Weaponskills That Need Most Refinement

[Demon6324236]

Every weapon skill should be re-examined, if you ask me. The game is designed to make our older WSs worthless. That's BS. There should be enemies out there who are weaker to fast blade than CDC. It's boring that we just spam the same WSs all the time no matter what the situation is.

Some like Fast Blade naturally get out dated, others which enfeeble mobs are not made to enfeeble them well enough to be worth using, if they were then it would be something you may see from time to time. We do have different WSs better in different cases but not many of them, normally 2 per job, maybe 3. For instance my RDM uses CDC in Abyssea, Req on low defense mobs, and KoR on high defense mobs. WARs use Ukko on everything without a resistance to crits, and Resolution on everything with it, often paired with Mighty Strikes. Is it a very diverse amount? No, but there is a bit of diversity in it, and if enfeebling WSs were worth using, or we had a bit more diverse effects in our WSs worth using, then we could see them expand a bit. So do not think I am saying I do not want more diversity, I am simply trying to point out that we do in a way have some, just often ignored or not used.

[Yinnyth]

I would love if the debuff WSs got boosted to the point where they could be used for their debuff. But I'm trying to shoot the moon by asking for all WSs to be situationally useful. Then I'll go one-shot ADL's fake copy with wasp sting or some junk.

[ManaKing]

You have to realize that if all WS are useable or rather should need to be used, then people have to carry around the gear for all their WSs. Some of us just don't have that kind of space.

I agree that there should be WS diversity, half the reason for that has been outdated. WSs aren't important for their SC properties as a primary thought, only as a secondary consideration for more damage potential for SSC.

There are realistically 8 or 9 different kinds of WSs categories:

• Physical Damage
• Magical Damage
• Critical Damage
• Ignores Defense
• AoE
• Additional affect WSs
• Stun
• Drain WSs
• Restore WSs

1. Physical Damage is the most basic. You hit the mob X amounts of times. The type of damage depends on what weapon yo are using. They can be ok, like Fast Blade, or they can be great, like Resolution. It just depends on the numbers. You can get additional attacks, but no crits. You can miss one or all hits of physical WSs.
   
2. Magic Damage is a single hit of magical damage. The type is determined by the WS. Usually INT vs mobINT affects their ratio, but not always. You can't get additional attacks, nor crits (magical or otherwise) but they are affected by MAB. You can't miss Magical WSs, but you can have them resisted to the point that they do no damage.
   
3. Critcal WSs are just like Physical WSs except that they can crit. Numbers are all that matters to determine if they are good or bad which is why plenty of weapons have multiple Crit WSs.
   
4. Ignores Defense is a kind of Physical Damage WS that ignores defense. The amount increases with the amount of TP used in the WS. They are 1 hit. Generally unused, even the Empyrean ones, because reducing defense isn't as practical as increasing Attack.
   
5. AOEs can be any kind of other WS type, but it affects an predetermined area that is intrinsic to the WS. While some AoEs share Ranges and Areas, there are many different kinds with different applications.
   
6. Additional Affect WSs generally do damage and do another affect as well. They can either do the affect as part of the WS by default or they can modify the additional affect by TP level. Either way, they still follow the guidelines of Physical Damage if they are Physical, magical if they are magical, etc. Sniper Shit lowers Int and TP can crit, so it is still a crit based WS, but it also does an additional affect. Shockwave is an AoE that sleeps targets. Additional Affects are just add ons. They can be good or bad, but generally they aren't useful because they don't do more than just doing better damage would do.
   
7. Stun WSs are a type of Additional Affect but they stun. They are always 1 hits and generally do bad damage to compensate for their utility. They were all phased out when Stunning with BLM and then later DNC became the norm. I.E. no one really wants them back because they would rather do damage with their TP. This would basically be the first example why we don't want every WS relevant. It is unpleasant to have to WS for stunning since it takes time to accumulate the TP for them and then you have to sit on them and wait to react to the mob. It was fun to stun gobbie bombs in Valkurm, but I don't want to go back to that.
   
8. Drain WSs are similar to Additional Affects, but they differ in 1 aspect. They lack WS properties. Sanguine Blade doesn't have WS properties Catastrophe does. That's about the only real difference between them, other than one is magical damage and one is physical damage.
   
9. Restore WSs are like Drain WS in that they don't have WS properties, but they don't do any damage to the mob because they aren't targeting the mob. Instead it targets the player.

There are only a couple of WSs that don't fall into those categories. Most of them are swords. Spirits Within, Atonement, Requescat, and Wildfire are about the only WSs that don't act like normal WSs.

