iLv needs to change

[Valkrist]

ilevel 70 weapon for Sastasha (normal)? ^^
I don't think that every dungeon, that are in a Animus book, should require a ilevel 70 weapon.

Also for those with unfinished relic, so long their other gears are overgeared enough (ilevel 110 gear in a ilevel 60 dungeon) the gear stats should compensate enough the lower weapon.

That's picking apart the statement a little too much. Yes, an i70 weapon would be too much for say Sastasha NM, but not so much for say the third dungeon for each Animus book. What I'm getting at is that the Animus books expect you to have an i90 weapon(Zenith equivalent Atma weapon) for this. Anyways, this is really besides the point.

Then I'm going to take the op post's example. Someone fully geared in i130 gear, but an i90 weapon. They absolutely with 100% certainty do under half damage of someone with the same gearing, but with an i130 weapon. This is a fact. If you compare an i90 weapon to an i135 weapon, there's a 12 "damage" difference that is equal to about 110 main stat to catch up, not including the secondary stat difference. Yes, wearing i130 gear is increasing his main stat and secondary stats, but that's ignoring the fact that they're still a minimum of 110 main stat behind compared to everyone else.

[Felis]

Then I'm going to take the op post's example. Someone fully geared in i130 gear, but an i90 weapon. They absolutely with 100% certainty do under half damage of someone with the same gearing, but with an i130 weapon. This is a fact. If you compare an i90 weapon to an i135 weapon, there's a 12 "damage" difference that is equal to about 110 main stat to catch up, not including the secondary stat difference. Yes, wearing i130 gear is increasing his main stat and secondary stats, but that's ignoring the fact that they're still a minimum of 110 main stat behind compared to everyone else.

Yes, but outside of SCoB and FCoB a ilevel 90 weapon is good enough, and in many level 50 dungeons the weapon get ilevel-synched down to ilevel 110

[JimboTCB]

Yes, but outside of SCoB and FCoB a ilevel 90 weapon is good enough

Nothing outside of those has an ilvl requirement of more than 90, so a 90 weapon is the expected gear level almost by definition. Now, if we're talking about people still using a sub-50 weapon and padding their ilvl using accessories, that's something else entirely, but 90 is what the highest non-coil content is tuned around and anything more than that should be considered a nice bonus. Complaining that people in experts aren't running around with zetas and augmented magitek weapons is ridiculous.

[MatthiasS]

Some thoughts on what could be causing the big armor, tiny weapon problem.

1. Alt Jobs that share gear. I play BLM, PLD, and SCH. That means at any time, I could toss my i130 armor on my SMN and have a huge ilvl, despite the best weapon I have being the Titan book. Somehow never got around to picking up the Diamond one off Shiva. (I personally consider any weapon above i110 to be "good enough" for all current content)

2. Poor logic/understanding of stat weights. A player earns, say, 1500 poetics, and looks through the list o' stuff you can buy. They see 1300 and a tomestone for a 120 weapon. Or 850(ish) and a twine for a 130 chest, with enough left over to buy and ring, and nearly there on bracelet. Most players will choose to upgrade 3 slots over 1, thinking it will provide a greater bonus.

3. Deliberately screwing with ilvl to get into content. This is the one that pisses me off. The other day I joined a Shiva EX farm party for a pony, and for some reason, the tank just kept dropping. I checked the tanks gear. Solid for Shiva. WHM? Looked good. SCH? WTF. i55 Grand Company Book. Guy was there for the Shiva book, and hadn't bothered to run HM primals, hit the markets, or burn through relic to Zenith, even. When you can buy an i70 book on the MB for 200k gil, bringing anything lower to an EX primal farm is just saying "I don't care, carry me"

[Dererk]

Too many party's I make lately have people with diamond weapons il 115 its not good now I'm just going to make my party finders have a requirement of il 125 no exception.

[radioactive_lego]

Solution: Make lv 120 weapons as easy to grind as 120 gear (or vise-versa).

I hate to make this a "I hate the relic grind" thread, but it's really the cornerstone of the OP's problem.

[JimboTCB]

Solution: Make lv 120 weapons as easy to grind as 120 gear (or vise-versa).

I hate to make this a "I hate the relic grind" thread, but it's really the cornerstone of the OP's problem.

Poetics weapons take all of 3 weeks to farm, and that's only because of the weekly currency cap. You could farm a 110 soldiery weapon in one afternoon if you were so inclined. The ease of obtaining gear isn't the issue, it's the laziness and disrespect for other players that leads to people cheesing their itemlevel with no regard for their actual performance. Some people don't care about being bad and just want to put in the absolute bare minimum effort necessary to get carried through content, and making weapons easier to grind out isn't going to change that.

