Hello! I've got more time than I should today because parts for my project didn't come in, so I'm going to waste some time outlining how Mythic Weapons could be generally improved. This is similar to my Relic Weapon adjustments thread that was originally posted here at the 90 cap and was updated here for the 99 cap.
Please note that this is not the place to argue about whether obtaining 30,000 Alexandrite is or is not ridiculous.
Philosophy: I think that each of the three "special" weapons should have a place in the arsenal of a dedicated player, but that they should occupy different roles. I'm going to propose a few changes that make mythic weapons more useful in this sense, though I don't think there's any obligation to make them the "best" weapon for every job in every situation regardless of their price. I view Mythics as the Job Specific Weapon that is supposed to enhance the abilities of the job and whatever makes the jobs special, so I will attempt to use job-specific enhancements to push the weapons into useful niches.
Many Mythics were mediocre-to-bad on release. The trip to level 99 and aftermath upgrades have dramatically increased their viability, though they lost considerable ground in the most recent buff-locking patch, and I will assume the level 99 weapon is being used when I make adjustments though I'll take care to make them scale back to the 75 version. Mythics are also interesting in that their Weapon Skills are not unique to their weapons, so any WS adjustments will have to keep in mind the implications for other potential users.
Finally, there was no attempt made during the initial creation to compensate for each job's ability to maintain AM3, which is an essential part of using most Mythics. As a result, some Mythics look equally good on paper (Vajra vs. Terpsichore, for instance) but are terribly inferior in practice because the job cannot maintain AM3 as well as other jobs and is much less efficient with the weapon in practice. I will attempt to note this and compensate by improving the weapons' non-AM3 DPS so that the overall damage is approximately the same as comparable Mythics used by more apt jobs.
Information Pages/terms:
Index of Mythic Weapons
Mythic Aftermath Information
AM1 - Aftermath level 1
AM2 - Aftermath level 2
AM3 - Aftermath level 3
General suggestions for the weapons:
* Remove the offhand limitation from Mythic weapons - Currently Mythic weapons lose all special stats, the ability to generate Aftermath, weaponskill damage boost, etc. when they are offhanded. Terpsichore is the only 1H Mythic weapon that beats the other weapon options, but almost all of the 1H Mythics would be useful if they could be offhanded with their full stats. These weapons were designed to be versatile and help the job, and their Damage/Delay ratio is intentionally nerfed relative to Relics and Empyreans because it's assumed you will be maintaining AM3. This is ideal for an offhand and crappy for a main hand, so let us offhand them.
* Allow Empyrean Aftermath and Mythic Aftermath to stack - Currently activating Empyrean or Relic Aftermath will overwrite Mythic aftermath regardless of the level (tested using Yoichi and Kogarasumura). Allowing the weapons to be offhanded would be nigh pointless without this adjustment.
* Allow Aftermath Level 2 or 3 to overwrite themselves - This is a gameplay issue. Having to wait for Aftermath to go down to reapply does not make any difference to someone with perfect timing, but it adds unnecessary inefficiency and frustration to a game that we play for fun. The quality of gameplay for mythic users will improve if you fix this.
* Allow TP Bonus to affect Aftermath level/potency - Currently it does not, which doesn't make much sense.
Some Mythic-specific changes could still stand to be made. Mythics were designed to compliment the traits/abilities that define each job as a job-specific weapon. Unfortunately, few of them were used for these enhancements at level 75 due to balance issues, and even fewer are used for them at level 99. Thus, some weapon-specific changes could stand to be made.
Weapon Specific Changes:
Conqueror - At the moment, this weapon is a zerg tool, macro piece, and low-buff DD weapon for WAR. It serves a purpose primarily because WAR is so strong at the moment, but that means it doesn't really need adjustment. I would increase the first hit fTP of King's Justice and make the scaling more dramatic so that the activation WS for AM3 does more damage and the weaponskill is a more respectable option for Warriors without Ukonvasara or Upheaval.
100TP: 1.5
200TP: 2.0
300TP: 3.0
Glanzfaust - Glanzfaust's job-specific enhancements are excellent. Its utility problems are primarily caused by two things:
1) Aftermath level 3 only affects one hand on Monk, but this is even worse than it is for dual wield 1H jobs because both hands get the crappy mythic damage/delay on Monk. - To address this problem, I would increase Glanzfaust's non-AM3 DPS by decreasing its delay to 80. TP gain would be essentially unaffected, but DPS would increase.
