ATTN: Developers - A Polite Request regarding Mythic Weapons

[Dallas]

It IS the best.

(1) approx 100 mp gained per minute, not considering refresh from subjob.

(2) It isn't about negating perp cost as much as it is about perpetuating with constant MP to keep up with blood pacts You can do all this with a Nirvana without having to melee

(3) And to add upon this, Nirvana comes with a very generous MAB boost for avatars, which simply cannot be beaten.

(4) But even with a Nirvana you won't lose out on very much because you still have Spirit Taker and the bonus of Aftermath effects.

I know you think that 100MP/minute from arming yourself to the teeth with refresh gear somehow compares to an instantaneous 1k MP from a single WS, so I'll entertain you. You will have to suffer the math now.

... Myrkr returns more MP than convert, faster than convert, without the inconvenience of requiring hp or /RDM. You restrict your subjob choice to a lesser subjob for the sole purpose to regain mp.

... When I am meleeing, I don't need perp or refresh gear AT ALL. You either restrict yourself to a specific set of 8-10 pieces of gear for the sole purpose to regain mp, or you restrict yourself to 5 pieces and put away your avatar. Anyone who does the latter has no use for Nirvana.

... Speaking of those 10 pieces... they are all MUCH easier to get than Nirvana. So is a +2 magian staff. End result is the same, which is why we can completely ignore the perp component of Nirvana. Hell, I have all free avatars with Hvergelmir. It isn't special or even braggable anymore to keep avatars out, especially for the price of 150mil. I know I'd laugh, and I'm sure others would too.

... 1 regain = 20 TP/minute = 100 TP/ 5 minutes = 1 Myrkr = 1800 Max MP * 20% = 360 MP/5 minutes = 72 MP/minute = 3.5 refresh

... Short break for you to absorb that ...

... That means 1 WOTG reward earring = 3.5 refresh items. Meditate > refresh, and so on. I have lifted my staff, but I am still out of range of everything.

... MAB is all you have with Nirvana. I acknowledged this. It also means you have nothing when using physical pacts. Of course, you never would. I credit Nirvana for it's 2 in 6 odds, 1-trick pony. Pray you have meritted the right element for the job.

... Classic argument on "which is better for SMN" is to find some really hard fight that very few people have any reason to fight, then pretend that is the only fight out there. Let's move to your point 4, as 99% of the time, the game IS easy. You ready?

... How are you planning to land that Aftermath while using Spirit Taker? Ooops!

Hvergelmir > Nirvana > Claustrum for 3 reasons:

1) Myrkr is the best staff WS in the game. If you weren't reading up on it, it cures Silence too.
2) Emp staff has the only Aftermath that will activate.
3) This 1 item replaces 8-10 items and a subjob.

[Arciel]

I am not denying that Myrkr is a good ws, but you are sorely exaggerating its ability in any practical situation.

1) different playstyles for different SMN, but I would rather keep an avatar out and get MP gains than put it away to do so.

2) you say restricting 8 pieces of EQ as if its some kind of detrimental thing. Perp gear and idle gear are essentially the same things except for slots where perp reduction is > refresh until your perp hits 1. For the 8 slots that are used, 4 of them are things you would normally already be using. You can still swap gear for BPs and Ele Siphon if you so desire.

3) Perpetuation isn't the main issue. Magian staves are great sure, but they're also a collective hassle, don't come with the MAB component and require weapon switching which is a disadvantage for meleeing on smaller things. Free avatars isn't whats braggable, the MAB is. And quite honestly, if you have ANY mythic, that much is braggable based on how much effort needs to be put in.

4) In an ideal situation, sure.. 3.5 refresh for 5 minutes of 1tp regain, but this doesn't factor in the mob. Not all mobs give you the comfort to do that. Anything that plagues, resets TP, strips, or uses max MP down will have a bearing on your strategy. Sure not all of them can do stuff like that which hits beyond a 20' range, but you aren't guaranteed that kind of certainty. Any one of these things hit you and you'd need to rebuild that TP.
Also, engaging the mob, to me is a huge inflexibility - you can't do that if you're BP-kiting. you can't do that if the mob requires staying away from, you can't do that if your mob happens to have erratic hate induced movement or teleports.

