melding lore gear

[Esper]

well, those people won't be part of any raiding teams.

lol raid teams, I remember when I had time for that... yeah... prefer not making time for it xD

[Sicno]

I think they made the changes to gear and created other sources for materia besides spiritbonding to incentivate its use and avoid a common problem in games with socketed gear and materias/gems/etc. where players just hoard them and reserve them for "that fabled gear of destiny", but they never actually use them because even when they get good enough gear they expect an even better item in the horizon.

One way to avoid that is with means to remove the materias while keeping them, another way is to make materias a lot more accessible so that you can just use them as you see fit. That's the approach SE took, there are more ways to get materias now. You can do Diadem, you can do beast tribe quests, VA awards a weekly grade V and they may add more ways to get materia in the future. So even if gear is volatile by the time you replace a piece you may have enough materia to meld the new one. Most of the player base is not gonna replace their lore body piece tomorrow nor next week. They may not get Midas gear from savage at all and the next time they get new gear may be when 3.3 launches. So don't think it's the end of the world because "OMG I'M GONNA LOSE 2 GRADE IVs!"

[Mimimisha_Mimomishima]

Anyone complaining about grade 4 materia needs to just suck it up and do the old world beastmen quests, even if you have never done any of them it literally takes 30 days to get all of them to rank 3 and start getting materia.

First 10 days -> Do all four beastman tribe dailies (3 quests per tribe)
Next 10 Days -> Do two of the beastman tribe dailies (each tribe now has 6 quests each)
Last 10 Days -> do the other two beastman tribe dailies (the last two tribes have 6 quests each)

Alternatively if you want to start earning materia at the 20 day mark after you get the first two tribes to rank 3 you can add an extra 10 days and do the 3 dailies from your rank 3 tribes to start earning Materia, and do the six of one level 2 tribe to get it up.

It doesn't take that much effort especially at level 60, also doing the rank 3 beastman quests gives you beastman tokens you can trade for unidentified items that you can use toward your relic or more importantly trade the unidentified items in for Grade 5 Carbon materia which you can hold on to or sell to get money for Grade 4 Carbon since Grade 4 can only be gathered right now.

[Dante_V]

Square Enix: "Due to the demand of penta melded accessories for tanks and their high cost we are revamping the way materia melding works and tanks damage calculation stats"

3.2: "Now everyone who wants to raid has to meld million dollar a piece materia to their previously unmeldable lore and alex armor... oh and the tank damage stat revamp inflated the value of secondaries of tanks even further increasing the demand of penta melds which will now be done with newer more expensive materia.

#rekt

Seems logical...

[Nutz]

Square Enix: "Due to the demand of penta melded accessories for tanks and their high cost we are revamping the way materia melding works and tanks damage calculation stats"

3.2: "Now everyone who wants to raid has to meld million dollar a piece materia to their previously unmeldable lore and alex armor... oh and the tank damage stat revamp inflated the value of secondaries of tanks even further increasing the demand of penta melds which will now be done with newer more expensive materia.

#rekt

Seems logical...

Secondary stats are not in any way more powerful for tanks at this point than they ever have been. Tanks are the sole consumers of STR materia -- this will be cheaper than comparable materia because players cannot prevent it from being created in certain instances and is useless to any non-tank. Running VA weekly should supply you with enough tier V materia to properly augment your own gear, assuming you don't think you need to apply only tier V all the time to every item (hint: you save it for i240 items). Tier IV materia is cheap and plentiful. Use it on anything below i240 with reckless abandon!

[Melondra]

By the way the drop in Void ark for that grade 5 materia is not guaranteed and your rolling against 5 other players for it. You'll be lucky if it only takes a month to get one piece of materia.

[Nestama]

By the way the drop in Void ark for that grade 5 materia is not guaranteed and your rolling against 5 other players for it. You'll be lucky if it only takes a month to get one piece of materia.

Hm? I thought it was a weekly thing.

[DGladius]

Hm? I thought it was a weekly thing.

It is a weekly item you get in your inventory once you beat echidna that you can trade for materia. No rolling needed.

[Melondra]

It is a weekly item you get in your inventory once you beat echidna that you can trade for materia. No rolling needed.

I ran it from beginning to end yesterday and did not receive one.

[DGladius]

I ran it from beginning to end yesterday and did not receive one.

I've been getting it in my inventory once Echidna dies for the past 2 weeks.