[dev1049] New weapon skills

[Economizer]

would find it very hard to put down their cool great axes katanas daggers swords and so on

Fair enough, I personally find many of those weapons to look (and in the case of Great Katana, sound) really cool, and if I didn't enjoy using hammers so much (Hexa Strike has an awesome animation) I might be playing some other job and hitting things with weapons, or at very least I'd get a Fulcrum Pole (the thing looks and hits like a beat stick) and use that.

It really kills me that there is a 15 point allocation limit on the merited weapon skills, because I'd like to be able to merit them all without gimping myself, even if it took a boatload of work. I'd like to be able to see these new, cool looking weapon skills whenever I do end up playing other jobs for whatever reason.

Then just now I see that dmg on it and it's like, bloody hell, really? It's like if in the next update we got a AH dagger with 71 dmg on it. Say wha? Holy shit. I think they should be upping 1h damage like that anyway because it's getting a bit silly being the level we are at right now and will be soon and weapon base damages have barely increased while 2h is shooting through the roof.

Maybe it is a bit high for an AH club, but clubs (or more accurately, Hammers and Maces, which are Clubs) have had higher damage numbers then Axes, Swords, Katanas, or Daggers. It is alot like the difference between damage Katanas with higher damage and delay for the main hand and the speed Katanas that are usually in the offhand. These aren't the wimpy wands you may have been used to seeing, and will kill things by using the highly advanced principal of extreme blunt force trauma.

"Back in the day", at 75 cap, Mjollnir was the highest damage one handed weapon in the game. While Axes or Swords (I believe one of these are the next highest damage one handed weapons) have been scaling quite nicely in the damage department too, they just don't match up to Mjollnir's current 87 damage at level 95, or the reported 93 it gets on the test server at level 99.

Now one handed weapons might not scale as well as two handed weapons are in terms of damage or DPS, but with a one handed weapon you can offhand a multihitter or one of the magian weapons that boosts double attack rate, or just plain using double and triple attack procs with dual wield can be pretty damaging. While I do wish the weapon skills for one handed weapons could be improved more, some do pretty well despite having low damage rating weapons, like the dagger.

I was concerned myself that this WS would be given to other jobs and maybe other jobs would be more powerful than WHM ever could be with a club.

I love your story, and I wish I could even remember what drew me into my glorious quest for all that is righteous and just. Still, although my motivation may be lost to the sands of time, my campaign of terror on all that opposes the good things in this world, from the smallest kitten to the tastiest cheese sandwich.

If balance compared to White Mage was an issue, they could just give WHM something even better, even if it is a reskin of Realmrazer that you only get while having Realmrazer merited but is an advanced version for White Mage only.

I'm going to go make an in depth weapon skill strength chart using the universal language of math

I'm looking forward to such a chart, we lack a lot of good, deep analysis of the game these days.

[IronPandemonium]

Tell them that if they feel any of the new WS need to be weakened, the only acceptable answer is Tachi: Shoha, because it's stronger than the 5~6 other incredibly powerful great katana ws (Yukikaze, Gekko, Kasha, Kaiten, Fudo, and arguably Rana due to SC properties) that completely dominate damage competition when compared to the other 13 weapons' 1~2 powerful WS.

You're an idiot if you're under the impression any of those six weapon skills hold any relevance in this day and age.

While Shoha and Last Stand clearly stand ahead of the rest of the weapon skills now (with Exenterator, Apex Arrow, Shijin Spiral and I think Resolution to a lesser extent after the latest adjustment to it), there's no need to downgrade them simply because they hold relevance.

Boost the other weapon skills so that they too become worthwhile instead of just a mere 1,000,000* limit point sink for a fancy animation you'll use once every two months to remind yourself of how you wish the new animations were being put to use instead of collecting dust, because they are literally just that awful currently.

*Forgot a zero since my mind's subtly trying to trick me into being optimistic.

[Theytak]

You're an idiot if you're under the impression any of those six weapon skills hold any relevance in this day and age.

