One million limit points for a sidegrade? What is the Dev Team's logic behind this?

[Atomic_Skull]

But this is still a weakness, because the subsequent hits are still less than 1.0 which all other multi-hit weapon skills have. In order for this characteristic (propgation of fTP) to be viewable as a benefit and not a nerfing mechanism, the fTP value would have to be at least 0.9 (which would make the fTP 1.0 on all hits when wearing a gorget).

It's still better that Drakesbane (outside abyssea) or Penta Thrust because it doesn't have -20% attack (Drakes) or a pdiff penalty (Penta)

[Ravenmore]

You really expected free WS to outperform empyrean WS?

Really?


As long as they are better than other free WS they are fine. And most of them are.



Stardiver is fTP .75 on all hits, but because it has non 1.0 fTP on 2'nd to 4'th hits they also recieve the fTP bonus from belt and gorget. Therefor by wearing these the WS gains .8 to it's total fTP. Also Stardiver doesn't have anti Berserk like Drakesbane. or a pdiff penalty like Penta Thrust.

Ruinator doesn't spike as high as Rampage but it's average damage is consistently higher.

So what about sam huh. We are not saying it should be better they should better then a level 60 WS. What we got is the one that are better(even slightly) were given to jobs that already had good WS. Only use blu has for the sword WS is to SSC, so it really is like they are begging people to use windower. On top of all else you get to have only 3 merited to worth a crap levels. Its not just one thing its the whole package that sucks.

[Kimble]

You really expected free WS to outperform empyrean WS?

Really?


As long as they are better than other free WS they are fine. And most of them are.

No, if you knew how to follow a conversation, you'd know i've been saying that level 99, 360+ skill WS worth 100 merits should be better than a level 60, 200 skill WS.

You keep saying so many of them are good, yet others who are actually accountable and do testing have shown other wise.

[Theytak]

TO EVERYONE SAYING "I don't understand what you're arguing" "Boohoo, 1,000,000 merits isn't a lot" "these ws aren't as bad as you whiners are making it out to be" or anything else that comes off with a similar tone/meaning;

allow me to explain in detail the issue with these new WS.

Of the fourteen WS;

Tachi: Shoha and Last Stand: Provide very powerful ws that rival or surpass the other, already powerful alternatives

Exenterator and Resolution: Provide strong ws that can rival (resolution) or exceed (exenterator) their previously limited or weak ws selection

Shijin Spiral, Upheaval, Apex Arrow, and Blade: Shun: Provide decently powerful ws that soundly defeat the non-empyrean ws available

Shattersoul: Completely destroys every other ws for it's weapon skill, like tachi: shoha, but does so because staff weaponskills are all garbage anyway.

Ruinator and Realmrazer: Were intentionally weakened so as to not exceed, but rather, deal the same average damage as ws gained far earlier (rampage and hexa strike, respectively)

Entropy and Stardiver: Were not stated to be, but are very obviously intended to fall in to the same line as ruinator and realmrazer, not exceeding previous ws, but doing the same average damage, or less in stardiver's case.

Requiescat: is complete garbage

Before these ws were available:
Great Katana had several strong ws, and had even stronger relic and empyrean ws
Marksmanship had several moderately strong ws, and a very powerful empyrean ws
Dagger had a large variety of ws that dealt similar damage in different situations, but no one universally powerful ws
Greatsword had torcleaver and otherwise sucked
Hand-to-Hand had moderately powerful ws (asuran fists), and a very powerful empyrean ws (pups get stringing pummel, which rivals victory smite in terms of damage potential when VS was used by a pup, but wouldn't be able to compete with a mnk using VS)
Great axe had two fairly strong ws, two situationally strong ws, and a very powerful empyrean ws
Archery had the same moderately strong ws as marksmanship, and a very powerful empyrean ws
Katana has one moderately strong ws, and a very powerful empyrean ws
Staff had nothing but crap
Axe had one moderately strong ws that was lackluster when compared to other weapons, and the weakest melee empyrean ws
Club had one moderately strong ws that was limited to a single, non-melee job, and one very situational ws (true strike)
Scythe had several ws that all did the same average amount of damage, but none that were strong compared to other weapons, and a fairly lack luster empyrean ws (that does roughly the same amount of damage as every other scythe ws)
Polearm had one strong ws, one mediocre ws, and a laughable empyrean ws that was only a step above Axe
Sword had one moderately strong ws, one (two for pld) situational ws for damage resistant monsters that SE stopped players from using by giving every new NM worth fighting an incredibly powerful resistance to the damage type of that ws, and a very powerful empyrean ws

These new ws cause the following changes:
Great Katana gets another very powerful ws, that is arguably more powerful than any ws previously added to the game
Marksmanship gets another strong ws that can be used in the situations where the powerful empyrean is less appealing
Dagger gets another strong ws that is slightly stronger than it's previous half dozen sidegrade ws
Great Sword gets a non-empyrean ws that isn't awful
Hand-to-Hand gets a new ws that effectively gives monks a ws between asuran fists and victory smite (shijin spiral is a "more consistent" version of stringing pummel), giving non-empyrean mnks a new top ws
Great Axe gets another strong ws that fills both general damage and situationally powerful slots, for non-empyrean wars
Archery gets another strong ws that gives non-empyrean rngs a new top ws
Katana gets a moderate side-grade ws for higher-defense mobs
Staff gets a ws that doesn't suck
Axe gets a second ws menu option for the ws "rampage" that results in more consistent, but not any better, damage
Club gets a second ws menu option for the ws "hexastrike" that results in more consistent, but not any better, damage, and allows jobs other than whm to use a non-situational club ws
Scythe gets its fifth ws menu option for the ws "guillotine" that deals approximately the same damage but has a different additional effect
Polearm gets a middle of the road ws that replaces the level 49 ws for drgs who don't have their mythic ws quested
Sword gets nothing of value whatsoever

