Eliminate materia subtiers!

[Denmo]

Sell/toss the low tiers

Keep the high tiers

Meld the high tiers

Tada!

[indira]

materia keeps money flowing in the wards

[Corrderio]

I have to agree with the OP. The subtier thing is annoying.

[darkstarpoet1]

to me the best way to fix this is take the teirs within the tiers out completely and have only strength I, II, III, IV and move it to a synth instead of a random number generator and have the skill of a crafter determine whether the item is able to be synthed or not along with if they hq it you get your tier after it is attached.

if you did that it would also allow the items to stack since each strength IV would be identical stats when made.

[Reliquia]

It's pretty obvious to me why they do this, to make an endless grind for the "ultimate gear" as far as min-maxers are concerned. If every touch of rage IV was the best touch of rage IV it would take less time, grind parties for materia and broken forbidden gear to get the "best of the best"
It creates a near endless grind to get super maxed out gear which keeps crafters relevant.

I understand this as well, but at the moment it's not worth investing all that time into getting the ultimate gear and the ultimate materia attached to it, at least I don't feel that it is. In a few months when 1.21 comes out with the new job system and job specific gear comes out there is a high probability that the best gear now will become secondary, the question is if the AF gear will be U/U and you can therefore get something that is close to it's stats by using materia on now existing gear.