The Problem With Unbalanced Odyssey Gear

I was looking at the new gear from Odyssey, and most all of it looks amazing. I couldn't help but notice, however, the severe lack of benefit on the samurai/nin/monk/pup gear.

Not only does the gear have the lowest Meva for any set (a stat that is sorely needed, especially at higher tiers), it also has the same physical damage limit bonus as the whm/rdm/brd/smn set. For instance, here is how each set stacks up based on Eva, Meva, Combined Eva/Meva stat total, Physical damage limit, -mdt, -pdt, -dt, and Mdef:

Ikenga (rng/cor)
Eva - 408
Meva - 540
total combined eva - 948
Mdef - 29
physical damage limit - 25
Mdt - 0
Pdt - 0
DT - 0 (10 with augment)

Gleti (thf, bst, drg, blu, dnc)
Eva - 456
Meva - 487
total combined eva - 943
Mdef - 67
physical damage limit - 35
Mdt - 0
Pdt - 35
DT - 0

Sakpata (war, pld, drk)
Eva - 338 (tied for last)
Meva - 674 (tied for 1st)
total combined eva - 1,012 (tied for 1st)
Mdef - 39 (4th of 6)
physical damage limit - 30 (second)
Mdt - 0 (tied for first due to dt)
Pdt - 0 (tied for first due to dt)
DT - 40 (tied for 1st)

Agwu (blm, sch, geo, run)
Eva - 380
Meva - 594
total combined eva - 974
Mdef - 34
physical damage limit - 0
Mdt - 0
Pdt - 0
DT - 0 (10 with augment)

Bunzi (whm, rdm, brd, smn)
Eva - 338
Meva - 674
total combined eva - 1,012
Mdef - 44
physical damage limit - 0 (8 with augment)
Mdt - 0
Pdt - 0
DT - 40

Mpaca (monk, sam, nin, pup)
Eva - 477 (1st)
Meva - 406 (last by a full 20% lower than Gleti, the second lowest)
total combined eva - 883 (last by 10% lower than second to last)
Mdef - 62 (2nd)
physical damage limit - 0 (8 with augment) (last, only becoming tied for second to last with Bunzi gear - whm/rdm/brd/smn - with an augment)
Mdt - 0 (tied for last)
Pdt - 40 (1st)
DT - 0 (tied for last with Gleti)


The Mpaca gear gets last for Meva by a substantial margin, last in total combined eva by a substantial margin, last for physical damage limit (lower by a full 25-35% compared to other dd sets, meaning that singl-handed weapons wearing the other sets will have a higher pDIF than the h2h, katanas, or even GK's from the Mpaca set), and tied for last on Mdt and DT. It only wins in -pdt by a small margin, eva by a small margin of 19, and second for Mdef.

On the pDIF example, a Samurai with a GK and lvl 99 in Mpaca armor has, with the augment at full strength, a pDIF of 3.7 (already lower than all other 2-handers because reasons), while a thf with a single dagger, with no augments at all, would have a pDIF of 4.5225. This gear allows a single dagger to have a nearly 25% higher pDIF than a Great Katana.

It should be clear to see that the Mpaca gear was royally screwed when it came to these stats, with the Sakpata gear being completely busted in comparison. I realize the gear has other uses, but the way the stats were divided up between the sets was not done correctly in my opinion.

at the moment i'm only planning to use the hands and feet for pup, i'll stick to malignance for defense.

That gear is bananas for botting in. intimidation and PDT, that's made of win. and all that attack for loltrustbuffs. it's delicious.

Counter crit TA and all 1/5th the price of kenda+1

MNK/NIN/PUP already has access to Malignance, and MNK/SAM/NIN has Kendatsuba +1 set, both are high meva and melee hybrid sets and have unique stats that make them appropriate for specific uses. Mpaca conveniently left off things like ranged accuracy and subtle blow, and added other interesting stats and attack, so it can be used more for certain WS. I don't agree with your assessment on the balance of this gear at all.

The real crime here is that they put GEO on Agwu instead of Bunzi, and BST doesn't get access to the Killer+ stats on Mpaca (come on now, why did they do this?) they would have died for.

Again, I'm not saying the gear is outright bad. I'm saying that the stats given are heavily weighted for armor sets other than Mpaca. The ATT defense doesn't even work since the other dd sets get the same att boost but also get all the other boosts. There is no way you can look at, say, the Mpaca and Sakpata gear and think they are remotely close to being balanced.

