Gungnir needs to be addressed.

[Ophannus]

This is probably the billionth time a player has suggested something like this in the past 7 years since Relics were introduced but maybe this time something will change. I hope persistence pays off.

Gungnir is a powerful weapon no doubt. The strongest relic? Nay. But a powerful polearm in its own respect. There are two problems with Gungnir that need to be addressed.

Problem The First

Geirskogul's Aftermath.

The aftermath effect given to this lowly WS was Shock Spikes. Why it was given Shock Spikes nobody but the Developer in charge of battle content or items will know. My hypothesis is that back in 2004 it was surmised that DRG should have some kind of defensive attribute given to it that was also kind of offensive and would stun the mob upon hitting the DRG whenever the DRG pulled some kind of hate. That seems okay on paper but there are several flaws with that.
1) The Shock Spikes effects the DRG gains from Geirskogul aftermath are extremely puny. The Spikes deal 14-18 damage to most things and the stun effect rate is about the same as the BLM version of the spell (~5%).
2)Back when the weapon was created, DRG was already considered a flimsy damage dealer with subpar abilities and weapon skills that the notion of giving them a semi-defensive ability such as shockspikes was laughable because a DRG rarely drew hate ever unless there was a terrible situation where the tank died.

Fast forward to 2012, at level 99 the aftermath is even more of a joke now than ever. There's no point in using this WS for its aftermath because the shock spikes are extremely weak and the stun almost never activates. I don't know why the aftermath effects of relic weapons were not better balanced. Ragnarok is an extremely powerful relic and the icing on the cake is that Scourge's aftermath increases critical hit rate even further. Many melee relics add a useful, beneficial buff that increases damage output via enhanced crit(Mandau/Ragnarok) or a defensive trait (Bravura/Spharai/Excalibur). But by far the shock spikes effect on Gungnir's WS aftermath is a laughable joke, it's terrible, it's weak, the stun never procs, it doesn't even serve its purpose which was probably to buy the DRG a few seconds of time by stunning the mob so the DRG could either super jump or run away.

The second problem
All relics seem to have a unique attribute whether it's a special bonus on the weapon(Ragnarok's Critical Hit+ bonus), the damage of the WS(Mandau/Annhilator) a property if the weapon skill(Catastrophe's HP drain) or the aftermath effect(Mandau/Ragnarok/Guttler). Gungnir un fortunately has none of these. The Weapon skill is very weak and has an unreasonable AGI modifier for reasons unknown(DRG has one of the LOWEST AGI ratings in the game and gets almost no AGI gear), the aftermath is terrible as outlined in the previous paragraph, and there is no unique enhancement on the weapon that gets stronger with magian trials like Ragnarok's critical hit bonus. The only unique effect Gungnir was given was "Additional Effect: Defense Down"

Would it be possible to make this Defense Down a unique debuff that cannot be overwritten by any other source(Acid Bolt, Angon, Tourbillion) such that the effect is unique only to Gungnir and either stacks with other forms of defense down or is powerful enough effect that overwrites the others? There is nothing special about Gungnir except for the fact that it's the highest base damage polearm and has +40 accuracy, which every other 2handed relic have. Besides that, the unique bonuses from the WS and aftermath add nothing tactical for the job. Giving a unique and powerful defense down effect that can stack with other effects would make the weapon actually useful and rewarding for a player whose favorite job is DRG. The current power of the defense down is ~17%, I would be happy if the defense down was even lowered to 10% as long as it stacked with Angon or other defense down effects. Or perhaps increase the potency to 33% defense down but make the effect unstackable and irreplaceable with other forms of defense down. EIther way there should be something unique to Gungnir to make it stand out rather than just simply being a high DPS weapon. Most other relics have unique bonuses, strong WS, or very good aftermaths, gungnir has none of these!


3) Why can the special damage multiplier of Yoichinoyumi and Annihilator's apply to Barrage but Gungnir's can't proc on Jumps?

4) The Defense Down proc on Gungnir overwrites Angon. This is annoying not only because they don't stack but because Angon is more potent and it's undesirable to have a weaker effect overwrite a stronger one.

Suggestion for alternative aftermath effect: Replace Shock Spikes with
"Additional Effect: Damage varies with Wyvern HP." This is basically the exact same bonus as Excalibur's "Additional Effect: Damage Varies with HP" but instead of the player's HP determining the value of the additional damage, the Wyvern's HP would be the determining factor. The animation for the additional effect could even be an 'Enthunder' effect (opposed to Excalibur's Enlight effect) which would fit with the lore of Gungnir having lightning properties.