So.. About that endgame gear progression..

[Vmage]

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.

it's more just a buffer, as the hardcore crowd is mostly done farming, or rather has completely geared one job at minimum - and they want to run with similarly geared people for quicker farming

I've got 3 jobs geared and done with philos currently, and 5 more that need a full set

if I'm running castrum/praetorium/AK, I'd rather do it with people that have a geared job - it has nothing to do with AK requiring darklight, even now (why did speed runs get nerfed) you can clear it with well over an hour left while your entire group is still wearing entry level gear (read: AF)

[Krisan]

it's more just a buffer, as the hardcore crowd is mostly done farming, or rather has completely geared one job at minimum - and they want to run with similarly geared people for quicker farming

I've got 3 jobs geared and done with philos currently, and 5 more that need a full set

if I'm running castrum/praetorium/AK, I'd rather do it with people that have a geared job - it has nothing to do with AK requiring darklight, even now (why did speed runs get nerfed) you can clear it with well over an hour left while your entire group is still wearing entry level gear (read: AF)

Oh I understand perfectly well why the community wants it for AK. Whether someone thinks AK is easy or hard, there's an undeniable truth that AK gives you a lot less room for making mistakes. Better gear just means.. you can get by with a few slip-ups a lot better than usual.

That's kinda the thing.. I get it. That's half of why I made this thread..
It's obvious AK can be run in AF, and that seems to be what SE wanted, but at the same time they made it hard enough while in AF that.. a lot of people understandably would prefer the buffer of better gear. But this causes a problem, since the ilvl60 gear drops here. Yet the tomestones for ilvl90 gear also drop here, so obviously the people on that stage have every reason for wanting a smooth run overall, hence the impatience with those in AF. It's kind of.. weird.

[Dano]

SE has dropped the ball on this one, they should have made more ilvl 60 dungeons, everyone just rush to AK when myth points are reset thus result in long queues. They didn't release crystal tower which by right should be done first before coil (see the difference in darklight ilvl 70 and allagan gear ilvl 90, where did ilvl80 go?)

[kollwitz]

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.

well i can decide not to get it and sit on my tomes, can't i?

[The-Alchemist]

Having gear from palace mixed with AF helps a ton. But yeah you def dont need dark light gear to do AK.. Its just a ton of groups suck and blame it on not having DL gear.

[Taruranto]

People want DL in AK because it makes run faster. You can rut it with some pieces from the Palace and everyone will be fine with it.

[Comicbookguy]

I did AK in AF gear, but I 'm sure the other folks were in DarkLight. it can't be done if everyone is in AF gear since you can't dps the wall, but not a problem if one guy is in all AF gear.

[Tigerwong]

Strangers will always question you. Like interviewing a job. Just show your certs and use a few smart chosen sentences to make yourself stand out.

I've also completed AK right after I finished CM/Praetorium story. But I won't do it again until my team (yep I'm lucky to have close to full party RL friends playing), gets a few more DL accessories to replace those pink or grey 40's. The wall boss was one more step closer to squishing us and it didn't feel comfartable. I don't see the rush (well unless you already have some server firsts, or there's a possibility of competing for future server firsts) since I started off lazily. Next time we do AK, I'd rather do it easily and more comfortable, being able to kill the demon wall half way through or something.

I'd rather save my conscious for the real end game HM where there is no more gear to gear up and all depends on the number of wipes required for the last person to remember everything correctly.

[Yshnal]

AK can be done in AF. And if you want to know what I've done with my main class, here it is:

1) Get the best GC accessories.
2) Get my AF gear once I got to 50.
3) Finish the story. Just one run to Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium (I would have done more runs to help on the DF with the shortage of tanks, but I just hate what I found there community wise).
4) A couple of runs to Ifrit HM to get a weapon, both as MT and OT.
5) Run Wanderer's Palace 5-6 times and get some ilvl 55 gear plus more tomes.
6) Buy a Darklight piece with what I had gathered while doing 3) and 5) to improve my worse gear piece.
7) Run AK. Currently doing that to get more tomes, get the cap on Myths, and get some ilvl 60 gear. No hurries on that, but I do at least one run per day, without forcing (key word here) myself to do more than that if I don't feel like doing so. Also, I've even cleared the Demon Wall with more than 20% left with just me and the healer (a FC mate) alive, so I guess that my gear is more than enough for that dungeon even if I'm "just" the tank (note: I'm not saying that I'm pr0, as I think that I'm just an average tank).
8) Complete my relic weapon slowly, without any hurries.

What's next? Once I have some more Darklight parts I'll go to Garuda to get a new weapon (ilvl 70), while doing more weekly AK runs to finish my Darklight and get some relic armor parts on the process. Then try Titan for an ilvl 80 weapon, complete the relic armor and the relic weapon (or even try Coil), etc.

I know that I'm not going for the easy and optimal way to get my gear, but at least I'm not disrupting anyone by doing so (i.e. DF CM speedruns). I hope that at least someone finds this useful or something, or that it at least illustrates that the dungeon progresion is fine and that it's the players the ones that are messing it up themselves, IMHO. SE shouldn't have to police us so that we play the game properly, as they did with the WP and AK fixes.

Of course, doing AK in full DL will save you... ehm... 10 minutes? And yes, it's easier and it gives you more room to make mistakes, but it takes away the fun (the reason we're playing a game, after all), at least for me. Also, I'll never know why some people say that there's a lot of trash mobs in AK. There's more trash in previous dungeons than in that one, and they're easy to kill. But well, to each his own, I guess.

[Drakkan]

OP, as others have mentioned, you are just misinterpriating what others are saying. AK can more then be done in fresh 50 gear. If you have ifrits weapon it makes it a bit easier for newbies to the demon wall. Most of us that are geared up just want to run it with other geared people. With AK speed runs gone, we want to spend as little time as possible in AK as it needs to be run 7-8 times a week, that may not be much in a span of 7 days but between doing other things/instances/coil in the game its more like a chore really since its being run strictly for the myth tomes and nothing more.