Turialon's Complain about the unsocial EMPY upgrades

[Nawesemo]

Lol, "worthwhile" friends, family, job. Ok then carry on.

Edit: I'm not mocking the "us"s that are , but am the idea of the meger improvement, vs cost. In other words, f me its a lot, but we are what we are, and are going to try. Gs empy to 99 or bust. (Yeah ls thinks I'm nuttz too) reread that amd didnt mean it how it came across.

[Zhronne]

While it's perfectly understandable that SE is trying to make so the level 99 version of Relic/Mythic/Empy have more or less the same level of difficulty to obtain, considering the whole process (we're almost there with Relic/Empy, hopefully Mythic will join the club soon as well) I think most people are feeling butthurt.
Not blaming SE, from a game-design point of view this is one of those choices that will make a certain part of the player-base very unhappy but, in the long run, will probably be for the best for all of us.

At the same time though, it's easy to empathize with players who feel disappointed, and it's easy to point the finger against SE if not for the action they decided to undertake, for the TIMING they chose to do it. I.e. way later than they should have.
But we older players all know how notoriously SLOW they have always been in reacting to any possible thing than in another MMO would have been dealt with with the utmost priority.


I mean, first they give you a powerful weapon (Empies were unrightfully and mostly insanely more powerful than the, back then, still hard to obtain Relics/Mythics) that's very very easy to obtain, luring a lot of players with the stick & carrot of "come on! Keep playing! We have this awesome new toy for you!".
At the same time this was an incredibly out-of-taste way of trolling the players who had already obtained a Relic/Mythic back then (which were a large minority compared to the total number of players).
So yeah, this part of the whole picture is pretty despicable because I can understand how players got "lured" into Empies and then got fucked up with the 90>95 trial, all of a sudden.


You can understand why it *HAD* to happen, and you can agree it's likely the best choice SE could make (alas too late) but at the same time you can still feel the pain behind and you feel almost "tricked".

[Fupafighter]

Ok, the reason its a problem is because it often leads to Emps becoming a stepping stone, leaving the later trials meaningless and untouched. Looking at Emps only 3 are worth taking to 99, Vere, Ukon, and Gandiva. Other than them, there is almost no reason to take an Emp to 99 because the Relics are simply better thanks to Merit WSs. So to answer the question, what is the problem with the trials? Its that in most cases, it is not worth the effort to do the trials, because an easier weapon can be made which is more beneficial to you anyways.

Edit:Sorry, Arma is worth it as well I suppose.

Twash? Masamune? Armageddon? Daurdaubla? Almace? Do you know your weapons lol? Masa > amano. Arma is cor only good weapon besides mythic. Brds should have daurdaubla. And who wouldn't do it if they had the gil and nothing else to spend it on to get that 4th song. Oh also dnc gets twashtar as it's only easily obtainable 99 shiney too. Also did you forget that empy users can use merit weaponskills too, most times better than relic users? 20 attribute on a weapon is alot for a mod. And any serious ranger will tell you that gandiva is not that great compared to annihalator. Thus gandiva isn't worth taking to 99 unless you enjoy shooting lightning bolts. Learn the jobs and stop complaining things aren't worth it. Plates aren't hard. You all should just stop buying cells if your goal is plates. Convert the cruor you get from kills to gil and buy plates with that spare gil. YOu can average around 2-3 plates a run of 6 easily with just buying stones. I never use cells unless I'm after a glowy weapon. All cells do imo is allow higher qualities items to drop (lux fajin), which most of you don't want anymore. I feel like I have good drop rates on pouches w.o cells. I'll start recording more, but I had one run where I got 2 w.o cells. Then next run got one. Then next I got 2 again. It's really not about the cells when it comes to plates from what I have seen the past few months. Getting alot less freakin gorgets and fajin boots too.

[Demon6324236]

Twash?

I don't see any Emp for a non-Heavy DD job as worth it to get to 95+ because chances are you will not be using it enough for something you would actually need a lv99 Emp for. DNC isn't brought as a DD for VW, Legion, or NNI, as such, not really a job I would count as worthwhile to obtain a lv99 Emp for. However if you just like DNC, sure, its good I suppose.