The new ws thus do this for jobs:
Sam: Gets another very strong ws, which is stronger than it's very powerful empyrean ws
Rng: gets one very strong ws that rivals its marksmanship empyrean ws, and a second strong ws for non-empyrean archery
Dnc, Thf: get another slightly stronger ws
Drk: Gets a useable non-empyrean great sword ws, and a fifth version of the scythe ws it got at level 60
Mnk, Pup: gets a new top ws for non-empyrean mnks and pups, and pups that don't have stringing pummel
War: gets a new top ws for non-ukko wars, and another version of rampage meaning that 1h axes will remain unused
Nin: gets a better ws for tanking high defense mobs
Mages: get a ws that doesn't suck
Bst: gets another version of rampage
Drg: gets a replacement for penta thrust, if they don't have drakesbane
Pld, Blu, Rdm: get absolutely nothing of value whatsoever

However, all of this requires 5/5 for a given ws, thus capping us to 3 per character. As it stands:
Tachi: Shoha, Last Stand, Exenterator, and Shattersoul are worth meriting (4 of 14)
Shijin Spiral, Apex Arrow, Blade: Shun, Resolution, and Upheaval are worth meriting if you don't have an empyrean weapon (5 of 14)
Stardiver is worth meriting if you're a drg main and you don't have drakesbane, but you would be better spent getting drakesbane instead
Ruinator, Realmrazer, Entropy, and Requiescat are absolutely not worth meriting (4 of 14)

The problem is this: With a 3 ws cap, all of the upgrade for non-empy holder ws suddenly lose a lot of value, effectively leaving 2/3 of these ws worthless. Everyone will eventually end up with Tachi Shoha/Last Stand/Exenterator as their 5/5s, because those will be the only ws worth meriting.

[Olor]

I'm not saying they are perfect or even anywhere near right at the moment. I'm just saying that having Merited WSs stronger than Standard WSs, but weaker than ones you have to Quest for, makes total sense.

This only "makes total sense" in a world where half of the quested weaponskills don't suck. Cloudsplitter says hi.

[Jackstin]

This only "makes total sense" in a world where half of the quested weaponskills don't suck. Cloudsplitter says hi.

Ok well let me rephrase what I'm saying. These new merited WSs should be pretty good, an improvement on normal WSs, but not uber.

[Tavien]

Im a a dragoon. I don't have drakesbane. I want drakesbane. The only way to obtain drakesbane is Nyzul Isle. I suppose I could run floor 1 a million times and hope I get lucky but I'll be doing WS points til the universe dies a heat death before I unlock it. I was looking forward to these new WS and sadly all Im getting is a sense of they're all pretty awful. Except for Sam. Which excels.

Sam in never recieving a bad update shocker. Alert the media!

[Brolic]

Im a a dragoon. I don't have drakesbane. I want drakesbane. The only way to obtain drakesbane is Nyzul Isle. I suppose I could run floor 1 a million times and hope I get lucky but I'll be doing WS points til the universe dies a heat death before I unlock it. I was looking forward to these new WS and sadly all Im getting is a sense of they're all pretty awful. Except for Sam. Which excels.

Sam in never recieving a bad update shocker. Alert the media!

so 1 million ws point sureeee, but 10nyzul runs isnt?

[Tavien]

Im not sure you're entirely getting my point.

1 Million WS points isn't going to work for me. However, how am I meant to climb Nyzul when the best party I can throw together struggles to clear floor 15? Oh, I know! I can shout! For people! Who won't want to join.

Please do tell me what a dragoon is supposed to do to gain access to their only decent WS when they can't get support to actually do the required event?

[Theytak]

so 1 million ws point sureeee, but 10nyzul runs isnt?

getting to 100 nyzul is harder than getting 100 merit points these days, I won't disagree, but given that of the twenty nyzul ws, only a couple are worth the effort for more than a situational tool, it's understandable that a lot of people don't bother these days.

That said, telling us they're going to give us the Final skill based WS for our weapons with the 99 cap, and then yanking it away from us by actually giving us the most asinine system imaginable and making it so we can only have three not suck, and making a large number of them effectively worthless by making 1-2 of them absolutely amazing is just obnoxious.

Im not sure you're entirely getting my point.

1 Million WS points isn't going to work for me. However, how am I meant to climb Nyzul when the best party I can throw together struggles to clear floor 15? Oh, I know! I can shout! For people! Who won't want to join.

Please do tell me what a dragoon is supposed to do to gain access to their only decent WS when they can't get support to actually do the required event?

find some friends that aren't completely inept? Nyzul wasn't hard at 75, it just hand random impossible floors that everyone had to deal with and got screwed over by. At 99, if you've got a group of 4-5 people with any intelligence and half-decent gear, you should be able to smoke nyzul in your sleep. the only thing that will slow you down is the 1 assault tag per 24 hours crap, and random obnoxious lamp floors.