Endgame gearing in FFXIV

[ForteNightshade]

So you can clear the same fight but 20 seconds faster(oh boi). Or have a ilvl to meet super endgame requirements. IMO there is no point.

That "20 seconds" could be the difference between skipping a mechanic, and thus clearing, or wiping on it because PF is inconsistent like that. It's also significantly more than "20 seconds". You can shave off a whole minute depending on the fight. Nevertheless, the whole point of RPGs for a lot of people is a sense of character progression. We're in week 9. I don't want to play a gimped version of Ninja over two months into the raid tier because I only just started being able to put gear towards a job that isn't my main. And I'm someone in a static who does splits. PF heroes can go literal months without getting a single drop. So that nine weeks is essentially nothing for them, especially since most people in PF aren't clearing the last fight in the fight two weeks.

Really, there's "no point" to doing anything. Why collect all the relics? They're only worth doing in the last patch where they're actually better than the raid weapons. Even then, they're replaced within two months by the next expansion. People enjoy progressing their character and want to gear alt jobs for the fun of it without having to wait 4-6 months.

Post-tier content like Criterion Savage or Ultimate require or are more viable in BiS.

Then we have this. I'm currently BiS on Warrior. I literally can't join any static looking for DPS for the upcoming Ultimate. It will simply take too long for me to get enough gear since I've already committed to healers as a secondary. So I either don't play healers or I don't play DPS for most of this tier. I can't do both unless I make a separate character.