Augmented Ironworks Is cool, but...

[Maeka]

So with the Patch 5.3 changes, any Ironworks/Shire/Scaevan gear you buy is already augmented, but.....

They neglected to say that they are nearly twice as expensive, tomes-wise.

I wish they had let the option in to buy the non-Augmented versions, instead, as I don't really care about the piddly 10 i-level. I'd rather it not take forever to get geared up (since dungeons almost never give you jewelry anymore, especially).

With my new alt that just got past Ultima Weapon, I'm looking at these prices in Tomes and they are just ridiculous. I'd like some decent gear to go through and quest with, but yet I don't want to do gruelling weeks of doing MSQ Roulette over and over and over and over and over and over again to buy them.

And I really don't understand why at Lv80 you can queue for Trials and get 100 Poetics per day... but.... Lv50, you get 0.

The Lv50 needs the Tomes way more than the Lv80 does.

I also checked the i110 and the i70 stuff and..... they're the same price as the 130s. Oi.

I don't get why they seem to think every newbie wants to struggle and be at the bottom of the performance chart, feeling like a total wimp while everybody else in the group smears everything until he spends a couple solid weeks doing MSQ Roulette which gets old, fast.

[Morningstar1337]

I presume that they wanted to make the crafted gear more valuable? But then again that assumes the MSQ doesn't reward such gear [The poetics II gear] for the first job.

Furthermore while it is nice, it isn't necessary for the first couple of leveling dungeons or any of the ARR dungeons (hell i90 is enough for everything up to Keeper), and by the time is is, there would already be crafted gear that would come close.

When you think about it, the poetics gear at this point is more of a gil-saver as you woudn't have to get 3 different sets of gear for your first job, but that is rather moot when the MSQ gives you said gear for free and leveling alts is optional.

[Maeka]

I presume that they wanted to make the crafted gear more valuable? But then again that assumes the MSQ doesn't reward such gear [The poetics II gear] for the first job.

Furthermore while it is nice, it isn't necessary for the first couple of leveling dungeons or any of the ARR dungeons (hell i90 is enough for everything up to Keeper), and by the time is is, there would already be crafted gear that would come close.

When you think about it, the poetics gear at this point is more of a gil-saver as you woudn't have to get 3 different sets of gear for your first job, but that is rather moot when the MSQ gives you said gear for free and leveling alts is optional.

I dunno, with this new alt... I finished Ultima Weapon, and the quests are offering me the same i-70 junk it did before Patch 5.3. In fact, the very first reward is an earring, which kinda makes me roll my eyes, because anybody who bought collector's edition doesn't need an earring and has to do several quests to get a ring instead.

And since I chose BRD and WHM, guess what? The way the rings are set up, Aiming is on the same reward as Casting and Healing for some stupid reason, rather than bundling the Aiming ring with the melee rings which would have made a lot more sense. So I only get *one* Ring.

[Liam_Harper]

They aren't twice as much. They're exactly the same price as the old pieces except +100 poetics (which is how much the upgrade used to cost).

I wish they had let the option in to buy the non-Augmented versions, instead, as I don't really care about the piddly 10 i-level.

I expect they want to discourage this attitude, especially since many players use IW gear from 50-60 on alt classes and Augmented is the absolute minimum you should have. For lv50, you can get 100ilv gear very cheaply with hunt seals.

[Maeka]

They aren't twice as much. They're exactly the same price as the old pieces except +100 poetics (which is how much the upgrade used to cost).

The jewelry (the most important piece) going from 180 to 280 is almost twice as much per piece.

I expect they want to discourage this attitude, especially since many players use IW gear from 50-60 on alt classes and Augmented is the absolute minimum you should have. For lv50, you can get 100ilv gear very cheaply with hunt seals.

"Absolute Minimum"? lol.

Okay, so if that's the minimum, what's the best you should have at Lv50 then?