2) Ascetic's Fury is only good when it multi-attacks and crits, which indicates that its fTP is too low to be competitive - To address this problem, I would increase Ascetic's Fury's fTP to 1.5 from its current value of 1. This would be an average increase of ~20% damage for the WS considering AM3, elemental gorget/belt, and the offhand. It will be a larger increase for players without the Mythic, which will likely make it better than Asuran Fists for players without Shijin Spiral or Verethragna. I would also increase the TP modifier growth to match Victory Smite.
Yagrush - This is one of the few mythics that has gotten worse since its level 75 debut. Initially, it was a stick you could offhand and make all your -na spells AoE, which was dead useful in the time of individual AoE Status spam and had interesting applications for tanking. At 99, monsters that use AoE statuses tend to use several AoE statuses and kill you all at the same time. WHM AF3+2 head shares the single largest enhancement of this item (occasionally) with anyone who spends some time in Abyssea - Attohwa. Divine Benison, Tranquil Heart, and several other factors have nerfed WHM's ability to generate hate. WHM AF3+2 pants and the myriad of Refresh sources available to us at 99 have greatly reduced the utility of Mystic Boon. Yagrush did not even receive a trait upgrade at level 99 like the other weapons, because further Divine Benison would exceed the cap.
So what role is there left for Yagrush? Will it forever be a -na macro stick? That certainly seems to be what SE has in mind for it. I would argue that the supporting role of this weapon should be widened and not restricted to -na spells. If Mjollnir is WHM's DD weapon, this should be their support weapon. As such, I'd recommend:
* Add 20% Cure Potency to this weapon that can exceeds the 50% cap.
* Add "Augments Divine Veil II" at level 99, which extends the AoE effects of Divine Veil to Haste and Regen. Erase is Enhancing Magic and works with this trait, so two more enhancing spells should be no problem.
Laevatienn - This weapon is currently barely viable as a nuking staff in situations where Aftermath can be maintained. After the elemental update, it should get slightly better. In order to increase the viability of maintaining AM3:
* Add "Enhances Occult Acumen" I~IV from level 80~99 that levels up from +1.5 TP per 100 MP to +6 TP per 100 MP. - At +6 TP/100MP, BLM could use Oneiros Rope and get 13 TP/100 MP total, which means they would only need to spend 2262 MP every 4.5 minutes to maintain Aftermath. That is finally a reasonable amount of MP.
* Give Vidohunir a long range like Cyclone and Mistral Axe so that the Black Mage doesn't have to get close to the monster in order to use it.
Murgleis - This weapon is worse for MAcc than a fully upgraded MAcc Magian staff until you consider the Sub slot, and even then it barely wins. Using Aftermath to increase MAcc in this case is kind of a Catch-22, because Red Mage has no responsible way to maintain aftermath in a situation where they need MAcc to enfeeble. There are two routes available for this weapon:
1) You could make it the primary MAcc/enfeebling weapon for Red Mage - This role currently doesn't have much of a use, but perhaps the weapon could justify it with a substantial boost. I would recommend adding a trait similar to the one on Estoqueur's Sayon +2 (RDM AF3+2 body) that directly enhances Enfeebling Magic potency and grows from level I~V (10~50%) between 75 and 99. I would also increase the Magic Accuracy to 35 so that it doesn't have to worry about competition from Magian Staves.
2) You could focus on the MP Recovery part of this weapon by giving it "Enhances Refresh Effect" I~V from 75 to 99. I think this is a terrible idea because Refresh is already so easy to come by, but some people would like this I am sure.
Vajra - Being able to offhand Vajra while still maintaining its effects would remove many of its problems, but two still remain:
1) Thief lacks any way to reliably maintain AM3. If you kill a monster and have to run to the next (like in Salvage v2), you lose AM3 and either kill a handful of monsters without it or kill a monster with a crappy DPS weapon and no WSs to build it back. That sucks. Being able to offhand Vajra would go a long way towards fixing this, in that the enhancement of SA and TA would be valuable and you could use Rudra's Storm or Mercy Stroke, but it does not completely fix it because Vajra is still a slow offhand with bad DPS. As such, I would reduce Vajra's Delay to 150 and reduce its base damage to 40, which will slightly increase its DPS with or without AM3. This change increases TP gain (for Mandau/Vajra by about 15%) because TP gain increases below 180 delay and will enable THF to maintain AM3 easier and build it back faster. It does lock Vajra into the sub slot, but at this point Vajra is arguably a worse mainhand than Aluh Jambiya, so nothing is really lost there.
