Quote Originally Posted by Kolsykol View Post
I dunno if you're implying that casual content equates to no effort required or expected.
I think that most people expect other people to make an effort in a team game, so if you show up and you have no melds in at all then I think people are kinda justified to look at that negatively.
My argument is and has been that the gear level itself and player skill far exceed the boost that materia will give you. Upgrading a piece of gear from 510 to 520 will boost your damage in 99% of cases more than adding materia to the 510 piece will. So if we're going to give people grief over not melding, where does this end? Do we give people a hard time for not already having a full set of the latest tomestone gear for the job they're playing? Because that's going to be a bigger loss to their damage than not being melded.

I've also said yes, use it. But, and I can't stress this enough, this poster was specifically talking about casual content. If you aren't melded, you can clear it just fine, so go ahead and keep playing even if you didn't have enough materia right then to fill every slot, and you shouldn't feel pressured to go buy more materia on the market board just to fill it in, do it as you're able.

So to that end, your other comment of "positionals aren't required" wouldn't be something I would support if I'm in the camp that player skill, and playing your job correctly is more important than the materia you melded in.