Masamune?

So far as I understand, the 2.5x damage on normal attacks, along with not having to gimp your WS damage to gain that effect, put Amano ahead, not to mention the fact that you get the accuracy, which I am often told that accuracy becomes a problem in higher level VW, and I would guess Legion as well, even though I have never had these problems myself.

Armageddon?

I included this afterwords, because I originally forgot about it. But I agree, its good, thats why I went back and edited it.

Daurdaubla?

I admit, I forgot this as well, and actually this is imo probably the only Emp I would take to 99, and possibly Ochain as well(seeing as it gives nearly unlimited MP with a good PLD)

Almace?

The only time I can think of, you would need a lv99 Emp but have a BLU, PLD, or RDM, is NNI, and thats only a BLU. So the idea of making a lv99 Emp for a single event for a single job, seems rather pointless. Outside of that I see not much reason for one of these jobs to have a lv99 Emp sword, especially when between the jobs, the best suited for Almace is BLU, where as RDM & PLD can make good use of Excalibur instead.

Also did you forget that empy users can use merit weaponskills too, most times better than relic users? 20 attribute on a weapon is alot for a mod.

Take a look at this list...

Shijin is DEX - Vere is STR
Exent is AGI - Twash is DEX
Req is MND - Almace is DEX
Reso is STR - Calad is VIT
Ruin is STR - Farsha is STR/CHR, with weaker mods
Upheav is VIT - Ukon is STR
Entropy is INT - Redem is STR/MND
Stardiver is STR - Rhongo is VIT
Shun is DEX - Kannagi is AGI
Shoha is STR - Masa is STR, these actually match up well
Realm is MND - Gamba is... HP/MP?
Shatter is INT - Hver is... MP?
Apex is AGI - Gandiva is DEX
Last Stand is AGI - Arma is AGI, these match up

Let me ask you, do YOU know your weapons? Last I checked, 3 of these Emps have mods the same as the Merit WSs, making them the only 3 out of 14 to be even possibly better for the merit WS. As I said before, so far as I understand, thats still not always the case.

And any serious ranger will tell you that gandiva is not that great compared to annihalator. Thus gandiva isn't worth taking to 99 unless you enjoy shooting lightning bolts.

If I knew any good RNG, I would ask them, and get some input. From what I have always seen, I see RNGs with Gandiva, and see them pumping out shit loads of damage, I can not recall seeing an Anni RNG in action, ever, so not alot of room for me to compare. With the numbers I have seen however, I thought it best to put it in the list of worthy upgrades.

Learn the jobs and stop complaining things aren't worth it.

Ill tell you what you told me in the past, I don't need to know the jobs to see the numbers. And not alot of Emps seem worth it, however I will change my list a bit seeing as you did make a few good points about some, and reminded me about the Harp.

Plates aren't hard.

This isn't a matter of difficulty, its a matter of... how shall I word it, a leap of stupidity. As I said before, Emps are easy till 90 and most of the time become a serious stepping stone into the realm of Relics, because they are (most of the time) good weapons at that point, but then people make a Relic instead, and leave the Emp behind. I have seen this many times, and have done it myself with Almace>Excalibur. In my opinion, the balance between a Relic and an Emp weapon was broken as soon as you could get level 90 easily. Trying to create a fix to that now, seems to have just increased the number of Relics, and reduced the number of Emps which will ever reach a high level, which moved Relics to the now dominate form of weapon in end game from what I have seen.

As for my revised list of Emps worth getting to 99...

Vere, Shijin is nothing next to VS in damage except for maybe on PUP thanks to its load of DEX gear, however they still seem to be fairly even outside of Abyssea, for MNK however, this weapon skill is just about as good as it gets.

Ukon, has possible one of the best WSs in the entire game, Upheav has no way of toping this in damage unless coupled with Mighty Strikes.

Masamune, given that accuracy isn't needed, the +20 STR from the weapon itself would be great for Shoha, and you shouldn't pass up the good Skillchain abilities that Fudo has, that is severely lacking with Shoha's terrible Fragmentation/Compression properties.

