Armorsmithing is useless. Coke is WAY too expensive / Needed WAY too much @ lvl 50

[Haymore]

Got lvl 50 recipes open while back and I am honestly shocked how useless it is.

To craft lvl 50 green gear, Darksteel that has item level 70 you need to make Darksteel ingots. Well that is not bad at all but those ingots happen to need 9x regeant called "Coke" that costs 125 each.

So you can buy item level 70 Darklight gloves with 475(?) tomestones, but if you want to craft Darksteel gloves that require 2 ingots you will need 2250 tomestones.

Every other Darksteel piece requires 1 ingot, so those cost "only" 1125 marks. That is more expensive than any item level 70 piece.

Only exception is if you get heavy armor for tanking, that is actually cheaper as those head+body combos cost something like 1400+, IF I remember it correctly. Didn't bother to check as I am so disappointed because I wasted time on leveling Mining to 50 and Armorsmiting to 45 and now I have no need for it.

I am under assumption that those ingots required 2x Coke in 1.0. So why is it so expensive now?

[Haymore]

In my opinion, crafting items should always be cheaper than buying them when you bother to level the gathering skills too. But in this case it is not so, but Armorers actually get punished for selecting that craft. Also there is no materia slots in other lvl 50 gear than Darksteel (or I just haven't seen it yet if there is) so nobody will need materia melding either, because there is no armor available that would have those materia slots.

SE, please make the hours wasted in Armorsmithing and Mining useful.

[nelar]

that's disappointing to hear... guess I should quit AS now before I invest to much time in it.

[Leonas]

But can you HQ the piece you can craft versus the vendor bought? And does it have materia slots because its crafted?

[Polaritie]

But can you HQ the piece you can craft versus the vendor bought? And does it have materia slots because its crafted?

Yes, the top-tier crafted items can be HQ'd, which puts them at among the strongest items available in the game when melded, from what I hear.

[ThatSneakyRussian]

Yes you can HQ it, and has materia.

However, there is a large failure rate obtaining HQ on 50 gear. I've walked around speaking to several high-end PLD's and Warriors asking them about the 11 materia slots and the HQ failure rate. Not a SINGLE one was willing to grind the tokens required for the coke, with a chance of HQ failure, for 11 materia slots for the armor alone and the HQ itself if all were successful.

Also, getting the Materia you want for the piece you want just isn't worth it either. It's so hard, grindy, and random to work getting your set completely materia'd the way you want. Not to mention the minor bonuses you seem to achieve.

No one wants to work on darksteel if darklight is just so much easier to get.

Oh, might i also mention that no one wants HQ armor pre-50? I've got 9 sets all varrying throughout the levels of HQ armor that hasn't sold in 3 days.

WHY DID I WASTE SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT ON ARMORSMITHING IF IT IS WORTHLESS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

[Reika]

Its not worthless, its just overpriced. The only 2 items that are worth the coke amount are heavy darksteel armor and flanchards. The gauntlets and everything isn't worth the time it takes to farm mats.

[blipples]

Yeah, I believe one thing people tend to do is put an emphasis on completing a full set. Then comparing a full set to another full set. A full set as of now doesn't really give a set bonus outside of GC gear. I'm sure as the game progresses and people start mixing and matching gear to push their stats as far as they can, we will see that certain pieces of darksteel that will definitely be worth getting and melding, while others maybe not so much. I do agree they should knock down the coke price though, especially since it seems that you need to HQ and meld to make it comparable or better than darklight.

[Arbitrage]

Oh, might i also mention that no one wants HQ armor pre-50? I've got 9 sets all varrying throughout the levels of HQ armor that hasn't sold in 3 days.

WHY DID I WASTE SO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT ON ARMORSMITHING IF IT IS WORTHLESS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!

except they do, because hq gear will last 10 levels compared to five, I sell my hq gear before i sell my nq..I also update prices so I have the best one, but I still price hqs about 3k more than the nq's (45 arm, 44 gsm, 38 alc, 42 wvr)

[Nihility]

I'm thinking the idea is the crafted gear lets you turn tomestones into something sellable for gil

but the weapons are completely pointless and considering the armor costs such a huge amount and it's not even the top end gear unless they put in something that just spews out tomestones like a pinata there will never be a good reason to make the crafted stuff over getting darklight