How is ilvl an issue while leveling?

[Makeda]

Why I said this:

It is amazing how often people defend this crap. That is a big reason people want change because they are hard to kick at times because people do not understand the game.

Yes, and well...

There is going into a leveling dungeon a little shy on gear and playing it safe... using ALL your cool downs, small pulls, and so on...

And then there is going into a leveling dungeon a little shy on gear and playing it Leeroy style - chain pulling in DPS stance, never using any cool downs, lettings mobs get on your back side, and so on... because "All the epic tanks on the forums say to use DPS stance"... and you think you're all that... but... they have the gear and rotation down, and you do not...

(you being our hypothetical tank... not any poster here).

Very often we get undergeared people who play it like they are overgeared... and that leads to all these fiascos.

There is also the situation of "my last healer was able to keep me up like this what is your problem" when that tank is maybe even 'of gear' but the healer is still leveling - and the tank is refusing to notice this...

And then there is the DPS that is "I'm overheard / good, so let's rush this thing" when the tank and/or healer are not overgeared...


In short, it's not so much that people run things they aren't geared for... but that when they do so, they just adjust how they play to accommodate that.

[Vstarstruck]

Yes, and well...

There is going into a leveling dungeon a little shy on gear and playing it safe... using ALL your cool downs, small pulls, and so on...
And then there is going into a leveling dungeon a little shy on gear and playing it Leeroy style - chain pulling in DPS stance, never using any cool downs, lettings mobs get on your back side, and so on... because "All the epic tanks on the forums say to use DPS stance"... and you think you're all that... but... they have the gear and rotation down, and you do not...

(you being our hypothetical tank... not any poster here).

Very often we get undergeared people who play it like they are overgeared... and that leads to all these fiascos.

There is also the situation of "my last healer was able to keep me up like this what is your problem" when that tank is maybe even 'of gear' but the healer is still leveling - and the tank is refusing to notice this...

And then there is the DPS that is "I'm overheard / good, so let's rush this thing" when the tank and/or healer are not overgeared...


In short, it's not so much that people run things they aren't geared for... but that when they do so, they just adjust how they play to accommodate that.

Lol ya I was able get that before reading that line. (though I do understand your reasons for stating that, there are bound to be people that might get that confused, just letting you know I can understand such things)

For your point, that is def also an issue, however there is very well the issue people under gear too much as well (though what you described is most likely more common)They use ilevel high right side while having a gimp left, stepping into some instances where they can be oneshoted from unavoidable damage and so on. So yeah I do agree your point is an issue, but so is entering places undergeared so much so it is hard to pass with them in the party.

When you get a DPS in expert that cba do the level 70 quest and have under i290 left, it usually shows 2 things. One they do not know what they are doing in general, thus the low DPS output, so low you might be there 35 min+, and the other, because of such a low experience in the game in general, trying to rush like that, they are legit not ready for level 70 endgame and understand rotations.

I wonder if they made a mistake, having raid/level cap gear remaining superior for so long into each patch. On the one hand, sure, it's nice not needing to worry about gear for so long, through half the dungeons. But on the other hand, it does encourage the lazy mindset, and does produce the idea that "well, it's just a few more levels til the next cap, that's the gear that matters." Perhaps if they made it so Augmented Ironworks/Shire were more quickly outclassed, more players would recognize how they're holding themselves and party members back by not keeping gear on par.

no, Augmented does last a while and that is a good thing since you don't have to worry about gaining exp faster then you can collect gear on the way. In other words, having a mix of Augmented gear in mix of dungeon drops is fine x7 to x9 levels (59,69 with their respective Augmented gear) this is less about having i270 in a 69 place and more so having i250 or less in slots while trying to do a level 67-69 df. (or entering i90 and under for the first HW dungeon) Being i270 in castrum abania is fine as long as you know what you are doing, and often seen i270~~ outperform higher ilevels from knowing what to do, as long as x situation can do it in 20 mins or less, there is not really room for an argument to be made of "x is an issue" You may not be doing the super mega pulls that overgear can do there, but it is not going to be insanely slow, like some may bring being say i250 and not knowing rotations.

Trying to "nerf" the effectiveness of the best gear in how long it lasts in the next expansion would only make this matter worse.

[Nestama]

Being i270 in castrum abania is fine as long as you know what you are doing

I disagree, especially if it's a tank and/or healer. A tank in full shire gear means the healer has to work extra hard just to keep them alive (especially against the final boss' tank buster that gets enhanced two times) and it also means DPS will probably need to intentionally play poorly (Level 68-69 weapon > Level 60 weapon) just so they don't rip hate and force the healer to work even harder.

When it's a healer, they heal for less, which means they'll most likely spam their {Heal} II spell and then be OOM pretty quickly.

When it's a DPS, the dungeon just takes longer. So unless the boss has a DPS check (or the tank mass pulls), no issues will arise... but don't be that DPS.

Trash mobs from Bardem's Mettle and on hit pretty damn hard. So always try to be in up to date gear, otherwise you're just going to be an inconvenience in some shape or form depending on your role.

