So I'm a newb, and I'm curious about gear swapping... (was fFollow

At 60 it was usually just one or two pieces, one that gave an accuracy bonus versus one that had strength,etc. Changing staves if you were a RDM or BLM. Etc.

By the time I hit 70 on WHM I had at least two half gear swap sets - one for curing, one for resting. I think I tossed on a Blessed Briault for bar spells.

BLM was worse - I got OCD with an enfeebling set, a nuking set, a resting set, a dark magic set....

Oh yeah, totally forgot instrument swaps. The real reason that Gjallarhorn is Best Relic.

I was a mage only in those days, and mages did need gear swaps by that level, but now that I think about it melees probably could get away with not learning it until a bit later.

Just to chime on the topic:

I think the "gear swap or go home" mechanic of FFXI is majorly flawed.

This allowed complete chaos when itemizing gear and is a huge reason why lots of pieces of gear have stats that "make no sense" on them whatsoever.

Most games take what I feel is the "proper" approach of creating "complete" items that contain "all the proper stats" to do what you need to do. There will be some variation, sure, but if you are expected to have defense / damage reduction gear for example, the gear for that content will be obvious and usually come 'from' that content so it gets "easier as you go", but it won't just "leave you hanging" with no other useful stats. Of course you can cherry pick pieces that are like this, but usually that's not the case.

Let me give the most obvious example of WoW, where raiding will net you pieces that can be exchanged for "set" items. Those items will usually come in multiple flavors, some with haste, some with crit, etc. You choose which one works properly for your job / class / build, and go for it. This will not mean that you "wont have enough mana / mp" to cast the spells you need, nor will it mean you won't have enough "stamina / hp" to survive the hits you need, it's all been well thought out and calculated. Similarly, if you try to do PvP, you will want a stat called resilience, so you can work towards those resilience pieces but they will also have the other stats you'll need including haste / crit / mana / health stats etc. There is no need to gear "swap", you still have side-grade items, but you find the ones you want to use for any given fight, and use them for that fight, no "blinking" in and out of render with constant mid-fight clothe changing.

My biggest problem with the itemization in FFXI is they give you say, 30 points you can use on an item for stats. Lets say you spend 10 of those points on str, then 10 of those points on vit, and the other 10 become 5% haste (since haste is worth more). What annoys me is they can use those same 30 for say, 15% haste and nothing else, or 30 str and nothing else. So you are stuck swapping gear that isn't "good overall" for gear that is very "lopsided" and wouldn't make sense in a general use scenario. It takes away the developer's need to actually itemize gear in a way that makes sense and even contributes heavily to the imbalance in ffxi classes.

While I don't have "high hopes" for the "item level" implementation coming down the road, "item level" focus does help greatly when determining an item's stat balance and allows you to create "everything you need" stat pieces that can still have "side grade" versions so you can min-max your character without min-maxing each-individual-ability-as-you-use it. It's a sign of good design and will probably help in the long-run as long as they don't do something stupid like "oh, this item is now ilevel 300, lets give it 300 str and nothing else".

I honestly feel bad for new players anymore, the "must haves" the community expects are ridiculous. I didn't realize how ridiculous they were until I tried to get my wife to play recently... explaining even the most basic necessities of FFXI felt like "work" that she didn't want to do. I know the hard-core long-timers will be around til the end, but I have a hard time, after playing since the beginning, seeing how new people can possibly take a strong interest in the game in a realistic way - the gear-swap mechanic just makes entry even worse - I'd much rather see people have to "pick and choose" the best slots for their play-style than "greedily ***** every single item in the game with the highest stat for whatever weapons-kill or spell their class can abuse most easily".... then the whole "I like side-grades" debate would actually make sense, right now it's just a game of grab-hands.

That's how it feels like on my SAM. The amount of situational gear combined with the playerbase stupidity makes this game just ridiculously unbearable lately.

I've had to give up trying to get any -DT pieces from Voidwatch because it's been either Caeleno, Hahava, or the very rare Akvan (that always forms up RIGHT as I'm about to go plans farm in Salvage II). I'd also like the warps but outside of a single city climb shout last week (which feel apart around 8/18 people...) that's pretty much impossible. Delve weapon fiascos just cause me to shake my heads; whereas a Skirmish weapon is more than enough, no one wants to form up an NNI group with less than R10 Delve now.....for floor 80 clears.

Then there's the pieces from Salvage II. Farming the plans takes a bit (I'm working on SAM and MNK so Usakane +1 for 4 pieces (getting the legs just because I already got a 45 leg to drop) as well as 2 of the offspec (hands and feet) for WSing. Then there's the actual farming of the 15/25/35 pieces which still takes forever due to the 24 hour lockout even with the increased droprates and NM spawn conditions. Lower level monsters and faster clears doesn't mean a damned thing when the Chariot at the end refuses to drop the pieces you need for three weeks in a row. My hats off to the people that stomached this crap during ToAU prime but it's absolute **********

Matsui's declared it's all about Delve and etc. over in Adoulin and suggest SII and NNI gear to help gear up but doesn't really make it that much easier (Salvage wise, NNI's fairly cakewalk nowadays I hear) to actually make the gear he suggests.

By this point I'm just waiting on FFXIV to launch and seeing if I can actually finish the Salvage pieces I've started. FFXI's in such a terrible place right now that I really don't see how anyone could suggest to a new player that it'll be an enjoyable experience.

Wait, who claimed that SC didn't give a huge advantage? It's awesome sauce.

I think the biggest problem is the encouragement to break the TOS in order to participate in events or else be considered gimp if you only use the macros SE gives you.

I don't think anyone who has used SC can deny that it's awesome, although a white mage whose system doesn't run BlinkMeNot might beg to differ. (Access violation has occurred GRRRRRR NOT AGAIN)

For me, it's just more convenient to add or subtract gear from a single line of XML than it is 80+ macros.