Inquiry for Mr. Matsui: Upcoming Weapon Skill Refinements?

[Mirage]

Didn't wildfire's performance scale poorly as we leveled up? I mean when the level cap was 85/90 it was awesome but now at 99 it is just "sort of average" compared to other physical WSes?

[Kincard]

Didn't wildfire's performance scale poorly as we leveled up? I mean when the level cap was 85/90 it was awesome but now at 99 it is just "sort of average" compared to other physical WSes?

It is still a very powerful weaponskill. Last Stand does give it a run for its money (RNGs definately like that better, or sometimes Coronach) but you'll find that lots of CORs still favor Wildfire.

Personally, I would love it if they could adjust every weapon skill so that every single one will have some sort of niche use, so we arn't always just telling ourselves to spam the same weapon skill in combat over and over. Obviously we'll always have one that's best for damage but making the rest of them all have some use would be very nice (The Warrior's Break WSs come to mind immediately, if they were improved they would see a lot more use).

Just as an example, I'll use Katana WS since that's what I'm most familiar with:

Blade: Rin- Add "Stun" Effect to the WS.
Blade: Retsu- Increase the duration of the effect.
Blade: Teki- Increase damage, add "Drown" effect.
Blade: To- Increase damage, add "Frost" effect.
Blade: Chi- Increase damage, add "Rasp" effect.
Blade: Ei- Increase damage, add "Bio" effect.
Blade: Jin- Fine as-is.
Blade: Ten- Add TP-cutting effect.
Blade: Ku- Increase the mods, make it better than Jin in low-crit situations.
Blade: Yu- Make TP mod damage instead, make current 300TP duration be the duration at all TP.
Blade: Kamu- Change fTP to 3.0+, increase current 300TP duration be the duration at all TP, make TP mod damage or crit rate.
Blade: Metsu- Lengthen aftermath and allow subtle cap break, increase fTP to 4.0.
Blade: Hi- Increase the crit % mod at various TP values. 20/35/55 like Ukko's would be nice.
Blade: Shun- decrease the attack penalty at and make the attack scale faster.

[Mefuki]

...

Exactly! You are right on target. I think it'd be fantastic to have more tactical options to use our "Tactical Points" on. All our weapon skills should be reevaluated with such a mind set.

[Prrsha]

It is still a very powerful weaponskill. Last Stand does give it a run for its money (RNGs definately like that better, or sometimes Coronach) but you'll find that lots of CORs still favor Wildfire.

Personally, I would love it if they could adjust every weapon skill so that every single one will have some sort of niche use, so we arn't always just telling ourselves to spam the same weapon skill in combat over and over. Obviously we'll always have one that's best for damage but making the rest of them all have some use would be very nice (The Warrior's Break WSs come to mind immediately, if they were improved they would see a lot more use).

Just as an example, I'll use Katana WS since that's what I'm most familiar with:

Blade: Rin- Add "Stun" Effect to the WS.
Blade: Retsu- Increase the duration of the effect.
Blade: Teki- Increase damage, add "Drown" effect.
Blade: To- Increase damage, add "Frost" effect.
Blade: Chi- Increase damage, add "Rasp" effect.
Blade: Ei- Increase damage, add "Bio" effect.
Blade: Jin- Fine as-is.
Blade: Ten- Add TP-cutting effect.
Blade: Ku- Increase the mods, make it better than Jin in low-crit situations.
Blade: Yu- Make TP mod damage instead, make current 300TP duration be the duration at all TP.
Blade: Kamu- Change fTP to 3.0+, increase current 300TP duration be the duration at all TP, make TP mod damage or crit rate.
Blade: Metsu- Lengthen aftermath and allow subtle cap break, increase fTP to 4.0.
Blade: Hi- Increase the crit % mod at various TP values. 20/35/55 like Ukko's would be nice.
Blade: Shun- decrease the attack penalty at and make the attack scale faster.

This... I'd like to see. Don't make every WS do similar damage (however WSes that take much more time to obtain, should do more) but I'd like to see each one unique. If a WS does "bind" make it proc often and for awhile... not 3 seconds. If they aren't dishing out damage, they should be doing something useful for the party. Currently the side effects of many WSes are too weak to be of any use. It reminds me of the uselessness of elemental adjustments on armor.

[Afania]

Didn't wildfire's performance scale poorly as we leveled up? I mean when the level cap was 85/90 it was awesome but now at 99 it is just "sort of average" compared to other physical WSes?

No it's not like that, WF is a magical WS, so atma/atmacite/firestorm boosts it's dmg greatly, and performs better(compare with physical WS) when pt's attack is low. Performs worse than physical WS if pt's attack is high or mob has higher MDB.