[MoroMurasaki]

Being i270 in castrum abania is fine as long as you know what you are doing,

You could complete Abania in gear significantly lower than i270, this is not a discussion about dungeons becoming impassible but rather about using common sense and comsidering the experiences of others before queueing into something woefully undergeared.

With all the ways to get better gear there is absolutely no reason to be i270 in Doma Castle, much less Abania, especially as a tank. If we're going to hold tanks to this standard healers and dps don't get a free pass either.

Arguing pointlessly about the importance of skill over gear is just silly - it takes both. You could be amazingly geared and not understand any of your skills and be a huge burden on your party. You could be a world-first prog raider and if you're using crap gear you're still going to be a burden.

If people stopped to consider the impact they're going to have on their group members this wouldn't even be a conversation.

[Squintina]

Source: me playing SCH, running lvl69 castrum dungeon, tank died several times a long the way, and we wiped twice on the last boss. DPS started berating me for "not knowing how to heal". When I point out that the tank is in a full set lvl60 gear, (The SB crafted 60, not the poetic 60), the tank went like "I'm poor don't judge me" and the ignorant DPSs start wailing about "his gears is fine you just don't know how to heal!". After a couple mins I was booted out.

One of the reasons why when I decided to level my WHM & AST, I tried to stay out of roulettes as much as possible. I can't even count how many times that happened to me once my hubby tank stopped playing and I had to rely on pugs .

[Enla]

One of the reasons why when I decided to level my WHM & AST, I tried to stay out of roulettes as much as possible. I can't even count how many times that happened to me once my hubby tank stopped playing and I had to rely on pugs .

It's why I tend to bring at least one friend when I do my roulettes. We've gotten a tank just like that who didn't understand how to do their job and was so poorly geared that they might as well have been wearing tissue paper. After trying to talk them through at least using cooldowns so my job would be easier and getting nowhere, we all just eventually sat down until we could kick him. I know the developers are loathe to gate some content, but the dungeons /need/ minimum ilvl caps like the raids. I can live with poorly geared DPS, I already DPS as SCH and can generally make up for the slack. I can't deal with tanks who require constant overheals because one bad hit takes them down to nothing or healers who simply can't keep up at all even with baby pulls, and not for lack of trying.

[Iscah]

I've got a few classes to Lv70 now - while playing Stormblood MSQ I was leveling both summoner and white mage, so I tended to be a bit haphazard with upgrading gear via quest rewards because you generally have to pick between casting OR healing gear. (Healing usually got priority for gear upgrades, but I tended to go into new dungeons as summoner because there's less pressure if you don't know what's going on.)

So then I'd collected all that healing gear, and leveling astrologian to 70 seemed the next obvious choice, and I didn't need to get any new gear because I had enough from leveling and dungeon drops, right? So I never paid much attention beyond equipping the recommended gear when I leveled up, and it somehow slipped my mind that I did need to upgrade my star globe as well.... and so I got into Castrum Abania still with my Shire Astrometer.


Down the other end of the scale, I'm realising it can be a problem in ARR because a surprising number of the later game dungeons (and thus gear drops for people who don't buy them) are optional. Story dungeons are at 15/16/17, 24, 28, 32 but then not until 41 and 50. Though on the other side of that, i-level can be quite wonky - eg. dungeon gear does have stats equivalent to higher-level vendor gear (eg. Lv15 i17 Novice gear has same stats as Lv23 vendor), and currently my alt-character dragoon is apparently undergeared because 'upgrading' from Lv32ish scale mail armour to other DPS gear is a defence loss.


I feel part of the issue of keeping up with gear in this game is that there are, firstly, so many places you can get gear, and no easy way of checking if all your classes are up to date. In a standard RPG you'd just go to the item shop in the highest-level town you've reached, compare their items to your party's items, buy your upgrades, off you go. Here the vendor equipment is rarely what you actually need, and you can only compare to your currently equipped class.

[Hasrat]

You could also argue that part of the problem is ARR's gearing. You mention DRG's scale mail, but that's one of those times when DRG's gear is a bit awkward. It's somewhere between tank and dps gear. Different types of shields for PLD. One- or two-handed WHM/BLM. The weird body+head or legs+feet combo gear.

It is a bit disappointing that they've moved away from all that variety. But at least the simplifying makes it easier to tell when you're falling behind.

[Iscah]

Ooh yes, I'd forgotten about the weird two-slot items. I never used them specifically because it was too hard to actually compare stats. (Well, that and they're ugly armours and there's nothing to glamour replacement shoes onto...) And I've never ever understood which shield I should be using or how much difference it makes.

Mage wands on the other hand... as much as it's simpler to just have the one type of weapon, I liked the look of some of the white mage wands, and I think the casting animation was a bit different. Would be nice if there was some option to trade in your standard two-handed staff for an equivalent one-handed version so the old ARR wands can be used as glamours.

[AxlStream]

As having leveled all my tanks on SB. Unless you're playing Tanks at a high level of proficiency, you will not make it through the dungeons during the leveling process without higher level gear. I've stressed more than my fair share of Healers going in my Creator gear the whole way through on DRK and PLD. Thankfully, rotating my cooldowns and adjusting my playstyle for survival instead of damage got the job done.