5) LOL. 2 out of 6. A decent SMN unlocks all 6 with at least 1 point. Anything more is merely TP bonus for damage. Any of these 4: Keeping your avatar out (regain from pendant) + possibly meleeing + Spats TP bonus + Mana Cede can effectively make up for NOT meriting 5/5. The MAB is then the icing on the cake. Also to be honest, 2/6 elemental weakness is more than enough for most NMs.

6) Classic counter-argument on 'which is better for SMN' is to pretend that the fights you don't do are the ones that don't matter. I used Voidwatch as an example - its the newest event to be implemented in the game, with a good degree of success and, surprise!, theres gonna be 3 more parts to Voidwatch in this coming year. By that point, Abyssea would have lost whatever difficulty (or lack of it) that it has left with the level cap raise, and you can be sure that there'll be strong gear options and game-driven incentives to do Voidwatch.

7) Garland of Bliss to activate Aftermath -> Spirit Taker, silly.

...finally
- Myrkr is the best staff WS in the game - I wouldn't deny that. But it's also not necessary half the time.
- Only staff aftermath that activates. Perhaps. Does the ODD work with avatars tho?
- tbh on anything realistically hard, your set up hinges more on Moonshade Earring than the Hvergelmir itself, but I won't disagree that it does finally give mages a decent TP move to use.

you have your reasons for favoring Hvergelmir, and nitsuj and I have our reasons for Nirvana. I think we can agree to disagree - some of what you mention as strengths of the Hvergel to me are its biggest weaknesses, and vice versa. At the end of the day both are good weapons, but some will still favor one over the other based on your own playstyle.

And there are more reasons to do Mythic weapons that do not necessarily hinge on effectiveness at all. Looks, personal intrinsic value, FF heritage, and so on.

What you're trying to say only proves another point that we're trying to make - if Nirvana, as one of the mythics that isnt supposedly trumped by Empyrean is replaceable too, is there even a reason for people to do Mythics anymore considering the commitment and difficulty? Why is the effort:reward ratio on Mythic weapons still so screwed up?

[Garota]

This is getting ridiculous... To all you summoners out there praising Myrkr, quit it with your Abyssea mentality. You're not always going to have your precious Regain Atmas, TP wings, SAM Shikikoyo Buddy and all that jazz. Be realistic, in majority of situations anywhere else outside of Abyssea, you will not be meleeing to build up tp for your precious weaponskill.

I'm personally getting tired of watching Port Jeuno shouts for people putting together an Empyrean Weapon handing out +2 items as rewards like candy to random kids. I do not feel like competing for a timed NM or a ??? repop against a random shout pick-up-group in order to make myself any of the Empyrean Weapons. Seriously, it's so easy that any kid still wearing Aurore, Pearle & Teal gear can make these forsaken shiny toys. Kids nowadays don't bother putting much or any effort into anything else anymore. All new players and returning players want is to get their own thing done now, Abyssea made players selfish and extremely lazy. Now everything just seems to be is, "Me me me and now now now!"

[Dallas]

The events you are missing are:

1) the moment before every important battle where everyone gets 300% TP.
2) the moment of using Myrkr when the SMN stacks +MP
3) the 1000-1500 MP in the hole Nirvana starts at before EVERY fight.

In a melee contest, Hver SMN will use Haste gear and attack 50% faster than Nirvana before aftermaths. If Nirv SMN use Spirit Taker ever, Nirvana dishes out less than half the damage of Hvergelmir. Nirv SMN absolutely MUST get enough mp from subjob and 8 gear slots.

No, Hver aftermath does not impact pets, but ODD aftermath damage is 4x avatar melee damage. Nirv SMN will still get soundly thrashed.

