Legitimate reasons why many of you do NOT like Gear Swapping

[Arcell]

This is a fair response.

What I am about to propose is purely theoretical, just FYI. I know, right now in FFXIV we have no events that would even come close to justifying gear swapping.

Lets say for example, that we have a dragon. This dragon deals purely physical damage + AoE, and Wind Damage for the first 75% of its health.

Now, when you get it to 25% it switches to heavy fire damage, and pure magical damage. In what sense would you wrap a strategy around that? I'm being completely serious. I would love to see true reasons why strategy would always be =/= gear. It just makes sense to me that if a Monster switches to magic damage, ill switch to gear that nullifies magic damage.

I mean, macro's are easy to make. And I only had 1 bar of Gear Swap macros. There were what, like 100 bars total to create?

I am genuinely interested in hearing about new systems though. But to me, just using one set of gear all the way through a raid, or boss seems like easy mode. Before anyone gets mad, this is only my opinion.

That would be a situation in a game created with the intent of gear swapping as a core mechanic, that would be a situation created almost exclusively because gear swapping exists. They wouldn't design any fight in FFXIV like that because the game is not created around gear swapping as a core mechanic. Since they've already said gear swapping isn't going to happen, fights in FFXIV would be designed around the existing mechanics.

A better example would be something that has one or two very strong attacks of certain elements/damage types that aren't its normal attack types, something that would exist in FFXIV. The way to get around that would be to prepare ahead of time and/or play smart. Is there a way to avoid it? Can you incap the monster to disable it? Is there a skill you can use to stun them or reduce incoming damage? Strategy that does not equal gear. Strategy that requires playing well.

Having just one set of gear through an entire fight isn't easier, it's actually harder. You can't just adjust the numbers in your favor on a whim, you have to live with the gear choice you made before the fight began. You have to use all of the other tools at your disposal to win (spells, weaponskills, abilities, items, positioning, combos). So you have to really think before the battle begins what the best gear is for that particular encounter. You can switch between battles so if there are different situations within a specific dungeon you can adapt to them.