Not here to butt into the argument, jut here to give some quick information about FFXI.
The game was built around Horiztonal progression. Some endgame events gave gear that had a few pieces that was jut usable for a handful of spells or abilities, while another even would have a few pieces of gear for other spells or abilities. Some bosses dropped one piece of gear that you would use for one weaponskill, beyond that one weaponskill, that piece was not as good as another piece of gear.
Why so many pieces of gear for a handful of abilities?
The answer: In FFXI, you could swap gear during combat.
In FFXI, to get the most out of your spells, abilities, auto-attack damage, and weaponskills; you needed to swap gear to max out the appropriate stats or skills*. One person would be carrying multiple sets of gear for one job.
Example: For my Red Mage, I had a
- "Convert Set"
- Bonus to Enhancing Magic Set
- MND based spells Enfeebling Set
- INT based spells Enfeebling Set
- Healing Magic set
- TP Set for solo (you had to build TP from 0% to do weapon skills)
- Elemental Magic set
- Refresh Spell enhancement set
That's seven sets, and only one of the sets is purely optional. Rest are for parties. That is just the armor and accessories, by the way. Some sets shared armor and accessories at least.
On top of the gear sets, I had a different staff for each enfeebling magic spell, based on its element (example: Slow spells were earth based, so a Terra Staff would enhance my accuracy with earth based spells, so Slow spells had a higher chance to land). That mean I carried 8 elemental staves and a healing bonus wand: 9 weapons on my character... for one job. This was just to do endgame party events. Weapon swapping was a benefit to mages but not damage dealers, since swapping weapons dropped your TP to 0%.
So, in FFXI, you were getting gear to do small upgrades for specific abilities, spells, and your autoattacks. You weren't just looking for BIS to wear 100% of the time until the next BIS. It was a different environment than this game.
*In FFXI, you had skills you had to level up on top of your job level. These skills included evasion, various weapon skills (daggers, axes, greatswords, etc.), and magic (elemental, enhancing, healing, etc.). Increase the skill increase the chances of doing what that skill describes (hitting more often with a dagger and harder with a dagger, dodging attacks, etc.).