The spirit bond rate is absurdly slow, it was just fine back in 1.0 and here's why;


First off, even with the best melds, the HQ iLv 70 gear isn't that hot compared to Mythic. Secondly, just getting tier 4 materia is a complete pain in the ass. Not only does it take forever to spirit bond, but doing so with iLv70 gear is incredibly expensive (it's either that or use iLv55 gear and pray for a T4 instead of T3) and you might not even get the materia you want. Then you factor in the fact that you lose any materia that's removed from an item (wtf?) as well as a failure on a forbidden meld (which is fine) AND that you can't re-sell used gear, so if you meld any materia to an item and then you decide you're done with it, it's a total write off.

All of this actually *hurts* the value of durable goods rather than increasing it. If materia was just a bit easier to come by, you'd likely see a spike in gear sales as more people would be out spirit bonding and the price of materia would drop a bit which all told would be a blessing for everyone. I mean wtf are we going to do once we get access to Tier V? We know it exists, and given how awful it is just to get T4 I can only imagine the insane cost T5 will have (and I'm speaking relative to a Legacy Server here; the prices on a the newer worlds must be astronomical).

Materia is in serious need of reforming (as is food but that's another topic) both in how we obtain it and its function. For one thing I'd really love to see Critical Hit Damage come back at the very least, possibly even attack/magic attack/healing potency or God forbid Enmity, though YP said they're not planning on expanding the types available -_-


Oh yeah, and all that +SB rate gear does diddly squat which is also ridiculous.