2) Mandalic Stab is a weaponskill that has gone unaddressed for too long. Mandalic Stab is designed to be essentially Viper Bite v2.0. It boosts attack substantially, but has low fTP and a crappy modifier. It needs to be changed. I would propose increasing its modifier to 50% DEX and increasing its fTP scaling as follows:
100TP : 2.5 fTP
200TP : 3 fTP
300TP : 4 fTP
At the moment, the WS damage is atrocious. These boosts would increase its damage substantially and would likely make it the preferred SA option for Thieves without Rudra's Storm in most situations. Additionally, boosting the 300 TP fTP so much would make its AM3 activation WS respectable.
Burtgang - The problems with this weapon are so wrapped up in the problems with Paladin and Enmity in general that it's difficult to unentangle them and I don't really know how to adjust it properly because I don't know how Paladin is going to change. If I was making arbitrary changes to it:
* I would add "Enhances Shield Mastery I~IV" to make generating the first 300TP for AM3 a little easier
* I would change Atonement's formula to depend the Player level and difference between Player and Monster level, while still being modified by Enmity. For full enmity, (Player Level * 10)*(1+ (Monster Level - Player Level)/100)
Example: Level 75 player fighting a level 75 monster would do 750 damage. (75*10)*(1)
Example: Level 75 player fighting a level 100 monster would do 937 damage. (75*10)*(1+.25)
Example: Level 99 player fighting a level 120 monster would do 1197 damage. (99*10)*(1+.21)
Having a WS that does respectable damage available to all Paladins will remove the job's reliance on Almace. Also, scaling the WS up against higher level targets will make sure it is not abused against lower level targets and will retain the advantages of other Sword WSs.
* I would make Atonement unresistable damage.
These changes will not fix the Paladin job, but then will help it a little and will make Burtgang more viable overall in a fairly specific niche (tanking high level monsters).
Liberator - Liberator's problems aren't generally problems with Liberator, but they're problems with Liberator not being able to use Resolution. The two problems Liberator does have with itself are:
1) Dark Knight's only native way to get quick TP is through "Absorb-TP", which Liberator does not enhance despite enhancing all the other Absorb spells. - I would extend the "Augments Absorb Spells" growth to Absorb-TP (and Absorb-Acc, if it is unaffected).
2) Insurgency is terrible. 3.5 fTP and 20% STR / INT. Even with Damage+30%, that's still coming in something like 50% behind Entropy. The TP growth should be increased to:
100TP : 1.0 fTP
200TP : 1.5 fTP
300TP : 3.0 fTP
3) This is not a problem that the weapon currently has, but in order to push it into a unique niche I would give the weapon "Enhances Stalwart Soul" I~V, which would reduce self-damage from Souleater by 1% per level down to 0% by level 99. Apocalypse is an excellent low-man weapon that gives Haste and heals the user at the same time. There is plenty of room to make DRK slightly more durable with this weapon (or at least less afraid of using its own JAs) without encroaching on Apocalypse's territory. I think this would make people more excited about Liberator in high buff situations.
Aymur - Aymur is excellent for what it is used for and problems with it are actually mostly problems with the Attack/Defense related equations and problems with pet jobs/Beastmaster in general. If I was going to change things about it, I would probably:
* Change "Pet: Attack Bonus" to "Enhances Pet damage" and make it give the current Attack bonus along with 5~25% Pet Haste and 10~30 Pet Accuracy.
* Make it so "Enhances Sic and Ready effect" also gives the Master 50 or 100 TP depending on weapon level. This will be a source of instant TP that will help the Beastmaster maintain AM3.
* Make both sources of Pet TP Bonus work the same way. Currently Aymur has two different forms of this trait implemented and they work in different ways.
Carnwenhan - This weapon is useful at the moment, but people are unenthusiastic about it because they're unenthusiastic about Bard.
* I would increase the MAcc to 35 so that it doesn't have to worry about competition from Magian staves.