At the end of the day, they can create new WSs types, but more than likely, they will just adjust what they already have. STR based WSs are always going to be good since you are double dipping. DEX based WSs that crit make sense, but just about any other stat is just for aesthetics and will be inferior to those two for damage output. Unless your job has an over abundance of something like MND on RDM or WHM for Requiescat or Realmraiser, those WSs are generally just not good, because that was how the game was programmed and when the WSs were designed, they didn't compensate.

When they change either level adjustment or defense or both, they will change how some of these work. Ignores defense might become good. WSs with heavy attack or damage boosts will probably still be good. Everything else may become subjective.

Will CT as a VIT based WS that Ignores Defense be worth killing Chloris among other things? Probably not. Quietus might be ok though. It is more of an issue of DRG vs DRK and STR vs VIT WSs.

[Yinnyth]

You have to realize that if all WS are useable or rather should need to be used, then people have to carry around the gear for all their WSs. Some of us just don't have that kind of space.

I assume you're being ironic because we all have exactly the same amount of space, and yet I, being your equal as far as space is concerned, am requesting this change knowing full-well the burdens of situational gear. Try BRD with no Gjallarhorn.

Fie on your inventory woes. We all have them, and unless FFXI ditches console support, we always will have them. Take your pick:
1. Every situation requires exactly the same strategy, but you only need one set of gear to optimize the strategy.
2. Every situation is unique and it is impossible to have the ideal gear for all those situations.

I pick #2.

[ManaKing]

I'm a RDM, don't talk to me about your woes. You CAN get a G-Horn much like I have an Excalibur. My inventory is still full as I get closer to ideal gear.

[Yinnyth]

Hrm... perhaps I'm not as good at making a point as I assumed I was. I'll try being more long-winded and complete. I'm not saying "woe is me, for my inventory problems are worse than yours". I'm saying we all have the same inventory available to us. It is not a situation unique to you.

Before I got Gjallarhorn, yes, I did carry around 17 instruments everywhere I went as well as idle set, fast song set, wind instrument skill set, string instrument skill set, cure set, haste set (for reducing recast timer on spells like cursna), hMP set, TP set, WS set, plus a couple pieces of MP gear so I could still cast raise while weakened. This was before mog sacks even. All of us feel the sting of limited inventory. I do not doubt that you have inventory issues on an epic scale, and I'll even concede that your inventory issues are worse than mine, but in case I'm not being overly clear about this: it's the same situation for all of us.

Yet I fail to see why limited inventory is a valid argument against making every WS in the game useful in some way or another. You could just as easily make the complaint that there aren't enough macro slots to accomodate all the gear swaps and WSs you'd have to use.

SE's new talking point is "fostering skillful play", and this is one area they could revisit to that end. There's only a handful of WSs that people use. Make the other WSs useful in their own, unique ways so people can make conscious and enlightened decisions about what WS they'll use and when they'll use it. This problem is pervasive in many areas of the game. There's only a couple of foods people use, there's only a couple of meds people use, there's only a couple types of ammo people use, there's only a couple party setups people use. These are all areas of the game ripe for change which would reward player knowledge, preparation and skill.

So again, fie on your inventory woes. We all have them. Why should that stop us from making changes which help "foster skillful play"?

[ManaKing]

I agree we all need a larger inventory. I think 99 inventory would be enough for me, so long as I didn't obsess over situational items. I'd still have to pick and choose if I wanted all of my mage gear or all of my melee gear. Not all jobs have clogged inventories, but almost every mage/support job does because we have specialized gear for specific magic functions. I also refuse to give up my echo drops spot, ever. There are medicines that are needed for everyday play and hopefully there will be more, since they are adjusting medicated status.

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KOR is in the same category that a lot of WSs are in. Single hit with high damage does little in a game where Ukko's is 2 hits high damage and can crit. Ukko's is probably the best designed WS to show off exactly how much WAR can do. You can double attack on both hits and crit on both hits for massive damage. It is really well designed to make a significant difference in output based on your WS gear.

If anything, all the Relic WSs need to be 2hit. Same things with the ignores defense Empy WSs. At least then you can get the chance at full assistance from multiple attack stats like double attack. It's also not as though a 2nd hit is all good things, but it would be an improvement. The 2nd hit wouldn't benefit from the increased accuracy from WSs so you might have to take different gear into consideration.

It's not like you can't have single hit WSs, but unless they are like Torcleaver, don't expect them to be used.....probably ever. The other thing you could do is adjust the elemental gorgets and belts so they increase 1 hit WSs by significantly more than multi-hit WSs.

It really does all come down to numbers, but how well those numbers are implemented determines how satisfied players are with their WSs. The most important thing for WSs is that they output the same amount of effort that you input. When you gear yourself to the absolute best that a WS can do and the damage is either underwhelming or largely inconsistent, you usually find unhappy players there. That's basically every Relic WS. You took the time to make a Relic and gear for their WSs and you find that you should really look elsewhere if you want the satisfaction of good WSing.