New Upgraded AF Incoming: What Do You Expect?

So +2 and +3 upgrades are coming, what do you expect?
Personally I think it will be just a small progression over +1, with slightly higher stats, more powerful job specific buffs (with some exceptions that will remain the same) and maybe some additional stats here and there where due.
I don't expect the jump between +1>+2 and +2>+3 to be as big as the NQ>+1

Which AFs will you keep an eye on?
My personal list here.

GEO:
I still use all pieces except head, so I'm looking forward to the upgrades

RUN:
In a way or another I still use all pieces, sort of. Legs look interesting, but the lack of Inquartata from Empy will be annoying. Hope the body will further increase Vallation duration (doubt it, since NQ and +1 are the same, alas) and that Hands will have at least +20 Enha skill.

MNK:
Body for chakra and Hands for Boost. I don't think it's worth to use Boost at all tbf, but with a large enough increase in the +3 it might make it worth to use it in uncapped att situations?

BRD:
Head and Body could become new BiS for debuff midcast (temporarily, until reforged relic and empy come out :P), feet will be hot if they will see another increase in song duration.

PUP:
Hands for maneuvers, feet for Repair?

SMN:
Head could be nice for skill and Body potentially for BPs according to the BPdmg increase

SCH:
Head if you like sublimation builds, feet for the spellcasting. Body/Legs could be nice with their skill bonuses but I'm tired of these grimoire-bound bonuses that only work in one mode and end up being some semiuseful inventory clogging thing. I prefer something that works in both modes honestly >.>

NIN:
Head could become even better for debuff sticking (doubt better than Relic/Ryuo for nuking though). I don't see body becoming relevant again unless they add more cool stats to it. Legs on the other hand could become an interesting DW swap piece to use in situations where you need acc and more DW? Feet are a nichey run piece that only works part of the day. I'll be interesting in them only if they make it work 100% of the time :P

Hopefully, the new Paladin Reforged Artifact Leggings +2 will be even more "shieldy" than the Souveran Schuhs +1. Higher shield skill and/or chance of block amounts would be great ^^

It would also be neat if the body became the new best flash / nuke /etc. piece for Paladin.

Breeches better than Carmine Cuisses +1 (enhancing magic skill -wise)? Probably not likely unless they add Fast Cast to the.. :S
Carmine would still be used as movement speed of course.

WAR will likely be able to full time berserk.

I wish for enhancements to ja that don't have a piece associated with them yet. Like for cor Crook and Cut(but especially crook..)

*it'll never happen*

BLM coat, add more 40 mab/macc.

^ Another boost to Spaekona Coat would be nice. Perhaps upgrade the INT to +38 or so and the M.Acc to 30. I also wouldn't mind having the Empy Legs gain 10 of both MaB and M.Acc for the occasional -aja duration+ usage.

It'd be nice of DRK got Last Resort duration on a few pieces. +20 seconds on one piece and +14 on another would be nice.

I'd be ecstatic if they'd just roll all AFs into one already.

18% Movement Speed on GEO

We'll all be disappointed

Correction: you'll all be disappointed. I already know better.

If it's still 119 whats the *** point.

White Mage Dreaming~

Amnesna: Removes Amnesia (modifiers based on MND and Enhancing Skill) even if it meant going into Afflatus Misery to activate it.

Sacrificega: Removes up to 7 debuffs from all party members. Free to use for Yagrush owners every 5 minutes. 1 hour ability for everyone else.

Just being "ilv 119" means nothing. All reforged AF1 sets are outdated and an update is very welcome.

Because gear from Escha are in fact more than i119?

Maybe the BLU legs will actually get decent nuking stats so they can be usable for BA spells.

every piece get stat boost and a +35 on att,acc,rtk,racc,matt,macc, along with 50% boost on the enhace ability.

