How is ilvl an issue while leveling?

[Iscah]

But the thing is, do you wanna bother gearing up if there is really low chance you even get those last 2 endgame dungeons from leveling roulette. 90% time you get something like Sastasha or something like that. I have leveled all my tanks and healers with ilvl 270 doing only one leveling roulette once a day.

Mostly I level through roulettes too, though at Lv69 I’ve been specifically queuing for Abania since it’s the only chance to run it and earn EXP (three runs = level up to 70) and I want those pretty weapon glamours, especially the arcanist’s grimoire. (I reckon they’ve deliberately put nice glamours in that dungeon for that exact reason - there’s very little chance of it coming up in someone’s roulette so they make sure people will keep queuing for it!)

[Lium]

Interesting points in this thread. I guess it does shed a little light on things. I hadn't thought of leveling a different job on the same toon, which I guess can account for lagging behind the ilvl curve. Doing the MSQ, your gear gets upgraded automatically, just by doing the quests. But that obviously won't happen if you've already done those quests.

Still, though, my alt job is BLM. It's at level 50. Though I don't get MSQ upgrades on that job, I still go to the market board and purchase gear to keep up every couple levels or so. So, I dunno. You should be able to keep up.

As for not having i290 gear when you hit 70, there's no excuse for that. I just dinged 70 last night, and the first thing I did instinctively was the level 70 job quest. I got a full set of antiquated gear and then went to the market board to get some pieces that weren't included in the set. I'm now at ilvl 293. All set for Ala Mhigo! Looking forward to wrapping up SB.

[EmmaVirgin]

if i see undergeared player i always think: how do they play/finish singleplayer rpg's? its not possible that way.

[ChaoticCrimson]

Up to level 50 for most alt jobs there's a fair amount of slack since job quests hand out gear, you'll probably get some dungeon drops as you go, and you have NPC vendors to fill in the gaps. From 50-60, you can mostly make do with NPC gear from Ishgard and dungeon drops, and save up your poetics from the 50/60 and alliance roulettes for the base Shire gear, and can upgrade if you really like grinding tomes. That'll keep you in good shape until the lvl65 dungeon, at which point you can run it a few times for your guaranteed drops and update some gear before moving on. If you can't get Shire gear, the Ishgard shops sell i255 gear, and you can still work with the dungeon drops from the low 60's dungeons. You don't necessarily HAVE to have the absolute best gear while leveling, but upgrading as much as you can as you go will make things much smoother for yourself and those you run with, so it's highly recommended.

[Luin]

I saw a dark knight once with caster right side gear. I face palmed.

I had a healer in O5S this morning wearing Alexandrian Ring of Slaying. We still cleared, and honestly I thought it was hilarious, but it does remind me to check *before* the pull.

Needless to say I'm far more lenient on right-side gear, and I hope everyone is too. Not to say I wouldn't kick a tank wearing caster accessories, but I'd be fine with 255 NQ vendor accessories in Abania. Compared to HQ crafted accessories that's like 120 vit difference, and can basically be made up with Doma or HQ left-side.

um NQ whites are worse than shire gear, I think. NQ gear in general is very bad when leveling, it's worse than the gear you get for dungeons. Like if you get the shisui set, nq gear is a downgrade, only HQ gear is a boost from that. There's a reason why every quest reward is HQ gear now, and why no one buys 350 nq gear.

And it actually is hard to gear up from bardams on, for some reason they seem to drop gear much more slowly. Like you get the guaranteed one piece, but when I lvled all my jobs to 70 bardams and on were very hard to get. Bardams in particular doesn't give gear from chests till the first boss I think. you end up outleveling the dungeons well before you get a full set.

I mean, you shouldn't be wearing all shire, just doing dungeons while leveling gives some, and some hq pieces are very cheap due to being common quest rewards. But they do need to work on gearing some at mid levels.

um, no they aren't.

NQ white is an improvement over Shisui and Augmented Shire as soon as you hit 66. Once you hit Doma, there's no *valid* excuse to be in any Shisui or Augmented Shire left-side. Can you do those dungeons in full aug shire? Yeah, but it's a pain in the rear and you don't really need to. Just spend a little bit of gil and it'll go a heck of a lot faster and easier.

[Rongway]

um NQ whites are worse than shire gear, I think.

um, no they aren't.

Yes they are.

Augmented Shire Philosopher's Coat    Lv60    iLv270    169 int    171 vit
Kudzu Robe of Casting                 Lv64    iLv273    156 int    158 vit
Serge Gambison of Casting             Lv66    iLv279    167 int    161 vit
Twinsilk Coat of Casting              Lv68    iLv285    176 int    164 vit

Augmented Shire Custodian's Armor     Lv60    iLv270    169 str    190 vit    480 def
Tigerskin Coat of Fending             Lv64    iLv273    156 str    175 vit    490 def
Doman Steel Tabard of Fending         Lv66    iLv279    167 str    179 vit    607 def
Gazelleskin Coat of Fending           Lv68    iLv285    176 str    182 vit    723 def

Augmented Shire Gear is better than NQ whites until 68 for DDs/healers. Tanks get more defense from white gear but lower vitality.

[LineageRazor]

I'm sorry if I misunderstand - if you aren't defending these points as legitimate reasons to not be up-to-date on your gear then excuse my post.