SAM and MNK are already broken so giving them the shitty gear is the closest to actual balance you're ever going to get.

Nin kinda gets ***on but that's nin.

Sorry that you feel shorted by the comparison of those two sets, but what those two job groups needed were very different. MNK and SAM, and honestly even NIN are in very strong spots in terms of doing what they do well. I can't speak for PUP because I don't see them in action much, but I do know I've heard many players I know who play the job enthused to see a set that helps both master and automaton vs having to pick (again, don't dissect that statement- I don't play the job just only repeating what I hear).

WAR and DRK are also in a very solid position to do what they do best, when they are safe to do so. While it has shrunk over the years, the ability to deal quality DPS on those jobs in a hybrid or DT set just hasn't been there when stacked against the potential in full DD gearing. That Sakpata set does for these jobs what Malignance did for MNK and NIN- the ability to be extremely defensive without having to severely sacrifice their DD'ing.

Maybe its just that the gear creep across the game is not one line, but 22 individual lines- and jobs that can wear Malignance gear have just been crept further ahead earlier than jobs who couldn't.

Wanna know who I really feel for in this update? DRGs, BLMs, and RUNs.

Why? Drg is fine, same with Run, and Blm is forever shafted.

Odyssey is (supposedly) far from complete. Just wait until T4+ gearsets get released.

I'd so rather my Trish Drg be on the Pld/Drk/War set than the Gleti set personally.

Gleti seems great for Ryu (Drakes)/Shining One tho at least.

Drg has always struggled the most these days when it came to high Meva/DT gear, so while Gleti is certainly a great step up for Meva/pdt, I wish it would've been included on the heavy armor set to have an even better Meva option that also provides DT and high DA.

I notice many people are saying that malignance is the alternative, meaning the lower stats on Mpaca is justified. The issue there, however, is that Sam can't wear malignance. So we don't get malignance, and our Odyssey gear is also not good compared to other sets.

You can't have one set that does everything perfectly. Mpaca is already overtuned as far as offensive stats and PDT go, so SE balanced it by giving it relatively low MEVA and only 8% PDL. Also note that Mpaca has incredibly high Magic Def. Bonus as well.

As others have mentioned, MNK/SAM/NIN already had Malignance and/or Kendatsuba +1 for high MEVA and offensive stats. The jobs that are on Sakpata didn't have anything on the same level of MEVA as Malignance until now (Volte was still noticeably behind), so SE threw them a bone due to the current meta.

Chad Dark Knight

Real talk though, heavy melee like DRK and WAR need enmity control tools bad. I hope the job update is that.

DRG is the best heavy melee right now because it has no threat problems.

Magic Damage not scaling for Enmity is really stupid and makes COR kind of OP as well.

They really need to adjust the enmity before we see a big change in meta.

Do the sets help? Sure, mostly DRK and WAR, but the rest of the jobs that could already wear malig/fix enmity were pretty fine.

Ken +1 gear would still only put Samurai 4th of 6 compared to Ody gear in Meva (last in the other stats), and it would lose all the other buffs the other sets give. So far the best defense for the gear being subpar compared to other sets is that we had alternatives in the past that were not as good as this gear, although were good for the time, so it is fine for this current meta gear to be much better than the gear Sam is stuck with and that costs 1/4 the price.

What you're essentially saying is that you want every DD job to have Malignance-tier gear. What would even be the point of different jobs with different gear if they're all the same with no drawbacks? Might as well just condense all DD jobs into the same because at that point the only one that matters would be the one with the highest DPS.

Even Sakpata isn't perfect and sacrifices some offensive aspects in exchange for all the DT/MEVA, i.e. mainly STP on all pieces except hands, which can mess with x-hit builds.

It's also very low on gear haste. It's very strong elsewhere, though.


SAM getting left behind for the first time in almost two decades? Fam, miss me with that nonsense. Yaegesumi through FFXI.

Low Haste is pretty much standard for all heavy DD gear, plus Sakpata still hits 25% with an R15 Sailfi +1. Though this new Odyssey gear has far too much stat vomit in general, and we really didn't need that kind of power creep without having engaging content to use it in (Sheol Gaol isn't fun and basically unplayable due to lag).

16% haste was considered low back when we had the likes of Goading Belt to rely on for remaining haste, but with Ioskeha +1 and Sailfi +1, that's not really that low at all. Sulevia had 10%, and even that could be worked around by sacrificing a single slot.

They did the same with Malignance iirc. It made everything else trivial once you got it.

