The Lessons Not Learned.

[Jojoya]

All of this is nonsensical fearmongering.

If Criterion dropped raid equivalent gear, it would either have the same exact stats if they didn't want to add new pieces or be an entirely minor DPS increase literally nobody will give a damn about. People do "barse" parties without even full BiS yet. Saying the raid community will make it mandatory you have say, that one extra healer ring from Criterion de to the tome ring being awful is ridiculous. All Criterion would accomplish is giving people more avenues to gear alt jobs.

Look to WoW as an example of what a raiding community will do when there's content that offers a chance at any sort of power gain - it gets turned into a mandatory commitment.

You're also making an assumption that the gear would have the exact same stats. What if it didn't? What if some jobs ended up with new BiS items coming from Criterion? Players already give a damn about minor DPS increases, that's what the entire BiS chase is about. If they didn't, no one would care about having BiS.

[ForteNightshade]

Look to WoW as an example of what a raiding community will do when there's content that offers a chance at any sort of power gain - it gets turned into a mandatory commitment.

You're also making an assumption that the gear would have the exact same stats. What if it didn't? What if some jobs ended up with new BiS items coming from Criterion? Players already give a damn about minor DPS increases, that's what the entire BiS chase is about. If they didn't, no one would care about having BiS.

Last time I looked... this isn't WoW.

I made no such assumption; specifically saying it would be "either or". Regardless, the raid community, wouldn't care. Not enough to make it mandatory by any stretch of the imagination. If they did, people would lock out players still using one or two crafting pieces or tanks with sub-optimal accessories. Hell, Ultimate weapons are BiS in the odd patches yet nobody cares about locking those in even for speed runs. Speaking on that, non-meta jobs are still represented in parsing. I should know, I play one of them: Warrior.

We have entirely separate BiS options for jobs based around skill speed. 2.46 Dragoon is weaker than 2.5, the preferred set. Both are still listed for player preference.

To be entirely blunt, this screams of someone who has never set foot in the raid community making baseless accusations of them. It's complete nonsense. Will players want to chase new BiS pieces? Some, probably. Will it be made mandatory for PF or even static recruitment? Nope. Unless you're attempting to join a top rank speed kill group, literally no one will a damn if you have the i630 Crit/Pie Ring or the hypothetical new Criterion Crit/Det one.

[SannaR]

Last time I looked... this isn't WoW.

I made no such assumption; specifically saying it would be "either or". Regardless, the raid community, wouldn't care. Not enough to make it mandatory by any stretch of the imagination. If they did, people would lock out players still using one or two crafting pieces or tanks with sub-optimal accessories. Hell, Ultimate weapons are BiS in the odd patches yet nobody cares about locking those in even for speed runs. Speaking on that, non-meta jobs are still represented in parsing. I should know, I play one of them: Warrior.

We have entirely separate BiS options for jobs based around skill speed. 2.46 Dragoon is weaker than 2.5, the preferred set. Both are still listed for player preference.

To be entirely blunt, this screams of someone who has never set foot in the raid community making baseless accusations of them. It's complete nonsense. Will players want to chase new BiS pieces? Some, probably. Will it be made mandatory for PF or even static recruitment? Nope. Unless you're attempting to join a top rank speed kill group, literally no one will a damn if you have the i630 Crit/Pie Ring or the hypothetical new Criterion Crit/Det one.

Jojoya isn't completely wrong though. There has been many a time where the raid community has been in that mind set. Remember when the PF wouldn't allow certain jobs in parties? There are plenty of times when the NA community at least gets so tied to the Meta or a raid strat that no matter how many times someone trues to show them there's a better way or to say eff the meta they won't listen. I don't know about you and yes this doesn't have anything to do with raiding but you remember how sacrifice pulls used to be the thing running dungeons? Skip Soar or disband didn't become a meme on day one.

[ForteNightshade]

Jojoya isn't completely wrong though. There has been many a time where the raid community has been in that mind set. Remember when the PF wouldn't allow certain jobs in parties? There are plenty of times when the NA community at least gets so tied to the Meta or a raid strat that no matter how many times someone trues to show them there's a better way or to say eff the meta they won't listen. I don't know about you and yes this doesn't have anything to do with raiding but you remember how sacrifice pulls used to be the thing running dungeons? Skip Soar or disband didn't become a meme on day one.