Arma, has a great Magic based WS, and shares the same mod as Last Stand, the best WSs for a COR, with this giving a big ol +20 AGI to help them both, it is worth the price for any COR who wants to put out big numbers, and not just the DDs they buff.

Daurdabla, the best buffing tool in the game, definitely worth getting to 99 thanks to the effects of yet another song from a single BRD, allowing 1 BRD to give a wide range of buffs, without taking extra spaces in the party.

Ochain, not only a great block rate, and mitigation of damage, but the shield at 99 gives so much MP back from the damage you take that a well geared PLD becomes nearly invincible with this, because a well geared PLD can recover almost 50% of the damage they take, back as MP, and then use that to cure them for much more than double the MP cost, providing a very worthy investment given the player has the ability to put it to use.


These are the Emps I see as worth while, Gandiva was removed because apparently the Relic is better, however, if it is infact as good, or better than the Relic, I would put it on the list as well.

[Camiie]

Not blaming SE, from a game-design point of view this is one of those choices that will make a certain part of the player-base very unhappy but, in the long run, will probably be for the best for all of us.

I'm just not sure I see how this is the case. Could you explain what you mean by it being best for all of us? I'm not being a smart aleck here. I truly don't get it.

[Kincard]

Ok, the reason its a problem is because it often leads to Emps becoming a stepping stone, leaving the later trials meaningless and untouched. Looking at Emps only 3 are worth taking to 99, Vere, Ukon, and Gandiva. Other than them, there is almost no reason to take an Emp to 99 because the Relics are simply better thanks to Merit WSs. So to answer the question, what is the problem with the trials? Its that in most cases, it is not worth the effort to do the trials, because an easier weapon can be made which is more beneficial to you anyways.

Edit:Sorry, Arma is worth it as well I suppose.

Most of the weapons actually get a pretty sizable boost going from 90 to 99 (As I mentioned earlier, people keep complaining about HMP without even bringing up Riftcinder and Riftdross...if they only adjust HMP the price on those two is going to skyrocket, as if they weren't expensive enough already, when that time comes are you going to complain about that too?), because they get enough base damage to get at least 1 weapon rank (A bunch of the two-handers get two weapon ranks, in fact). The weapons that arn't nearly as good/surpass corresponding relics are either mediocre or garbage to begin with (Farsha/Hver/Gamb/Redemp/Rhongo...well I guess for that last one Gungnir is pretty lol too), Daurdabla gets an extra song of course, though there's no known reason to take Ochain past 90 aside from just liking Paladin that much.

I understand what you're saying though, there's an unbalance between the difficulty/reward of obtaining 80/85/90 and 95/99, with the 95/99 stages costing a lot for comparatively small upgrades. Of course, that's also a good thing- because that means your level 90 weapons (Again, like I said, barring Caladbolg) that were good to begin with...are still good, because you don't have to do the 95/99 trials to make the weapon useful. Insane investment/reward ratios arn't exactly new to this game. I'd understand the complaint more if your level 90 weapon now gathers dust because of the HMP cockblock, but that just doesn't happen with most of them.

So, if your argument is one of practicality, well...just continue getting better weapons if you feel other things are more worth your time. I decided to upgrade a Kannagi to 99 despite you thinking it's one of the weapons that doesn't benefit much from it (It actually does), and I passed on using that time to upgrade one of my numerous other jobs instead, or getting a Kikoku to 95/99, or hell, just building up another Empyrean that gets way more out of the plates and dross I used, like an Ukon, simply because I like Ninja and I like the Kannagi over the other NIN weapons.

The only way to fix the "balance" of the difficulty of each Empyrean trials without changing the overall difficulty would be to slot the HMP trial into the 80->85 stage and shift all the other trials over one spot, or to spread the 1500 plates over the 4 or 5 trials...I seriously doubt any of you want either one to happen. As it stands, relatively casual players (I know lots of actual casual players that don't have any Empyreans at all, actually) can get their weapons to the 90 stage with no gil investment whatsoever, and that's already a really good weapon for casuals to obtain.

They're totally different processes. They don't need to be balanced against or compared to each other.

So what you're saying is you want them to nerf Empyrean weapons while making them easier to finish, because that's essentially what you're saying here. A huge complaint leveled at Empyreans when they first came out was that they were much less investment for stomping all over relics/mythics that took way more time by comparison. I have no doubt the voidwatch trials were created with this in mind.

