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I've noticed a lot of players who are running around in very high ranked gear that does not correspond to the current rank of the class they're actively playing as. I wonder how exactly are these players performing relative to the rank of the monsters they engaged in and then realize that majority of these players tend to be grouped up.
So I started to observe those players that frequently grind by themselves and against monsters that I typically see groups grind on.
The difference is quite stark to be honest. These soloist that are successful all wear gear that is relative to their current rank. I was watching a Rank 20 PUG take on crabs in the southernmost areas of The Black Shroud and he wasn't having too much problems handling them. Upon further inspection I saw that his gear were all at, slightly below or slightly above his Rank but never strayed too far.
Players who tend to group tend to wear gear that is far too high. One good example is this Rank 22 GLA that was sporting Rank 27+ gear up and down the entire list. Now, I'm not sure how this player thinks he is performing, especially if your shortcomings are covered up by other players, but I can almost guarantee that this player isn't going to do well soloing anytime soon.
Today I decided to observe what kind of impact having gear that is ranked 2, 3 and up to 4 levels higher than the class is. I noted down both the damage taken, damage dealt and other results.
The trend was very noticeable once the differences in rank move up from 2 to 4. At 4, I noticed that your stats DO NOT UPDATE. Adding additional gear that is higher rank to yourself does not even compute with the system. It won't recognize the gear and it appears as if underneath the visible data, the system will treat your character as if it was naked. When fighting Lone Wolves which are "even matched" against a Rank 14 GLA, damage taken was quite substantial, while offensively, the miss attacks as well as seemingly high evasion of the monster made what should be a decent fight into a lopsided confrontation in favor of the monster. Switching to gear that is lower or at the same rank as myself, the damage taken goes down a lot (almost 40%) as well as increased accuracy and less evasion by the monster. In almost every combat situation this appears to be the case, across a spectrum of monsters and difficulties varying from "easy prey" up to "even matched bordering on tough".
There's also another factor that most players haven't really considered and that's the durability loss (gear damage) that is being incurred with the increase in rank differences. The damage seems to accelerate by 10-15% with weapon incurring the greatest rate of almost 30%. This means less time spent on the field and more time spent finding someone to repair your gear (or you could try to wing it and keep on going until you're in the red, but your effectiveness will keep lowering with each condition your gear goes under)
To be sure, this is all education, as players start to find out more they'll eventually "get it". But many players in this game right now think that with the gil flowing relatively easy that they would be better off with gear that outranks them by a lot. To each his own but if you want to perform at your best when fighting against NMs and (presumably) HNMs in future patches then the issue of inappropriate gear needs to be taken into serious consideration.
So I started to observe those players that frequently grind by themselves and against monsters that I typically see groups grind on.
The difference is quite stark to be honest. These soloist that are successful all wear gear that is relative to their current rank. I was watching a Rank 20 PUG take on crabs in the southernmost areas of The Black Shroud and he wasn't having too much problems handling them. Upon further inspection I saw that his gear were all at, slightly below or slightly above his Rank but never strayed too far.
Players who tend to group tend to wear gear that is far too high. One good example is this Rank 22 GLA that was sporting Rank 27+ gear up and down the entire list. Now, I'm not sure how this player thinks he is performing, especially if your shortcomings are covered up by other players, but I can almost guarantee that this player isn't going to do well soloing anytime soon.
Today I decided to observe what kind of impact having gear that is ranked 2, 3 and up to 4 levels higher than the class is. I noted down both the damage taken, damage dealt and other results.
The trend was very noticeable once the differences in rank move up from 2 to 4. At 4, I noticed that your stats DO NOT UPDATE. Adding additional gear that is higher rank to yourself does not even compute with the system. It won't recognize the gear and it appears as if underneath the visible data, the system will treat your character as if it was naked. When fighting Lone Wolves which are "even matched" against a Rank 14 GLA, damage taken was quite substantial, while offensively, the miss attacks as well as seemingly high evasion of the monster made what should be a decent fight into a lopsided confrontation in favor of the monster. Switching to gear that is lower or at the same rank as myself, the damage taken goes down a lot (almost 40%) as well as increased accuracy and less evasion by the monster. In almost every combat situation this appears to be the case, across a spectrum of monsters and difficulties varying from "easy prey" up to "even matched bordering on tough".
There's also another factor that most players haven't really considered and that's the durability loss (gear damage) that is being incurred with the increase in rank differences. The damage seems to accelerate by 10-15% with weapon incurring the greatest rate of almost 30%. This means less time spent on the field and more time spent finding someone to repair your gear (or you could try to wing it and keep on going until you're in the red, but your effectiveness will keep lowering with each condition your gear goes under)
To be sure, this is all education, as players start to find out more they'll eventually "get it". But many players in this game right now think that with the gil flowing relatively easy that they would be better off with gear that outranks them by a lot. To each his own but if you want to perform at your best when fighting against NMs and (presumably) HNMs in future patches then the issue of inappropriate gear needs to be taken into serious consideration.
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