Tachi: Shoha :: Don't panic, its the next greatest thing since sliced bread!

[Aeyliea]

For the record, my main job is ranger. I have both a relic and an empyrean weapon for the job, and as far as the capability of this job goes, its is a superb DD but it has not, since back in 2004/5, been the supreme damage dealer in FFXI.

I also have an Ukonvasara warrior, which is not my main but rather a secondary job and is therefore not anywhere near as well geared or set up as my ranger is.

I say this now, because I am a little disappointed in the events following the last version update. The introduction of the new merited weapon skills was fantastic - I enjoy Last Stand and the dagger weapon skill a good deal. They are beefy weaponskills that do very consistent and decent damage outside the abyssean front, and are great for voidwatch in its old andn ew installments.

HOWEVER...

The subject is Tachi: shoha. In my opinion, the weaponskill is overpowered to a very, very large degree. Samurai has been in the past one of the best stock damage dealers, and abyssea made them fade from the endgame scene for quite a while but, sweet Jesus, what a revival! A two hit Weaponskill with a strong fTP modifier and a 100% strength modifier when fully merited is fantastic. But, alas, it is also obscene.

Speaking for a base of players that had to sweat, grind, and work very hard to achieve the pinnacle of my respective job, it is disheartening to see players pick up the job samurai, merit this weaponskill three or four times and grab a subpar weapon off the AH and consistently do higher spike damage, more frequently, than I can. We're not talking about a difference of a few key pieces of gear; A Samurai can grab a cheap or easily obtained weapon and thow on a little bit of gear and do ridiculously well, where in the same situation any other job would fail horribly.

It is not the job, though, it is the weaponskill. Samurai was quite capable of holding its own with Tachi: Fudo or Tachi: Kaiten, but now any samurai fresh out of windurst woods can do as well or better than their predecessors with a minimum amount of effort.

The end result? A gradual shift to SAM-o-mania, as in the 75 cap era, albeit samurai is considerably more powerful now through its new weaponskill than it was in relation to all other jobs at 75.

My opinion would be to modify its strength moderately, by no means reducing it to irrelevance, but bringing it back to being on par with other jobs. When a Samurai with a magian great katana and average equipment can easily out perform someone who took the effort to make, say, an Ukonvasara (PRE-NERF!!) and the gear out their job well, there is a problem. When a samurai's own empyrean weapon and weaponskill and its own relic and relic weaponskill are completely and utterly replaced by a great katana that can be created in the course of a week by someone working by themself and a weaponskill that requires a few solid hours in an abyssea experience alliance, there is a problem.

Tachi: Shoha is a great addition to the arsenal of the endgame linkshell, but it is too powerful to the point of redundency.

[Saiken253]

I shall quote myself, simply because i thin kit's befitting:

It's not Tachi: Shoha It's Tachi: Godmode

[RAIST]

Keep in mind my SAM is still only 92, so haven't unlocked this yet, and I have no mythic or relic of any kind yet, so don't have any actual numbers here to compare things. This post is more out of curiousity, wondering if the situation is really as bad off as the OP seems to be making it, and jsut what should/needs to be done about it. Please forgive the rambling thoughts, but I'm also still trying to decide just where I'm ultimately going to focus my merits on these WS:

If it is a sub-par SAM (gear and skill wise) doing massive chunks of damage like that--to the point they pull hate--wouldn't they get in big trouble and die? Hopefully, those lolSAM's would figure out they either need to gear better and such, or stop being so aggressive. Also, the other WS mentioned may still have utility that the new ones don't--ie: skillchain lines (provided people still work with them as a group, magic bursting and what not--but that is a whole other issue).

Just curious how skewed this new WS actually is in the general sense. Sure, for someone who is able to fully trick out with it, it may be insane output. I myself am likely not going to be able to fully merit any one of them, and IDK if I will ever get around to making an empyrean or completing a relic/mythic. I already have 31 magians across 10 jobs, 7 of which I play regularly, 5 DD and 2 mage (with 2 DD and 1 mage I use situationally). So, I may never be able to max out any of these new WS for any one job, but MIGHT be able to get them on par with other top tier WS with this ONE WS for some jobs (think Stardiver vs. Drakesbane: don't have Drakesbane but may be able to get Stardiver to level 3 or 4). So, in that scenario, it may be more of a game balancer than a game breaker for the general population but broken for a small section of the population?

