With Fallen God's Helmet coming soon, I am wondering how PA will go about developing Fallen God's gear, which is, currently the absolute BiS gear, being significantly stronger than PEN Blackstar (due to further enhancement).  This is concerning, because, to me, it seems we are heading down a streamlined, singular, gearing path, lessening the build diversity even more since Green Gear days.

Green Gear days...the days of Grunil vs Heve vs Hercules vs Rocaba (evasion).  Multiple off hands, ranging from DR, to Evasion, to Accuracy, to pure AP.  Builds varying wildly, many players mixing some Grunil with some Heve/Rocaba, for example, for their set effects to fit in the player's desired build-outcome.  We always had accuracy / evasion / AP / DR accessories, which put yet another layer on build diversity.  Even to this day, with Boss Gear being the current standard, players are still able to diversify their builds, choosing Leebur's + Muskan's for evasion focused builds (optimized with Ultimate Heve / Herc / Fortuna + Kutum), Bheg's + Urugon's for DR, while also being able to use green off-hands / certain yellow accessories for specialized builds.

It is funny to me why a Green Helmet (Heve / Herc / Fortuna) is BiS for evasion based builds.  Why a Green level helmet outperforms a Boss Level helmet or Blackstar, if you choose to run Leebur's + Muskan's + Kutum, is weird.  And this leads me to the concern...How will you be releasing Fallen God's Helmet?

Will FG Helmet be like the current Blackstar helmet, which is basically a C20 Griffon / Giath?  Who's evasion stats are significantly lower than a Green Helmet?  This is a weird design choice for a Green Helmet to outperform Yellow or Red grade.  Evasion being the absolute best defensive stat in the game, if geared properly (if you go evasion, you need evasion...and a lot of it, and certain Green Grade helmets have significantly more Evasion than Boss level / Blackstar helmets).

My fear is that gearing will be less diversified when Fallen God is in place.  Everyone running the same gear.  This is bad, because I believe build diversity should be a cornerstone of every good MMORPG.  Like diverse classes, I feel diverse builds add to the complexity, the fun, the strategy, and the feeling of "uniqueness" of your charcater.

As a suggestion, when Fallen God's gear releases, do not ignore the fact that a Green Helmet performs better than Yellow / Red grade Boos Gear / Blackstar.

Possible solution, up for discussion.  Just want the best solution for everyone, while maintaining build diversity:

1) Get c10 Giath / Griffon Helmet and Flame of Despair (of whatever item for helmet)

2) Turn in to exchange for Fallen God

3) Upon exchange, you can choose from 2 different Fallen God's Helmets.

3a) One like the current PEN Blackstar's Evasion + DR + Hidden Evasion and DR values

3b) One with similar Evasion + DR + Hidden Evasion and DR values as PEN Ultimate Heve Helmet, but scaled up to match Red grade status

3c) Both have the same set effects

3d) Maybe the "Evasion version" will have slightly less sheet DP, to match how it is currently with Ultimate Heve vs PEN Griffon / Giath.

4) This is so Leebur's + Muskan's builds can remain viable alongside Bheg's + Urugon's builds.  You don't use Muskan's with Bheg's or Leebur's with Urugon's, because doing so is gimping your selected build (Evasion-based or DR-based) from attaining maximum performance.

Thoughts?

I don't think they would nuke the green helm retroactively like that.  Nor, do I think they'd buff current boss gear further, evidenced by how long Heve's and their variants have been in the same state, how Heve/Herc/Fortuna have been BiS over boss helms if you use Leebur's + Muskan's + Kutum for PvP since forever.  And how item stats remain unchanged from the day they're released (can't think of a single gear item that they changed major stats on, like eva/dr/hidden eva and dr).

It makes more sense, that if PA wants build diversity to remain and avoid streamlining builds too much (where everyone runs the same gear), that they should move forward and not backward.  Allow players to choose an "Evasion Fallen God's Helmet / Boots / Gloves" (similar in stats to Heve / Muskan's / Leebur's) or a "DR Fallen God's Helmet / Boots / Gloves" (similar in stats to Griffon / Urugon's / Bheg's). 

