Boots

[harperfan7]

Call me autistic, I don't care, but boots need to be changed!

My suggestion:  tabis don't grant an mp bonus, boots do, but it's half of what tabis used to grant.  Boot springs grant an amount equal to half of what THEY used to grant, in addition to what the boots themselves grant.  Knife, fist, and maybe sword users will mostly likely still use tabis since they probably use stealth anyway and if not they still have fancy footwork.  Most other builds would use boots for a bit of extra defense and mp.  Leather boots seem like they should be the standard footwear; this would do it.  As it stands, pretty much everybody uses tabis for speed and ap reduction (or the various bonuses granted by the material) or metal boots if they're armor-focused; few don't. 

I have a separate suggestion for boots; open up the padding slot as an additional enhancement slot and you can't have two enhancements of the same kind, and padding is still an option but not required. 

[TheAverageGortsby]

tl;dr tabis are basically Recklessness for your feet, and probably should stay that way

Tabis get you critically hit more often.  That's not a tiny consideration.  I'm not sure tabis need a nerf, given that they provide very minimal protection and increase the damage taken by the player.

Sure, probably a bunch of people wear tabis for the movement points, but a really good set of springs will give you more move points and move speed than tabis - mid-30s isn't unattainable, and I'm not sure you can get tabis that high without Skinner.  So, really, people wear tabis because they either don't know how good boots are, or are simply content to play suboptimally.

Besides, if you want the bonus carry capacity of infused pig leather, you have to wear boots.  Who doesn't want more carry weight, especially since it adds "smarter" than Pack Rathound?  If you want the improved punchy crit of infused ancient rathound, you have to wear boots.  And if you want to be immune to caltrops without spending a feat, you need metal boots.

I guess I just really don't think tabis need to be nerfed compared to boots (especially since infused siphoner tabis already got hit so hard), and your suggestion sounds like a direct nerf to tabis.  I wouldn't mind seeing all boots give a +carry bonus as a competing  bonus to the +move of tabis, though.  Good boots that lace up over your ankles give palpable support all the way up into your knees (unless you're so young you don't notice that you have knees, in which case, enjoy it while it lasts) and make it much easier to carry a heavy pack on long walks.

[Crows]

I really would like a small boot buff - my greater siphoner tabis at q155 offer almost as much acid DR as my supersteel reinforced q177 sea wyrm boots, along with more heat and energy resist. Obviously the mech DR stacking and extra crits are the trade-off, but I don't get why the tabis provide more of the leather's defensive stats than the full boots.