Yes, Nirvana blows like every other mythic, especially if you are wasting your 45-second timer on a L1 merit pact. BLM wouldn't be caught dead diversifying, Nirvana SMN should take the hint.

[Arciel]

1) not in a BC, and it won't make that much of a difference if your battle extends beyond 10minutes, and every important battle probably would.
2/3) more gear swaps yay! MP is important but not the only concern that SMN will have. This 1000-1500 MP hole that you speak of exists for EVERY SINGLE non-Myrkr SMN and they don't really seem to have a problem without it. Effectively, all you're getting for your character is a convenience, not a boost because you will still ultimately be held back by BP timer.

In a melee contest, I wouldn't bring my SMN. Comparing melee damage is a strawman argument. Also, until you've parsed it or seen a Aftermath III SMN in action, I wouldn't be sure to pull out fake damage comparisons if I were you.

Finally, SMN isn't BLM and your reasoning isn't even close. BLMs typically specialize in 2 spells because they will usually only magic burst on 2 spells, one for light and one for dark. All AM2 spells have the same base attack and additional merits only affect MB damage and magic accuracy. Not to mention if they really wanted to nuke on the other 4 elements, they still had decent tier IV (and now V) nukes to work with.

SMN does not have that variety for magic attacks, because the lv60 Tier IV nukes suck. In addition, even if you diversified to all 6 pacts, you are still able to max out 1 of them to Lv5 which you can use a majority of the time unless another avatar is needed or that element happens to be severely resisted - and this rarely happens unless magic damage itself is resisted.

[Staren]

I hope they dont fix this like they did dyna. Currency is scarcer and dyna mobs can two to three shot level 90s. Nice fix se. More people doing a harder version of old endgame will not make mythics on par with empyrean obtainability. Even if they increase drop rate it'll still take the better part of a year to finish and ppl will not sell for less. Thanks for nothing se. You need to lower the requirement or you're not helping.

[Dallas]

This 1000-1500 MP hole that you speak of exists for EVERY SINGLE non-Myrkr SMN and they don't really seem to have a problem without it.

Yes they do, that's why they wear 10 pieces of perp/refresh gear, use Minikin and sub RDM. You don't play any other way because you have no room for it. That's OK, just don't stand next to Hvergelmir.

[AyinDygra]

Currently the development team is not looking at adjusting the amount of alexandrite needed, nor are they looking into increasing the methods by which alexandrite can be obtained. However, they will be making improvements and adjustments in order to rejuvenate salvage, assault, and other Treasures of Aht Urghan content.

"Improvements and adjustments in order to rejuvenate salvage, assault, ToAU content"... that do not include methods to obtain Alexandrite, or lowering the Alexandrite requirement... I don't think that course of action could be considered an "Improvement" regarding mythic weapons.

Judging by how Sky was "rejuvenated" by augments synergized from NM drops... my fear is that you mean: destroy "15, 25 and 35" gear pieces to create "usukane tatters" to add augments to Usukane Salvage gear, so it's no longer storable and its minor increase in stats makes it desirable only as a side-grade or macro piece for a certain action.

For the people I know, this will not rejuvenate Salvage. The only reason I'm still interested in Salvage is for completion's sake, and an update mirroring the Sky update as I described would not help getting my group back into those events. I still need a couple pieces for a couple sets, but my group abandoned Salvage when Abyssea was introduced, and I don't really blame them; +1 and +2 Empyrean armors are better and far easier to get than anything from Salvage.

The only reason people were willing to endure Salvage Pathos and time constraints and crazy NM pop conditions, was because the gear was some of the best in the game. I don't "expect" any of these "rejuvenation" changes to impact any of those issues.

One of my hopes is that the changes include allowing the Remnants Permits to be purchased with Imperial Standing Points or Imperial Currency (1 mythril piece) as well (maybe even Jettons; Zasshal may be an avid Pankration fan); essentially separating Assault from Salvage, thus freeing Nyzul to be more accessible.