I expect more uniqueness from what some of the AF should do, but is being neglected to. For example maybe we finally get increased duration on things like flee on the af feet. I'm not expecting this gear to negate HQ abj gear, although it might also explain the relic shield for crafting being implemented at the same time to possibly make that gear easier to obtain if it loses some of it's value. I at least expect it to not be better than every path on HQ abj gear since most of the gear has multiple BiS paths.

To be fair AFs in general aren't really that great. There are some situational pieces, some jobs (GEO! RUN!) get more than others, but all in all I'm sure we're all more excited about reforged Relics and reforged Empys.

A couple of BST pieces should end up being pretty nice. RUN as well. Not so excited about BLU AF, some extra skill on the body to make 550/600 easier to reach for newer players is about all I can expect out of it.

Hopefully a good reso set for DRK

RF1+2~3.... I'm not really expecting much. There's very few pieces that aren't macro-only.
Essentially I expect RF+3 to be about what Ambuscade +1 sets offer in terms of derived stats.
And it would be nice especially to have +25~40 Macc/MAB on BLM's RF1+3 body.
And things like RUN's RF1 could get more than 5% total PDT...

But overall... they'll likely just remain macro-only with very few exception.
EDIT: At most they'll just open up new avenues for things. For example, easier to hit DT builds on RUN and PLD freeing up various slots for other things.

RF2+2~3 and RF3+2~3 on the other hand....
That ***has potential to be BiS.
And hopefully they'll add augments that always annoyed me for not existing. (Like making the SP ability augment on RF2s work for both abilities, or DNC's empy body having ternary flourish in addition to striking flourish.)

I think they'll keep the current pattern of what abilities they'll augment. (AF1 for 1~60 JAs, AF2 for merit JA/spells/untouched abilities from AF1 and SPs, and AF3 being +75 abilities.)
Since they've added quite a few JA/JTs over the years, now would be a good time to update the AFs to include the ones that didn't exist when the AFs were first made.

AF+2/+3 will be you putting the relevant AF+1, RF+1, EF+1 in a synergy forge and getting a +2 or HQ +3 with stats combined

I seriously doubt that since they already show the model is the same of AF1 just with a different colour surrounding the square.

They would never merge all those iconic sets into a single one wielding the appearance of AF1.

Plus reforging 3x sets gives them 3x the amount of content to keep players busy for a longer time.

I'm not expecting any giant stat upgrades to be honest. Doesn't really make that much sense to me to make anything BIS (excluding unique macro pieces, which would already be BIS.)

All I'm really expecting out of this would be the addition of augments, probably connected to JA/JT that don't have any other options at this time. Probably similar design to relic119.. 2nd SP aug on body for instance.

Statwise, I wouldn't expect anything better than Escha-Zitah gear set stats.

I don't expect much more than stat vomit. I don't see a way to make AF gear much more useful than the occasional macro gear as it is without reworking the jse perks and seriously over powering the gear.

They're on the record as stating that HQ 119 Abj is the upper limit. With that in mind, they have raised the stats on them before, so upping the ceiling isn't completely out of the realm of possibility, but I'd be pretty surprised if they did it this time around. So, assuming they don't raise the cap:

+2s are going to get stat vomit, a little acc/atk/macc/matk to make them slightly less irrelevant. Power wise, somewhere between Zitah and NQ abjurations.

+3s are going to have relevant stats to put them roughly on par with low to mid range Reisenjima augments. The reduced flexibility (fewer jobs) will offset no longer needing to play the stone RNG game with Oseem.

I see this also as an opportunity to re-balance jobs for SE, in a way that highlights their job abilities and unique features so I expect the "more meta" jobs to be getting less than jobs in need of a radar boost.

Anyone expecting more then a slight upgrade is seriously going to be disappointed. A few pieces will be a little big better, most will be situational pieces for various abilities / ect.


Yeah with lots of INT and MND and ... yeah.

Make MNK great again.. again !

Regardless, i dare speculate that they will also be doing this with Relic and Empyrean armor as well.