So.. About that endgame gear progression..

[Krisan]

This isn't a thread about me complaining about it, it's just.. I kinda got to thinking.
Currently the gear progression either doesn't make sense, or the community has kinda.. shoehorned themselves into an awkward position gear-wise. I'm not sure which, or if it isn't even a little bit of both!

Let's see..
Item level 50-55 gear is handed to us outright, that's our Artifact Armor.
Item level 60 gear is dropped in Amdapor Keep.
Item level 70 gear is bought with tomestones, that's Darklight.
Item level 90 gear is bought with different tomestones, that's Artifact Armor 2.

Let's uh.. not get into Allagan armor for the sake of arguement for the moment.
Something in the above example isn't adding up to me..

See, a lot of people say you need Darklight to run Amdapor efficiently, you can get Tomestones to buy Darklight in Castrum, but.. wait a second here.. item level 60 gear drops in Amdapor? Uh.. That doesn't seem right.. It sounds like (at least at a glance) that we're expected to run Amdapor before we even get Darklight, and gear ourselves up there.

But wait a second.. Tomestones of Mythology drop in Amdapor too, which gets us our Item level 90 gear.. now that DOES seem to suggest we'd be in Darklight if we're farming for AF2, eh? But erm.. Yeah. This doesn't add up. It seems like SE had two ideas here and they're conflicting a bit.. seems like the community as a whole has already made up their minds on gear progression too, and it seems like almost everyone is skipping Amdapor gear? Or maybe not skipping it by choice, but are rather being shoehorned out of it because no one wants someone in AF doing Amdapor? I realize you can gear straight to Darklight in Castrum, so ultimately this isn't a showstopper or anything, it just seems.. weird to me?

Likewise I've been reading posts on the forums lately where people are wanting high level gear in Castrum now too, just so they can run it that much faster.. which is probably not helping this awkward gear progression issue, since uh.. there's really not a whole lot of options left for people to get gear. lol

Like I said I'm not posting this to complain, I just find this situation.. curious.. I was also wondering what everyone else's thoughts are on this?

[Arcturius]

Me and some of my FC bros run this dungeon with no problems and we started with AF gear. AK is super easy. I have full AK gear and I've tanked titan, easily. Honestly DL is only slightly better than AK gear. If people don't know your skill they usually require high gear. It's how it always is. But for those who grinded castrum... They are kinda... Meh. Huge waste of time when AK gives you just as much mythology and also gives philosophy. Even in WoW people require you to have the raid gear to do the raid, which is just stupid.

Edit: long story short, right after you hit 50 you are more than ready to tackle AK. As long as your gear is not SUPER bad like all 40 whites. (which is impossible because you get AF gear free.)

[kollwitz]

gear progression seems a bit off to me aswell...

that's why i'm basically skipping most of the DL (except accessoires) and go straight for AF2. the ilvl60 stuff from ak should fill the gap till then.
don't see a reason to waste my time in castrum when i can get phil and myth tomes from ak...

i guess the only reason that the last story dungeons give tomes is so that there are always people running them for those.
otherwise people doing it for the mainquest could be stuck here if not enough people need to do it!?

[Sotek]

gear progression seems a bit off to me aswell...

that's why i'm basically skipping most of the DL (except accessoires) and go straight for AF2. the ilvl60 stuff from ak should fill the gap till then.
don't see a reason to waste my time in castrum when i can get phil and myth tomes from ak...

Yep.

I'd say Square dropped the ball on endgame gear progression, but it's more like they tosses it. Out a window. At children.

Heck, I'd be slightly more OK with getting iLv70 stuff (the crafted stuff, too), if there was actually anything I could do with it once I get iLv90... Can convert the crafted gear probably, though that's still a fairly huge loss, but Darklight? Trade it for seals I guess? Boy, I hope that the new ranks for Grand Companies offer some amazing gear and not the utter trash we get now (on that note, OP, don't forget to add that you need to clear Amdapor to reach the final GC rank to obtain.... Gear worse than Amdapor drops....).