[radioactive_lego]

Poetics weapons take all of 3 weeks to farm, and that's only because of the weekly currency cap. You could farm a 110 soldiery weapon in one afternoon if you were so inclined.

Why would I (anyone) waste their poetics on a weapon when you could get a poetics Head & Chest to 130 that same timeframe?
Oh, and I've put all this time and energy into a this Relic, that becomes effectively useless if I buy a new one. Furthermore, the among the grindiest parts of the Relic quest is gaining light which I get from doing dungeons with it equipped (and gaining Alexandrite, which I get by spending Soldiery). I'm not even going to get into the achievement debate.

Not only are there multiple incentives to using your Relic in content, but there's incentives to spend your Poetics and Soldiery elsewhere.
Players must have a complete lack of rudimentary sense and proportionality to buy a poetic weapon (or even a soldiery) if they already possess a Relic for that class.

[Valkrist]

Why would I (anyone) waste their poetics on a weapon when you could get a poetics Head & Chest to 130 that same timeframe?
Oh, and I've put all this time and energy into a this Relic, that becomes effectively useless if I buy a new one. Furthermore, the among the grindiest parts of the Relic quest is gaining light which I get from doing dungeons with it equipped (and gaining Alexandrite, which I get by spending Soldiery). I'm not even going to get into the achievement debate.

Not only are there multiple incentives to using your Relic in content, but there's incentives to spend your Poetics and Soldiery elsewhere.
Players must have a complete lack of rudimentary sense and proportionality to buy a poetic weapon (or even a soldiery) if they already possess a Relic for that class.

When I was gearing up my PLD for Second Coil, I bought a Burtgang and even unweathered it before Final Coil came out. I had a Curtana in my inventory and I was grinding it out. I bought the Burtgang because I absolutely needed a weapon that was competitive for the content that was available. Any tank will tell you how awful it is to try to tank with a subpar weapon against DPS or healers with up to date weapons. Tanks are forced into situations where they have to have a strong weapon to even do their job. Other jobs don't get that immediate feedback that says that their weapon isn't cutting it.

As for a "rudimentary sense and proportionality"... Upgrading your weapon is by far your best bang for your buck if you're not getting the endgame weapon in your hands literally today. In today's terms, if you're literally farming up Dreadwyrm weapons today, then yes. Buying a potetics weapon is a waste of your resources. If you're not capable of farming Dreadwyrm weapons, then going for the fastest weapon to reach an equivalent, or closeness, is by far the best usage of your resources to make the gap to reaching Dreadwyrm. Then if you're going to argue that they're making a relic, then their weapon should already be at least i90 (passable for most non-endgame content), but not Zeta level since we're still talking about reaching that point of strength, then buying a poetics weapon is still by far the best thing you could do to immediately improve your chances of getting Dreadwyrm weapons.

[lyndwyrm]

Not only are there multiple incentives to using your Relic in content, but there's incentives to spend your Poetics and Soldiery elsewhere.
Players must have a complete lack of rudimentary sense and proportionality to buy a poetic weapon (or even a soldiery) if they already possess a Relic for that class.

3 weeks of capping poetics at a generous 8 hours a week, 24 hours.
2 weeks of bad WoD runs taking 1 hour each, 2 hours.
<26 hours from nothing to i130 poetics weapon.

How far on a fresh relic (or at any other stage for that matter) can you get in 26 hours? With current rates, I personally could very likely finish atma, but probably not animus and definitely not novus. I'll be optimistic and say animus (i100). If you're starting from i55, the gain in gear from i55->i130 on head and body slots is 22(head)+36(body)=58 str/dex/int/mnd

The gain in weapon damage for physical classes from i100->i130 is 8, with a weighting of 8:1 for WD:STR, that equates to 64. Then there's a 14 gain from the mainstat on the weapon.

In summary, the damage gain from changing weapon from i100 to i130 is greater than changing head and body slot from i55 to i130 by about 20 mainstat points.

-snip-My overall ilvl was 90. It would have been 100 if every piece counted equally(or I don't understand averages).

Edit after readi ng the thread: As a newer player, I haven't found an easy way to get a higher ilvl bow. The ones I see for poetics or soldiery also require coil drops according to what I looked up. Did I see that wrong or am I just looking in the wrong place?

Each body piece is weighted the same currently, and 2-handed weapons are weigted doubly (multi-slot armor pieces also have increased weighting). With the gear you listed that should put you at 98 or so. However, the rounding can seem weird sometimes (I think there's a floor/ceiling function in there somewhere).

As for getting increased ilv weapons, there's no quest for the zenith (i90), you just buy 3 thavnarain mist and trade them in with Drake the furnace in North Shroud. The two tomestones now can be gotten in either Sycrus tower or from the weekly quest doing all three crystal tower stages.