AF gear already "obsolte"

[Molly_Millions]

Though the individual MP bonuses are small, you also note that they add up to a respectable 120 MP which leads to my next point:

The original concept is for PLD to be a' healing focal point' in battles rather than to survive via large HP reserves (like WAR).

I think where they may have missed the mark is in the DEF area. Ideally, PLD should gain considerable DEF while WAR should lose some.

Still, 1.21 hasn't been out long, and the more people play, the more they will become adjusted to the Cure-tank model and can provide more accurate feedback on it.

this is why I included the totals

how many cures does 120 mp buy you? I could always meld two +60 manathirst onto my cuirass, then where does that leave the PLD set? (or even better a +50 and a +70 because the outcome is more likely to be successful.) Personally, I'd much rather have VIT and HP on a cuirass, but I used MP for the sake of argument.

[Geesus]

Yves made some good points in their post but the OP and Molly are also making points I have been hearing grumblings about for quite some time; Dungeon/AF(now) gear is useless or not as good as melded gear. You will also notice things like Cnj can use Resonance but as a Whm you lose that ability. There are trade offs in some respects with the newer jobs that I noticed which somewhat ties into what Yves was pointing out.

[wolfsspirit]

good to know.. so i dont have to bother going after any of the gears and waste my time in dungeons looking for it

[Delsus]

All U/U gear can be beaten by melded gear, its what people asked for, everyone said (before materia) that crafting was useless because all U/U gear was better than crafting gear, so SE made materia and double/triple melds > U/U.

It has been the case since materia was released, SE cannot win with this, if they make U/U gear overpowered crafters will complain, if they make crafted gear over powered we get people who like endgame and AF complaining.

Pretty much no balancing will fix this.

[Geesus]

All U/U gear can be beaten by melded gear, its what people asked for, everyone said (before materia) that crafting was useless because all U/U gear was better than crafting gear, so SE made materia and double/triple melds > U/U.

It has been the case since materia was released, SE cannot win with this, if they make U/U gear overpowered crafters will complain, if they make crafted gear over powered we get people who like endgame and AF complaining.

Pretty much no balancing will fix this.

This is so true but that was before as you mentioned. So they knew going in this could be an issue so it should have been prepared as such to be at least in some regards "better". Crafted gear should only do so much to be better. Not everyone will want AF gear because they don't like how it looks; always some fashionista in a game that wants to "look good" rather than "live" or "be effective" in their role. >.<

For example, there isn't any or very much in the way of crafted gear for drops and currently no "AF" gear that's for sure for DoH/DoL so in this regard, crafted then slotted DoH/DoL gear SHOULD be ubber but, if something eventually happens that they get "AF" type gear, that gear should work to be better or at least make sense to be better than crafted DoH/DoL jobs.

[Zantetsuken]

All U/U gear can be beaten by melded gear.

If by "beaten" you mean equal or better, I would say that 1.21 has nullified that argument.

Materia is restricted to certain gear parts and cannot grant specific ability bonuses. Thus, there is no way to replicate most AF or Darklight gear.

Try this: pick a random Darklight or AF piece, then try to make something equal or better via a combination of 3x materia and crafted gear...

[Colino]

Here's hoping they allow us to upgrade AF in the future, I wouldn't mind farming materials from bosses in dungeon and upgrade my AF.

Yeah exactly... Something like runes or soul stone upgrades would be nice.

[Molly_Millions]

good to know.. so i dont have to bother going after any of the gears and waste my time in dungeons looking for it

Well you do actually, because the quests to get the af gear also give you the new abilities.

[Angof]

AF is a stepping stone and worth getting, and using, until you can manage to make yourself some double or triple melded pieces (or getting darklight). All these people complaining about AF being "complete crap" are pretty much just missing brain cells.

[Estellios]

I have been noticing on my server that Blackmages are not wearing the af hat anymore..

Seems a hat with double meld materis is better... so sad

Black mage gear is tailored for Magic Crits, especially since it seems like the AF body makes Excruciate's crit rate boost go up quite a bit. The AF hat is more suited for such a role, whereas a straight +INT hat increases your overall damage and the AF might be outright beaten by a double meld hat. Given that this gear is meant to be accessible to everyone and pretty much a baseline so people can adequately perform their function, it's fine. If you don't want to min/max AF gear is serviceable.