Level syncing formulas?

[Buff_Archer]

The part of your question I can go ahead and answer with 100% certainty is that adding materia to the PVP gear will not make any difference in Frontlines, so I wouldn't bother. Its just in one or two specific Wolf's Den modes that the materia slots are meant to work.

Pretty much the only good way to modify your stats is through accessories. For adding Vitality, the ones that have Vit/Det/Crit on them are best by far since all three of those stats help you... and accuracy, skill speed and parry are wasted pretty much but luckily there are quite a few PVP accessories that have these three stats that don't require you to be high rank. I'd recommend saving out a seperate PVP loadout that has Vit/Str/Crit/Det on as many pieces as possible... if there are any slots where all you have available is gear with Skill Speed and Accuracy as secondaries, see what you can pick up in CT/ST/WoD that has Crit and Det instead, even if the ilvl is lower than what it is for PVE use. I think I bought one i90 pair of caster pants and that's pretty much it, there's really no need to replace anything with the i90 PVP set if it already has the ideal stats and they are >= i80. The item level of different pieces of gear in my FL loadouts range from i80 to i130 because there's such a wide array of gear that already had the right stats within that range so you should be able to find what you need without purchasing the i90 stuff.