I know what they intended. I'm saying the intentions themselves are wrong. Just because it's "working as intended" according to SE, doesn't make it right. The devs can be just as wrong as anyone, and they often are.

Except you still haven't made any actual arguments as to why it's "wrong" aside from "I can't finish it, therefore it must be unreasonable". Any actually compelling-sounding arguments made have been essentially debunked.

It's already been stated by people, you included, that the investment of price/time investment isn't an issue. Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, I guess it depends on whatever is convenient for you at any given moment.

It's been debunked that there is a lack of supply of plates (at least at this point in time), because any perusal of bazaars in Jeuno will yield literally hundreds of (albeit potentially overpriced, though that's a problem with players themselves) plates at almost any time of day. It just depends on if you're willing to put the gil down.

Thanks for the OCD diagnosis Doctor. Would you like to prescribe some medicine or treatment while you're at it? Also, thanks for letting me know that I'm angry. I honestly wasn't aware I was, but obviously Doctor knows best.

I wasn't being literal, but I guess I overestimated you.

The only purpose it serves is to make a handful of people feel like they've done something special.

You mean like everything else in this game? All I'm hearing is still "I can't finish it, it's unfair that other people can and I can't".

You can understand why it *HAD* to happen, and you can agree it's likely the best choice SE could make (alas too late) but at the same time you can still feel the pain behind and you feel almost "tricked".

Yes, except as has been said numerous times, the level 90 weapons are still incredibly powerful weapons unless it was one of the crappy ones to being with (Gamba/Hver/etc), so while it might be a bit annoying you can't "finish", it's not like you have a useless weapon now because you can't.

If it bothers you that much, then start saving up and finish it- that's what I did, and I'm pretty sure I have less total relic/empyrean weapons than pretty much every person in this thread, so this whole "only poopsocking losers can finish!" mentality is more born from laziness rather than it actually being true. It's great to mischaracterize the people that did finish when it serves your purposes though, I guess!

So let me recap basically how this discussion has gone:
"HMP/Rift trials are impossible to complete except for poopsocking 1% losers!"
"Well, no not really, I'm not really a hardcore player and I could finish it"
"Uh, well, there's a lack of plates!"
"Not really, there's lots to be found in Jeuno, some of it is price gouged because people know they can get away with it though."
"It's impossible to complete for me because I'm not a 1% poopsocking loser!"

[Demon6324236]

I'd understand the complaint more if your level 90 weapon now gathers dust because of the HMP cockblock, but that just doesn't happen with most of them.

See I disagree here. When looking at Emps vs Relics. If you make a Calad, you will likely upgrade to a Rag, Rag is really better in every way to a Calad even with both at 99, there is next to no reason to actually make Calad go past lv90. For Redem, if you make it, its another weapon that will likely get upto 90 at most, before you do Apoc, which far surpasses it.

I rather look at it the other way around, it happens to most of them, but a few Emps do shine above everything else. As my list above says, Vere, Ukon, Masa, Arma, Harp, and Shield, are the only 6 out of them all that I would see as worth while. This is because they are really the only ones that have the stats or WS to make them better than a Relic for their jobs, while the other 10 are not really worth putting higher than 90, because a Relic will surpass it.

The jobs this doesn't count for exactly, are BLU, COR, PUP, DNC, & SCH, however COR & PUP are covered by the worthwhile Emps, leaving BLU, DNC, and SCH. Now BLU doesn't really have much use as a Front Line Job in endgame currently, so making a lv99 Emp for the job isn't really a worthwhile thing either, the same can be said for DNC. SCH(& BLM) lets be honest, thanks to Shattersoul and Plenitas Virga, nothing short of Mythic should really be used instead of this by a mage who plans to hit things with their stick.

