Anyone think materia is getting reworked in 6.0?

[Absurdity]

That's also working under the assumption that you would have just as much Tenacity as you would have DET if you just switched those melds around. Even if I replaced every DET meld I have in my gear with TEN I would only get to 1188 Tenacity and only because warrior actually has so many DET melds as opposed to every other tank. Most of the gear with crit on it doesn't have TEN as a secondary substat, we're not even talking about 5% here.
Now if you want to purposefully wear worse pieces of gear and reduce your dps by more than 2.5% because they have Tenacity on them be my guest.

[RyuDragnier]

I feel like we need to go back to the roots.
Bring back enmity+ materia. Stun resist materia. Enmity- materia. Elemental resistance materia!
Of course we'd need to change the rest of the game to match up...

It wouldn't be a bad idea for the battle materia to be more of a QoL/niche modifying nature. Example, keep skill/spell speed materia, remove the others since only skill/spell speed modifies you without making you too OP. Add materia that can reduce cast time of rez spells, some materia that can increase gil received from monster kills, materia that can increase healing received (5% maximum), materia that can lower item usage timers, etc. Things that aren't necessarily broken that would be nice to have. This also allows for materia that's exclusively for the side content like Eureka and Bozja, such as increased light/crystal gain materia for Eureka, and increased Cluster drop rate materia for Bozja.

[Vyrerus]

Tenacity bad

It's only bad, because they refuse to balance for it. They never base fights off of substat allocation, just mainstat VIT and ATP for whatever iLvl they're hammering into a fight. Since it's literally an unnecessary stat from a balance perspective, its actual purpose is to limit tank DPS. At least, unlike parry, its effects are always positive rather than RNG mark-ups on something that won't even mitigate half of the damage in the game (magic).

If they did balance for it though, I think our lives would be miserable.

[Absurdity]

It wouldn't be a bad idea for the battle materia to be more of a QoL/niche modifying nature. Example, keep skill/spell speed materia, remove the others since only skill/spell speed modifies you without making you too OP. Add materia that can reduce cast time of rez spells, some materia that can increase gil received from monster kills, materia that can increase healing received (5% maximum), materia that can lower item usage timers, etc. Things that aren't necessarily broken that would be nice to have. This also allows for materia that's exclusively for the side content like Eureka and Bozja, such as increased light/crystal gain materia for Eureka, and increased Cluster drop rate materia for Bozja.

The problem with that is that while some jobs want or even need a specific amount of Skill/Spellspeed there are also jobs that want none at all. What are they supposed to meld, healing materia until the 5% cap and then what? Materia that doesn't matter at all for the content they're doing? This is rather the opposite of making materia more exciting.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

It's only bad, because they refuse to balance for it. They never base fights off of substat allocation, just mainstat VIT and ATP for whatever iLvl they're hammering into a fight. Since it's literally an unnecessary stat from a balance perspective, its actual purpose is to limit tank DPS. At least, unlike parry, its effects are always positive rather than RNG mark-ups on something that won't even mitigate half of the damage in the game (magic).

If they did balance for it though, I think our lives would be miserable.

Pretty much. In a meta where boss damage is almost entirely tank-buster focused, where damage triumphs over all and damage provides just as much eHP benefits as TEN does due to damage affecting lifesteals, miniscule, constant damage mitigation has little place.
For TEN to be useful, they'd have to drastically change the mitigation scaling on TEN (where currently a half set gives 5%, make it give like 15%), along with upping enemy damage to make it a very strong choice, if autos were hitting you for 1/3rd your HP with base TEN

[Vyrerus]

Pretty much. In a meta where boss damage is almost entirely tank-buster focused, where damage triumphs over all and damage provides just as much eHP benefits as TEN does due to damage affecting lifesteals, miniscule, constant damage mitigation has little place.
For TEN to be useful, they'd have to drastically change the mitigation scaling on TEN (where currently a half set gives 5%, make it give like 15%), along with upping enemy damage to make it a very strong choice, if autos were hitting you for 1/3rd your HP with base TEN

The easiest way they could make Tenacity mandatory is if they had breakpoints set for each fight with dramatic swings in damage. Base stats at 80 are like 380 I think, so say you have 380 TEN, boss autos deal 50% of your HP. Hit the breakpoint for the fight, say 2950, boss autos now deal 15% of your HP. People would hate it, but that would be the easiest way, I think.

[RyuDragnier]

The easiest way they could make Tenacity mandatory is if they had breakpoints set for each fight with dramatic swings in damage. Base stats at 80 are like 380 I think, so say you have 380 TEN, boss autos deal 50% of your HP. Hit the breakpoint for the fight, say 2950, boss autos now deal 15% of your HP. People would hate it, but that would be the easiest way, I think.

So basically like the old accuracy tiers from ARR and HW? That could work, but yeah, people won't like it. People HATED the old accuracy tiers system (with good reason).

[Theodric]

I don't see materia ever being removed entirely, since its tied to the progression of certain quests...but I can definitely see the current batch of materia options being trimmed down further.

[Esmoire]

The fact so many people have substantive arguments on the validity of choice, or when "this is actually the best and you are wrong" argument for something arises so regularly, means that the idea of the materia system is a success.

On a surface level it might seem like you can come to a satisfactory rebuke by finding an objective truth to what materia objectively superior, but that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of what a game is trying to achieve. If enough people who have played the game enough to have an informed opinion feel there is something better than what you use, or something that they prefer more for reasons such as play experience, or they feel the system has the depth of choice, then that means the system succeeds as a game design. Few would argue the implementation is perfect, but the system itself is strong, and will no doubt be refined so the options that are arguably lacking will be made more compelling in the next expansion.

[Derio]

Materia is fine. The only real problem child materia is tenacity as it is a useless materia.