Is Materia useless?

[Zumi]

Materia is so expensive. are you real feel they are useless? crafting actually bring best DPS gear with best unique look into the game since they have socket there. you can melt +40 STR(10,10,7,7,4,2) into a piece of gear with two sockets. none of lvl90 gear has that attribute with 40+ STR since they don't have any socket. that's big different. if you looking for best gear,that's crafting gear with tons of materia melted in. not darklight, not artifact+1. but can your gil offer that?

It's not possible to put that much STR in a piece of gear that already has STR on it because it caps.

[Bibimbap]

It's not possible to put that much STR in a piece of gear that already has STR on it because it caps.

Yeah this... why the heck did they do that?

[ispano]

Yeah this... why the heck did they do that?

Basically it boils down to this. You have a group of people that want crafted to be on par, or even maybe a little better than dungeon drops, depending on work involved. Part of that is to keep crafting relevant. Most are ok with comparable. But the problem is you have a LARGER group that doesn't want to have to do ANY crafting or even deal with crafted items to get the best gear, because they then feel there's no reason to run dungeons.

That's really where the split comes from. The one group who wants crafting to actually be rather useful endgame, unlike most any other MMO. And the other group who wants it to stay on the back burner because they want to be rewarded for doing a dungeon, not do the dungeon because it's challenging or enjoyable. Could be other reasons, but most seem to boil down to that.

[Madruk]

The crafted ilvl70 gear is not just minimal gain. You'll be capped on base stats (str, vit, dex) so you won't be able to add anymore to an HQ item, but you can also cap crit, determination, and accuracy, something the DL pieces don't provide.

You'll have a dps edge over those that chose just to go full darklight (and granted it's the easier route, especially where jewelry is involved with 1 slot materia). It's mainly for the min/maxer that want the best possible gear until ilvl90 drops.

[Merxion]

I love the idea of Crafting being relevant but i've always been concerned with short-cutting content through the purchase of the best gear. Gil sellers are here and real and aren't going away. Until something can be done about someone 1 week into the game buying gil then buying a full set of gear. Then saying oh wow this game is boring why should I raid because I have the best gear already. This has to be balanced to allow high end crafting to be viable.

[dragorian]

ok 1 thig se said af gear will always be better than crafted so i hate when i get into a pt that dont have af and has crap gear thinking they are better with crafted gear and materia and the pt wips and wips and wips do to a lot of things ranging from not enough dps/healing/tanking it serves a purpose and for those whom say the lv45 af gear sucks this is why we have af+1 and as far as the meteria goes they are not useless since the help in crafted for those whom dont have full af set yet and for our relics which is better than any wep you can get and i cant w8 till i get mine

[DurtieSweat]

I get a lot of personal satisfaction from crafting and melding my gears. I know there are people in the game that like to show off and look good with their DL gear and such. When it comes to the actual fight, their damage or other output is lacking. It's sad that people play to look good but to each their own. There are a lot of benefit s from crafting and melding if your willing to put in the effort and work. And to me that's why I play the mmo games... You get out of it what you put into it. I'll always choose crafted gear over dungeon gear because that's my style of play and the ends have always justified the means in that respect.