Maybe the problem isn't necessarily the WS itself, but the background tweaks affecting it like things associated with it's modifier (like fSTR and such). Perhaps it should have been a different mod like DEX, or maybe setting lower FTP mods on it. Perhaps the fSTR function is due for some tweaking in general now....idk...just spitballing on some things that could be done about it.

It's not really a good idea to just whine and complain about something being overpowered if you're not willing to provide any ideas on just what is broken about it and offering suggestions....might get some very unwanted changes otherwise. So... just what would you expect to see them do to the WS (or maybe WS calculation in general). Strong clamping on fSTR in the extremes? Adjustments to FTP bonuses? pDIF tweaking? Level Difference? Need some suggestions, otherwise we may get dumped on pretty bad here....

[FrankReynolds]

......concerns......

I also recently decided to finish leveling SAM, and am currently finishing up my TP bonus 100 GK. Keep in mind that you have to have to have the Nyzul Isle weapon skill in order to complete the TP bonus GK.

I haven't used shoha much outside of abyssea so far, other than to do nyzul isle, and @ 30 minutes in dynamis. Inside of abyssea, it is really way more powerful than any other WS sam has IMO. At 5/5 I was able to frequently 1 shot exp mobs with an auction house GK. Outside abyssea however, I wasn't all that impressed. It's still really powerful, but not nearly as game breaking as people make it sound. from what I've read, the TP bonus GK makes a huge difference, and I still have @425 more ws to go before I complete it (Still on the ws DMG + %10 stage). When I get it finished, and get a little better gear, I'll let you know how it handles. At my current (sub-par) level, I don't think people should be worried about this like they are though.

[Aeyliea]

Ok, I can dig a little deeper into this than I did originally.

The problem with Shoha is that it is a two hit, 100% STR modified WS. fSTR has only something to do with it - other WSs like, for instance, Coronach or Last Stand have different mods (40% DEX and 30% AGI for Coronach, 100% AGI for Last Stand). The basic idea is that a lot of your modifiers get converted into base damage for the weapon during that WS, -HOWEVER-, for non-STR based WSs, you still need to bring your STR up for fSTR concerns. So, a STR based WS automatically has most of those WSs beat for simple fact that it does not need to cap fSTR before recieving full benefit of the WS modifiers; STR *IS* the modifier.

The key difference between abyssea EXP mobs and outside of abyssea is a matter of pDIF; atmas will have some effect on Shoha damage, particularly double and triple attack bonuses and STR additions as well as abyssite of furtherance. Outside of abyssea, your numbers will be lower because of difference in level between you and mobs as well as potential accuracy issues that do not really exist in abyssea. Not to mention that many voidwatch NMs take reduced physical damage anyway.

Now, Shoha (I mispoke earlier if I said it ignores defense, it does not) is suspected to have the same WS properties as Yukikaze, Gekko, and Kasha - a hidden attack bonus. I believe testing is in progress to determine that. The BIG strength of Shoha versus other merited WSs, or, in truth, any other WS in the game, is it is effectively a 2-hit gekko with a 100% STR modifier instead of 75%. With any double attack chance at all, there is the potential for a three hit but spike damage like that cannot seriously be taken into consideration in the overall picture.

