Are mystiles necessary?

[Seal Evil]

I've read on quite a few sites that it helps if all 3 of your party members have mystiles equipped, for your battle with Ruby. What do they do?

[d£v!l'$ ph0£n!x]

they don't have the best stats but they have an awesome evasion rating so u can just dodge a vast amount of attacks

[TheSpoonyBard]

The Mystile's main attraction is the 50 Def% and 60 MDef% they possess. The only other armour that comes close is the Aegis Armlet (15% Def, 50% MDef), of which you can only get one.

[Captain Maxx Power]

There's a very good reason Mystile's are considered one of the best armours in the game. Firstly you can, with considerable patience, max out your Vitality and Spirit stats to give you 255 Defence and Magic Defence regardless of the armour you have (for the record MDef on armour is ignored due to a bug, so only the Def value matters). Secondly it comes with the highest evasion stats in the game as had been pointed out. There are however some disadvantages, namely that certain attacks will hit regardless, and the majority of damaging magic spells don't take magic evasion into account. For my money the Zeidrich (or however you spell it) is the best armour for sheer defence, simply because it possesses the unique ability to cut in half ANY damage done to the character, including some of the "hidden" elements.

[Seal Evil]

OK, thanks for your help, guys. :)

[ReloadPsi]

Since the defensive stats make such a superficial difference to the damage received in this game, Evasion is way better. My party is almost constantly outfitted with two Mystiles (50% Evade, 60% Magic Evade) and the Aegis Armlet (15% Evade, 50% Magic Evade) whenever possible. The latter is less effective and also has fewer Materia slots, so I give it to the party member with the most HP.

You will utterly rape the Battle Square with a Mystile.

[Captain Maxx Power]

Since the defensive stats make such a superficial difference to the damage received in this game, Evasion is way better. My party is almost constantly outfitted with two Mystiles (50% Evade, 60% Magic Evade) and the Aegis Armlet (15% Evade, 50% Magic Evade) whenever possible. The latter is less effective and also has fewer Materia slots, so I give it to the party member with the most HP.

Evasion is less important in the face of many attacks in the game, simply because most of the more notable, "Big Damage" attacks tend to be auto-hit. Defence therefore is important, though to reach the maximum of 255 the large majority of it comes from Vitality. Then again if you have 255 Vitality (probably a bit lower) the defence on your armour won't matter, so knock yourself out.

[ReloadPsi]

Yeah, often I just use Wizard Bracelets for the extra slots. The game's easy anyway.

[JerseyMage]

Wizard Bracelets rock

[Heath]

I've always preferred Zeidrichs over Mystiles but they're easily two of the best armours in the game. Like Maxx said, half damage against unavoidable attacks (which are often the most damaging) is generally more useful in difficult battles.