[Kincard]

I already listed Caladbolg as pretty much the only exception, aside from that, all the Empyreans that were good at 85/90 caps continue to be very good weapons at 99. I find it hilarious that you would bring up Redemption, because everyone already knew it was pretty disappointing compared to not just Apoc, but a bunch of other Magian Scythes as well as Twilight at 90- that's a problem with the Scythe specifically (Specifically, Quietus being a mediocre WS) and not the fact that you can't finish the HMP/Rift trial. It has just preserved its position as poorly balanced weapon, joining the ranks of Claustrum, Nagi, Murgleis and other such weapons in the SE vault of bad ideas.

11 of the 16 Empyrean weapons were seen as among the best options before the 95/99 trials came along, the five out being Rhongomiant, Redemption, Hvergelmir, Gambateinn and (arguably) Farsha. Right now, at the 99 cap, almost all 11 of those good Empyrean weapons that are still worth using in their 90 form except possibly Gandiva and Caladbolg, though the list of things that outdo them is still pretty thin.

the other 10 are not really worth putting higher than 90, because a Relic will surpass it

And of those, this was already true for a lot of them even back when the useful form of the Empyreans weapons were first introduced at 85 (Axe/Polearm/Scythe/Staff/Mace). For the ones that are useful, this is either untrue, or doesn't outdo them nearly as much as you seem to be implying.

The Mandau does outdo the Twash, but not by as much as you might think, without mentioning the fact that Twash is often the best offhand to Mandau anyway, so you'd 99 them both if you were some obsessive THF-maximizer. And why is it that the "usefulness" of a job in endgame (See your argument against Almace/Twash somehow not being worthwhile because BLU and DNC don't see a lot of melee action endgame, which...a decent Almace BLU in Voidwatch can still get their melee hits in even while having a full set of proc spells, varies with group though I suppose) only comes up when it's against making an Empyrean? I don't remember the last time I saw a THF with Mandau was taken over a WAR with an Ukon.

Almace most definitely outdoes Excalibur in most situations.

Kannagi and Kikoku have parsed very, very closely and it's pretty much the same "shit's situational, bro" stuff that has existed for years in ths game.

Gandiva sees very little use outside of Abyssea, but Yoichi sees very little use...anywhere. Compared to Annihilator anyway, unless you like firing bows on your SAM these days.

As far any mage/staff/mace relic/mythic/empyrean goes, pretty much the only ones that have ever been useful are Mjollnir (Best WHM melee club for those that like doing that, so it's not like Gambateinn somehow got screwed when everyone already knew it was a crappy weapon to start with) and a few of the Mythic mage weapons, which doesn't really factor into your whole relic VS empyrean discussion (Let's also not start a serious discussion about Hvergelmir VS Claustrum VS Plenitas Virga for melee BLMs and SCHs otherwise we might get aneurysms).

[Kysaiana]

I don't see how any empyrean wouldn't benefit from upgrading to 99. If you're saying "worth the cost?" Then none of them are. You'd pretty much have to have nothing else in the entire game you'd want to spend gil on left, including every HQ of the new abjuration gear for jobs you don't even have, before it would worth the price tag. But that's just my opinion. Some people just gotta have 99 right now, and that's fine. If not for them, no one would be able to sell plates at all.

I'm not saying that the 95 trial should be without cost or effort or whatever, but the current cost is too high to be worth it to me, and many others. This is entirely because of the rarity of HMPs from the few VW fights they can drop from. Sure some people get pouches every 5 or 6 fight run of Qilin, but I've personally gone 18 in a row without a single pouch. Crap is random. There's also the random factor to how many plates you even get in a pouch. The 99 trial suffers from the same issue as the 95 but it's a non-issue if you can't do the 95 trial, and I'd suspect people would actually do rex/ig alima/morta/bismarck if they had 95 empyreans.

To take a page from Spankwustler, I'm going paint a picture. Imagine you're on a road, call it empyrean way, driving down at a decent speed. Up ahead you see what appears to be a road block, but it's actually a 100 foot tall wall that extends 200 miles in either direction. You look at your gas and there's only a few gallons left. On the side of the road is a gas station, the only one around for days. The gas price is $700 per gallon. You have three choices: pay for the gas to get around the wall, walk around the wall, or give up. And the only thing on the other side of the wall is the same car you already have, but slightly better.

[Babekeke]

The 1 Empy that gives a far higher boost over the 95 version didn't even get a mention?

Daurdabla!