Bahamut.Celebrindal said:
»Anyone who thinks that way clearly overvalues the non-augmented gear and thinks its a lot better than it really is. Outside of stable -DT sets for some jobs that were missing it, and a couple pieces of the Sakpata set, all the T3 and Nyame sets are sub-average even to existing gear before empy+3.
I think this is a bit of an exaggeration, and you have to remember that not everyone playing FFXI has every bit of BiS gear. Even the unaugmented Odyssey armor was a big step up for a lot of average players. I'm not saying augmenting isn't worthwhile, it definitely is, but it feels like you're being a little too harsh on the quality of these pieces with their base stats and maybe coming at it from the perspective of a player who was already geared to the teeth with BiS everything.
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-Ikenga Set without augments is worse than Malignance for Midshot options for COR/RNG.
Not wrong, but assuming every COR RNG farmed full Malignance is just not realistic to me. A set of high Racc/Ratk gear with good amounts of Store TP (even if not #1 for the slot) and large chunks of Enm- is not that bad. If you take Malignance out of the equation, it's clearly a step up for ranged midshot gear over a lot of options I saw people using prior to Odyssey armor being implemented (like, it was still pretty common for me to see people rocking Meghanada in multiple slots).
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-Agwu gear is worse for standard nuking AND bursting without augments than even NQ Ea or Relic+3.
1) SCH can't use Ea for their Su3 set, so had some decent pieces here (especially since they all have M.dmg too)
2) RUN got a big step up for Lunge/Swipe gear, which is admittedly a very niche use - but R0 Agwu is only beaten by augmented Agwu for that purpose.
3) Even BLM had SOME use for Agwu. R0 Agwu feet were pretty good when they released (even over Ea+1) due to the INT. And even the other pieces weren't BAD, I could totally see someone on more of a budget starting with that as a respectable baseline and looking to improve via augments, instead of spending money on Ea gear.
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-Gleti without augments at best could be a crit-based WS set, and even then there were better options.
Eh, Gleti R0 wasn't blowing people away, but some of the Gleti R0 pieces were still better for stuff like CdC or Evisceration than the other existing options.
R0 Gleti is also (still) superb as an idle set with lots of regain and pretty good defensive stats. Meva could be higher, but PDT/DEF/MDB are all good.
BST got some use out of base stats giving Pet Acc/Racc/Macc+50 per piece, and pet level+1 on feet.
Gleti's Knife was a nice step up for a lot of people, particularly as an offhand, even at R0.
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-Sakpata without augments ends up being a super safe but low-DPS set for DRK and WAR- both have amazing options that trounce it.
I think this undervalues the ease at which Sakpata opened up hybrid sets. Getting good Acc/Atk/DA on pieces that also made it easy to do DT-40~50% sets was a game changer for a LOT of people. Yes, there were other options like Hjarrandi helm/body (which lots of average players didn't have) and some good relic/AF pieces.
Even 5/5 Sakpata R0 was a solid general tanking set for PLD.
Sakpata weapons also have some use. Sword is pretty nice for a BLU ilevel offhand, solid for non-Burtgang PLD. Sakpata Fists have a niche BiS use case for PUP nuking, regardless of augment level.
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-Mpaca before you augment again....just a PDT set, not even a great set for magical fights.
Strong disagree. Remember that before Empy reforge, SAM had a big issue of lacking many good hybrid pieces (no Malignance, no Hjarrandi, etc.). Having a set with good TA/Acc/Atk/Crit and very strong PDT- was a game changer for me on SAM even from R0. And yes, SAM's excellent Empy +2/+3 set for head/body/legs changed things again, but that was later and Mpaca hands/feet are still viable choices, with even R0 remaining in the top small handful of options.
Purely from an offensive perspective, Mpaca R0 was basically a sidegrade or slightly better than Kendatsuba NQ gear often used by SAM MNK NIN at the time: very similar Acc/TA/Crit (like 1% less TA or Crit on a few pieces) with Atk+40 per piece as opposed to no Atk on Kendatsuba (or Malignance for MNK NIN).
Also opened up a good brand new option for PUP, which wasn't on Kendatsuba. Mpaca, even at R0, instantly became one of the top 2 offensive choices for PUP and probably preferable to Malignance STP/Acc if using weapons other than Mythic.
Defensively, Malignance is great and all but was often lower DPS than R0 Mpaca pieces (STP versus TA/Atk/Crit), so Mpaca and its high PDT- had a place for hybrid/defensive sets when you cared more about mitigating against physical damage, whereas for a fight with more threat from magic/debuffs you might still prefer Kendatsuba for Meva and no xDT-.
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-Bunzi? Please. Zero reason to use any of it without augmenting.
As previously noted, hands are great for BRD (or WHMlol) melee. Bunzi's Rod is good stuff even with just the base augments.
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-Nyame is just a -DT set for jobs that didn't get one easily (read: jobs not on Malignance) and is pretty much useless beyond that before you augment it.
That -DT option is VERY significant and shouldn't be discounted.
Hell, R0 Nyame was BiS tanking gear (over anything but augmented Nyame) for RUN for several slots at the time: head/body, probably legs over Erilaz+1 (the much better Meva was big), viable choice for feet (Nyame R0, Turms, Erilaz+1 all had some use). Nyame R0 hands could even be a situationally better call over Turms/+1. And adding augments doesn't add any defensive stats, so for RUN from a tanking perspective it was pretty much functionally the same whether R0 or higher.
And Nyame fills a lot of gaps for niche secondary functions. NIN got some good MAcc/MAB/Burst pieces, it's good for those odd situations where you might want ranged stats on a job like THF or SAM, base Pet Acc/Racc/Macc+50 has uses, the combo of Acc/Macc is great for landing added effects on hybrid WS, etc.