Here's a brainstorm I came up with concerning upgrading Weapon Skills, involving upgrading them beyond the 5-upgrade cap:
Out of three choices you can have, at a maximum of 15 upgrades each, depending on which Weapon Skills you can put either one at full merits, one weapon skill at 150% bonus, with any others with partial bonus. One Weapon Skill being merited further than 10 points that would restrict you to just that Weapon Skill. For example, a Ranger main job is putting focus into this setup for Weapon Skills:
Phase one:
Ruinator: 0/15
Apex Arrow: 0/15
Last Stand: 5/15, 100% AGI Bonus
Your choice of 3 weapon skills to max out to 5 upgrades still stands.
Phase two:
Ruinator: 0/15
Apex Arrow: 0/15
Last Stand: 10/15 125% AGI Bonus.
You can put partial focus into multiple weapon skills split apart, or put one weapon skill toward 5/15 upgrades.
Phase Three could go two or three ways:
Plan A: Player wants to use Apex Arrow and Last Stand, in case they have SAM on hand to use Apex Arrow for ranged damage strategies.
Ruinator: 0/15
Apex Arrow: 5/15 100% AGI Bonus
Last Stand: 10/15 125% AGI Bonus
Plan B: Player wants to put their full power into Last Stand.
Ruinator: 0/15, locked
Apex Arrow: 0/15, locked
Last Stand: 15/15, 150% AGI Bonus*
Plan C: Player ends up deciding they want to upgrade Ruinator for the jobs that can use it and removes the extra 5 points they put into Last Stand.
Ruinator: 5/15
Apex Arrow: 5/15
Last Stand: 5/15
*Every other Weapon Skill listed for upgrading will be locked after the 11th point put into the bonus
This could further specialty and customization by choosing which Weapon Skill selection you could have, or you can push the limits of one certain Weapon Skill of your choice. We have people complaining about nerfing several of these new weapon skills past the point of usage, especially myself, so why not consider a solution like this instead? There would have to be some tweaking required so they do not surpass the power of Empyrean Weapon Skills, but not to extreme points.
edit: moderators feel free to put this thread into the appropriate section if this is not the place to post, because even I'm not sure if I posted it in the right subforum lol.