Changes to Assault and Nyzul: Allow people to join Nyzul expeditions or Assault Missions without using a tag, with the restriction that you cannot gain "Runic Disk floor completion saving" or "Assault Points" for your efforts without a tag. People would be able to help each other out a lot more often if they didn't have to choose between Assault and Nyzul. As it stands, most people who are serious about gaining assault ranks have "static groups" that meet each week to complete each Assault Mission. If somebody were to ask one of these "static group" members to help them in Nyzul, or on their own Assault Mission, guess what answer they'd get. (The answer would be "I'm sorry, but I'll have to pass." ... even if they wanted to help, just to be clear)

~*~

Alexandrite

My Salvage group never focused on Alexandrite acquisition, but our highest runs would net us about 80 Alexandrite, split between 6-12 people. We went twice a week, so 160 a week (on the best weeks). At that rate, it's 8320 Alexandrite per year. For the duration of our group's activity (over a year), I walked away with under 1,000 Alexandrite. 30+ years for a mythic weapon, no thanks! Go buy Alexandrite from other players? I thought the concept behind Mythic weapons was: Quest-based acquisition, not gil-based, like relics. (Also, from what I understand, the amount of Alexandrite making its way into the world was artificially inflated with item duping, skewing whatever numbers you had collected when making an evaluation of whether or not to reduce the Alexandrite requirements at one point early on.)

What I would do about Alexandrite:
* Add Alexandrite purses as 100% drops from all Salvage NMs, especially bosses.
* Add Alexandrite purses as 100% drops from Nyzul 20/40/60/80/100 floor bosses.
* Allow all enemies in Salvage AND Nyzul to drop Alexandrite. (especially Qiqirns who love their sparklies)
* Increase Alexandrite drop rate from all archaic machinery (Ramparts, Gears, Chariots), 1 minimum, up to 3?

And 2 more ideas, much less likely to be implemented, but would be welcome:
* Reward from Besieged and Rescuing Prisoners, maybe make it an alternate reward from experience and imperial standing. (Combine this with a method of talking to a gate guard near the mog house during the battle to collect rewards for participation and leave, or continue fighting, for those who are plagued by frequent disconnects in those horrid battles)
* They could add "the Depths of Alzadaal"; new sections of the existing Alzadaal Undersea Ruins zone (separated by teleporters), that is always open to exploration and fighting, populated by Archaic Ramparts, Gears, Spheres, Acroliths, Rogue Automatons, Qiqirns and Chariots that all have chances to drop Alexandrite. Notorious monsters (if any) could drop Cotton and Linen Coin Purses like the bosses within Salvage. With enough spawns on 5min repops, at a level that would drop Kindred's Crests and High Kindred's Crests, they might become a popular farming target, increasing the supply of Alexandrite beyond just that obtained by mythic upgrading soloers.

These modifications would change the focus from buying Alexandrite back to your own efforts to gather Alexandrite.

I'd also like to be able to check in with the Mythic quest Qiqirn in Nashmau to see a running tally of what I've given him. (eyepatch, book, assault logs, current alexandrite)

What I would do to rejuvenate Salvage Gear:
* Add Magian trials to Salvage gear (Ideally: kill <Salvage NM> # of times, not item gathering). (each completed step could still be stored) You could even add separate paths for each job, since multiple jobs can wear each set. If people REALLY like the Salvage gear created from these job specific paths, they might be encouraged to create, for example, three Usukane sets, one for Monk, one for Puppetmaster, and one for Samurai. And some jobs like Summoner could actually get appropriate stats on their gear, not just generic mage stats.
* Resulting gear should have its name changed, so people can have Job-customized sets of the same Rare/Ex gear, since there has been an issue with past Magian items sharing the same name. (Mnk:"Brawler's Usukane <gear>", Sam:"Swordmaster's Usukane <gear>", Pup:"Manipulator's Usukane <gear>", Nin:"Shadow's Usukane <gear>")
* The resulting job-customized gear should still allow the original job list to equip it!
* And lastly, increase drop rates of 35's, because if people are now creating 2 or more of each set for different jobs, the current drop rates will infuriate people.

