game as a whole is bad, just that itemization, including materia, is just a system that exists for the sake of economy and progression but not for fun, imo). I'd also note that making memorable experiences is far more difficult to balance though, in WoW where they try to have more memorable pieces (on that particular aspect) they also create situations where balance gets all wonky sometimes lol. Certainly a pro and con situation.