Why is it bad to wear full AF in exp parties?

[Pheonixhawk]

Well Im just curious. Im about to hit 60 again *soloed a VT to 1/16 of its health but it got in a lucky shot with WS and I deleved.* And I was wondering, why is it so bad to wear AF in parties? I mean isnt it supposed to be some of the best gear you can have?

[Kintrra]

I've noticed most AF actually can be replaced by better gear for it's level. So while it may be a good set of gear, it's not necessarily THE best...unless you're PLD, at which point good freaking luck for finding better gear for your main job of tanking till about 72 or so. o.o;

[Eviticus]

Speaking as a Drg....there are only 2 pieces of AF where it's a good bit of pt gear, and even then, it's debateable. The Helm which will make the Wyvern more likely to use elemental breath's the mob is weak to, and the feet which "Enhance 'Jump' effects", whatever that means.

I perfer my trusty Savage Gaiters and Valkrie Mask to those two, however. It's just that AF is designed for -something-, and that something is not always exp pt's. Drg AF is perfect for soloing. Enhanced breath, +4 Vit, Parry+10, Eva+5, Wyvern HP%+ and Wyvern Regen, etc....none of that really shines in parties.

The same thing with other AF's I've seen. There's just bits and pieces that are -worthless- in party setups.

For example, my biggest pet peeve is the swarm of Samurai I see wearing their AF feet.....WHY?! Hurray! +5 Eva and Emnity! If you're a mithra or taru, you -could- be wearing RSE, which has +str. Or bloody hell, the +Atk from Federation/Windurstian Kyahn (lvl25 feet) is better then +Emnity/Eva.

[Sugami]

For RDM AF is pretty much best thing available, unless you can fork out a few mil for RSE2 feet, could also use RSE1 hands but meh not much in it and you'll always get parties anyways.

You missed out Drachen Finger Gauntlets; DEX+4, Enhances Wyvern's Accuracy, Parrying Skill +10. I was so happy when I could use those, got tired of those crappy battle gloves and I kept them till 70.
Drachen Armet and Greaves are only useful for macroing in on WS and Jump, I get so annoyed when I see 70+ use them constantly they deserve a {/slap}. However there isn't much available when you first get them, I stopped using RSE because I'd have to carry around the whole set just for the feet and if you can't afford Walkure or Valkyre mask (although really should farm it for 60 at least) then next best thing is Feral Helm at 65(?), maybe even that Jaridah hat thing at 55.
Also Wyvern Regen really does suck like 1hp/tick or something VIT+4 is still good though (for soro).

Generally melee jobs have better things on the market than AF but mage jobs seem to have more useful AF; WHM and RDM use theirs till 70, 72 depending if you get JSE and/or errant. Think BLM use theirs till 71. PLD seem to use theirs until AF2 and God stuff o_o

[Kistala]

AF tends to be good for all situations. There's a large mix of enhancements spread throughout the pieces, some are good for all situations including PTing, while others are useless unless you are soloing.

For example, the Red Mage's AF gloves and boots contribute almost nothing to a PTing Red Mage, as in 99% of XP PTs the Red Mage is sitting in back casting buffs and debuffs and the occaisional nuke (MBs). However, the boots and gloves are quite useful while soloing, as Shield&Parry+10 will help with longevity against stronger monsters. Another example is the massive Enmity+ on the Warrior's AF. To my understanding, Warrior's are pretty much never tanking in parties after level 30 or so. But when a Warrior DOES need to tank in a 52+ PT... that's what the Enmity+ in the Warrior's AF is for, not to mention the Eva+, VIT+, and Shield skill+. I shouldn't have to say this but it seems like people tend to forget that being able to tank -or at least emergency tank- throughout the entire game was part of the Warrior's original design, despite the departure of how most people utilize Warriors from the original intent.. Envision this: the Ninja drops, and the Warrior hits his tanking macro, switching from GAxe, Hauber-k/-gion, etc., etc., to full Warrior AF, Axe, and Shield, and Provokes. An Enmity+15 Provoke is probably your best bet for pulling hate in a hurry, I would think.

[ScarlettPheonix]

As Eviticus said AF tends to be great solo wise and only have a few pieces useful for parties.

I once saw a comment that observed that the level 30 RSE stats gives boosts to areas that race is a little lacking in. STR, HP, MP etc for Mithra, massive MP for Galka, HP for Tarus etc. In my opinion, AF is the same way~ just job based not race.

AF gives us boosts in both the areas we're strong in and areas we may be weaker in. RDM AF gives MP, Enfeebling skill, + Dark, Elemental Skill, Shield skill, + Water, Healing Skill, Parrying skill and Fast Cast enhancement. Parrying and Shield are best for soloing work, everything else is useful in parties~ Red Mages are lucky that we get so many party useful boosts from our AF in nearly every piece.

