I got an idea after I spent over 500 aqua upgrading the latest event equipment for the 40,000 rewards Let's make the new equipment better than the old stuff Of course if I had already known this is not better than what I have equipped, sure it would have went straight to the transmutinator as scrap metal Pro tip: don't upgrade this crap
Maybe they screwed up the stats, the rings are pretty trash too. Hopefully they'll realize and buff everything, but by then most will probably have transmuted already.