For Zeni NMs:
* Make trophies 100% drop. Please.
* Increase the Zeni gained from each picture, or reduce Zeni costs.
* Allow trading in more pictures each day.
* Create a new inventory bag (album) to hold just soul plates!

A smaller thought, related to both Empyrean and Salvage gear because of "set bonuses":
Perhaps add a new "wild card" feature to some gear to allow it to complete any "set bonus" that would otherwise be either removed or diminished by the replacing of that gear with this "wild card" gear.
* If pieces of two or more sets are equipped with the wild card gear, only the set with the most pieces will be completed by the wild card. In case of a tie, there could be a priority list by gear slot, so the set with the highest priority piece gets the set bonus completed: Body, Legs, Head, Hands, Feet, Accessories, since any of those could be wild cards.
* Without a feature like this, new pieces of gear will have to be MORE powerful than either Salvage or Empyrean gear AND their set bonuses, to justify the loss of some "Set Bonuses" by mixing and matching of newly released non-set gear.

[Atomic_Skull]

No more moogles shooping the whoop at our armor. I am sick to DEATH of this. Instead add new mobs and NMs to salvage with conditional pops (you have to do somthing to make them spawn instead of the normal mobs) which drop trophy items that are traded to Ghanraam in order to upgrade the equipment to reskinned and renamed versions of the old gear.

[Cahlum]

"Improvements and adjustments in order to rejuvenate salvage, assault, ToAU content"... that do not include methods to obtain Alexandrite, or lowering the Alexandrite requirement... I don't think that course of action could be considered an "Improvement" regarding mythic weapons.

Judging by how Sky was "rejuvenated" by augments synergized from NM drops... my fear is that you mean: destroy "15, 25 and 35" gear pieces to create "usukane tatters" to add augments to Usukane Salvage gear, so it's no longer storable and its minor increase in stats makes it desirable only as a side-grade or macro piece for a certain action.

For the people I know, this will not rejuvenate Salvage. The only reason I'm still interested in Salvage is for completion's sake, and an update mirroring the Sky update as I described would not help getting my group back into those events. I still need a couple pieces for a couple sets, but my group abandoned Salvage when Abyssea was introduced, and I don't really blame them; +1 and +2 Empyrean armors are better and far easier to get than anything from Salvage.

The only reason people were willing to endure Salvage Pathos and time constraints and crazy NM pop conditions, was because the gear was some of the best in the game. I don't "expect" any of these "rejuvenation" changes to impact any of those issues.

One of my hopes is that the changes include allowing the Remnants Permits to be purchased with Imperial Standing Points or Imperial Currency (1 mythril piece) as well (maybe even Jettons; Zasshal may be an avid Pankration fan); essentially separating Assault from Salvage, thus freeing Nyzul to be more accessible.

Changes to Assault and Nyzul: Allow people to join Nyzul expeditions or Assault Missions without using a tag, with the restriction that you cannot gain "Runic Disk floor completion saving" or "Assault Points" for your efforts without a tag. People would be able to help each other out a lot more often if they didn't have to choose between Assault and Nyzul. As it stands, most people who are serious about gaining assault ranks have "static groups" that meet each week to complete each Assault Mission. If somebody were to ask one of these "static group" members to help them in Nyzul, or on their own Assault Mission, guess what answer they'd get. (The answer would be "I'm sorry, but I'll have to pass." ... even if they wanted to help, just to be clear)

~*~

Alexandrite

My Salvage group never focused on Alexandrite acquisition, but our highest runs would net us about 80 Alexandrite, split between 6-12 people. We went twice a week, so 160 a week (on the best weeks). At that rate, it's 8320 Alexandrite per year. For the duration of our group's activity (over a year), I walked away with under 1,000 Alexandrite. 30+ years for a mythic weapon, no thanks! Go buy Alexandrite from other players? I thought the concept behind Mythic weapons was: Quest-based acquisition, not gil-based, like relics. (Also, from what I understand, the amount of Alexandrite making its way into the world was artificially inflated with item duping, skewing whatever numbers you had collected when making an evaluation of whether or not to reduce the Alexandrite requirements at one point early on.)

