9:45 As someone who started playing around the end of Shadowbringers, the amount of whacky things that have only been recently become normal will never cease to amuse me Extracting materia used to CONSUME the EQUIPMENT PIECE? That is HYSTERICAL, I can only imagine what it must've felt like looking at a full set of gear sitting at max spiritbond

so as a disclaimer to anyone watching this 1. all these numbers are theoretical, so just because you can get like a 6.5% increase into your crit doesn't mean that's what you'll get from your fully crafted gear 2. despite the pentamelds while yes are more damage, you're not always gonna get a 5% increase, really and truly the damage increase from pentameld for most jobs (especially ones with burst windows) is more likely a 2 to 3% increase 3. iLvl will always outrank any substat, the reason for this is something called Main Stat. Main stat is always going to outweigh your damage by a pretty decent amount, making the pentamelding you just did most likely go straight down the drain so in conclusion of my comment (if anyone bothered to read this) yes please make sure you meld but also take care as those millions you might be throwing down the drain to improve your damage might not mean something after you've got some tomes

I think ive said this before, but I love the effort you put into your videos

Another amazing informative video, I appreciate the information

another bangin video to show the static thanks gamer

There's a secret option for those that might want a little more stats on their crafted gear but don't want to break the bank. Use some lower rank materia than what's current. For this tier, I really didn't have the materia to pentameld rank X and I didn't want to blow a ton of gil on it. So I bought rank VIII materia instead, which was incredibly cheap. Where a pentamelded rank X materia was supposed to be, I instead have a rank VIII. So I ended up with a little bit less crit than what I "should" have, but my damage is still more than fine, especially for a more casual pace, and especially a tier like this one where the dps checks are rather lenient.

Generally, melding doesn't really matter until you get into late game or if you're doing raid/trials ect. synced. So when discovering the game and going through MSQ, there is no need to worry about it.

There's also many circumstances when that extra damage has cascading effects on a fight. One example is finishing a phase that does into downtime (P12 adds is a good current example) a few seconds after vs a few before a 2 minute window. Or even being able to make a dps check with and without 30s and/or 1m cooldowns that you could bank up for a full opener reset, making the next 2min window much cleaner as well, etc.

Great video. I think I'll link this to some of my static every now and then :) Just one thing. I can't explain it, but it really really really bothers me that you have the melded on the left and unmelded on the right in the comparison. I have no idea why this bothers me as much as it does. But I had to rewatch the video because it bothered me so much I missed some of the info the first time.

I wonder how much they tune their encounters to the actual minimum item level. Because most raid tiers start with the first floor being 10 item levels below crafted gear. Comparing old fights min ilvl doesnt really work that well since changes in expansions to classes have changed the entire experience compared to on content. And substat syncing is weird because materia is thrown out but gear stats are synced down to their maximum thresholds (which could mean more in two substats than possible on content with melding) of those allowed at that item level... Makes me wonder if they test their raids with gear at those item levels they put in the duty info instead of melded sets.

my alt rpr with basic melds no overmelding can do between 11 and 12k depending on crits. my fully pentamelded rpr on main i can hold between 12.3 and 13k dps in savage fights that im consistent at and do the same exact rotation every time.

Question o/ Do I need to have OP crafters myself to fully meld my gearsets? Or can we just meld them whenever? Am confused about this.

Add to this video, you mentioned melding is about a 5% buff which is right, things people need to have in mind is if no one melds since they dont think 5% is a lot, then they have long fights, but of everyone melds and your full 8 man tram is melded, youll notice a huge difference on time cleared.

We did Cinder Drift Ex (Ruby weapon) unsynced today (54 fights, saw the mount 5 times, lost a 92, didn't get it). Depending on the group, it was perfectly doable to skip mechanics with 1 tank, 5 DPS, 1 healer, or 1 tank, 6 DPS, no healer. And then there was this group with a level 80 DPS, 1 tank, and 5 level 90 DPS. We just barely didn't pass DPS checks to skip mechanics. Just one more player with melded gear would've made enough of a difference to let us skip Iron Chariot in the add phase (knockback into the death zone, and let's be real: No one runs from the add to get out of the AoE, the MO is always kill it before the cast goes off or die, which kills up to four players if it fails completely and no one ran away) and the root mechanic, Ravensclaw, near the end of phase 1. But it wasn't meant to be, we frequently had to reset at the start of phase 2 to revive more than half of the party who couldn't do the mechanic. We always needed an 8th player to make it through the fight with as little mechanics as possible and these fights with 7 players showed me moves I didn't even know Ruby Weapon Ex had. My gear is melded, but not pentamelded. Not everything I use can be pentamelded. So there's room for improvement, but it's better than not having anything at all. For getting the X materia, or IX, players can do hunt trains or S ranks for clusters to trade for materia. No need to spend gil. Might not be enough for pentamelding, but easily enough to fill the regular materia slots without spending money.

Hi i've recently finished the Endwalker MSQ. I dont have the milions of gil to buy crafted sets, im a bit of a new player, whats the best way to gear up to be able to try out the current savage raid (ilvl630)?

I’ll definitely remember to meld once I get to endgame raiding. Great video! 👍

I wish melding were a lot more variable. I'm not a huge fan of the melding just being basic stat increases, GCD speed seems to be the only actual choice and it's not optimal on most jobs.

