[DEV Question] Why is this allowed?

[JunseiKei]

Weren't people able to enter Duties with Crafting/Gathering accessories? or rather, entirely dressed in Crafting/Gathering gear? Or are they still able to?

They had been able to until 1) SE made it so if the gear was so far under the ilevel for the dungeon, no EXP was gained (cannot SB) and 2) locked newer gear to Discipline of Land or Hand. Before that, yes, it was fairly common to see people in half crafting or gathering gear to SB for materia. It was incredibly frustrating.

If the same player came with i110 head, hands, and feet, no one would even have noticed...

People are only bitching about this coz it's a weapon, if it was any other piece, it wouldn't matter at all.

Then you come across someone like me who says, "Dude. Why the hell are you using something that's 60 main stat below the minimum?" if it was an accessory, then probably kick them after advising them that they still need to gear up and this as not the current place to use to gear up.

While I'm sure the last sentence was sarcasm, Underdog2204 was pointing out a valid observation. People tend to overlook DPS unless things go wrong, like failing a DPS check. Which can imply various things, including, but not limited to:

1) multiple DPS are under-geared;
2) one DPS is severely under-geared to the point others are unable to make up the loss;
3) everyone's gear is fine, but they are not utilizing things correctly).

It's much easier to pick up on if a tank is under-geared (HP being below thresholds that are common) or if a healer is ill-equipped and struggling to keep the party up.

However, yes, it's all the more important in this situation since the weapon caps your other stats. As it's been stated before, and I'll use my own experience testing it, with all 270 gear but the weapon, which was i110, my DPS and healing potential was halved. Just because of the weapon. That's a huge issue and the current minimum ilevel requirement allows this flaw to slip by.

[Reynhart]

As it's been stated before, and I'll use my own experience testing it, with all 270 gear but the weapon, which was i110, my DPS and healing potential was halved. Just because of the weapon. That's a huge issue and the current minimum ilevel requirement allows this flaw to slip by.

And I still think that your potential with an i110 head, hands, waist and feet and other gear i270 including the weapon should not be miles above having an i110 weapon and all other gear i270. That's why I suggested that more emphasis should be on Attack Power than pure weapon damage.

Yet, I'm still convinced that, if you join a party with someone having a really low body piece, you wouldn't even notice, since the DPS would be fairly acceptable for the fight. Especially on A9 which is pretty low on party-wide damage.

[JunseiKei]

And I still think that your potential with an i110 head, hands, waist and feet and other gear i270 including the weapon should not be miles above having an i110 weapon and all other gear i270.

Yet, I'm still convinced that, if you join a party with someone having a really low body piece, you wouldn't even notice, since the DPS would be fairly acceptable for the fight. Especially on A9 which is pretty low on party-wide damage.

You would notice when the DPS use Blood for Blood and get one shot since body gear also dictates how much HP you have as well as your defensive stats. Maybe not on A9, unless Faust cleaved them, which would probably be more on the OT facing it the wrong way. Probably. However, 10, 11 and 12 get target specific mechanics that would kill them off, especially if it's more than one piece of gear. The harder pieces to notice would be accessories; they don't provide HP nor any real amount of defense.

The weapon will always be miles ahead of the others since, as I've said, it's what SE decided to use as a stat capper. Even if it were another piece, say an accessory, if it somehow decided where the stats would start meeting soft and hard caps, that would be the most important thing to upgrade. The weapon is really the only real hard cap I see (though I could debate critical RATE and just RATE being more toward hard capped than soft). Everything else has a lot of soft capping (AKA diminishing returns).