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

[Aldersyde]

Ruinator is an improvement over Rampage. Rampage will once in a blue moon spike higher but overall Ruinator's damage with be consistently higher. I know this first hand because I tried it on the test server.

You will forgive me if I don't rush out and spend 1,000,000 xp on a weapon skill simply based on your anecdotal evidence. Run tests with an acceptable sample size and prove it to me with math.

[Kimble]

You're asking the wrong person to provide any proof, lol.

[Arcon]

You're asking the wrong person to provide any proof, lol.

How about taking it from a Community Rep?

We are making it so that the amount of damage will be around the same as Rampage if you have full accuracy and get 2-3 criticals. (This is when both of them are executed at 100 TP. There is of course more damage that can be dealt depending on gear and food.)

Now I don't know how high the chance of critical hits is with Rampage, but it shouldn't exceed 50% at 100 TP, including base rate and merit upgrades (Evisceration has 25% for example). This isn't accounting for dDEX bonus, but you won't get much on any kind of relevant content anyway. So unless they're lying, Ruinator will be noticeably better on average. Not game-breakingly better, but definitely noticeably. The only question now is whether or not they are capable of actually doing the math and implementing the WS as they said they would.

[Kimble]

Well, I rather believe what reliable people who have done testing have to say than a community rep. So far, from their testing, axe ws isnt all that great, nor is it better.

[hiko]

Really?

Typical poser adding nothing to a discussion that affects all of us.

This whole balance crusade really is starting to grate on my nerves. Were those weapon skills left alone, 100 points would be justifiable if only for the opportunity to rack up cruor. The way things stand now, the only motivation I see is amassing cruor. Be sure to thank the nearest Empyrean weapon owner who screamed bloody murder when these weapon skills were tested out initially.

totally wrong: the only WS that was tested to be always better than (a good) empy WS is shoha and wasn't nerfed. some of the WS was nerfed to be NOT BETTER THAN lvl 60 AUTO LEARNED WSes, multi hit WS have the <1ftp on all hits, some attack penality...

it's actually only 3

i count 4: 10+15=>20=>25=>30
use your old merit for stat before unlocking those

I don't think we should ignore the unlock requirement, seeing as the new WSs are very easy to get, if a little time consuming.

As far as I can tell, in terms of strength it should go Skill WSs < Merit WSs < Quested WSs < Trials WSs. If this isn't the case then fine, but it seems many people just want the new WSs to be uber because they are new. That's what people mean by balance.

do you realy think 1M xp is easier/take less time than 300WS and a lvl75NM?
we don't ask em to be UBBER but better than WS we used for 6years:
order should be skill<trial<nyzul/merit<empy/relic, some weapon still have the skill WS as their best(or best not relic/empy)

There was a discrepancy in my estamates I forgot to account for. @99 page 1 altep is only 1-2 stars, so 2k per page is missing.

sync to lvl90

[SpankWustler]

How about taking it from a Community Rep?

Now I don't know how high the chance of critical hits is with Rampage, but it shouldn't exceed 50% at 100 TP, including base rate and merit upgrades (Evisceration has 25% for example). This isn't accounting for dDEX bonus, but you won't get much on any kind of relevant content anyway. So unless they're lying, Ruinator will be noticeably better on average. Not game-breakingly better, but definitely noticeably. The only question now is whether or not they are capable of actually doing the math and implementing the WS as they said they would.

If I take their word for it and assume the change is either exactly as described or mirrors the change to Realmrazer, than Ruinator either has a ~40% attack penalty or a total fTP of ~2.4 since it has been adjusted.

I'll begrudgingly admit it can be kicked and beaten and gorgeted into a pretty good weaponskill if the fTP was the bit changed, but I'm still annoyed. It was a long, long way from out-performing the epic weaponskills of 2011 and I'm not sure why it had to be squashed down to be closer to Rampage. Even before the changes, Rampage was probably the better choice inside Abyssea.

Maybe it's the spirit of the matter, since balancing something against Rampage makes me feel like the development team still thinks it's 2004 and we're fighting Decorative Weapons.

