Would you raid if there was no ilvl?

[HyoMinPark]

Out of curiosity after a discussion with a friend, if there was no ilvl barring you from entering any current end game content - extreme trial or savage, would you be attempting it more frequently, less frequently or not at all and why?


If the rewards were mounts, titles, minions, gear with different status or tokens you could exchange for other gear of same ilvl would you still try to push such content?

Gotta agree with KageTokage on this one—it’s already difficult enough to PUG some of the more involved content (Extremes, Savage) with people that actually do have the gear, and who don’t understand what a basic rotation or opener is; I’d be less inclined to join content where an item level is not enforced. Because who knows what kind of gear they would show up in then. I was once in a Suzaku Ex party where a minimum item level wasn’t set (or it may have been set at the minimum item level required), but we had a tank show up with an i290 Antiquated axe. He was doing about 1,200 DPS. Couldn’t hold aggro after the swaps either.

I’m sure you’ve seen the complaints in the Tales of the Duty Finder thread of tanks and healers showing up in leveling dungeons with weapons/gear from last expansion (or even from ARR). I would not deal with that in content where your damage and performance actually matters. I actually advocate for leveling dungeons to enforce a minimum item level because I’m tired of seeing players in Bardam’s Mettle or Doma Castle in i230/i240 gear (or even worse). Because they just make it harder on the rest of the party, especially if they’re in a tank or healer role and struggle to hold hate or keep people alive.


If there was something that had mounts, titles, minions, or gear that I wanted in it, I’d find friends or a static to run the content with instead of randoms who may be wearing a box-of-chocolates gear set because the game doesn’t try to gate them out of it. Gear doesn’t make a player; as I said above, you can have players in high item-level gear that do less than a tank or healer in terms of damage—but to risk these same people just showing up in worse gear? The thought alone has me cringing.