* I would add "Augments Songs" similar to BRD AF3+2, where it gives +5 Stat per song.
* I would boost "Increases Song Duration" I~V from 10~50% to 30~80%, so that it is possible to maintain Marcato/Troubadour/Nightingale songs and only sing once every 10 minutes.
* I would reduce delay by 10 for the sake of melee bards everywhere.
Gastraphetes - Like Paladin, the problems with this crossbow extend far beyond itself. Superficially, though, I would make two changes:
1) I'd change "Increases Barrage Accuracy I~V" and "Enhances Snapshot" to "Enhances Barrage" and "Enhances Snapshot I~V". For the most accurate job in the game, adding another shot to Barrage is more useful than any amount of extra accuracy that applies only to Barrage.
2) Trueflight is terrible. Increase its modifier to 50% AGI and make it fixed (low) Enmity like Namas Arrow and Coronach.
3) Increase Aftermath 1 and 2 to 180 seconds base (at level 75) and 270 at level 80~99. It takes Ranged jobs a long time to get TP, and though Ranger is better off than Corsair (due to Barrage), they still shouldn't have to waste a large portion of their damage maintaining Aftermath.
Kogarasumaru - Currently many consider this the strongest weapon in the game. However, that has more to do with Samurai's existing traits, the high viability of maintaining AM3, and Tachi: Shoha than anything about the weapon itself. As such, tweaking one little thing isn't going to break it.
* Add "Enhances Zanshin Effect" I~IV to the level 80~99 version, giving 5~20% Zanshin. Now I know what you're thinking "But what about Hasso-Zanshin DAs? That'd be broken!" Turns out it's not. OA2-3 and every other type of multi-attack procs before Hasso-Zanshin DAs, so your rate of these is miniscule with AM3 up. Increasing the rate of this by 5% (which is then decreased by ~70%) is only a ~1% increase in the rate of those DAs. That's negligable considering how strong the weapon is already. What adding this trait *does* do is increase the rate of Zanshin-based counters when using Seigan by 5%. It further plays into the "Enhances Third Eye effect" idea, but remains useful in times when Third Eye has fallen.
Nagi - Seriously? Enhances Mijin Gakure? Then to add insult to injury, you take the single useful part of that enhancement and make it universal a few years later. It would have been kinder to just go to every Ninja's house and personally stab their eyes out. Also, Blade: Kamu is like an Ascetic's Fury with worse mods, a lower attack boost, inability to crit, and it has less fTP. It's terrible.
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system I guess I can start. I understand from the stats on Nagi that it was supposed to be a tanking Katana for Ninja (one of the first, showing SE finally acknowledged it as a tanking job). I will attempt to make adjustments with that in mind:
* Similar to Vajra and for the same reasons, decrease Nagi's delay to 160 and base damage to 44. Additionally, the low delay will allow the user to hold hate better because at capped enmity the monster's attention defaults to whoever had the most recent attack round.
* Add "Augments Yonin" to the weapon. This enhancement would add 30 Accuracy, 10 Evasion, and 10% Critical Hit Rate while Yonin is active.
* Level Augment "Mijin Gakure" up to be auto-Arise instead of Auto-Reraise. So you Mijin Gakure once and die, get back up with 100% HP and have a Reraise icon on. When you die again, you get back up with Weakness (3 minutes) and another Reraise icon on (Reraise 3).
* Blade: Kamu needs a lot of help. Increase the fTP to 3.0 and give it enhanced Enmity (+50%, bypassing cap in the JA term).
Ryunohige - Another strong weapon that is well regarded by the community. Still, there are two minor changes to be made:
1) "Augments jump attacks I~V" forces two out of four jumps to critical hit and gives an attack boost to one out of four jumps. Expand the bonuses to all four jumps.
2) Drakesbane is a little cruel. You've given an Attack penalty to a WS that can only be used by a job with no native attack boosting JAs. I would step this down to a 5% attack penalty tops.
Nirvana - People like this weapon, but they mostly like it because there are no alternatives for Summoner. I want to avoid putting anything on this that is a buff the entire summoner job should receive, so I will go with:
* Change Magic Attack Bonus +40 to "Pet: Affinity +6". Now it serves the same purpose but is more effective.
