An educated rant: Why pentamelding is %@$&*!-backwards

[Liam_Harper]

Combat class overmelds are purely luxury and world first raiding. They are literally only good for the first month or so of a raid tier, then you replace your crafted gear with Tome and Raid pieces. So 3 small windows within an entire expansion. Even then, overmelds are far from necessary for raiding in the first month, P1 and P2s have very forgiving enrage timers, if you're wiping to enrage it's because people are dying or not playing properly.

For players who don't raid or don't push week 1 P4s, overmelds existing is a source of income. Grade 9's were great profit at the start of the patch, giving the average player easy gil from spiritbond, hunt trains, 89+ dungeons and such.

It's also one of the few things that rewards crafters. If you have maxed crafters and lots of materia, you can make a full pentamelded set day 1. It's a nice little bonus. It's casual players being jealous of crafters having small bonuses for effort that got crafting into the diluted and low profit state it's in, in the first place.

[Deceptus]

I advocate for a trait that increases meld chance by 2% after every failed meld so you spend at most 50 materia on a single slot.

[Hammerhorn]

Master crafted Penta meld shouldn’t be a thing to clear week one Savage period. It’s buy to win. That being said I prepare my entire raid force every tier because I know how important it is. Do I like it? No! Do I prepare? Yes! Does it cost millions of Gil to prep the force? Yes! Is it worth it? Yes!
Until they change how this tread mill works this is thier formula every major raid tier. I don’t agree with it but I do what I gotta do for my team and move on.

[Kes13a]

I'm so incredibly shocked you can't find a friendly crafter to pentameld your gear when you degrade and insult the content they enjoy and act like they don't put in any amount of hard work. Truly just stunned.

are you really? with the attitude of the OP and their friend poster number 2, I wouldnt do anything for them with that attitude. (or was I missing an /s somewhere?)

[Illmaeran]

If crafters enjoy the content so much, why don't they transfer that passion into real-life hobbies and trades? I asked my crafter friend if they would like to make my food, clothing and medicine irl as well and they shouted profanities and told me I was being snide. I thought I made a very reasonable proposal.

I've got degrees in Music, Botany, and Earth Sciences; including Graduate level work. That seems awfully close to the Bard, Botanist, and Miner jobs to me. I've got the skills to make rudimentary clothing as well. For hobbies, I enjoy keeping aquariums, building and painting models, fishing, and cooking. I even have the XIV cookbook, so yes, I could actually make in-game food for you.

Tell me again how I haven't transferred my passion for in-game crafting into real life. Or, was it my real-life passions that translated into me enjoying equivalent experiences in game?


If you're so hard pressed for money, start gathering, materials are going for more than the finished goods on many servers these days.

If you're so hard pressed for materia, focus on spirit bonding and extracting materia from your combat gear.

You need to get down from whatever height you're at and keep quiet about crafters.

[Eraden]

For those of you who are so hostile to the crafters and gatherers that exist in this game, I must remind you that this game is working as INTENDED. Crafters and gatherers are a part of this game. DEAL with it. In my own guild, I primarily gather. I supply the crafters in my guild with materials and they in turn, supply the raiders. They also help others outside the guild and supply a generous amount of crafted goods to the market board. The crafters in my guild are generous to a fault and if you are down and out, they may just end up helping you anyways. I would also like to remind you that levelling up a crafter, is a LONG and ARDUOUS process, requiring a lot of work, a lot of Gil and a lot of patience. I am sorely impressed with our top tier crafters who have made it to 90 in ALL of their crafts. That is some serious dedication! If you are low on Gil, why not try a bit of gathering to supplement your income. You can also run dungeons and sell the items for more cash. There are so many ways to make Gil that it should not be difficult to stay afloat. I myself have managed to scrape up enough of a nest egg that once 6.1 rolls around, I will try the lottery and see if I can win a house (a small one in which I can plunk my BLM tush down, in the dark, and brood and brood and brood....."MWAA HAA HAA HAA".....oops, sorry, was getting too much in character).

[NegativeS]

Imagine you have your driver's license and you want to drive a car, but before you could even step into a car you had to learn how to learn how to play the violin.

Actually, it's more like "Imagine you have your griver's license and you want to drive a car, but before you do you should make sure the heat/AC works."

Nobody is making you pentameld. I can guarantee more than half of the community has never hand-melded a single materia.

But it helps!

[technole]

The fact you can have other people pentameld for you makes OP's point moot. Doesn't sound like an educated rant to me.

Second, if you are serious about raiding you should have crafters at 80+ at minimum to self-repair. Saves a lot of gil long-term because self-repair lasts longer.

[Eraden]

Thank you for the advice and colorful words everyone. I think I will try out some gathering to pay off my many in-game debts. I used to strongly dislike (hate is a strong word) having to mine every ore deposit I saw in my previous MMO World of Warcraft, but maybe it might be fun in this game. Does anyone have any tips on what are the best materials to collect and sell for my crafter acquaintances friends? Thank you!

My best suggestion is to check the market boards and find out what sells for decent amounts of Gil. When I first started gathering, I collected tons of fire shards because a lot of crafters could not be bothered to run out and collect them as they were pretty low level. I made a decent amount of Gil just selling fire shards for a while. Eventually you should be able to get a feel for what is popular on the market boards and then try to gather those items. Here's another hint...gathered items that are required for making food for the raiders, often sell pretty well.

[Kes13a]

Thank you for the advice and colorful words everyone. I think I will try out some gathering to pay off my many in-game debts. I used to strongly dislike (hate is a strong word) having to mine every ore deposit I saw in my previous MMO World of Warcraft, but maybe it might be fun in this game. Does anyone have any tips on what are the best materials to collect and sell for my crafter acquaintances friends? Thank you!

usually best to ask your crafter "friends" they will know what they need better than what we will