The new Allagan set of items needs to have a small customization option.

[Ryans]

If 'best gear' means 'highest iLevel' then you have an odd idea of what 'best' means. If you've ever played even one Monster Hunter game then you'd know that 'best' and 'highest level' sometimes don't coincide. The armor in this game seems to fall in with this mentality in about the same frequency as Monster Hunter. Take the best hand piece for White Mage (hint: it's Darklight).

If you want an example of a game where highest doesn't necessarily equal best, it's FFXI back at lvl 75 cap. FFXIV is far from that way. Any full ilvl 90 set (assuming you are acc capped) is going to perform within a few dps of any other combination of ilvl 90 gear. The impact on secondary stats is so minimal that it doesn't matter what you pick, you will still be doing the same damage. The fact that a class only has one main stat for damage and that all the gear with the same ilvl is going to have the same main stat value makes any kind of customization pointless.

The only way customization is anything but a placebo is if the secondary stats can compete with main stats and if there are enough ways to maximize a secondary stat without sacrificing the main stat. The only real way that works is if gear doesn't have a universal stat minimum dependent on item level and if there are more than 4 choices of secondary stats, one of which is mandatory to cap effectively leaving 3 choices and preferably more than one main stat that the class is dependent on.

[Airikay]

How does 8 det beat 6 mnd? To put you in your place, the Allagan gloves are miles better than DL. Also, I was a bit over the top but I still think an MMORPG should have multiple end game routes

Well the more det you stack the higher your heals. Although 8 det still won't best 6 mind. WHM BiS on hands though is Cleric or Allagan depending on preference. But when you look at something like Allagan Belt to Royal Sash, Royal Sash actually turns back about 3 more on average. I do prefer the bonus stats of mpre piety and health though so I still prefer Allagan belt.

The only thing I'm worried about is RNG completely screwing people over. I really hope they have dragoon and monk have same pool. No reason to not, healers priority for secondary stats is polar opposites, but we have same pool. Also, they need to have token drops for main body pieces. Something like Head first boss, legs second, hands and feet third and body and waist last. Then let accessories and weapon be the RNG screwing people over. But making it all RNG will make a lot of people who are unlucky very unhappy. I know the other healer in my group has only ever seen one healer drop and this goes back like 4 months, even before she joined my group.

[NeoAmon]

Snip

Naunet, I completely agree. The RNG drop system in FFXIV is very bad. I actually loath it... My entire group now have the Allagan battle axe while we still did not see one bard drop from T5. However, this thread is not about the rng, it is about a completely different issue.

Please go and start another thread with few suggestion on how to improve the RNG drop system and I will show you my full support. I can't start a thread about every end game issue in ffxiv, I'm already hated enough for it and my opinions are usually met with hostility from the casual community.

[NintenPyjak64]

I would kind of like to see a consumable item drop from coil (either from chests or from mobs) that you can take to Gerolt or something to reroll the stats on one piece of equipment

How it would work: For the main stats of the weapon (let's use SMN book as an example) It'd reroll to a range of INT and VIT, so rerolling could give you slightly higher, slightly lower or no change in those stats. It would work the same way for the secondary stats, however it'd be random which secondary would pop up. Let's say the book gives accuracy and spell speed and you reroll it. It could keep acc and replace sps with det.

I feel like with this people would be free to customize the stats to better fit their play style, like in the case of WHM, I could be more Spell Speed oriented whereas somebody else could be more Det oriented with the same equipment

[PArcher]

With how it's going to be in 2.2, it's entirely possible that someone could never get a single piece of ilvl 110 Allagan gear, even if they regularly run the second Coil. That's just not right.

If we had the system the OP wants in 2.0/1, I would still be using the DL/CT/whatever-other-i80-would-be-there feet, hands and chest on my DRG (my main. And no, haven't seen the chest or gloves yet, neither the T4 ring, and only cleared T5 first last week), still have an i80 weapon (since we wouldn't have been able to +1 the Relics), have had 2 i90 rings for only a month, and would have only upgraded my helm to i90 last week.

RNG sucks. Nothing else to say about it. To have options, for better or worse, is, well, better.

What would be a "better" option is to have Allagan have the "better" secondaries, Tome gear "worse". Not to leave everything up to RNG.

[Naunet]

I could see setting up a decent stat customization system through a means of "upgrading" gear and selecting certain stat paths. Upgrading could require some sort of reagent purchased either with Soldiery tomestones (probably the best option) or dungeon drops, or a mix of the two, and there would be a cap on the number of times you upgrade down a path so that you don't end up wearing the same piece of gear for tier after tier after tier (boring).

That said, given how shallow FFXIV's stat system is, having Allagan gear be high ilvl than tomestone gear pretty much means it's going to be BiS always (with the possible exception of BRDs who heavily rely on crit). This is STILL problematic, because I don't believe someone should be able to regularly clear Coil and conceivably never see a drop for them because RNG is a bitch. Having tomestone gear of at least equal quality primary-stat-wise means that while you're clearing Coil, at least you're also earning Soldiery tomestones that, if RNG doesn't smile on you, you can trade in for something.

[Allyrion]

It would be great if the Zodiak weapon had some level of customization since they mentioned it was going to be upgraded patch by patch.
That, of course, doesn't really fix issues like accuracy capping and min-maxing that we may have with only one set.

[Mardel]

I believe it is very important to have a little bit of freedom in picking up our secondary stats so we can shape our characters the way we feel more comfortable with. This can be done by either allowing us to add mats to the new Allagan gear or introduce a restricted system that allows us to swap one secondary stat with another per piece.

I've been wondering this myself, I fear that unless we get 3 stats from coil2 gear we will be wasting a stat for accuracy outside of coil. Consider how you can pretty much drop all extra accuracy and still hit EX primals. This essentially will force the allagan set on us regardless of secondary stats, due to the main stat (str/int/mnd) being significantly higher than the other options.

However, could it be that they are saving equally as good or nearly as good gear for the next implementation of crystal tower? With that gear it could be possible we will be able to mix/match at that point.

[eagledorf]

What would be a "better" option is to have Allagan have the "better" secondaries, Tome gear "worse". Not to leave everything up to RNG.

I don't really mind that Allagan gear is the best in the game, but it would drive me absolutely insane if they don't tune the new coil to be cleared in i100 gear (preferably less so we can work on it in a mix of gear without waiting months to get full Sol-gear). I know several people (mostly tanks for some reason....) that have never seen a single coil drop despite clearing it weekly for months. If this had translated instead to clearing t1-4 weekly and never being able to down Twintania it would have driven me batty!

[BlueMage]

Let materia work on all gear. Customization problem solved.