so, for the most part, the roe gear beats any combo of thaumas/empy/relic gear? I have no af1+1, so should I just start dumping sparks into extra pages (sparks come faster than limbus) or pick up the roe gear until reforged relic update?
Thaumas body still wins on pretty much any comparison for mnk if you don't need to worry about defense or very high acc at all.
All of Tantra is obsoleted aside from the body during Impetus.
The only point of relic (right now) is the augments for enhanced JAs (and body regen for idle), all of which are still useful except possibly the head.
Reforged AF head and body are worthwhile for the improved JA enhancements. Hands are decent for weaponskills if you +1 them (Espial beats the NQ).
Since they hardly gave anything aside from raw base stats on the reforged AF, I wouldn't put any effort into trying to make them into more fulltime sets.
Also, I'd only use sparks to fill out 1 or 2 missing pages when you upgrade. Much faster to do BC runs. A trio can beat all the Normal level fights, and if your orb gives you the full drop of 4 pages (instead of 2 pages plus a pluton/boulder/beitetsu), 3 runs gives you 10 pages, exactly enough for an upgrade.
On the other hand, soloing Limbus is trivial. If you still have login points, buy up one half of the upgrade items you need (currently you can buy the Temenos half; previous campaign allowed you to buy Apollyon items; it's possible it might rotate back next campaign, so you hardly need to do anything at all). Then use wikia wiki to decide which zone to hit based on drop rates. Then those 10 pages from a 3-person run gives you two upgrades.