New Weaponskills - Not what was expected

[Unleashhell]

Personally I'm not impressed at all with the new weapon skill choices. I think they look nice but do not perform as well as they should. Sometimes SE hits, and sometimes they miss. Personally I believe this is a miss.

Here is how the new weapon skills should have been done (imo):

• New weapon skills should have been job specific.

This would have given each job that completeness factor at level 99. Being we cannot go past 99, why shouldn't we get a level 99 job specific weapon skill?

• Modifiers that are better suited for job that use them.

MND on sword... really??? For the most part the modifiers are the norm you would expect for some of the jobs that will use them.

• In order to unlock the weapon skill, you would need 8/8 merit upgrades into your jobs primary weapon(s).

This way you cannot have every new weapon skill, just your main 2-3 jobs that you use the most. Gear would not allow you to reach the required skill level to unlock the weapon skill. Then meriting the weapon skill would work as it does now enhancing the modifiers.

These are just a few things that came through my head when approaching level 99 increase. Now that we are 99 and have these new weapon skills I feel they lack in some areas, while others (*cough* SAM *cough*) are way overpowered, or that its just that the other weapon skills fall short in power and should be raised in strength to balance (yes is used that evil word) them out.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

[darkhorror]

You can already only max 3, so you have to chose already. Though having better mods on a couple of the weapon skills would have been nice.

[Unleashhell]

Right. That's what I was getting at. But some people do merit 4 upgrades on weapons instead of the full 8. This would make it that 8/8 was required.

[Kiroh]

I wish each job had gotten their own, and I also wish SE would stop basing new content around level 75 damage. The fact that Stardiver is only very slightly better in abyssea, and worse outside than Drakesbane is RIDICULOUS! The fact that Realmrazer is just outright worse than Hexa strike in every way is beyond comprehension. Apparently level 68 WS = stronger than 96 WS is perfectly acceptable logic to SE...

[Economizer]

• In order to unlock the weapon skill, you would need 8/8 merit upgrades into your jobs primary weapon(s).

No. The worst thing SE did with the new WS was force people to choose between them. This isn't WoW, this is FFXI where you can change the job you play by talking to a weird flying creature that lives in your house.

Seriously though, we should be able to merit all of them.

[Greatguardian]

Right. That's what I was getting at. But some people do merit 4 upgrades on weapons instead of the full 8. This would make it that 8/8 was required.

He's talking about the WS themselves rather than combat skill. You can already max 4 Combat skills, but you can only max 3 WS.

[Alhanelem]

No. The worst thing SE did with the new WS was force people to choose between them.

Actually, it was the best thing they did. It helps make one character different from another in more ways than just the gear they're wearing. True customization instead of illusionary customization. The fact that not all of them are numero uno also means you're usually not missing all that much if you don't have them all. Some also have meaningful functionality with a single point in them (entropy for MP recovery for instance)

While it does take some time, if you don't like the decisions you made, you CAN undo them. It's not like choosing three weaponskills is a permanent decision. If you later decide you'd really rather have some other one, you can get rid of one and get the other one.

The REAL worst thing they did was nerf the ones that actually were good.

He's talking about the WS themselves rather than combat skill. You can already max 4 Combat skills, but you can only max 3 WS.

I'd be perfectly cool with the number of weaponskills you can max matching the number of combat skills you can max. It doesn't need to be more than that though.

[Economizer]

Actually, it was the best thing they did. It helps make one character different from another in more ways than just the gear they're wearing. True customization instead of illusionary customization. The fact that not all of them are numero uno also means you're usually not missing all that much if you don't have them all. Some also have meaningful functionality with a single point in them (entropy for MP recovery for instance)

Why are people so obsessed with being different? The way you treat other players and the way you play the game are all the differences you need, it isn't like we don't have names floating above our heads.

I'd rather myself and my friends be able to play whatever class is best for a situation rather then whatever class we have WS merited for.

I play very uniquely from other players personally, but I don't want that playstyle to adversely affect me if I ever have to go do something that requires a more standardized approach. And changing merits for a single fight is a stupid solution to what should be something super easy.

This isn't WoW, we don't have twenty different characters for each job we play, and I would like to keep it that way.

[Alhanelem]

Why are people so obsessed with being different? The way you treat other players and the way you play the game are all the differences you need, it isn't like we don't have names floating above our heads.

We're not "obsessed;" It's just preferable for everyone not to be exact clones of each other.

This isn't WoW, we don't have twenty different characters for each job we play, and I would like to keep it that way.

Who ever brought up WoW or said anything about what you said here? And why would you need 20 characters to play each job? NONE of the combat/aweapon skill merits are so vital to the functioning of a job that you couldn't play it properly without them.

I'd rather myself and my friends be able to play whatever class is best for a situation rather then whatever class we have WS merited for.

The devs did not originally (nor currently) expect everyone to level every job. When you have multiple people with the same jobs, you pick the right job for the situation, then out of all the people that have the job, you pick the one that merited out for it. How hard is that?

And changing merits for a single fight is a stupid solution to what should be something super easy.

No one said or encouraged you to change merits for "every single fight." Only that merits are not totally permanent and if you're unhappy with your choices, you can change them. The point is that your merit investments are not permanent like your race/face- Very few things other than quest completions are completely permanent in the game. It's rare that you would ever need to have more than four weapons up to their merited maximum and have their associated weaponskills to perform competently. In fact, with the possible exception of HTH, I don't think it's nearly as critical to have 8/8 merits in a combat skill as it was at 75. Most of the weaponskills are sidegrades at best and they aren't vital to your functioning either. You really don't need to possess all of them (But it's perfectly possible to possess all of them if you don't mind them being weaker).

TL;DR: The WHOLE POINT of the merit system is two things: Advancement beyond the level cap, and character customization. Letting everyone get all of everything undermines the point of the system.

[Malamasala]

Why are people so obsessed with being different? The way you treat other players and the way you play the game are all the differences you need, it isn't like we don't have names floating above our heads.

Main purpose is to encourage people to play different jobs.

Imagine if WAR had ALL WSes. Why play any other jobs? When you exclude things from jobs, you start encouraging people to play more of the jobs.

While in theory we could let everyone merit all WSes, then we would have to impose some kind of "You got to equip 2 of them on WAR else it has too many" mechanics.