Yes, she is. Nothing you have said has any direct parallel to our argument. Jojoya is positing that players will lock people out after going through their gear and seeing they have a DET/TEN ring instead of the hypothetical CRIT/DET ring from Criterion. The notion it absolutely ludicrous. It simply doesn't happen at any level of play. Not even at the high end log level would anyone remotely care. I, for example, could still "barse" 100 despite the healer having some non-bis i630 PIE pieces. So long as they're putting Misery under buffs and pressing Glare, we're golden. So your comparison here is entirely a strawman.

But for the sake of argument, let's address the differences.

The difference between the Abyssos Helm of Fending (TEN>CRIT) and Aug. Lunar Envoy's Face Guard of Fen. (CRIT>DET) is roughly 25 DPS. This is such a negligible amount, you'd have to be performing at a 97-100% pace, consistently, to notice. Even then, it's still extremely marginal. Contrast to the staggering 500+ raw DPS between Dark Knight and Warrior during week 1 prog and it makes considerably more sense why PF locked out jobs. For perspective sake, bringing Gunbreaker and Dark Knight meant you could afford two damage downs on DPS players. We know this because one of the most proficient tanks in the game has a video showcasing the absurd damage discrepancy between jobs. Casters are even worst as Black Mage does comically higher damage than Red Mage. And due to the DPS check being so tight, Verraise was worthless.

It wasn't simply "huhuhu NA meta brain" but simple pragmatism to lock out specific jobs. You had a better chance of clearing, especially with the inconsistencies of party finder, if you insisted on near meta comp even if people playing those meta jobs were only average at best. In fact, I'll use myself for the example here. I logged a 47% on Dark Knight when I switched for door boss. This was less than 150 DPS off the top tanked Warrior and Paladin at the time of our respective clears. In other words, a barely average Dark Knight had near the same damage output as the best Warrior and Paladin. And you wonder why PF was locking out jobs? Tank balance was (and still is) awful.

So no, locking out non-meta jobs and insisting on mechanic skips are nothing alike to using a non-optimal but same ilvl equipment piece.

[SannaR]

It wasn't simply "huhuhu NA meta brain" but simple pragmatism to lock out specific jobs. You had a better chance of clearing, especially with the inconsistencies of party finder, if you insisted on near meta comp even if people playing those meta jobs were only average at best. In fact, I'll use myself for the example here. I logged a 47% on Dark Knight when I switched for door boss. This was less than 150 DPS off the top tanked Warrior and Paladin at the time of our respective clears. In other words, a barely average Dark Knight had near the same damage output as the best Warrior and Paladin. And you wonder why PF was locking out jobs? Tank balance was (and still is) awful.

So no, locking out non-meta jobs and insisting on mechanic skips are nothing alike to using a non-optimal but same ilvl equipment piece.

Sure, that's week one clear type of stuff, but what about when a raid tier is old and people are still using the same excuses and reasons to do fights a certain way or to exclude certain jobs? You know when most people have the gear? How many times does the community still insist on using week one comps or strategies even during the last week it's going to be current or the week after a new tier comes out? I know skill can make up far more than gear, but are you seriously going to tell me that people shouldn't adjust?

You are right in that most people won't look at how gear is melded as most raiders won't look at a person's gear. Heck even non raiders won't look at people's gear. It's how and why people used to and occasionally still do albeit normally at lower levels do stuff with wrong gear or would do roulettes wearing crafting and gathering gear in order to spirit bond. I look at people's gear more often then not as I want to see what I'm dealing with. Especially since I tend to get the kind of people who haven't updated their crap in ages or are at a low enough level where a dps can be wearing tank stuff and vice-versa. I know that at least in the past people did lock out those or kick those that had stuff melded wrong. Even then it was a minority of players who would actually take the time to look and see if someone had appropriate melds. That's because most people tend to not care about that as the need to be properly melded just so you can squeeze in a fraction of a % more has over the years not mattered as much as it has in the past. Cause when it did matter a lot more people looked at that more.

[ForteNightshade]

Sure, that's week one clear type of stuff, but what about when a raid tier is old and people are still using the same excuses and reasons to do fights a certain way or to exclude certain jobs? You know when most people have the gear? How many times does the community still insist on using week one comps or strategies even during the last week it's going to be current or the week after a new tier comes out? I know skill can make up far more than gear, but are you seriously going to tell me that people shouldn't adjust?

