PLD Gear Advice. Please assist

[Molly_Millions]

I haven't read the whole posts so I might say stuff that has been said already... but I wouldn't focus to much on STR and ACC on your PLD since you should consider that the PLD could loose his emn+ bonus WSs in 2.0 (since we only get one self combo) So in the worst case you'll end up as a gimp DD PLD in 2.0 with that gear/materia choice.

Imo you should stick with EMN+ and Block rate (HP + DEF as well when you have room for it) because emn + will guarantee that you will hold hate at the end and there is no proof that your dmg output in 2.0 will generate the same hate as it does now.

2 cents and stuff

I dissagree. Good armor and weapons in 1.0 will still be as good relative to other currently existing armor and weapons in ARR. Why am I so confident about this? Because of this statement about keeping the balance:

Changes to Gear Attributes

The attributes of various gear may be adjusted due to the extensive redesign of the battle system. Rest assured we will do our utmost to minimize the impact upon the effectiveness of any existing gear.

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...e956cb586363ab

So what do I think the stat overhaul entails? I think that base stats (STR, VIT, DEX, etc.) from armor will be adjusted to be less affective. This will create a greater balance with derived stats (DEF, attack power, ACC, etc). As such, some armor with big bonuses to derived stats may have those bonuses reduced in order to keep the balance that's currently in place. I personally think that all this worrying about materia melded gear becoming crap is baseless speculation.

[SwordCoheir]

So what do I think the stat overhaul entails? I think that base stats (STR, VIT, DEX, etc.) from armor will be adjusted to be less affective. This will create a greater balance with derived stats (DEF, m.ATTK, ACC, etc). As such, some armor with big bonuses to derived stats may have those bonuses reduced in order to keep the balance that's currently in place. I personally think that all this worrying about materia melded gear becoming crap is baseless speculation.

Aye, from alot of what people have been guessing at is the DPS Stat caps would likely be lowered in order to give more value to stats like Atk., Crit. Atk., Acc., etc. in order to get people to diversify their equipment more. Considering PLD has to juggle more stats than any job anyways, and it's a bitch to even hit the 350/310 mark without some super triple melds, it might turn around too PLD's favor with the lowered DPS cap requirements.

[Molly_Millions]

Aye, from alot of what people have been guessing at is the DPS Stat caps would likely be lowered in order to give more value to stats like Atk., Crit. Atk., Acc., etc. in order to get people to diversify their equipment more. Considering PLD has to juggle more stats than any job anyways, and it's a bitch to even hit the 350/310 mark without some super triple melds, it might turn around too PLD's favor with the lowered DPS cap requirements.

I think that they probably have two options, lower the rates that base stats effect DPS, or lower the caps. (They probably even have a third option which would be to do both, but for the sake of arguement, lets just look at the first two.) Personally, I hope they go with the first option, because it'll be easier to keep the balance with current gear. In effect what lowering the rates would do is make it so that it's not as important to hit the caps on base stats giving the player more flexibility in what materia to attach to thier gear. In essance whether you go with (using WAR as an example because it's stats are simpler than PLD) STR or attack power, you could reach the same DPS numbers just as easily.

If they chose the route you suggest (lowering the caps) we still have the problem where nobody will use attack power until after they have capped base stats. In my opinion, lower the base stat:effective DPS ratio gets at the heart of the current problem more effectively. But I digress, this is still speculation at this point.

[SwordCoheir]

If they chose the route you suggest (lowering the caps) we still have the problem where nobody will use attack power until after they have capped base stats. In my opinion, lower the base stat:effective DPS ratio gets at the heart of the current problem more effectively. But I digress, this is still speculation at this point.

I think there's a third and that's reducing the base stats of stat materia (IE:TIV STR from 16-20 -> 8-12) making it harder to achieve DPS stat cap and maybe allowing more emphasis on other stats if the bonuses, from say triple melded TIV attack gloves equals or outweighs a TIV triple melded STR gloves.

In any case, I think any of the three would probably have the same effect overall, because in any case people either won't be hitting that stat cap or will be easily over the cap reducing their effectiveness and giving more value to other stats like Attack.

[Molly_Millions]

I think there's a third and that's reducing the base stats of stat materia (IE:TIV STR from 16-20 -> 8-12) making it harder to achieve DPS stat cap and maybe allowing more emphasis on other stats if the bonuses, from say triple melded TIV attack gloves equals or outweighs a TIV triple melded STR gloves.

In any case, I think any of the three would probably have the same effect overall, because in any case people either won't be hitting that stat cap or will be easily over the cap reducing their effectiveness and giving more value to other stats like Attack.

While that may true be true, I think one key thing to consider is the quote above from the "money" post. While there are several ways they could approach stat changes, some throw off the balance of current gear more than others. They could go with any of those approaches, but may need to adjust stats on DL and HDL gear for example. If we place a lot of importance on keeping the current balance while making fundamental changes, I believe the simplest option in terms of the amount of dev work is to reduce the ratio of base stats:dps and keep the caps as they are. But if making DL and HDL gear better (relative to melded gear) is one objective of the changes, then I could see them going one of the other routes. The problem again, is that adjusting stats on materia would seem to contradict the qoute from the "money" post above.