I see people walking around day 1 with full crafted Dia gear (640) and never meld. Like not even the 100% slots, nevermind pentamelding. I just don’t get it. Do a couple of hunt trains and you have enough clusters. It’s free

I keep being told on NN that unless you are max level don't worry about melding, I still meld

I want to note something to all the new players who are putting off melding materia until level cap: Meld. In fact, melding before level cap is even more feasible and far better to do. Let me explain. Melding the current best materia in an expansion (which is currently IX and X) has a cost because you don't always pop the materia out when you want to recover them. You typically lose ~60% of your materia when you remove them to re-use them on new gear. This chance for destruction of recovered materia does not exist for lower-level gear. So long as you aren't overmelding and unlock materia socketing for yourself, you should be popping materia in and out as you please since it costs you nothing! You can re-use the materia between your different classes! Don't be afraid to pop your materia out of a piece of gear and socket it into a new piece as you replace gear! Also: Collect materia and stockpile it on retainers! Since you don't destroy lower level materia when you use it, you can slowly accumulate this materia for use when you please. Eventually when you have excess, you can use it to meld for your friends. Oh, one exception: gathering and crafting melding often uses lower level materia for overmelding, even at level cap. This is because if you only need 4 of a stat, using a lower level materia that gives 4 has a higher chance of overmelding successfully. Never throw these away. Stockpile them.

I like melding tenacity for tanks for casual stuff, little more damage and also more defence for safety, bonus points for it being dirt cheap to buy.

Now multiply this effect by 8

Even if you don't care about damage, meld some skill speed and bash a dummy, find the point where the GCD feels right.

''melding is always better than not melding'' Yes this is absolutely true, but after my experience in this game, ive come to realize a lot of endgame players seriously undervalue how much playing well can carry you above anything you get from gear or melds. And im gonna use the team who cleared ToP without pots as an example, also using the weakest dps tanks at the time while majority of people were claiming that you NEED pots just to clear phase 1. Im never gonna say ''you SHOULDN'T'' use pots, have the current best gear, have everything penta melded etc, because they're there to HELP, my only beef is when people say that they're ''NEEDED'' and gatekeep content with itemlevel excuses. If theres ever a point you overkill a boss before getting to enrage, you are factually doing much more damage than that is required to beat the boss, and in which case you didn't ''need'' all that extra damage. So that little rant is basically me saying that extra damage is a safety net for mistakes, (you shouldn't be making if you wanna say you're the best) and i get so tired of hearing about min-maxing because the people who go on about it think they're the best players in the world and look down on others and die on that hill until someone can prove against arrogant claims of ''you can't do this without this'' even ive had multiple times ive been told something isnt possible even tho they had no evidence it wasn't and i manage to prove them wrong by actually trying instead of assuming. Also this isnt just a final fantasy thing, competitive communities are like that a lot. Another outside example, someone winning the biggest tekken tournament with what was believed the worst character in the game even by its creator. Playing well is your best source of damage.

I mean... If there is no dps check the meld doesn't matter. Want to finish the roulette faster? Well, cheese It. I make sure l get alexsander everyday because it only takes around 5 minutes. Do you ever plan to make pvp guide? The new glowing weapon from ranked reward Looks great. And l finally got out of gold because the jobs l like to play can't hard carry.

you know what is the funny part? i'm relatively new to ff14 and looked into materia in-game and kinda knew intuitively what you have shown in the video (general mmo experience) but the game is so absurdly bad at explaining ANYTHING about materia to the player that enix should pay you for doing this vid, seriously i see no way for a real casual new player to grasp the materia mechanics without any on-line tutorial.... good job.

Not gonna lie, I refuse dance partners to those that didn't even bother to meld. It shows lack of care about boosting damage on their part by coming unprepared. Plus, this game gives you free materia like candy. There's no excuse to have not have some form of materia in their slot. There's zero risk and all the benefits for them to meld it.

🤯🤕

All that for 30 seconds? How much time does it take getting that 30 seconds off? Between crafting or obtaining the gear, getting the materia needed, and melding, it sounds like you invest a lot of effort for what sounds like mediocre returns.

I will always hate the game for being balanced for raid content as im in the minority and never see the appeal of raids or care deeply enough for number crunching just want jobs to be fun again could care less if my job does the worst on paper dps just want it to feel good example would be Monk it feels like sh%t to play now bah I rather go back to base a realm reborn or stormblood, shadowbringers was okay for gameplay mostly made tanks slightly enjoyable at the cost of butchering healers dps kit making it simple and tanks followed that by all feeling the 'same' minus a few buttons being different :/ I hope the next FF MMo doesnt follow in this pattern for gameplay, story and music is fine.

I feel like more people would use materia if they didn't have to gamble to over meld. In my eyes, there's no real reason why they need to fail and shatter. I'd love it if they made it just 100% chance or remove it altogether and let you choose substats for the gear where the materia would have gone.

crit ix is cheap. take out your calculator and plan your crit with ix. if you want it really cheap just go with skill speed. recommended for tanks.

I'm going to be honest, the materia system is bad. So far it is the least intuitive system I have seen in the game.

i quit FF14 this game has zero builds no build diversity, no interesting weapon procs and abilities.. everyone plays the same

God, 2.4 gnb is so smoothe to play. All gcds in ammo lines up with no mercy and 1 min window overall perfectly. having 2.5 gnb, mean your 2 min window will drift by 2 gcds in terms of ammo gauge. Which means with full uptime not only every odd minute no mercy has to be vowen early with Solid barrel being first gcd inside it to get back to 3 cartridges. And every 4 mins it will drift by entire cartridge. Also 2 min window drifts by a gcd, so in a long enough fight 2.5 gnb will slowly drift out off of raid buffs. 2.4 solves this completely, since with 2.4 you get 1 extra gcd to allow 3rd cartridge solid barrel to be last gcd before no mercy as suppose to being 1st gcd inside it, but only on odd minutes.