Yes, you misunderstood; I'm not defending the practice, just making an observation.

I will note, though, that the moment you mentioned Googling something, you're already going WELL beyond the level of effort that many players are willing to put into this game. Players ARE lazy, and many refuse to do "homework" of any kind, at least when it comes to "faceroll easy content" (which, ironically, loses its faceroll status precisely because they fail to do that minimum amount of research).

[RiyahArp]

The pieces are better defense wise for a tank yes, but the problem is the main weapon and the pieces for dps and heals are very modest increases. It's a case of both people being right; tanks should gear, but DPS and heals will only see modest gains since the bulk of the upgrades are in defense. To get better stats overall from augmented needs HQ whites at 64, or dungeon gear from 65 on. It might be an argument for them to scale stats a little more during levels, so that even NQ level-approriate gear is a decent boost over certain pieces.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

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.

A 270 ilvl weapon can hold aggro against any dps no matter how good they are through all of SB's leveling dungeons. It's basically impossible to lose hate with how insane threat modifiers are.

Not that it's my proudest moment, but I've done Abania in full i270 as a PLD (WAR and DRK are ez-mode aggro wise) with friends who know their SB rotations in and out. So long as the tank doesn't try to min-max his dps at that low of an ilvl, dps hate will never be an issue.

Not that I advocate going into Abania at ilvl 270, It just irks me when people say aggro is an issue when threat modifiers are so insane it's near-impossible to lose aggro if you're actually trying to hold it. Not holding hate with a 270 weapon is a skill issue on the tank's part, not an ilvl issue. Of course a higher ilvl weapon will make it easier, but it can still be easily done with i270, the tank just has to not be asleep when it comes to aggro management.

[kikix12]

Augmented Shire Gear is better than NQ whites until 68 for DDs/healers. Tanks get more defense from white gear but lower vitality.

I won't do it for DPS/Healers, at least not for now, but I went ahead and checked the lvl66 gear against Augmented Shire for a tank.

Paladin lvl70. Full Augmented Shire (left side + shield), no accessories.
Against lvl58 Earth Sprite (no stance and no skill). Average damage dealt by me is ~490 out of 30 hits. Average damage dealt to me is ~565 out of 17 hits.
Against lvl67 Earth Sprite (Sword Stance, Clemency used 7 times). Average damage dealt by me is ~410 out of 128 hits. Average damage dealt to me is ~1790 out of 44 hits (one crit).
Paladin lvl70. Full Doman (lvl66) (left side + shield), no accessories.
Against lvl58 Earth Sprite (no stance and no skill). Average damage dealt by me is ~475 out of 31 hits. Average damage dealt to me is ~555 out of 15 hits.
Against lvl67 Earth Sprite (Sword Stance, Clemency used 8 times). Average damage dealt by me is ~385 out of 136 hits. Average damage dealt to me is ~1760 out of 45 hits.

I had to use clemency one more time against the lvl67 in doman gear because it did crit three times and Clemency healed about 300 less HP per cast, while it did crit me only once when in Shire gear. When it did crit me four times on an earlier attempt (in Doman gear), it did crit on me four times and the average damage received was 1790 like for Shire. I guess that if there was one crit in both, the difference would be ~70-100 damage or so per hit.

The difference in Stats is:
Augmented Shire: 29790HP, 7080MP, Strength 1204, Dexterity 280, Vitality 1392, Intelligence 174, Mind 291 for primary, Critical Hit 471, Determination 440, Direct Hit 662, 1204 Attack Power, 615 Skill Speed, 2286 both defenses, Attack Magic Potency 174, Healing Magic Potency 291, Spell Speed 364, Tenacity 731 and Piety 292.
Doman: 26701HP, 7080MP, Strength 1194, Dexterity 280, Vitality 1333, Intelligence 174, Mind 291 for primary, Critical Hit 619, Determination 495, Direct Hit 364, 1194 Attack Power, 822 Skill Speed, 2889 both defenses, Attack Magic Potency 174, Healing Magic Potency 291, Spell Speed 364, Tenacity 746 and Piety 292.

The HP advantage, at an average damage difference of 80, is about 38,6 hits. After that Doman gears defense is better.
In other words, Doman gear is MARGINALLY better for a tank, but I guess it would be more situational. If it is marginally better, then 58 is just plain better. The marginal difference is not necessarily valuable, especially since in the end there are direct hits, crits and wide range of damage variety in outgoing and incoming damage from attack to attack. I won't be checking the accessories effect either.

All in all...if you get a piece of gear for a tank from dungeon, equip it. If not wait till lvl68 to buy NPC gear since a potion or two when you wouldn't use any would generally bring a bigger difference than the Doman gear, I guess. And would be cheaper too.

For healers and DPS however there is another aspect to the equation. Yes, the damage seems to be slightly higher with Shire (at least for tanks, but red mages Shire weapon is superior to Doman weapon from the box, so the armor probably follow suits). However the bosses have AoE's, including unavoidable. And the DPS and healers defenses are already pretty low. If the players skills are good, they can mitigate a lot of incoming damage so it would not cause a problem, but I believe that for unskilled players, that extra defense may make a difference between a wipe on a boss and hard-won victory. Sure, it will take a little bit of time longer...but you won't die either. So it can go either way depending on players skills here.