Jobs aren't being locked out nowadays except in optimization parties. With that said, it still remains advantageous to lock out jobs which are dramatically underperforming even several weeks into the tier. Why? PF inconsistencies. Did the Dragoon pick up their third damage down in P8S? It doesn't matter because you brought Dark Knight and Gunbreaker who can muscle through the DPS check with their extra 1000 DPS (less now with the buffs to Warrior and Paladin). Perhaps the biggest irony people ignore is it isn't the high end raid community who needs meta but PF who benefits from it. Party Finder has inconsistent players who collect damage downs, die to messing up mechanics or aren't rolling their GCD. You'll have healers spamming GCDs either due to playing overly safe or compensating for other players who aren't using their mitigation. All this results in significantly lower damage output.

To really emphasise my point. Party Finder is still tank LBing a mechanic (Cachexia 2) my group skipped entirely on the first week. We didn't skip it for several weeks after because we were bad, however the point still stands.

Cachexia 2 and War's Harvest are major choke points for PF. Having any DPS advantage that may allow you to skip them or compensate for the resulting deaths may be the different between clearing and hitting enrage. At least in the first month of any given tier.

Regardless, this isn't really an issue any longer now and the only restrictions people put up are ilvl.

I know that at least in the past people did lock out those or kick those that had stuff melded wrong. Even then it was a minority of players who would actually take the time to look and see if someone had appropriate melds. That's because most people tend to not care about that as the need to be properly melded just so you can squeeze in a fraction of a % more has over the years not mattered as much as it has in the past. Cause when it did matter a lot more people looked at that more.

How do you know this? You've never completed a single Savage tier on content. At best, this is entirely hearsay—which isn't saying much because we have no idea on the qualifications of those players. Speaking from actual experience, this never happened. The only time people made any sort of stink about your melds is during Stormblood Ultimates when the occasional DPS and Healer refused to meld Vitality, which made them squishier. Nobody was looking through your gear to check whether your i400 Omega Earrings were proper bis. They weren't doing it in Midas either when Savage was more on par with Ultimate level difficulty. Substats have never been more than a very small fraction.

Even if I took you at face value, you openly claim it was only ever a minority of players who bothered. So... who cares? It wouldn't be applicable to the argument I had with Jojoya earlier and what sparked this whole conversation to begin with: Adding raid equivalent gear to Criterion wouldn't make it mandatory.

[SannaR]

How do you know this? You've never completed a single Savage tier on content. At best, this is entirely hearsay—which isn't saying much because we have no idea on the qualifications of those players. Speaking from actual experience, this never happened. The only time people made any sort of stink about your melds is during Stormblood Ultimates when the occasional DPS and Healer refused to meld Vitality, which made them squishier. Nobody was looking through your gear to check whether your i400 Omega Earrings were proper bis. They weren't doing it in Midas either when Savage was more on par with Ultimate level difficulty. Substats have never been more than a very small fraction.

Even if I took you at face value, you openly claim it was only ever a minority of players who bothered. So... who cares? It wouldn't be applicable to the argument I had with Jojoya earlier and what sparked this whole conversation to begin with: Adding raid equivalent gear to Criterion wouldn't make it mandatory.

You're right I haven't cleared an entire Savage tier on content on this character. The furthest I got was T4 on a different character due to my needing to restart over halfway to late into Stormblood. Which is also around the time I stopped having to listen to someone raid each week, leave a midcore-hardcore FC and choose for myself and another who got to keep my SE account. As before then it had made more sense to tie our accounts together. It just happened that the account that didn't get absorbed was mine. And no SE isn't able to re-split said accounts. Unfortunately you wouldn't find much on a certain site to see any of my proof.

Nor on the lodestone as I deleted the character. Even after I started this character I still kept in touch with people who did raid. Along with being in a Midcore FC. I stopped raiding when I did due to various reasons. One being in a past life I must have royaly pissed off the RNG gods as I had an abysmal time getting the things one you needed for ARR relics. Thus I fell behind on that aspect. I also tend to have high healing and raid anxiety. The other reasons have to deal with RL stuff I won't divulge here.

For me the reason why it's a minority as to checking people's gear is because they're not a raid lead. Or a nosey person. Why would your average raider think about wanting to or feel the need to check to see if someone has proper melds? Normally it's they're eating stuff they shouldn't, poor gear, not having refreshed their food, potting at the wrong time. Melds tend to be the least looked at.

Anyway I also know how this community tends to behave. If a bunch of people say you should do X cause it's the most optimal then they'll go do said thing. So if for some reason enough people made it so that checking to make sure gear was melded properly was optimal guess what is most likely going to happen? Why? Cause people tend to want to rather be like a sheep and turn their brain off.