I imagine the forced gear requirement for content might "fix" some of my issues with this though... I mean, I went from finishing the main quest in full AF to Titan in one sitting, but if they're now going to say "STOP! YOU CAN'T DO IFRIT WITHOUT A DARKLIGHT WEAPON! YOU CANT DO GARUDA WITHOUT AN IFRIT WEAPON! YOU CANT DO TITAN WITHOUT A GARUDA WEAPON!" and so on, then you're pretty much forced to farm Primals and Ifrit/Garuda aren't complete and utter jokes... Still the laziest possible method for fixing endgame though, I hope they don't keep that up for future patches, I actually like this game and would like to keep playing... A gear requirement on endgame would be a half good idea if gear actually meant a damn, it damn sure helps but for the most part "skill" is what matters, and farming Amdapor/Castrum/etc all day does not teach you a damn thing about the Primal mechanics... Titan is piss easy when people aren't eating WotL constantly, Darklight gear helps with the heart phase and it'll generally speed up the run, but it damn sure isn't a requirement...

[Krisan]

I've done AK myself in AF, so I'm not questioning that it can be done. I know it can be done. It's just.. yeah, the community kinda wants you in Darklight for it. Yet ilvl 60 gear drops in AK, and oddly enough AK gives mythology toward ilvl90 gear? I uh.. I dunno, this is just weird to me. It feels like something between SE's design and some of the community hitting top gear faster than others has left us at.. a blockade, so to speak. The playerbase is kinda walling us off from the dungeon that gives us the gear SE apparently expected us to get after AF, yet the same dungeon has some pretty heavy hitting things in it, and gives you marks toward ilvl90 gear which is.. quite a bit higher.

I just don't get it.

[LunarEmerald]

gear progression seems a bit off to me aswell...

that's why i'm basically skipping most of the DL (except accessoires) and go straight for AF2. the ilvl60 stuff from ak should fill the gap till then.
don't see a reason to waste my time in castrum when i can get phil and myth tomes from ak...

i guess the only reason that the last story dungeons give tomes is so that there are always people running them for those.
otherwise people doing it for the mainquest could be stuck here if not enough people need to do it!?

You can't really skip darklight. The cap and grinding for mythology ensures that you will be swimming in philosophy. 8 AK runs per week and it gives 80 philosophy per clear. That's 640 philosophy every week if you're capping mythology.

[Zarath]

My gear progression has been fine so far. I did Artifact Armor -> Some Wander's Palace gear -> A few Darklight pieces (accessories) -> AK gear -> mix between Darklight upgrades & working on Artifact Armor 2. Seems perfectly fine to me...

[Krisan]

My gear progression has been fine so far. I did Artifact Armor -> Some Wander's Palace gear -> A few Darklight pieces (accessories) -> AK gear -> mix between Darklight upgrades & working on Artifact Armor 2. Seems perfectly fine to me...

Well yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the intended progression as well. I'm not knocking that, actually this thread isn't even a complaint as I said. It's just.. an observation of the design, mixed in a bit with the community and their behavior. If you ask most runners about AK, they tell you that you need Darklight, as an example, which is suppose to be after AK, but AK drops gear prior to Darklight.. etc etc.. You could chalk it all up to the community being silly if you wanted, but I think that's a bit misguided when the dungeon is obviously also meant to be farmed a bit for ilvl90 gear too..

[Arcturius]

My gear progression has been fine so far. I did Artifact Armor -> Some Wander's Palace gear -> A few Darklight pieces (accessories) -> AK gear -> mix between Darklight upgrades & working on Artifact Armor 2. Seems perfectly fine to me...

Yea the progression is just fine, its the people asking for higher gear than you should have. Seriously your progression is the exact same as mine. Go accessories first FTW

[Guammasa]

I've been unsuccessful getting through an AK run in my AF gear. However, I'm a warrior and that should say enough about my difficulty in groups from duty finder and my luck putting groups together. World of difference between "PLD LFG ...." and "WAR LFG ..."