Equiping High Level Gear On Low Level Class

What happens when you equip gear that are a few levels higher than your rank?

Is it scaled down?

And what about gear not for your class?

We talking level sync here? Because you cant equip gear thats higher than your natural level. Same goes with race specific gear, hume cant wear mithra stuff for instance

edit: NVM lol wrong game, im going to bed -.-

This is Final Fantasy XIV I'm talking about not Final Fantasy XI.
Hance posting in FFXIV forum

As fas as I know, wearability drops a lot quicker (in other words: You would need repairs faster) when you are wearing higher rank stuff. But I could be wrong, can someone please clarify?

Not sure about classes though, but would also like to know what happens with classes and gears.

When for example Archer wears armor that doesn't favor Archer. The armor will act crap and be very useless to wear.

Wearing armor much higher then your rank. It's powers will be penaltied also the bonus stats. Yes it will wear quicker. This goes for weapons also.

I hope they change this i really don't like the idea of seeing a dumb rank 1 noob with 50gear most ppl in the game don't know how to gear themself up because of this.

I like it. It allows me to laugh at level 10's wearing level 27 gear. More expensive to buy and repair, almost always less effective than gear your own level, and wears down faster.

eh, it doesn't really bother me haha i'll keep wearing the gear i think looks the prettiest/most badass :P

You mean level 18 fools wearing 48 armor >_>

What you should know about buying armor. Class > Type > Rank.
FOR EXAMPLE:
Armor Type is the key here.
Bronze Cuirass gives me more defense than anything rank-appropriate at Rank19 Gladiator. This is because the Cuirass type is designed to give the most defense.

Class is also very important.
The Dodoskin Jerkin gives me (at least) half the stats of the Cuirass because gladiator is not listed on the item. This is why Weavers should not wear full doublets while crafting, only doublet vests, because weaver is not listed on the full doublet.

Rank is not as important as you would think when it comes to armor.
I bought an Iron Celata to replace my Bronze Celata. The two items gave me the same exact stats. I also own Hempen, Cotton, and Canvas Kecks. All three items give me the same exact stats (Edit: I tested kecks before I was rank19 for the cotton derivative).

As far as shields go, I always use Scutum type shields because they do not fail during battle. I've used Hoplons, and too often for my taste, the message "Your block fails" would show up in log. Scutums never fail, ever.

But, when it comes to Weapons, though, it's important to get a rank-appropriate weapon. I get more accuracy and attack from a Brass Dagger at 19 than an Iron Shortsword.


In conclusion, while you may not get the maximum stats from higher-rank gear, if you have the money to blow, you can't go wrong with buying higher-ranked armor - so long as the gear is class-appropriate.

I can't comment on most of that, but the shield part I find odd. Going by the stats, shields are similar to they are in FFXI, with tower shields (scutums) having a lower block rate, but blocking more damage. I started with maple shield, moved up to bronze hoplon, then worm-eaten square shield, and am about to upgrade to tarnished hoplon (although I'll compare stats once equipped as my sentinel rank is only 10). I have never, EVER noticed a failed block on anything, even when I've been buggering around and attacked a stupidly high level inferno drake or rainbow basilisk.

Idk what I might be doing wrong in the shield department... I have used a bronze hoplon for farming, and upgraded to a tarnished hoplon a few days ago. (aka rank appropriate shields) Both of which fail when blocking occasionally. Against star marmots, wharf rats, puk hatchlings, and sheep, as well as many more enemies.
Since I use phalanx liberally, it annoys me very much when my block fails and doesn't let me retaliate with phalanx.

Interestingly enough, the expensive lantern shield my friend bought also fails occasionally when we were doing Leve's. The Bronze scutums I've been using for leveling and leve's have never failed me once.

Beats me, I have a 100% (partial) block rate as far as I've noticed. If an attack gets in between my shield dropping and me raising it again, more often than not I partially parry it. Perhaps I have missed some fails here and there, but I too use phalanx every chance I get and didn't even know it was possible for block to fail. Our stats are near enough to the same that I think we can rule that out, and you're using level appropriate shields so that's not it either. As we're both level 20+, I think we can also rule out luck, no-one could be that lucky or unlucky to make such a big difference. I'll start putting in more hours in a week since uni is almost done for the year, and I'll let you know if I'm just being dense and not noticing fails.

From a turtle GLA standpoint, I was wearing correct level gear but bought the Lv.27 stuff for later. I tried it on and noticed while most of the stats were ineffective, defense still counted higher than my current level gear. I think the extra defense and damage reduction outweighed the cost of increased repairs. And even then, my level correct shield and sword always wore out 10 times faster than my higher than my level armor.

This is not true with weapons for attack and accuracy.

I do it... why? because im the one that makes it! haha. It gets dmg, pull the hammer out and it gets fixed.

Why not show off the gear that i make.

(re-edit, misread.)
As far as repairs go, put your character in town overnight. Placement is key, not in the middle of the lag, but in the traffic of market wards to adventurer's guild. I haven't had many repair troubles, and a pricetag of two fire crystals for most repairs gets my stuff fixed easy.
Armor always wears slower than weapon and shield. 6x faster I'd wager.

well some higher ranking gear is better then lower ranking gear. you just need to check the stat's when you put it on. to me since i am a higher rank now. it seems to go down about the same amount. i get mine repaired about every 2 days that's with grinding for atleast 14 hours in 2 days.

just dont be the noob who has rank 18 running around in 48 that's stupid yes your gear will be super gimped even +2

For higher ranking gear, usually you will notice a stat increase when you are higher than the difference of the items.

For example, I had a dodoskin field belt and a voyager's field belt, rank 25 and 35 respectively. The voyager's did not start offering me more stats than the dodoskin until I was 31, or closer to the optimal rank of one than the other.

yea at 31 cav hauby +1 is 1 less def then iron hauby +1 right now

Interesting... I've got some gil so I think I'll go back to testing. Will post results.