Beyond that, Summoner would have to change as a job before I feel I could enhance a role it plays with this weapon in a way that makes sense.
Tizona - This weapon is overshadowed by Almace and Chant du Cygne. This would be less of an issue after the offhand changes, but it's still worth looking at Expiacion. Additionally, it is difficult for BLU to reliably maintain TP for AM3 and the enhancement on this weapon "Occasionally converts damage to MP" does not proc on the majority of a BLU's damage in the situations where they're useful. Adjustments:
* Change Expiacion's mods to 50% STR / 50% INT and increase its TP modifier growth to:
100TP: 2.5 fTP
200TP: 3.25 fTP
300TP: 5 fTP
* Allow "Occasionally converts damage to MP" to proc on WSs and Spells. Additionally, allow it to proc against Undead. You aren't draining MP from the monster; you're draining MP from your own damage.
These changes do not make getting and maintaining Aftermath viable, but they do make the sword useful in the offhand even without that.
Death Penalty - Much like Ranger and Paladin, the problems with this gun extend far beyond itself. I would make three initial changes, though:
1) I'd add "Increases Phantom Roll Effect Duration" I~V, which would be a 10~50% increase in Phantom Roll duration.
2) Leaden Salute is very bad. Increase its modifier to 50% AGI and give it a large MAcc boost.
3) Increase Aftermath 1 and 2 to 180 seconds base (at level 75) and 270 at level 80~99. It takes Ranged jobs a long time to get TP, so they still shouldn't have to waste a large portion of their damage maintaining Aftermath.
Kenkonken - This weapon is almost perfect for the job. If anything, it's almost too perfect because it is so strong that it makes it hard to adjust PUP. There are also several adjustments that need to be made to the entire job and shouldn't be packaged onto the mythic, like an increase in maneuver duration and an increase in Automaton durability.
* It has been suggested that we add "Augments Maneuvers" I~IV to this, giving +2 to +8 stat per maneuver. This is not a substantial DD buff, but it does enhance Kenkonken's pet focus.
Terpsichore - I am biased towards this weapon because I own it. Also, I have spent a some time thinking about the problems with the Dancer job in general and would like to avoid packaging large fixes to the job (like increased step potency) onto an obscure weapon that only a handful of Dancers will ever obtain. However, I think I can safely make some suggestions.
* "Enhances Step Accuracy I~V" is effectively worthless because we're very accurate already (Steps get an innate accuracy boost) and there's a 95% hit rate. I would recommend increasing the Hit Rate cap from 95% to 100% with this trait.
* Augments "Steps" does not increase from level 75 to 99. I would like to see it increase by one FM (so that Presto -> Step is 5 FMs instead of 4.) I can't think of exactly how I'd use the extra FMs, but it just seems like the single unique thing about the weapon should be enhanced between 75 and 99.
* Beyond that, to accompany the offhand changes I would propose reducing Terpsichore's damage/delay to 39/150 so that it can efficiently be used as an offhand. The weapon generates way more finishing moves than I can use because nothing from Flourishes III is worth the 2 second it costs me to activate. If I can mainhand Twashtar and offhand Terpsichore, suddenly Flourishes III is useful again.
Tupsimati - This is a tough one because it's so bad to start that I'm not even sure where to take it. To make it even worse, Scholar has a non-defined/non-existent current niche in the game (beyond Embrava). This is a competitive nuking Staff with AM1 active because Scholar starts out with a lot less Magic Attack Bonus than BLM. However, they have the same problems maintaining it that BLM does and there's no compelling reason to prefer them to a BLM at the moment.
* I would create a niche by increasing the -Enmity from the weapon to -25 and it to bypass the equipment cap and add with Savant's Gown +2 (AF3+2 body). This way Scholar could get -95 Enmity from Addendum nukes, making it the lowest Enmity direct Magic DD.
* I would add "Occasionally converts spell damage to TP" like Tizona's effect except for TP.
* Finally, I would make Omniscience a long-range WS, so that the Scholar does not have to run in to use it.
Two requests to any responders:
1) If you're going to debate a change I'm proposing, please back up what you're saying with math when possible. For instance, don't say "You can't change that weaponskill, it would be incredibly overpowered" without providing an average damage post-change compared to its nearest competitor.
2) Keep in mind that the goal is to make each weapon useful, without necessarily making it the best in every situation.