AF Body and Hat are useful into endgame, and many players don't joke when they say its just short of godly gear. AF Tights are useful situationally and I tend to carry AF Body, Hat, Gloves and Tights with me when I exp still.

Red Mages tend to switch equips like crazy so you need to judge each piece and how it can help you in exp. I used RSE Hands and Legs for Convert gear, but would switch out other items for INT/MND/skill stats for other spells.

And we look good in it

[Karou Ariyen]

I had a war last night. JP. Mythril Armor. Dual Weilding Swords. Level 59. FOR SHAME! Why? The ONE Piece Of War AF YOu Need Is Boots. "Enhances Double Attack." Then you get to 69. Here its funny. You can A. Ditch them for Thick Sollerets. Or Keep Them. On Hades Wars are 50/50 on this option. I Chose To Keep Mine.

Sam the one piece of AF is the one piece you dont neccesarrily need to keep equipped. Macro it in for Meditate.

[Keavy]

AF is nice but as a Mithra WHM I plan on ONLY using my feet and body. My RSE gives me more MP and with my luck of getting forgetful RDM's and parties that wanna go for chain #2 billion at level 52 I need all the MP I can get!

Besides, Healing Magic Skill +10 is nice, but I keep all my magic skills capped and I have a Light Staff so I should be fine.

I may save up for RSE2 so the "Big number freaks" won't call me a gimp.

Then i'll sell it for JSE

[Stockyboy]

Tbh you can use your AF till 75, then swap that out for AFB, ofcourse there are better alternitives, but they're either really costly, or really costly rare and hard to obtain.

[Alya Mizar (Tsybil)]

RDM AF is some of the most useful out there. Little better till 72 for most pieces.

I wear all but the gloves in EXP parties. The boots are kinda meh, but better than most things I can buy.

Other pieces swapped in and out: Magic Quises for the stats on Enfeebling; Savage Loincloth, Blue Coathardie for Convert.

Some jobs gripe about the useleness of their AF, I feel lucky.

[Karou Ariyen]

as war and sam, I dont bitch about my af. Personal with most of my war af (Right now i go jaridah peti, tracker's kecks) i still retain my hands/mask/boots. I stil do mass damage. As Sam... i use jaridah peti again. The Body does suck. But its useful for bad links. The helm allows me to pull meditate 2x as fast for ws, and i parry skill up faster with my pants.

[Ziada]

I wore the whole set of white mage AF clear up to 72. Hey, it was my first high level job! Plus it's good-looking. Well, maybe I started using a gold hairpin around 70 or so just cause I missed seeing my hair...

Since then I've collected summoner AF... Except for the pants, this one is so bad that SE gave us Austere and Summoner's gear by way of apology...

And black mage AF... Excellent gloves and hat, with the rest only situational.

Do I begrudge time "wasted" collecting all that AF? Not really...
Besides, with summoner capped I can solo pretty much any coffer mob out there.

[Gwynn]

I had a war last night. JP. Mythril Armor. Dual Weilding Swords. Level 59. FOR SHAME! Why? The ONE Piece Of War AF YOu Need Is Boots. "Enhances Double Attack." Then you get to 69. Here its funny. You can A. Ditch them for Thick Sollerets. Or Keep Them. On Hades Wars are 50/50 on this option. I Chose To Keep Mine.

WAR75 experience. I still use my Fighter's Gloves and Fighter's boots. Partly cause I'm a cheap bastard, mostly because I like the double attack boost and as a mithra the +4 STR from the gloves is pretty much the best strength boost you can find out there for cheap.

I used my WAR Pants up till just recently. Finally broke down and bought Barone Pants. Can't imagine why I didn't buy them earlier, they're incredible.

I used my WAR bodyarmor up until level 67 for two reasons. I macroed it in for provokes. I macroed in my Ryl. Knight's Chainmail for everything else. At 67 i got my assault jerkin and sold my R.K. Chain. I didn't get my haubie until i made level 72 cause I just don't get much gil.

Now, for RDM.

RDM AF is the single best all-around AF in the game. It has incredible boosts to skills and I STILL use my Af1 at RDM75.

For every enfeebling spell, the tabard is macroed in. It is macroed OUT for elemental spells and healing spells in favor of my Errant gear. Up until last night, my AF pants were macroed in for Healing and enhancing spells and macroed OUT for elemental and enfeebling in favor of errant slops.

The gloves and the boots are basically useless unless you are soloing. RDM shouldn't be meleeing past level 60 anyway and if you are meleeing you're probably /nin and not using a shield anyway.

Never take off that hat. RDM Af Hat has NO equal until either a Yigit Turban, Walhara Turban, or Duelist's Chapeau (Af2). And even when you have the turbans, the hat's going to get macroed in for Elemental Spells. If you have the Duelist's Chapeau, you never take it off, period, end of sentance. The +refresh makes the af2 hat the best thing a RDM can own.

