ScarlettPheonix wrote:Each one takes a different strategy and some of them are challenging to do within the time limit.
That's true and it sounds good, but it really should be reworded to "each one requires a different job". If you happen to have a TON of jobs leveled up, you're set. If you don't, you're stuck. Same old problem folks had with COP all over again.
ScarlettPheonix wrote:You consider Salvage gear to be by and large worthless yet really aren't stating why that's so- you're just stating it as an absolute.
All the gear I already have is better than everything in salvage except for one part: usukane feet. Even the feet are at least half side-grade, since you loose haste. The extra enmity and other stats kinda makes up for it, though. I'd sell off fuma and wear usukane feet if I had them.
For sam and mnk, usukane kinda sucks. You'll get FAR better results from existing gear and you'll find that gear is a lot easier to obtain than salvage items, too.
For thief, salvage has literally nothing at all of any interest whatsoever. Last time I glanced over the sets, it looked like the same old story for gear upgrades. Lots of great stuff for war and mages, pretty much of nothing for thief, and one item for nin.
If its the time/effort involved- I've already argued that Dynamis, Relic gear and Relic weapons in particular are just as effort and time driven and its not like every single relic piece is the best in the game anymore.
Relic weapons are certainly more effort if you just measure the time. If you also consider the type of effort, though, it's very different. Slower pace, but how you go about obtaining the needed currency has a plethora of methods. There's only one way to get AP and it's beyond ugly.
AF2 armor is far far less costly than salvage. I'd say it's not as nice, though. AF2 suffers from the same thing most sets do: one or two nice items, the rest junk or swap-in only. The relic weapons are also the single biggest improvement you can do for a melee job. About the only melee job that has a bad relic is monk. Destroyers parse about the same as their relic. I really feel for the poor mnk that did the destroyer/relic parse test after getting his relic. That was sad.
All endgame gear is situational at best. There is >no< one gear set that will take every single job from exp>gods>missions>dynamis>HNMs- hell most people- whether dd, tank or mage- usually carry around multiple gear swaps to for various actions/abilities/spells.
Actually, for NIN there are only a couple of gear sets. There really hasn't been anything new for NIN since Dynamis. All NINs pretty much wear identical gear sets in each situation because there's only one clear choice.
Same thing for most thiefs, with the exception of homan in limbus and blau dolch added in Promathia. Same old stuff they've been wearing since forever. One of the reasons I sidelined THF for NIN was because I got tired of being asked to help do stuff (with TH/etc) and yet not having anything worthwhile to get in the way of items.
For me, since I'm RDM straight down the line- Morrigan's is an excellent set in general. And several of the pieces combined with other good end game gear could be considered among the best in the game for RDM.
Most of the people in my shell feel the same way- they may not want then entire set- but they do want certain peices to max out their gear and thats what we're focusing on.
There's some benefit there, but why would a shell bother to spend THAT much insane effort to gear up only a single job or a small subset of jobs? The fact that most of your shell likes the idea is what makes Salvage good for you. My bet is that the organizer also stands to gain a lot, too (probably plays a morrigan or ares set job).
If the jobs that wanted the gear did the organizing -- down to setting up assault point farming runs for everyone -- that would be fine and I'd certainly help out. It's usually me or another in our shell doing all the organizing and strategies, though. I can't see the value in doing that much work every week just to eventually gear up 10% of the shell. If I'm going to organize things where there's nothing in it for me, I want things that at least hit 95% of the shell; eg. I'm 10/10 on AF2. Dynamis has nothing more for me, but I still run it because: 1) it takes almost no effort to run, and 2) it covers every job in the shell. It's fun to see friends get nice gear they want, but I do have limits on how much total drudgery I'll go through to help folks.
Get rid of the AP cost for Salvage (not reduce it, remove it completely) and I'd run Salvage events for our shell. The AP cost just totally kills it, though. Even 1 AP is too much. I really don't want to do any Assault missions ever. Well, I do kinda -- but just now and then to rank up as something to do. I don't want to farm them.
Sugami wrote: don't see how getting merits will make certain gear less worthwhile.
Application. If the gear would only be used to XP, once you cap merits, you have no more need for XP gear.
Sugami wrote:Not all of us are lucky enough to already have a vast range of decent gear like you spoilt NINs & MNKs.
NIN has some great items from sky and decent af/af+1 & af2 and crafted items. But there's really no "wide selection". It's pretty much one obvious choice for each slot for each application. WARs are the ones that are insanely spoiled when it comes to gear. I almost pity them. Having an obvious choice is a lot better than having 10 great choices for every slot. But, then I remember Ridiil. ><
THF is the hard one. It's supposed to be a DD job and yet unless you get a Mandau (5th stage relic) AND a lot of end-gear, it's only good for for TH & Feint. They're kinda like DRG, but at least they have TH & Feint to make them useful for something in end-game.
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Soooo, uh, how about Einherjar? Anyone else think it has some amazing potential to be the next "must do" event for end-game since dynamis? You can argue salvage is nice, but very few shells think it's worthwhile enough to actually do regularly. Limbus is seen as farmable, but access blocks that for many shells. Just about all end-game shells do dynamis. That's a Zilart event. It would be damn nice to see a new event that everyone wants enough to do regularly. It all hinges on the details and the drops for Einherjar now. The teaser makes it sound too perfect. I hope the drops and battles work out. FFXI really needs more end-game.
). I did that for a bit in EQ long ago. Was fun, but it doesn't fit me anymore.