Cheap Loots: Aesir Gear.

I think I forgot to mentioned something yesterday, like why this post is called Cheap Loots. Well, to put it simply, this is just to help find places you can save money by replacing relatively expensive gear with cheap or free stuff. The Aesir gear that comes from the Odin fight is pretty much free. Yes, you will need to spend some time collecting the items to do the fight again, but when you compare the items to the equivalent AH prices you are saving a ton. Hopefully this will provide an appendix to the On the Cheap series of articles. Instead of providing a slot by slot analysis for each job, this is more of a gear analysis for all jobs. And most importantly it's about free gear for those jobs!

On to the cheap loot! Remember, you can always get the 10k gil or the Summoner Pact from the fight, but if you are doing that then you shouldn't be reading this anyway! LOL

Aesir Ear Pendent
+7 Attack is pretty decent for MNK, but it has this curious new stat Conserve TP too. What is Conserve TP? Pretty simply, it is a trait much like Conserve MP, but instead of saving MP after casting a spell it saves TP after doing a WS. So this is awesome, right? Well, maybe not. It really depends on how much TP you conserve and more importantly how much TP you are going to end up saving. It is still pretty unclear how much TP you can actually conserve from a WS, but if you are not able to get back enough TP to replace a full attack round then it is pretty much worthless. Keep in mind that it is already pretty worthless for most jobs already because you are generally going to be using a Brutal Earring and a STR earring (SAM especially won't be using this item if they have a Bushinomimi). If there is no chance that you can reduce the number of attacks needed for the next WS then the Conserve TP function is essentially completely useless.

So this sucks, right? Well, maybe not on that count either. MNK's like to use a lot of Attack for Asuran Fists, and the Brutal Earring is completely useless for Asuran Fists, so they tend to use Attack Earrings already and there isn't that great of a supply for them either. So it's already one of the best Attack Earrings for MNK, but the Conserve TP could actually be a great boon for MNK. It really depends on how Conserve TP procs end up working out, but it seems to me that with the lower TP return per swing on a MNK (this applies to NIN too but I don't know if it would be worth it for them to use it just for the rare proc compared to other options) it should be easier to get the Conserve TP proc to cover a whole attack round, or at least one swing of an attack round that might be missed. So far it looks like the proc is pretty low and the amount of TP you can conserve is veritable so I would be hesitant to use this just for the Conserve TP proc, but if you are a MNK and are going to use an Attack earring like the Merman's Earring anyway, then the Aesir Pendant Earring is a slight boost there and the Conserve TP boost just might be pretty cool.

That is all, right? No quite, there is one other job that might actually be interested in the Conserve TP effects, especially if they stack well, that job is Dancer. No other job uses TP like Dancers do. A Dancer is going to have far more opportunities to proc the Conserve TP trait, and they don't have to worry about whether they get enough to replace a whole swing because they can burn their TP whenever they please. This should even apply to jobs that sub Dancer for low man events like Assault or for Campaign where you want to cure yourself as much as possible. Here is where I am going to fail you, because I have no idea what Dancers generally use for the earring slots. While I presume they use the Brutal Earring, I don't know what they use for their other earring (Roundel Earring? Maybe, but that is quite an expensive investment) and I don't know how this would stack up for them, but this might be something that jobs that are subbing Dancer might consider to use for self-curing even if they don't use it for WS's.

Aesir Mantle
I am much more unsure about this item than I am about even the Aesir Pendant Earring. Sure, it looks like it could be great, and while Double Attack is a trait that people like to see on gear, it isn't a trait that people generally go out of their way to pick up unless there isn't anything else that great available (e.g. Brutal Earring) or it has something else on it that makes it important (e.g.... Brutal Earring for the Store TP). 8 Attack just isn't make or break for any job, and it is a big cut from even the cheapest available options like Amemet Mantle +1 which also has more STR on it. For the TP phase, 1% DA just isn't going to over come at the minimum 2 STR and 7 Attack on every hit, and the situation gets even worse for WS's when the 2 STR and 7 Attack are going to mean even more. Sure it is 1% more during Darksday, but even then it just isn't going to cut it. If you are down to choosing between the Aesir Mantle or the 10k, take the 10k.

Aesir Torque
The real gem of the bunch, this torque is the King of Cheap Loots. An Elemental and Dark Torque rolled into one with a little splash of awesomeness on Darksday, and it's free? It doesn't get any better than this. Surprisingly, there isn't much else to say about this. If you are a BLM it is a must have. It lets you sell two expensive torques and saves you one inventory slot. The only drawback is that it is level 75 which is higher than the level 65 requirement of the other torques, but really does that matter at all? Just rent the Elemental Torque from the AH until you hit 75, then use the Aesir Torque. It really is a no-brainer.

It looks like the Odin fight is a great option for Cheap Loots, and it is pretty much mandatory for some jobs. Tomorrow we will go over Alexander and see what kind of fruit that will bear.