For Convert i macro in ALL my AF gear. AF gear gets the most MP+ and when you Convert, you want your base MP to be as high as possible.

I have three peices of RDM af2 now. Duelist's Slacks Gloves and Boots. I never take them off. The only things that get macroed around are my Tabard which gets exchanged with my errant body for resting because of the MPr+ and elemental spells for the +INT. And staves get switched for each spell i cast to boost them.

RDM's lucked out... Cause "RDM AF don't Suck™"

[Kintrra]

Um....RDM isn't the only AF that's completely usable at 75. My AF1 boots on PLD are part of my sky tanking gear for Faust and anything else I can tank up there...the gods all still hit a bit hard (especially with the added effects ;; ).

[Sugami]

I used my WAR bodyarmor up until level 67 for two reasons. I macroed it in for provokes. I macroed in my Ryl. Knight's Chainmail for everything else. At 67 i got my assault jerkin and sold my R.K. Chain. I didn't get my haubie until i made level 72 cause I just don't get much gil.

Umm... can get the Hauberk at 69 and it's cheaper than the Haubergeon

Most WARs seem to value STR over Attack and I'm like... gah? Attack is better for Damage over Time, STR for WS. That's why I slap any DRG using those giga bracelets constantly.

Um....RDM isn't the only AF that's completely usable at 75. My AF1 boots on PLD are part of my sky tanking gear for Faust and anything else I can tank up there...the gods all still hit a bit hard (especially with the added effects ;; ).

I'd say RDM should be using a mix of JSE and errant 72+. The Magic Accuracy bonus from 3 pieces of JSE outweighs anything else available. If you want to be swapping almost every piece of gear to optimise magic skills and then INT, MND and MP then probably want full JSE, errant body + hands + feet, AF head + legs + body and possibly some RSE.
Most of the AF2 is useful (the tabard looks crap though). However you'll get invites regardless and the difference is minimal so I only carry around the JSE for style and due to lack of space
Crimson Finger Gauntlets if you can get them good for Dark Magic macro... I have no idea why RDM get the feet it only has MP not really worth the trouble.

[Keavy]

The ONLY jobs that should favor STR over ATK is Samurai.

I have a friend who is a level 75 SAM in my crafting LS and he is like a SAM mentor on Phoenix.

We're always getting newbie SAM's in the LS that he's helping out.

[Gwynn]

I used my WAR bodyarmor up until level 67 for two reasons. I macroed it in for provokes. I macroed in my Ryl. Knight's Chainmail for everything else. At 67 i got my assault jerkin and sold my R.K. Chain. I didn't get my haubie until i made level 72 cause I just don't get much gil.

Umm... can get the Hauberk at 69 and it's cheaper than the Haubergeon
Most WARs seem to value STR over Attack and I'm like... gah? Attack is better for Damage over Time, STR for WS. That's why I slap any DRG using those giga bracelets constantly.

I waited until 67 cause i had my Assault Jerkin before i had my Haubergeon.

Anyway, my attack rating is very high to begin with. It is the concensus of many, at least on Bismark, that +Att can only take you so far. After a while +att plateaus unless you add +STR to the mix.

[Sugami]

You need a buttload of attack to cap it (like 200+ or something stupid) unless you have no STR+ whatsoever which you should have from amemet, barone shorts (70+) and some AF.

Comes down to personal preference I guess, if you'll be spamming Rampage constantly then sure go for the STR but the effects on standard damage are negligible unless you boost it by 10 or something.

Most of that trick set seems to give both STR and attack or accuracy or all three so think they're generally a good thing. Only armour with a lot of Attack I can think of (besides AJ) is tarasque mitts(sp?) I've seen WARs use it, again personal preference I guess.

[Kintrra]

I use mostly STR and DEX+ on my DD gear for PLD75 (STR+26 DEX+29 atm if I remember right) and I'm using gear that also has some attack+ on it. Attack+ will boost damage and also boosts Acc as well, but for the most part, the STR+ that you can get at higher levels is so insane that I don't see why you wouldn't go ahead and get a crapload of it, since most of the good STR+ gear also has Att+ on it. ^^;

[Sugami]

most of the good STR+ gear also has Att+ on it. ^^;

For WAR/PLD/DRK/BST and sometimes SAM yeah, not for poor DRGs who get left out of everything

[Kintrra]

True, DRGs did get kinda screwed in that area.

[Sugami]

Yeah we have to play 3.5mil for Barone Gambieras where DRK/WAR can pay 300K for Thick Mufflers, although not really sure what is better since DRK can't get Barone and WAR tend to favour their AF for feet.
The one piece that is better than the DRK equivalent are those baggy Barone pants but WAR gets those, best of both worlds WAR is spoiled

[xaresity]

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[xaresity]

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