Quote Originally Posted by Razor View Post
Honestly part of the issue was that Materia is so powerful it is obnoxious to balance. One of the core problems we had pre-stat fix was that stats contributed so little to calculations that it was hard to notice any change. Then Materia came and did the exact same thing. Before materia U/U gear was good because it gave that edge over crafted gear (much like it was in XI. The difference wasn't always striking, but it was just a hair better). Now... its hard to even do anything about it when you can sit on Attack Power +150 on a single pair of gloves.

That's like and extra 25% on a single item; although granted we will likely never actually see a quintuple melded T4 pair of gloves, but still. It is very plausible to have Attack Power +50 or STR+40 for a reasonable amount of money. In order to make U/U gear anywhere near comparable it would have to be so overpowered it would need to look something like this: "STR+25 Attack Power+40" And this is only at lv50! What happens when the cap raises and we're at 75? Oh, derp, heres your 100 points of STR on a single item, have a good day.
i wouldn't say materia is very powerful, the high numbers are just obnoxious.