A look at the new armor.

A quick run down on what happened yesterday, I did a little farming for my leathercraft, I would like to get a few more stacks of lizard skins before I start crafting them because there is a big gap and even with support I am going to get some breaks. After that I went and helped Gordor do the Black Coffin mission, which was pretty easy, then we decided merit some and recap XP. We started by going to the Mire, packed, couldn't go to the Thickets because our WHM didn't have the staging point, also the thickets didn't seem to have very many people in it, I wonder if the change to the mob location has killed the Thickets as a place to xp. Then we went to Mt. Zhaylom but it was packed too, like 5 parties there, it was unbelievable, so started looking at old zones, Sky was out because our WHM didn't have that either, so it was off to Kuftal Tunnel. I hadn't partied down there since before the expansion. Only one RMT mass-xp party and they left right after we got there. Recapped my XP and got another Merit on NIN. Which was nice as I had lost a good bit of XP on my NIN since the last time I merited.

It was a pretty plain day, so I wanted to focus on the Salvage Rewards. Many people have already been claiming that this new gear makes all other gear obsolete, but these people are just whining because of the work they have done to get the gear they already have, and they are the same people that were claiming before the update came out that SE has no gear progression and they just make them camp for hours at a time. In truth, some of the gear is better than anything else available in the game, but not all of it. Today, I am going to go over the Ares's Mask.
Ares's Mask Now, this is a piece that may have no direct competition for outright damage dealing. That being said, lets take a look at the comparable armors.

For all jobs listed on Ares's Gear:
Optical Hat Now, for the jobs listed on the Ares's Mask the Optical Hat is pretty soundly overwhelmed. The evasion and ranged accuracy is not important to any of the jobs that can use the Ares set, and the Accuracy is better on the Ares's Mask, but it should be kept in mind that the Optical Hat is a level 70 item and thus has a wider usable range and was already eclipsed by the Walhara Turban in alot of the cases where it would be used as an alternative because PLD, DRK and DRG all have A+ weapons so the Accuracy isn't as important as the haste in most cases (not to me, but whatever).

Walhara Turban This was previously the number one head piece because of the focus on haste for many jobs, especially dual wielders. Now of the jobs that can equip Ares's Mask, War will probably be the most conflicted over this choice. 5% is a ton of haste and the Ares's Mask has no haste at all. Obviously for Great Axe users the Ares's Mask will almost definitely be the better choice, but for Dual Wielding WAR's (the large majority) this will be a harder choice, because increased swing speed means increased TP and more WS's were most damage comes from.

For most jobs listed on Ares's Gear:
Ace' Helm
Now here is a much more complicated decision. For DRG and DRK, this Helm is very nice. It has accuracy, STR and most importantly a decent portion of haste. Of course the accuracy and attack are better on Ares's but what of the loss of haste? And the STR means one less equipment slot switch on WS's while maintaining a good chuck of accuracy. This one is not as clear cut as first thought.

Adaman Celata
Now the Ares's Mask obviously appears to be the HQ version of the Celata, same basic stats just amplified, and the Ares's Mask even has additional HP and MP, instead of lowered HP.

Wyvern Helm
Now this is a WS only item, and will be dependent on the jobs and the WS that are being used. For few or one hit WS's then the Wyvern Helm is probably the way to go, but for multihit WS's the Ares's Mask is probably better, because the accuracy and attack having a better boost on each hit rather than the adjustment to the one hit.

Homam Zucchetto
Again a more difficult choice depending on the job. Haste and accuracy, with comparable HP and MP gains, how does this compare to the huge amounts of Accuracy and Attack on the Ares's? Does the haste make up for the difference? I would say that Ares's probably gets the nod but with more haste built up, it might take a parser to determine the difference.

Barone Zucchetto Not much of a comparison. Ares's is definitively superior.

For DRK's:
Black Sallet Again, basically an NQ version of the Ares's, and Ares's does not have the negative effective of taking a substantial increase in damage. The increase in the duration of Absorb spells is almost definitely not enough to make up for the accuracy and attack.

Chaos Burgeonet +1 Now DRK AF+1 may be a decent alternative for WS gear to the Ares's. It has alot of strength on it, and is at least useful for the enhancement to Souleater, so for DRK WS's this piece is almost definitely better than Ares's gear.

Abyss Burgeonet A decent amount of attack, but it does not surpass that of the Ares's Mask, probably not a really competitive piece.

For WAR's:
Unicorn Cap Although the Accuracy is nice, the latent is what causes mention for this piece, as it is the rare piece that has accuracy and STR on it for WAR. The latent though make is unreliable as it requires over 70% HP, which is not always a tenable situation.

Thats it, and looking back over this I probably put too many items that don't really compete with the Ares's Mask. In the next post I will do the rest of the Ares's set and try to limit the discussion to only truly competitive pieces.