Matria is needed?

[Undeadfire]

That's still not very large on the individual level. If you're looking at over the course of an about 10-15 minute fight that between all 8 players you were 5-7% behind where you needed to be, that's still a minimal increase. And this person even stated that savage raiding is not something they're interested in doing. If you're doing the hardest content out there then every benefit you can get is something you want, which is also why you would use food for stat boosts when raiding but it's overkill when just doing expert roulette.

Tier 8 Materias are so cheap and easy to obtain I don't even understand why would you refuse to meld. Discord Hunts exist calling every Data Centre a train run, congrats you got all the materias you want in less than a day. It's common courtesy to do your best on your job you play than gimping the team further because "too lazy". Melded crit vs Non Melded crit DPS the damage difference is huge.

[Dzian]

Tier 8 Materias are so cheap and easy to obtain I don't even understand why would you refuse to meld. Discord Hunts exist calling every Data Centre a train run, congrats you got all the materias you want in less than a day. It's common courtesy to do your best on your job you play than gimping the team further because "too lazy". Melded crit vs Non Melded crit DPS the damage difference is huge.

The issue with materia is the same its always been. Gear just doesn't last long enough to justify melding it for most people...

Melding gear your just going to throw away in the next week or so is basically seen as throwing money down the drain...

And while money itself is pretty easy to get. That shiny glamour you may want to buy is going to be expensive stuff. Hell a glamour hairstyle is still selling for 12 million...

And as everybody frequently says
Glamour is the true endgame.

If gear had a viable lifespan people would be more willing to invest in it.. or hell even if the melds carried over augments..

Melded your 520 cryptbunkers. But then augment it to 530. Bye materia...

Melded your 510 crafted. Then augment it to 520 bye materia...

Makes melding a waste of time and money for many people.

Also if your remotely upto date on gear you already overpower theblatest content anyway.. Whats the ireq for the newest alliance raid 495? When everyone is sporting 510-520 and already overpowering by 20-25 I levels even on day 1

[wereotter]

Tier 8 Materias are so cheap and easy to obtain I don't even understand why would you refuse to meld. Discord Hunts exist calling every Data Centre a train run, congrats you got all the materias you want in less than a day. It's common courtesy to do your best on your job you play than gimping the team further because "too lazy". Melded crit vs Non Melded crit DPS the damage difference is huge.

1) Cross world hunts aren't good for console players, especially at the moment where hunts are typically dead before console players can load into the zone. Also these typically are bad for west coast players like myself as the hunts tend to happen at times that we are working. So your world view of "hunts are easy" seems to be skewed based on your own experience with the game.

2) I'm not arguing against using materia, I'm arguing that the boost is minimal. Player skill, main stat, and weapon damage all contribute much more to a character's damage output than materia does. But if you bothered to even look at my own gear, you'll see that I use materia myself. I have access to it, and it doesn't hurt to put it in. But also if you don't have it for whatever reason, you're also not loosing THAT much by not having it in your gear.

[Brandedblade]

If gear had a viable lifespan people would be more willing to invest in it.. or he'll even if the melds carried over augments..

Melded your 520 cryptbunkers. But then augment it to 530. Bye materia...

Melded your 510 crafted. Then augment it to 520 bye materia...

Makes melding a waste of time and money for many people.

Also if your remotely upto date on gear you already overpower theblatest content anyway.. whats the ireq for the newest alliance raid 495? When everyone is sporting 510-520 and already overpowering by 20-25 I levels even on day 1

1. You can very easily get materia via drops and stellaclusters, and even from wearing your gear for 5 seconds and letting it spiritbond.

2. You can extract the materia from your gear when you're ready to chunk and/or upgrade it. Yes there's the chance that it will break of course, I will not refute that, but the fact is you still have a decent chance of salvaging the materia and holding on to it.

[Dzian]

1. You can very easily get materia via drops and stellaclusters, and even from wearing your gear for 5 seconds and letting it spiritbond.

2. You can extract the materia from your gear when you're ready to chunk and/or upgrade it. Yes there's the chance that it will break of course, I will not refute that, but the fact is you still have a decent chance of salvaging the materia and holding on to it.

think its 40% chance of success when retrieving top materia... so thats still a 60% chance of throwing money down the drain.... even if you get it free it still has a resale value on the market boards... so the question becomes meld it. or use the money for that shiny glamour..

i meld most of my stuff but at the same time im realistic and its easy to understand why so many people just don't bother...

there also the added reason of no discernable difference... if you melded 500 crit onto your gear. without using a third party tool you wouldnt notice it making the slightest difference.

