Quote Originally Posted by Mar-Evayave View Post
I would say that any essence gear should almost automatically be BETTER than standard gear. Otherwise, what's the point? We shouldn't have to waste 3 slots just to get our two main stats up to par. If we are going to go through this HUGE grindfest, then we should get the reward of having gear that is superior to the rest of the gear, the same way our Legendary Weapons are superior to standard crafted, looted or quest rewarded weapons. Otherwise, what's the point? Who wants to go through a huge grind for something that is at best comparable? Let's see, grind for a long time or go the quick route for something just as good? O.o
Lvl 100 socketed armour with purple essences are just as good as lvl 100 teal gear (barring rounding issues). Yellow essences are a little worse, but teal and gold essences are a lot better.
If you have 1 gold essence and 3 teal essences on a piece of gear, the stats are equivalent to a gold piece of armour, with all gold essences it's better than gold armour.
Don't forget that the distribution of stats you get with essences isn't the same as on regular gear. You can't get a 1/7 essence of this and a 4/7 essence of another stat.

Considering your example:
Normal gear: 239 * 6 = 1434 Will. 205 * 6 = 1230 Vitality. (1.8 * 6 = 10.8 stat slices* for other stats)
1230 Vitality contributes to 3690 Morale, 2460 Resistance and 8856 Non-combat Morale Regen.

With essence gear, you have 24 free slots, and you get 119 * 6 = 714 Will from the base stats of the armour.
So you need 720 Will with essences.. 6 purple Will essences brings you to 714 Will.. which is slightly worse, but having 1 teal will between it makes it better already. Note that this difference is just because of rounding, in theory they should add up to be the same.
With 5 purple morale essences you can get 3375 Morale. And with 2 Resistance essences, you get 3276 Resistance. (by forgetting the OCMR, and going with raw morale and resistance, you can save 3 or 4 essences)
This leaves 11 essences free for choice. So 15.4 Stat slices*, if you take all purple essences.

So, essence gear is already better in general, but the customization makes it even better, since turbine sometimes picks stats you don't want.

*)stat slices are a way to express the value of stats.