Well, I rather believe what reliable people who have done testing have to say than a community rep. So far, from their testing, axe ws isnt all that great, nor is it better.

Could I get a link to some tests that have gone down since the adjustment(s) to Ruinator, please? I've been looking all over but can't find anything recent enough to post-date the changes.

I was really looking forward to new good Axe weaponskill and I absolutely love the throwing animation, so I'm really hopeful it's the fTP that's been changed rather than a huge attack penalty. If that's a case, at least throwing on a belt and a gorget will make it perform well enough and it won't be garbage against anything above Tough.

[Finuve]

So lets discuss which WSs need fixed, heres a list I put together in a hurry

Great:
Tachi: Shoha

Good:
Blade: Shun
Exenterator
Resolution
Shattersoul
Last Stand

Worthless Crap:
Upheaval
Entropy
Realrazer
Ruinator
Apex Arrow
Requiescat
Stardiver
Shijin Spiral

Let me know if I'm wrong on any of these, but based on what I gathered its the WSs in the last section that SE needs to fix

[Sparthos]

That's a different issue though. The OP was bellyaching about the number of limit points required, not the strength of the weapon skills.

How do the weapon skills you get in the mid 60s and 70s stack against the low 60s skills?

Exactly what do people want? That's what I don't understand. Posts here are always long on complaints, short on solutions. If the new WS were equal to Empyrean/Relic/Mythic WS, that wouldn't be fair to the holders of those weapons who put in a lot more effort into getting them than it takes to get these new weapon skills.

If they were equal to mid-level weapon skills, the complaints would be the same.

So what do you want from the devs? And has anyone tried asking nicely instead of the usual tactic of throwing mean spirited temper tantrums?

Solutions? I got a bag full of those.

The new WS should have all had the potential to throughly beat their lowbie counterparts, tie with Empyreans at worst or been attached with some added effect utility that made them viable to unlock.

First lets dispel the myth that making these WS too powerful would somehow damage Empyreans/Relic. I leave out Mythic because most of the weaponskills are garbage but that is made up by impressive aftermaths that make up for it. King's Justice may not be that great but when you're able to turn a Conqueror into a Gaxe-flail, you're DPS is going to shoot through the roof for it.

If Upheaval turned out to throughly smoke Ukko's Fury, the ODD aftermath of using the Empyrean WS with the Empyrean would balance off the person with a normal Gaxe using Upheaval. Further, what would stop the Ukon player from simply upgrading to Upheaval and using the weaponskill themselves? You'd have situations where both these WS would see application.

Bravura's Metatron Torment may be weaker than Ukko's and my theoretical Upheaval but the utility aftermath and the break effects make up for the loss of damage and also make using Metatron situational in its application.

The problem is that SE wants to tear down rather than build up. Rather than boosting these WS out of the gate and then going back and tweaking the old WS to have added effects that made them situationally useful like say a cure-potency bonus for using Hexa Strike (which is limited to WHM only anyway) or a pet-crit boost for Rampage (cause BST are now the heir to axes) you wind up with heavy-handed nerfs that make some new WS useless while the word 'balance' is thrown around.

What's amusing is that they had no problems having some merit WS smoke their competition like Dagger, Gun or GKT but others were limited under the guise of balance? Internal consistency who? what?

[Neisan_Quetz]

So lets discuss which WSs need fixed, heres a list I put together in a hurry

Great:
Tachi: Shoha

Good:
Blade: Shun
Exenterator
Resolution
Shattersoul
Last Stand

Worthless Crap:
Upheaval
Entropy
Realrazer
Ruinator
Apex Arrow
Requiescat
Stardiver
Shijin Spiral

Let me know if I'm wrong on any of these, but based on what I gathered its the WSs in the last section that SE needs to fix

What @ bolded

[Finuve]

What @ bolded

I said let me know if I'm wrong, just going off what I've heard, however upheaval I have tested and it seems like crap, though I haven't been thorough

Realmrazer, Entropy, Ruinator, Requiescat are the worst offenders of these though