Materia and Elements

[Kerrik]

Is it just me or does materia seem pointless at endgame armors and weapons. None of them have materia slots and from what I can tell, crafted equips are basically a waste of time. Sure, you could put it in equipment before you hit level 50 but, I went through gear so quick it didn't matter.

Also, what is the deal with elemental resistance? I kinda wish certain mobs had elemental affinity. Like if you did fire on a fire sprite it would heal them instead of damage them, or casting cure on undead. I heard in FF11 they had some crazy stuff with elements. I am not saying to rehash old stuff, but it would make it more interesting at least.

[Reiterpallasch]

Crafted gear with the appropriate melds can generally tend to be better than darklite, even if the ilvl is lower. I'd hardly say that makes them "a waste of time".

[Enkidoh]

Yoshi-P removed elemental affinities on mobs because he felt it led to class favouritism in parties, specifically for boss fights - he didn't want players preferring to manaburn enemies with BLM just because a mob had a weakness to fire or ice.

And you only have to look to FFXI to see how elemental affinity has been abused in the past (the infamous Cure Undead exploit is a case in point), which only influenced Yoshi's decision.

[Akuha]

I've never played XI, but I was curious as to why I could literally burn fire sprites.

[Legend_]

I equipped some Earth elemental materia to reduce some damage from Golden fleece which casts stone but noticed no difference.

Maybe I was already capped prior, but there has to be some goood use from the elemental materia.

I need a group that's willing to try

[Urthdigger]

There's a lot of high level players who prefer the level 70 crafted sets over the darklight, or even over allagan or AF2, due to materia.