Gearing WAR 4x?

[Urthdigger]

General rule of thumb is that item level is what's important, not color. This isn't Diablo/Borderlands. So, white crafted gear, if high-quality, can compete with dungeon drops of an equal item level. The only thing colors mean, is that they often have an item level higher than their equip level. But if you're in your 40s, using gear from the 30s, you can pick up some HQ crafted gear off the market boards and it would be an upgrade.

[MrWargasm]

EveK thanks!

[Niwashi]

General rule of thumb is that item level is what's important, not color. This isn't Diablo/Borderlands. So, white crafted gear, if high-quality, can compete with dungeon drops of an equal item level. The only thing colors mean, is that they often have an item level higher than their equip level. But if you're in your 40s, using gear from the 30s, you can pick up some HQ crafted gear off the market boards and it would be an upgrade.

At Level 50 and above, Item Level becomes the main way of telling at a glance what's better (though there are still a few exceptions). From 1-49, the fact that High Quality and Aetherial gear has the same Item Level as its Normal Quality namesakes, but stats that should set it about 5 or 6 levels higher throws that off a bit. Even the green gear that does have an Item Level a bit higher than its equip Level usually has stats that boost its effectiveness far more than the slight boost in Item Level.

In all cases though, the actual stats trump either method of telling at a glance how good an item is. For weapons, you want the one with the highest Damage stat. For armour, you want the highest available Defense stats and the highest on your class's/job's main stat. For jewelry, you want the highest on your class's/job's main stat. When those are equal, you move on to comparing by which tertiary stats are most useful for your job.

The only thing to be careful of when comparing the stats of different gear is on pieces that take up more than one gear slot. For instance, when comparing a chest slot piece that covers the head as well so you can't wear a hat/helmet with it, to another chest piece that doesn't cover the head, you need to add together the stats from both the single chest piece and the helm you'd wear along with it to get the numbers you'd want to compare to the stats of the multi-slot chest piece.