akudama wrote:
Skirmish weapons and augments are faster and easier to get to their best or close to their best stats. The only reason to do Delve anymore is to hopefully get into a group that can make it to the boss room. Even then the plasm is better spent on the delve boss weapons than airlixers. The only real things to farm in delve anymore are Smn satchel (I-113), Alternator, Manibozo parts for +Range Atk augments, Rigors for Pup, Bow for Rng & Sam, Jug pets, Range amo, and a weapon to aug eva for Nin/Thf/DNc (off hand or main).
Huh? There are still
lots of non-boss Delve items worth farming and upgrading. Besides the stuff you mentioned:
* Offhand weapons for any dual-wield job: Izhiikoh and STR (not AGI/eva) Aphotic Kukri is still the best DD dagger set for THF and DNC, BLU still needs an offhand sword to pair with Bura, etc.
* Some jobs don't yet have a boss weapon: COR is a good example with a bunch of choices - probably want to be able to DW Delve daggers/swords for melee, and will also want Surefire Arquebus unless they have a pricey and rare Donderbuss. Delve katanas are very good for NIN even if they're second place to expensive crafted Pamun.
* Lots of good accessories to buy: Earring sets, Asperity Necklace, oddball stuff like Automaton regen back, etc.
* The Delve upgradable armors are still quite good, beating Skirmish gear in a lot of cases. I'm not too familiar with the mage/heavy DD options, but Manibozho certainly isn't useful for ranged only: legs, feet, body are still best in slot choices for melees for certain situations (TP, WS, acc focused sets, etc).
* Besides boss weapons, there are several best-in-slot armor/accessories from the mega bosses. So save that plasm in case you can't get the direct drop once you finally break through and get Delve boss wins, you'll probably need it.
Don't get me wrong, Skirmish gear (and the +1 weapons) is good and at the very least is a respectable stepping stone even if it's not the absolute best piece. Sometimes it clearly IS the best piece. And it's stupid easy to get with generous drop rates and wing drops. But I'm disappointed with people who just lazily assume it's the best and 5/5 it for everything. Especially the people I see waaaay too often running around with un-augmented skirmish armor (really, you can't even toss a single 10k NQ stone at it to get SOMETHING for an augment?) Also worth mentioning that in many cases, in order for Skirmish armor to beat other non-Skirmish options it requires very good augments, so you're going to need great luck or a ton of gil burning stones for that super rare DA+2% or whatever.
RaiseIII wrote:
Fynlar wrote:
Olorinus the Ludicrous wrote:
I don't have SoA stuff to make other stuff easier... lol. I'll come back maybe if they server merge - but until then there is not enough to do - no shouts - no chance to get gear... (though I might sub for one month just to get my free cruor before the end of the abyssea extravaganza)
Not even skirmish shouts? I see a lot more of those than delve shouts nowadays, and skirmish gear is much easier to acquire.
It all goes back to the same old thing, if you want or need a run, then make your own shout. It's not hard and you should take some responsibility for your seeking your own fun. There is no good reason to be bored in this game.
But yeah, this. Certainly if you're complaining that you don't have decent gear and there are no shouts, you're not trying very hard. Even a less than 6/6 party with Bayld gear and no Delve weapons should EASILY be able to take care of a 1/1/1 Yorcia Skirmish, and it's my experience that there are plenty of Skirmish shouts, and plenty of people willing to join if you start a shout. It's not super job-dependent, and doesn't need a meticulously planned 18/18 alliance. Get yourself some Skirmish armor/weapons and you're in pretty good shape in current endgame.
Yes, players still have very specific Delve requirements to get into shouts, especially for dime-a-dozen DDs. That brings with it some problems. But you can do a ton of stuff with easy to get Skirmish gear, like being completely overpowered for any pre-SoA content (back to Catwho's original point from this topic, which I totally agree with - I've also been having a lot of fun doing stuff like Meebles and Limbus lately).
Edited, Oct 1st 2013 5:15pm by Anza