what is the point of yellow materia?

[Amarande]

Hard to believe it has almost been half a decade since the community started saying that the spell speed, skill speed, tenacity, and piety materia are basically worthless or just niche and can be removed, yet they haven't bothered doing so.

SpS and SkS are still considered important for optimization, although I'm skeptical as to the benefits, especially when ping and animation locks are taken into consideration (some folks claim to be able to feel a noticeable difference between say 2.45 and 2.50. Meanwhile for me here in the Central US that's a smaller difference than my average ping ...).

Piety and Tenacity are in a weird spot. They never really seem worth actively going for (which is why the materia feel useless) but they seem to need to exist. Imagine a healer Manderville weapon for instance? You gotta pick three stats at the later stages and we're already down to only four picks (you can't choose DH on a EW healer relic), if Piety didn't exist you'd literally be forced to choose Spell Speed even if you didn't (for above reasons) want it!

However, I feel like the entire materia system is a nostalgia bait trap that SE fell into with FFXIV that they should have just killed on the onset when they went to 2.0.

It's probably because gemming gear is a time-honored tradition in MMORPGs in general (and 2.0 was very clearly imitating WoW to be safe after the disaster that XIV trying to "go its own way" was; you can see this trend even more clearly if you look at 1.0 footage and note differences, for instance in 1.0, consistent with JRPGs your MP didn't zero out on KO. Come 2.0 and it got wiped out on death just as the WoW gold standard calls for).

Whether gemming gear actually opens the hoped-for options is another kettle of worms; false choice has always been an issue in multiplayer games that try to offer any meaningful build choice.

It generally works for DoH/L because those are solo activities (plus what stats you need for DoH are more or less entirely a function of the rotation you are trying to use - and in particular you CAN have too much Craftsmanship there); similar for a game like Black Desert with its similar lightstones and crystals system (there is little group content and what there is is zergy, we're talking bossfights are basically S-ranks there).

For combat classes, yeah it's a lot iffier due to the group aspect placing much more weight on making best-choices at all times to the point that not-best-choices (even if not clearly off one's rocker) are considered dubious at best and sandbagging at worst; however, healers probably have the most reason for wiggle in this regard (because meme or no, healers do in fact have to adjust more often than any other role).

[arstoka]

(I kid. I know you can use some of the lowest level materia for binding for ARR relic weapons but for its utility? I have no idea.

[TDawnstar]

None, because they butchered tanking, healing and secondary stats
Piety/SPS should have been healer's most important secondary stat and tenacity being the same for tanks. Not having all jobs (with a few exceptions) going CRIT > DET/DH with a few variations.

[angienessyo]

It has plenty of purpose! I always use it at the materia lottery to get better materia.

[Themarvin]

if got nnothing else to put in, it would seem like a viable option.

[ZXN]

Unfortunately the overall uselessness of the yellow materia is mainly due to the DPS focus of everything. One of the best forms of damage mitigation and resource management is to kill the enemy/boss as fast as possible after all.

In every case except niche uses, like an ultimate prog, Piety/Tenacity will just never be melded over things like Determination/Direct Hit. They even increased the boosts that Tenacity gives this expansion, and given every tank is still melding Deter/DH alongside Crit over it should tell you those boosts didn't do anything to help make it more appealing overall.

Even if the devs suddenly decided "The Direct Hit stat only affects the Red DPS Jobs now", they would still need to give Tenacity more of a boost and pretty much supercharge Piety by making it do something like Increased MP Regen + Damage up + Increased Healing Amount to make either stat even remotely appealing for tanks/healers to meld as most would just continue to shove as much Crit/Deter on everything as possible.

[Maxilor]

"Confucius say, if it ain't crit it's s***." - Confucius, Scholar Main