While Shoha and Last Stand clearly stand ahead of the rest of the weapon skills now (with Exenterator, Apex Arrow, Shijin Spiral and I think Resolution to a lesser extent after the latest adjustment to it), there's no need to downgrade them simply because they hold relevance.

Boost the other weapon skills so that they too become worthwhile instead of just a mere 1,000,000* limit point sink for a fancy animation you'll use once every two months to remind yourself of how you wish the new animations were being put to use instead of collecting dust, because they are literally just that awful currently.

*Forgot a zero since my mind's subtly trying to trick me into being optimistic.

....are you trying to tell me that no sam uses any of the WS I listed? Not even Kaiten or Fudo? and given that most sams don't own Amano/masa, Gekko and Kasha would still be their go-to WS. Or are you using the "Abyssea = Crit ws only" line of thought, because we've already established a LONG time ago that Abyssea is done, and not to expect more content like it.

Or are you trying to tell me that the three ws with the highest WSC in the game (prior to merit ws), huge attack and accuracy boosts, and strong fTP, are some how not as powerful now as they were at 75? Or the incredibly powerful Kaiten and Fudo that have had sams creaming themselves for years now are some how suddenly not incredibly powerful?

What in the world are you smoking?

Also, ruinator pretty much destroys every other axe WS outside of Primal Rend/Cloudsplitter for stuff that resists physical damage/is extra weak to magic damage, and shattersoul finally gave staff a physical WS that isn't awful (lookin at you, retribution). Realmrazer also gave non-whms a great club WS that didn't require the awkward gearsets and moderate amount of luck that true strike requires to be solid. Hell, even nerfed it'll still do that... I hope...

The point I was trying to make with the sam WS was that sam has 5 incredibly strong WS that are just as good against low def EXP trash as they are against high def HNMs, and they're STRONG against high def HNMs. If you ignore Relic/Empy WS as they're NOT the standard for melee; Compare the heavy DDs (War, Mnk, Drk, Drg, Sam). Yes I realize other jobs are "DDs" as well, but these five are the balls-to-the-wall DDONRY jobs that focus (almost) entirely on physical damage.

War:
WS vs Low Def: 3 (Raging Rush, Fell Cleave, Rampage)
WS vs High Def: 1 (Fell Cleave (basically took steel cyclone's spot))
WS that are strong vs Both: 1 (Fell Cleave)
Merit WS: Upheavel is meh, Ruinator beats Rampage and is ok vs High Def, but you would be better off using gaxe vs High def typically

Mnk:
WS vs Low Def: 1 (Asuran Fists (Ascetic's Fury is garbage outside of abyssea, Tornado Kick and Dragon Kick need footwork to be competitive, and footwork murders dps))
WS vs High Def: 1 (Howling Fist)
WS that are strong vs Both: none
Merit WS: Shijin Spiral is competitive with/stronger than Asuran vs Low Def, and soundly trounces Howling Fist vs High Def, giving non vere mnks access to their first WS that is strong vs both

Drk:
WS vs Low Def: 2 (Guillotine, Insurgency)
WS vs High Def: 1 (Spinning Slash)
WS that are strong vs Both: none
Merit WS: Resolution gives great sword the ability to be used in either situation, but entropy is just another guillotine clone that's primarily for low def/utility.

Drg:
WS vs Low Def: 2-3 (Penta Thrust, Drakesbane, Sonic Thrust?)
WS vs High Def: 1-2 (Wheeling Thrust, Sonic Thrust?)
WS that are strong vs Both: 1? (Sonic Thrust)
Merit WS: Stardiver is horrible

Sam:
WS vs Low Def: 3 (Yukikaze, Gekko, Kasha)
WS vs High Def: 3 (Yukikaze, Gekko, Kasha)
WS that are strong vs Both: 3 (Yukikaze, Gekko, Kasha)
Merit WS: Tachi: Shoha is basically YGK put together, and is absurdly strong. Sam doesn't have any "situational" ws aside from using rana to open darkness for gekko.