What I would do about Alexandrite:
* Add Alexandrite purses as 100% drops from all Salvage NMs, especially bosses.
* Add Alexandrite purses as 100% drops from Nyzul 20/40/60/80/100 floor bosses.
* Allow all enemies in Salvage AND Nyzul to drop Alexandrite. (especially Qiqirns who love their sparklies)
* Increase Alexandrite drop rate from all archaic machinery (Ramparts, Gears, Chariots), 1 minimum, up to 3?

And 2 more ideas, much less likely to be implemented, but would be welcome:
* Reward from Besieged and Rescuing Prisoners, maybe make it an alternate reward from experience and imperial standing. (Combine this with a method of talking to a gate guard near the mog house during the battle to collect rewards for participation and leave, or continue fighting, for those who are plagued by frequent disconnects in those horrid battles)
* They could add "the Depths of Alzadaal"; new sections of the existing Alzadaal Undersea Ruins zone (separated by teleporters), that is always open to exploration and fighting, populated by Archaic Ramparts, Gears, Spheres, Acroliths, Rogue Automatons, Qiqirns and Chariots that all have chances to drop Alexandrite. Notorious monsters (if any) could drop Cotton and Linen Coin Purses like the bosses within Salvage. With enough spawns on 5min repops, at a level that would drop Kindred's Crests and High Kindred's Crests, they might become a popular farming target, increasing the supply of Alexandrite beyond just that obtained by mythic upgrading soloers.

These modifications would change the focus from buying Alexandrite back to your own efforts to gather Alexandrite.

I'd also like to be able to check in with the Mythic quest Qiqirn in Nashmau to see a running tally of what I've given him. (eyepatch, book, assault logs, current alexandrite)

What I would do to rejuvenate Salvage Gear:
* Add Magian trials to Salvage gear (Ideally: kill <Salvage NM> # of times, not item gathering). (each completed step could still be stored) You could even add separate paths for each job, since multiple jobs can wear each set. If people REALLY like the Salvage gear created from these job specific paths, they might be encouraged to create, for example, three Usukane sets, one for Monk, one for Puppetmaster, and one for Samurai. And some jobs like Summoner could actually get appropriate stats on their gear, not just generic mage stats.
* Resulting gear should have its name changed, so people can have Job-customized sets of the same Rare/Ex gear, since there has been an issue with past Magian items sharing the same name. (Mnk:"Brawler's Usukane <gear>", Sam:"Swordmaster's Usukane <gear>", Pup:"Manipulator's Usukane <gear>", Nin:"Shadow's Usukane <gear>")
* The resulting job-customized gear should still allow the original job list to equip it!
* And lastly, increase drop rates of 35's, because if people are now creating 2 or more of each set for different jobs, the current drop rates will infuriate people.

For Zeni NMs:
* Make trophies 100% drop. Please.
* Increase the Zeni gained from each picture, or reduce Zeni costs.
* Allow trading in more pictures each day.
* Create a new inventory bag (album) to hold just soul plates!

A smaller thought, related to both Empyrean and Salvage gear because of "set bonuses":
Perhaps add a new "wild card" feature to some gear to allow it to complete any "set bonus" that would otherwise be either removed or diminished by the replacing of that gear with this "wild card" gear.
* If pieces of two or more sets are equipped with the wild card gear, only the set with the most pieces will be completed by the wild card. In case of a tie, there could be a priority list by gear slot, so the set with the highest priority piece gets the set bonus completed: Body, Legs, Head, Hands, Feet, Accessories, since any of those could be wild cards.
* Without a feature like this, new pieces of gear will have to be MORE powerful than either Salvage or Empyrean gear AND their set bonuses, to justify the loss of some "Set Bonuses" by mixing and matching of newly released non-set gear.

Square Enix should read this