Tank Darklight Armor.... Really?!

[Hanabira]

the biggest pain i had with HDL, aside from it being ugly, is upgrading it. Say you get allagan boots.. but to wear them, you need to go back to hoplite pants and you take an overall stat loss! same with head and body. I got af+1 body, and i had to downgrade to a ilvl60 head. Just odd i have 4 or 5 pieces of ilvl90and this awkward AK circlet

[Avalon_Albrook]

the biggest pain i had with HDL, aside from it being ugly, is upgrading it. Say you get allagan boots.. but to wear them, you need to go back to hoplite pants and you take an overall stat loss!

Not actually true. At least, not always. I always have refused to use the DL body piece because I'm too pretty to wear a trash can over my head. So I've stuck with the Hoplite Tabard this entire time, but made sure that the Valor Coronet was one of the very first lv90 upgrades I did. If you look at the stats of both head and body for DL (it may be one piece, but look at them as being added together for the sake of argument) and consider that it's lv70, upgrading one half to lv90 and the other half downgrading to lv60 will still give you a stat boost. Just not much of one. And your gear average between the two is lv75.

Ahh, the sacrifices we make for the sake of vanity. I know my Coil team healers are hoping to god I get the Allagan body drop on Turn 1 either next week or the week after so Turn 4 can be more of a "ouch that hurts" during phase 6 instead of "OMG OMG IT BURNS OH THE HUMANITY". Because I still have another 2 weeks of myth farming to go before I have enough for the AF2 piece. And, of course, I'm sure that if I do end up just buying the AF2 piece outright, the Allagan body piece will drop in Turn 1 the very next opportunity...

[Hanabira]

Not actually true. At least, not always. I always have refused to use the DL body piece because I'm too pretty to wear a trash can over my head. So I've stuck with the Hoplite Tabard this entire time, but made sure that the Valor Coronet was one of the very first lv90 upgrades I did. If you look at the stats of both head and body for DL (it may be one piece, but look at them as being added together for the sake of argument) and consider that it's lv70, upgrading one half to lv90 and the other half downgrading to lv60 will still give you a stat boost. Just not much of one. And your gear average between the two is lv75.

Then explain why my stats went down. Your idea would be right if stats were equally distributed. Gear comes in 3 tiers.. accessories and belt, hands/gloves/head and then body/legs. But wear ilvl90 boots and ilvl60 pants and you will be losing alot of stats even though the average is still 75. What you saying is that you went from 2 ilvl60 pieces and upgraded one of them to 90, but do it the other way around where you have HDL body/head, and upgrade body to 90, and down the head to 60, you'll gain a small amount.. but if you upgrade the head and downgrade the body, its a huge loss downgrading a tier3 stat item and upping a tier 2 piece. In no case whatsoever should you have to neglect wearing a new piece of gear because upgrading will result in an overall stat loss. not in this armor leveling system.

[Avalon_Albrook]

Then explain why my stats went down. Your idea would be right if stats were equally distributed. Gear comes in 3 tiers.. accessories and belt, hands/gloves/head and then body/legs. But wear ilvl90 boots and ilvl60 pants and you will be losing alot of stats even though the average is still 75. What you saying is that you went from 2 ilvl60 pieces and upgraded one of them to 90, but do it the other way around where you have HDL body/head, and upgrade body to 90, and down the head to 60, you'll gain a small amount.. but if you upgrade the head and downgrade the body, its a huge loss downgrading a tier3 stat item and upping a tier 2 piece. In no case whatsoever should you have to neglect wearing a new piece of gear because upgrading will result in an overall stat loss. not in this armor leveling system.

Either way, whether you do Valor armor and Hoplite Circlet or Valor Coronet and Hoplite Tabard, it's still an overall stat improvement over the DL body piece. The numbers are there for everything, you can add them up yourself. Depending on what you want to do, each way gives you some stats boosted while others are a little less, but overall it's an improvement. The better combo based on pure math is to have the Valor Surcoat with the Hoplite Circlet as it gives you 44 vitality points versus DL body's 36, which also gives you more parry than the DL body. In my case, I prioritized other myth purchases over the Surcoat, so I did Hoplite Tabard and the Coronet, which gives me 38 vitality over DL body's 36. And, I don't look like a trashcan as a result. To me, win-win.

[HOLY_S-HIT]

Not actually true. At least, not always. I always have refused to use the DL body piece because I'm too pretty to wear a trash can over my head. So I've stuck with the Hoplite Tabard this entire time, but made sure that the Valor Coronet was one of the very first lv90 upgrades I did. If you look at the stats of both head and body for DL (it may be one piece, but look at them as being added together for the sake of argument) and consider that it's lv70, upgrading one half to lv90 and the other half downgrading to lv60 will still give you a stat boost. Just not much of one. And your gear average between the two is lv75.
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I did the same ^

[Mihael_Longclaw]

the biggest pain i had with HDL, aside from it being ugly, is upgrading it. Say you get allagan boots.. but to wear them, you need to go back to hoplite pants and you take an overall stat loss! same with head and body. I got af+1 body, and i had to downgrade to a ilvl60 head. Just odd i have 4 or 5 pieces of ilvl90and this awkward AK circlet

AF+1 chest + AK Circlet is an increase in Defense, and I'm pretty sure there was a stat gain as well