At The Precipice: The Obsole-tion of Gear

Square-Enix may finally have jammed their ass in it one time too many with this Delve content, and the rewards thereof.

They, correctly, note that this is the greatest gear Vana'diel has ever seen!!

Too bad it is so far above anything else the game has ever seen, that Square-Enix now has a very prescient problem...

One Tohihroyu talks about in another Final Fantasy XI forum:

"First my ToM scythe gets beaten by an AH scythe, now my relic I worked my butt off with my friend (and worked on 2 of his with him includeing trials and fighting the NM's to get the Test & Fragment) is getting beaten by 3 fucking scythes! the only upside being Apoc has haste aftermath and the very nice drain effect."

That "friend" being me -- my Mandau (now 80 and on the last trial to 85), and my Gungnir (now 90).

It's now clear from a later Official Forums post from Matsui that I'm going to have to get them to 99 before we can even talk about what efforts WILL be made to improve them.

Here's the problem:

Gungnir at 99:  DMG 159 Delay 492 ACC +40 Geirskogul (which is not the world's greatest relic WS -- Drakesbane is better, and that's why Tohi and her friends helped me finish off Nyzul just a few weeks ago, to which I basically got Drakesbane after about two hours of spiders in Abyssea).

Here are two polearms that were in the new update.  One is purchase-able with Delve "currency".  The other is probably a Delve HNM drop.

Ophidian Trident:  DMG 181 Delay 396...

WAIT A MINUTE...

So you spend upwards of 18,000 Ancient Currency units and 100M gil on top of it to get the Gungnir to 99.  You now have a weapon in the game (and this is the weapon which is probably purchase-able from the NPC!) that is 22 more damage AND almost 100 less Delay.  FOR A POLEARM!!!

That 396 Delay is comparable to the very low end of Polearms, and the DMG blows the Relic (and the Mythic and Empyrean) out the freaking door!

AND it has +8 DEX, VIT, and ACC.  OK, so 32 less ACC than the Gungnir, but STILL...

And then we get to this piece of ridiculousness, which is almost certainly a Delve HNM drop:

The Upukirex.

The Delay is 492 and ACC + 40, just like the 99 Gungnir.

But wait...  STR +13, Attack +25, a 2% increase in Critical Hits...

And the damage is only ...  266.

Before this update, the Gungnir 99 (and the Empyrean Rhonogomiant at 99) had the highest damage, ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN fewer points worth.

How about MAB +50-+70 on the staves?

How about this for a headpiece:  DEF 80 STR and VIT +20 Accuracy and Attack +25  Store TP +4 and we'll throw in 7% Haste...

What are you trying to do, Square-Enix?

You really put your entire enterprise on the precipice.  Allow only the Windower/bot elitists these things, and no one else will play.

More than a few people are already quitting, coming from the Official Forums.

Oh my word...  Just...  No...