By "similar in stats", I am refering to the item's Evasion, Damage Reduction, Hidden Evasion, Hidden Damage Reduction, and Accuracy on Gloves.

Maybe I see too far, but I have the feeling that they're unifying gear to then put more more diversity through new systems (new crystals, new boss hearts to fuse your gear with, or old gear consumption to give new stats to your equipment...). 

bdo already have the most streamlined, singular, gearing path in among all the mmo in the market, dumbign it even down ain't really matters anything at this point.

Surely it would be nice if you could build diversly, but it never gonna happen really.

Also given how expensive (so hard to change) end game gear is, they should make it so you can specialize with cristals instead, but looking at the current extremely messy cristal stats, they couldn't realistically make it work either.

its gonna be way easier to balance the game with only one gear set. at the moment they are catering to evasion classes that seem to have to have same kill time on 289 ap like dr builds on 309 which os omega unfair. (see recent mystic damage buffs, why? coz they cried they need more damage while running around in eva gear expecting same dmg output as pure dr/dmg builds)

?1

to the OP:

BDO lost gear diversity the moment Kamasylvia arrived. And that was a long time ago. 

Since then, there has always been a clear "best" gear in slot. Same goes for crystals. 

3rd crystal slot when?

New boss off-hand when?

Ranked PVP arena when?

Life-skill rework when?

Yarr when?

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Yeah I'm just QQ'ing at this point.

Maybe it's just me, but I like build diversity in MMO's, and feel that being offered the freedom and level of creativity in "customizing" your charcater - from their looks, to their stats - is important.  Kind of like how having a large roster of classes in an MMO is important, since MMO's typically cater to a wide audience, with different tastes, so an MMO should have a large choice of classes, which BDO has.

Build diversity, like class diversity, I cannot shake the feeling that it's important.

Balancing the builds is one thing.  If other MMO's could achieve a fair or decent level of balance in gear-builds, why can't BDO?  Too much on the table to handle?  Devs and community can't hack it?  Balancing classes is too much already, so cut off builds?  What is it?

Sadalsuud, crystals and such are cool.  Not sure how it would alleviate drastically cutting down build diversity when it comes to armor pieces, though.  Like, why even release Muskan's, then Urugon's, who have VASTLTY different stats (eva/dr/hidden eva and dr)?  Why even release Bheg's, a DR glove with good accuracy, then release Leebur's, and evasion glove with slightly less accuracy?  What's even the point of releasing those, if they're just gonna axe build diversity anyway and streamline EVERYONE into one set of identical gear?  Aside from crystals / accessories -- idk if it's enough, but hopefully, crystals and accessories could lead to maintaining a level of "uniqueness" to your customized character and their customized, and personalized, and unique-feeling, build.  To me, that's part of MMO's too, that feeling of "uniqueness" and "customization" -- from looks, to straight up stats.  Damn.

Welp, if it is true, and we head down a singular gearing path with Fallen God, I just hope the game stays fun.  Part of the fun, for me, is planning out a build.  Looks like PA want to plan out the build for their players, instead of players planning their build themselves.

Pls stay on topic.  Thanks. 

EDIT:  And no, gear diversity is not lost since Kama.  Greatly cut down after the release of Boss Gear, yes.  Green Gear days was the days of experimentation and build diveristy, it was awesome.  People in 2 piece Grunil and 2 piece Heve.  Or 2 piece Heve and 2 piece Rocaba.  Accuracy off-hand, or AP off-hand?   Never know who you'll fight, so you need all the off-hands, if possible!  It was awesome.  After Boss gear released, Nouver and Kutum took over and Green off-hands only being used in specialized builds.  But at least we stil have the option of Evasion or DR.  After Fallen God, if they mimic Blackstar?  That will be gone.

Maybe I'm just crazy to think that build diversity is important in an MMO for many reasons.

Lazzynes mostly. This is a basically F2P game on low budget. You can't expect them to put the same effort into the game than what other mmo devs do.