Optimal Rank, What does it mean?

Good Evening all,

In spite of going through and discussing situational abilities in battle and what are good support skills to learn from other classes I wanted to address another apparent problem I see effect not just gladiators, but everyone in FFXIV.

A lot of people are confused about if they should use the highest level gear possible or gear closest to their level?

As A rank 26 glad I just wanted to compare 2 items in order to give people a general idea of the system.

We are going to compare 2 gladiator weapons, Ash Macuahuitl (R25) and Iron Dagger (R29).

Here are the stats on the weapon descriptions:

Ash Macuahuitl
Attack 92
Accuracy 111
Crit Rate 130
Parrying 99

Iron Dagger
Attack 93
Accuracy 129
Crit Rate 138
Parrying 141

Now clearly by these values we believe that the Iron Dagger is vastly superior, but let's look at an example on the character sheet of a rank 26 glad.

Stats with Ash Macuahuitl
Attack 92
Accuracy 111
Defense 213

Stats with Iron Dagger
Attack 74
Accuracy 117
Defense 213

Quick math to see what % of benefit the dagger provides with 3 levels under optimal rank:
Attack 74 / 93 = 79.57%
Accuracy 117 / 129 = 90.70%

I performed this test without any accuracy boost equipment on.

So from this we can tell that by looking at the attack on character sheet that Ash Macuahuitl is the clear winner in terms of what you should equip.  I find that I typically upgrade a piece of armor after I have passed its Optimal rank by 3-5 levels.  Weapons are typically upgraded much more than armor pieces because I try to only keep the most defensive type of war garb on my character (minus the eye patch in the picture below).
 
I believe the interesting find here is that different attributes on the weapon are effected different on the character sheet when equipping something higher than your rank. This could make equipping higher ranked weapons particularly good for damage dealers because healers do not really need accuracy and tanks do to a lesser degree than melee DPS.

And at the moment I do not have the information to back up the next bit of text, I will do more once I have gained a few more levels and a new set of armor:  When I was rank 22 glad I had both Sentinel's Chainmail and Bronze Haubergeon.  Now, by the above example I just wanted to further prove a case for the opposite situation; however there is a difference here. 

Sentinels Chainmail gives 56 defense, it is on the item sheet and on the character sheet as the same value.

Bronze Haubergeon (R27) gives 81 def on the character sheet and 56 on the character sheet at 22.  However the other bonuses were better than that of the sentinel's chainmail, therefore, i wore the bronze haubergeon and sold my sentinel's chainmail asap. 

Now why is this the case?  Because even though the are both classified as "War Garb" Bronze Haubergeon is a heavier type of armor.  A chainmail is something you have a little bit more movement in and I suspect that if a chainmail piece were optimal rank 27 then it would still have considerably less defense than a haubergeon piece.  This means that equipping only items at your optimal rank is not a solid rule of thumb, it will take some intuation and testing on your part.  And that is the kind of thinking that makes good players great.

Just wanted to point out, yes this test was very basic and I am only taking a quick look at the results; however, the current purpose of this blog is to bring the general populus, especially gladiators, up to a certain level of knowledge so that it will be easier to discuss more complicated choices and strats later.

Lastly, wanted to give a shout out to my Linkshell Premonition, formerly Event Horizon of Bismark.  We have tons of fun together exploring the world of Eorzea and finding nice spots to grind in groups of 12-15 haha.  And a shout out to Kuroki Kaze of Saronia, he cut me a deal on some armor and we discuss various gladiator topics with one another, his insights are pretty helpful.  Now I need to get going to cassiopeia hollow to exp with my LS. Later!

Yours Truly,
Ventus Invictus, a Saronian Gladiator

P.S. Here's a treat for you all, my duo partner Akara Lyna 26 CNJ, very good at his class (I suggest all you glads find a duoing healer to pair with for level 20 leves and higher, more stars = higher skill ups).