My basic opinion comes from watching the same SAM in an abyssea alliance pounding out 3-6K Shoha's, and then doing the T6 VW in Valkurm and popping 1250-3000 damage shoha's. Ukon warriors in that same alliance were doing 1000-3400, spikes being relatively rare, I was doing 1300 coronachs with a +43 STR, +48 DEX, +46 AGI build in addition to 49 ranged attack and 1750-2000 Last stands with a +91 AGI set ( am still tweaking last stand set). The samurai was using average gear and a masamune (AKA Unkai set +2 with an average WS set). The WAR(s) in question were wearing average gear as well (mixture of DEX, crit rate, and STR and attack for WS). The disparity in damage doesn't seem like much, except the SAM was able to perform 2-3 WS's for every one Ukkos, and the same for me. COR was NOT involved in this setup; no misers roll or samurais roll was in effect. I was running a 4-hit build for my annihilator, the WAR mentioned a 6-hit for ukkos, and the SAM a 5-hit with masamune. With a TP bonus GKT the output of damage would have increased, and especially with a lower xhit on the SAM.

I do not have raw numbers to work with, but leveling SAM and meriting it to run testing is not completely out of the question - obtaining SAM TP and WS gearsets is a cakewalk compared to many other jobs.

Also consider this: The above numbers are pre-nerf for Ukko's Fury which means that following it, the WARs damage will lose a good chunk. Barring Resolution WARs and DRKs, Ukko's was the only WS capable of competing with Shoha. And keep in mind is not the spike damage that is the consideration on Shoha, though it plays a role, it is the characteristics of the job AND having that kind of WS. Imagine if SAM could use Ukko's fury on a 4-hit build... A good SAM can crank out, without Misers or SAM roll, 9-10 WSs in a string with the use of meditate and 2 hour ability. With Miser's and SAM roll, could probably increase that number to 15+ WSs in a rapid string with skillful use of meditate and sekanoki (since with Misers and SAM roll, the SAM would be operating on a 2-hit build if not a 1-hit while meditate is active from atmacite and meditate regain ticks).

As for fixing the weaponskill, making it either a single hit weaponskill or removing the theoretical hidden attack bonus would suffice, or as Raist suggests, reducing the fTP mod on it.

[Habiki]

I'll agree Tachi: Shoha definatly needs a nerf, I recently finished Amanomurakumo 95 and shohas dmg trounces all over kaitens.

[Aeyliea]

I don't really care that it trounces over your relic weaponskill, on the whole most jobs relic weaponskills suck so horribly they are not even worth mentioning. Kaiten was one of the better weaponskills (Up there with coronach, namas arrow, and catastrophe), but all of the above mentioned weaponskills have been outclasses by other weaponskills for the weapon classes they belong to (Shoha for GKT, Last Stand/Slugshot for Gun, Jishnu's/Apex Arrow/Sidewinder for Bow, and I have no clue for scythe because, lets face it, its a dark knights weapon)

What I was getting at is that the weapon skill is too powerful, especially considering what is required to make it very good. Relic weapon? Please. Empyrean? Get real. Mythic? Ok, with level 3 aftermath active...maybe. GKT tp bonus +100 magian trial? Oh hell yes, hard to obtain weapons burn in the gate of hades, lets go get a really easy weapon and make people who took the time to make that high base damage weapons cry like babies.

I am not a SAM, but the very concept upsets me. Spend the time, money, or effort to make a very good weapon and get spewed all over by a fell cleave burned samurai that spends a week making a TP bonus great katana and goes and grabs some +1 unkai gear after fully meriting shoha.

Take it a step further, and a sam with actually good gear and that same easy to obtain weapon will make your masamune, or amano looks like a can opener for all its worth.

I hate the idea of nerfing even an OP weaponskill like this, but for all of their talk about balance, this was clearly the wrong direction to go in and it does need to be adjusted, if only slightly.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

SITE FEEDBACK.

[Quetzacoatl]

It's already too late! Your thread will blow up in a ridiculous mass of posts where people call you out on things to tell you you're just QQing, and then people trollbaiting each other, turning the thread away from the topic!! I have once challenged Shoha. Needless to say, it only created squalor. D:

Bewaaaaare~

[Aeyliea]

Actually, I have done some further testing, and come to the conclusion that Tachi: Shoha is not completely broken - it puts SAM on par with an Ukon WAR or relic ranger. Initial wtf fasctor was an oddball occurence, though I still think it shouldn't be powerful enough to compete with an ukko's fury WAR or relic DDs.