Earrings at Level 50

[Advocatus]

I hear all the time that red coral earrings are the best earrings for a Disciple of the Hand, but they provide less CP than Crimson Standard earrings. Even if you meld a craftsman's cunning materia IV into the red coral earrings, you're tying with the Crimson Standard earrings for CP, and the latter still wins out due to increased spiritbond rate.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me the only way the red coral earrings are better is craftsman's command materia IV being melded into them. We have enough craftsmanship on everything else, don't we?

[Makado]

They may better for CP but the fact that you can meld other stats into the red coral makes them nice. Also having to do 5000 supply missions to get (which I think takes like over a year or something) is kind of a turn off.

[Advocatus]

Sure, the red coral earrings are nice, but they only have the one materia slot. You're either tying for CP or getting a small bonus to your Control or Craftsmanship.

[Orophin]

Sure, the red coral earrings are nice, but they only have the one materia slot. You're either tying for CP or getting a small bonus to your Control or Craftsmanship.

You can overmeld every item with a materia slot with up to 5 materia, so you can add more craftmanship and control.

[Advocatus]

Oh. This I did not know. Thanks, Orophin!

[Norbi]

In order to get the Crimson Standard earrings, you need to do 5000 Supply Missions for the Maelstrom. You can do one supply mission per day per crafting class. That means 8 supply missions per day. That means 625 days minimum.

Or you can get Red Coral Earrings immediately for a couple thousand gil.

Also:

You can overmeld every item with a materia slot with up to 5 materia, so you can add more craftmanship and control.

^ This.

You can fit 3 Craftsmanship + 3 Control + 6 CP into Red Coral Earrings, and if they're HQ they come with 28 CP already. So that's 34CP, 3 Craftsmanship and 3 Control (HQ Red Coral Earrings with materia) for only a little effort spent in over-melding, vs. 32 CP, 0 Craftsmanship and 0 Control (Crimson Standard Earrings) for almost 2 years of consistent item turn-ins.