Yes, I definitely think Malignance was bad for the game overall and started a slippery slope. The gearing meta was in a relatively decent spot before Lilith was released. People who knew the value of Hybrid sets back then were able to get things done more safely/efficiently than others without having full-on easy mode. Now you just slap on Malignance and gg.

Might be time for SE to rebalance MEVA altogether and make proper Enmity control matter again like in the old days.

This is too true. You can kinda ignore most dps sets and rock Malignance 5/5 and pretty much clear most things with a better win rate, rather than risk getting hit in other sets. I have personally 5/5 Malignance on NIN and MNK and it was a breeze.

[/quote]

Not what I'm saying at all. Granted, high Meva is very important currently. I'm not saying all DD should have the same benefits. What I am saying is that the benefits of certain odyssey gear far outweighs the benefits of other odyssey gear with no real alternative.

The current defense for Mpaca being so bad compared to other gear is to say we should just use older, less impressive gear that costs 4x as much so we can have 1 aspect that the other odyssey gear gets while also not getting anything close to the other stats the other odyssey gear gets. The entire defense being offered of why Mpaca isn't as good admits the entire point of my OP: the Mpaca gear is not balanced correctly to be of the same tier as other odyssey gear.

Boy, that sure does sound like RDM tp sets before malignance.

You're too focused on the stats of the sets without considering the larger picture. Aside from Sakpata jobs none of the other ones would wear 5/5 of their Odyssey sets the same way, so it's a moot point comparing them as if everyone can now skip gear swapping. Overall, very little has changed compared to pre-update except for WAR/PLD/DRK. Everyone got new situational sets.

RUN and SAM have their Su3+1, while THF/BST/BLU/DNC/RNG/COR/MNK/NIN/PUP/RDM would still use Malignance for most defensive intents and purposes. And mages generally always had the best magic defenses (i.e. Inyanga) because being the backline necessitates it. Only DRG actually got shafted by recent gear updates.

What kind of balance do you actually expect to get here? A cheaper alternative to Su3+1 gear that does everything well doesn't sound like balance to me. And as far as PDL goes, you won't be capping that without 1hr buffs most of the time anyway.

Well, it seems not a single person on here gets the point of my OP despite actually admitting I was correct. I'm not talking just about Meva, and I'm not saying all gear should be equal. Saying that some jobs got screwed in the past is no defense for the end game to still have the same issues with other jobs now. Saying the some jobs were good in the past so they shouldn't be as good now also isn't a defense and never has been even remotely a defense at any point.

What I'm saying is that the new Ody gear is good on a multitude of levels, a new tier, for multiple jobs and across all sets other than Mpaca. The Mpaca gear has uses and is not useless, BUT it is not on the same level as the other sets. This has been outright admitted multiple times in this thread by people saying I'm wrong despite that being exactly what my point is. Saying, "oh, you can use older gear to replace the mpaca gear and switch to Mpaca for select things to make up for the difference between the armor sets" admits that the Mpaca set is not of the same quality as the other sets since you don't need to have other sets to compensate on the other sets.

That is even ignoring the fact that people are having to completely change the topic to compare completely different sets than I was originally talking about to try to defend their side. I'm trying to compare sets "A-d" and people are saying "but what about 'j'?" which is changing the topic.

In short, if one set of gear needs multiple other sets to be combined with it to equal what the other sets get naturally, the sets aren't balanced by definition, and that requirement has, I say yet again, been admitted by those against me multiple times already.

have you ever played ffxi? this game has never been balanced

That is in no way a defense and is a tacit acknowledgment that my OP is correct... Saying something was broke in the past is not an excuse to continue to break it in the present and future. It is actually a sign you need to fix it.

This isn't FFXIV. New, better gear doesn't have to replace old gear, even if the new gear is substantially stronger in an overall sense. Situational ***is situational, as it has always been in FFXI's horizontal progression system. We still use 75-99 cap gear to this day for a reason.

SE has, in recent times, often used new gear additions to soft balance between jobs. Just because MNK/SAM/NIN didn't win the gear lottery (again) doesn't mean they got completely shafted. Mpaca is absolutely fine the way it is.

You again completely miss my point. I'm not saying new gear should completely usurp old gear, and I'm not even comparing new and old gear. I'm comparing specific sets of gear to each other to show that they are not balanced between themselves. I will restate this as often as I need: you all admitted the gear wasn't balanced repeatedly already. You then keep trying to change the topic and compare completely different sets and straw man my position.