I threw out empies because all of their empies are vicious WS (except lolquietus and lolcamlann'storment), and relic because all of the relic ws are more utility-for-aftermath ws than actual damage, except for Kaiten which has always been stronger than YGK

[Nightfyre]

missing the point

To put it succinctly: WAR/SAM.

[Serj]

Stuff

Please stop pretending you know how this game works. It's extremely clear you don't.

[Prothscar]

What am I looking at? You could have just stopped at WAR, where you didn't even list the WS that matters:

Ukko's Fury.

They aren't all vicious, a select few are absurdly powerful, anything besides those are powerful but not quite as or situationally useful assets to have. Victory Smite and Ukko's Fury are the only two weaponskills that I would put into the first category.

If you don't think Empyrean weaponskills are standard for DDs that are worth a grain of salt, then I don't know what to tell you.



Also would like to note that Ascetic's Fury is pretty baller with Impetus up.

[Theytak]

Please stop pretending you know how this game works. It's extremely clear you don't.

Please elaborate on your assertion, or kindly withdraw it.

What am I looking at? You could have just stopped at WAR, where you didn't even list the WS that matters:

Ukko's Fury.


If you don't think Empyrean weaponskills are standard for DDs that are worth a grain of salt, then I don't know what to tell you.

I didn't say that. I said empy WS aren't the standard for most players since most players don't have them. Doesn't matter how "easy" they are to get now, because the bulk of the playerbase 1) is to lazy to bother making them, 2) doesn't have the ability accomplish getting one even with abyssea godmode playstyle or 3) is waiting until 99 before deciding whether to put in the effort.

[Prothscar]

Being lazy does not provide grounds to exempt Empyrean weaponskills from your listings. They are the superior weaponskills in most or every situation, there's no getting around that. Many to most players do in fact have at least one Empyrean weapon, the lazy minority is not a model to work an entire argument around.

Empyrean weaponskills are the standard.

[Theytak]

Being lazy does not provide grounds to exempt Empyrean weaponskills from your listings. They are the superior weaponskills in most or every situation, there's no getting around that. Many to most players do in fact have at least one Empyrean weapon, the lazy minority is not a model to work an entire argument around.

Empyrean weaponskills are the standard.

If you would actually read what I said, rather than just skimming and going "NO EMPY? U RONG U FAIL",

I threw out empies because all of their empies are vicious WS (except lolquietus and lolcamlann'storment), and relic because all of the relic ws are more utility-for-aftermath ws than actual damage, except for Kaiten which has always been stronger than YGK

when comparing things, it's fairly standard procedure to drop something that is static across the board. The fact that drks get torcleaver and drgs still use drakesbane over camlann's (as far as I know, anyway, I don't read much about drgs), and that Ukko/Smite/Fudo/Torc are all pretty much in the same category of "holyshitpowerful" means that I shouldn't need to include them in a comparison, they should just be assumed. Forgive me for hoping the people reading my post might actually use their brain...

Additionally, I didn't base my argument around "the lazy minority" I based it around the majority of the player base that don't own an empy weapon for every job they can play.

[Serj]

Please elaborate on your assertion, or kindly withdraw it.

Well, it seemed you had the assumption that Fudo/Kaiten have an attack bonus, which they do not. You're also under the assumption that they're extremely powerful ws, which compared to strong ws on just about every other DD job, they are not.

Shoha is something that's extremely needed for sam in the current state of the ws for the current state of sam and the game. Nerfing it is straight up making sam an inferior DD by not giving them a relevant ws.

You also think Sonic Drive is a better ws than Drakesbane, which will never be the case. And you also think Stardiver is a bad ws when it really isn't that bad.

Greataxe is ALWAYS superior to single axes and you should almost always be using RR (because apparently Ukko's is hard to get).


tl;dr You're entire post is extremely flawed. And above everything, you missed the point of who you quoted. If you still don't get the point of Iron's post, it's that sam isn't a good DD compared to war and other options on anything relevant in the game and you're asking for the thing that's going to help fix that to be nerfed.