At lv 85/90 you probably mean abyssea era, when you can use 3x dmg boost atma. When VW was just out, a lot of the DDs aren't properly buffed, so WF seems higher because it doesn't require large attack buff to do decent dmg on mobs like Hahava. Then as more and more Atmacite released, WF still remain high due to 3x atmacite and firestorm + MAB drink.

Outside of VW and Abyssea it's worse than properly buffed physical WS though, due to lack of MAB atmacite, and quite a lot of mobs outside of VW have high MDB, without many ways to lower it. Think of it this way, if WF does 2k outside of abyssea/VW, in Abyssea/VW you do 3~5k due to buff, so that seems high. If you pt with a physical DD with low pDIF and no buff, and he did something like 1.5k physical WS, unbuffed 2k WF still seems high. Buff physical with higher pDIF, now physical WS did 3k and WF do 2.5k without atma/atmacite but only firestorm/wizards, now WF seems weak. It's just nearly impossible to buff WF over 3~4k outside of VW/abyssea on most mobs, while physical still very possible with dia 3/angon/SV min x4/chaos/LR etc. There aren't many debuff to weaken mob MDB too, while there are many ways to weaken def for physical WS.

WF is just harder to buff or debuff to high number outside of Abyssea/VW, unlike physical WS.

Edit: Another reason why WF seems sucked now is because majority of COR and RNG doesn't buff WF properly, they don't lv up atmacite which makes huge difference, and nobody feed them firestorms, which also makes huge difference with karin obi. I also rarely see COR use wizard roll on themselves, they often just stick with melee rolls. A properly buffed WF in VW can hit 3k~4k easily unless mob have higher MDB, which isn't bad compare with physical WS at all. WF is still my WS of choice over last stand in majority of situations, unless I'm getting at least 2 attack song+chaos+/WAR+attack food+ dia and angon, or unless mob just resists/absorbs fire and magic.

[Mirage]

No it's not like that, WF is a magical WS, so atma/atmacite/firestorm boosts it's dmg greatly, and performs better(compare with physical WS) when pt's attack is low. Performs worse than physical WS if pt's attack is high or mob has higher MDB.

At lv 85/90 you probably mean abyssea era, when you can use 3x dmg boost atma. When VW was just out, a lot of the DDs aren't properly buffed, so WF seems higher because it doesn't require large attack buff to do decent dmg on mobs like Hahava. Then as more and more Atmacite released, WF still remain high due to 3x atmacite and firestorm + MAB drink.

Outside of VW and Abyssea it's worse than properly buffed physical WS though, due to lack of MAB atmacite, and quite a lot of mobs outside of VW have high MDB, without many ways to lower it. Think of it this way, if WF does 2k outside of abyssea/VW, in Abyssea/VW you do 3~5k due to buff, so that seems high. If you pt with a physical DD with low pDIF and no buff, and he did something like 1.5k physical WS, unbuffed 2k WF still seems high. Buff physical with higher pDIF, now physical WS did 3k and WF do 2.5k without atma/atmacite but only firestorm/wizards, now WF seems weak. It's just nearly impossible to buff WF over 3~4k outside of VW/abyssea on most mobs, while physical still very possible with dia 3/angon/SV min x4/chaos/LR etc. There aren't many debuff to weaken mob MDB too, while there are many ways to weaken def for physical WS.

WF is just harder to buff or debuff to high number outside of Abyssea/VW, unlike physical WS.

Edit: Another reason why WF seems sucked now is because majority of COR and RNG doesn't buff WF properly, they don't lv up atmacite which makes huge difference, and nobody feed them firestorms, which also makes huge difference with karin obi. I also rarely see COR use wizard roll on themselves, they often just stick with melee rolls. A properly buffed WF in VW can hit 3k~4k easily unless mob have higher MDB, which isn't bad compare with physical WS at all. WF is still my WS of choice over last stand in majority of situations, unless I'm getting at least 2 attack song+chaos+/WAR+attack food+ dia and angon, or unless mob just resists/absorbs fire and magic.

That post pretty much confirmed what I thought was the case. Wildfire is not great without content-specific magical boosts, and physical WSes are much easier to buff to high values, especially at lv99.

That seems to be the case for a lot of magical WSes, really. It seems like magical WSes through the entire game always stay at a certain power level, and never really increases significantly in damage, such as all other physical WSes do. I guess this is partially because the magical WSes always have the same DMG rating, no matter what level you are and which weapon you use, while physical WSes use the DMG rating of your weapon, which in many cases increase a lot with levels.

Maybe the player's level should be made part of the equation for magical WSes, or perhaps magical WSes should use the weapon's dmg rating as well, or a combination of its own DMG, and the weapon DMG.

Alternatively, magical WSes could instead get a MAB boost based on how much skill we have in the particular weapon. It could be based on how much higher our current skill is compared to the skill required to unlock the WS. Exactly how much this would amount to would have to be mathed out, of course, to maintain the very important Balance.