[Undeadfire]

You got Hunts, you got 80 Dungeons, you got Spiritbond for free Materia. Do your roulettes everyday and you easily got enough cash to fill everything in the armour. Roulettes pays roughly 80-100k gil a day and go Tank/Healer if you want it guaranteed.

There's 0 excuse to not have Tier 8 Materias these days, SE has made it so much easier to obtain the highest tier in this Xpac compared to 2.0/3.0 days. 80 hunts PS4 players can easily make it by being in the party, all you got to do is Strike once with an AOE regardless if you can see it or not you will still hit it.

[wereotter]

You got Hunts, you got 80 Dungeons, you got Spiritbond for free Materia. Do your roulettes everyday and you easily got enough cash to fill everything in the armour. Roulettes pays roughly 80-100k gil a day and go Tank/Healer if you want it guaranteed.

There's 0 excuse to not have Tier 8 Materias these days, SE has made it so much easier to obtain the highest tier in this Xpac compared to 2.0/3.0 days. 80 hunts PS4 players can easily make it by being in the party, all you got to do is Strike once with an AOE regardless if you can see it or not you will still hit it.

You missed the point again, possibly because you're so intent on being right that you want to make any statement to feel like you are...

When you're on a console, the mark currently is dead BEFORE you arrive. Doesn't matter if you're in a party, you won't have the mark load before dying, therefore no hitting it, meaning no materia (and I noticed you didn't even recognize that a good chunk of the continent can't even participate because of time zone issues)

Spirit bonding is great... when it works. But also it's a gamble. I get more grade 7 gear from my spirit bonding than grade 8, and even then the grade 8 materia I get often isn't anything I want to use because the type of materia you get is random.

Most of us, also, have bigger goals for our gil than buying materia, if that's your next recommendation. If you're doing roulettes just to get gil to buy gil, that's where my argument that you're not doing content hard enough for it to matter comes into play.

Again, my point is that for the content that the OP wants to play, materia isn't needed. Yes, they should use it if they have it, but they're not massively inconveniencing anyone by missing it, except maybe you.

[Undeadfire]

You missed the point again, possibly because you're so intent on being right that you want to make any statement to feel like you are...

When you're on a console, the mark currently is dead BEFORE you arrive. Doesn't matter if you're in a party, you won't have the mark load before dying, therefore no hitting it, meaning no materia (and I noticed you didn't even recognize that a good chunk of the continent can't even participate because of time zone issues)

This is nonsense, my former raid team mate ran on a PS4 and she easily made the kills. She couldn't see it, but she did Holy to strike the target since the party already had full attendance, level 80 Hunts do not die in seconds. Time zone isn't an issue, hunt trains go randomly starting from the morning to late evening in multiple servers among data centres. Discord calls a Hunt train, everyone gathers in the zone till the conductor starts it, everyone flies/teleports to the next Hunt, repeat.

Most of us, also, have bigger goals for our gil than buying materia, if that's your next recommendation. If you're doing roulettes just to get gil to buy gil, that's where my argument that you're not doing content hard enough for it to matter comes into play.

What bigger goals man? Only thing gil comes useful for is setting Crafter up for next Raid Tier, food, pots, crafted gear, etc.

[Nezerius]

The issue with materia is the same its always been. Gear just doesn't last long enough to justify melding it for most people...

Melding gear your just going to throw away in the next week or so is basically seen as throwing money down the drain...

At current prices, fully melding a set of gear in grade VIII materia (18 total materia) will only cost about 90-100k total. Doing a set of daily roulettes (all except MSQ) with the Adventure in Need will already give you 47755 gil + 2 stellaclusters. And that's excluding the gil reward from the daily first completion of those roulettes. It's unlikely for you to replace entire sets of i510/i520 gear every single week, so any week following the initial full melding will usually result in grabbing 1-4 materia (around 5-20k).

Fully melding your gear like that will give you an additional 1080 secondary stats. In comparison, an i520 weapon will give you 876 secondary stats.

Is it needed? Not really, but if you're capable of making enough gil to buy a hairstyle that's worth 12 mil, an extra 90-100k shouldn't be too big of a deal.

[Tyssyn]

Also if you level crafters - you can meld your own gear for free, so all you might be out is a materia or two when they go smash as you try to retrieve it. Leveling crafters also means you can save yourself repair bills and repair even in the middle of a raid or dungeon as long as you carry around a stack of the right grade dark matter - which you can get from GC seals, so no need to spend money there at all.

To OP, I wouldn't bother OVERMELDING unless you are going to do savage or ultimate, but melding the normal slots would never hurt.