WAR Job Ability 90+: "Weapon Mastery"

[Shadowgabriel]

like the idea but i think it would be better as a single use with a long recast rather than the 2 min.

[Nvr]

This idea is like almost every other idea posted on these boards thus far. Some absurd request that essentially overpowers one job to the point where no others are required and that would completely imbalance several aspects of the game. It's no different than the general thread where players are requesting the feature to be able to exchange one seal for another. Any idea that completely remove diversity from the game in such a way as that is terrible. It's no surprise to me that you refer to yourself as a full time warrior. If you want to be able to use the abilities that other jobs have access to and that warrior does not, then go level those jobs instead of asking for them.

You really are the voice of reason.

[Valkrist]

In terms of Abyssea triggers, if this is your fear, you should already feel this way since based on the situation (and luck) a WAR really can trigger just about all Red and Blue triggers. Planning ahead, all a WAR has to do is change his/her sub to reduce the chances of not being able to trigger. Soooo, that being said, SE already had this in mind when creating Abyssea, otherwise they would have focused on ALL job specific ws only to trigger Reds and Blues.

It is true that WAR currently can proc most !! for red, but it is absolutely not true for blue. This Job Ability would effectively remove BLM, COR, DNC, DRG, DRK, MNK, NIN, RNG, SAM, SCH, SMN, THF, and WHM from ever being used in Abyssea again for procing blue. That alone unbalances Abyssea's need for anything but WAR and a healer.

They did have this in mind when they designed red !! to be general WS that can be used by most jobs. It's red specifically because this is the key item proc that can be used by everyone. Whereas blue !! are from job specific WSes for things that are gear drop specific. The harder things and more sought after things. In other words need a higher variety of jobs to have an increased chance of drop rate.

Being able to more efficiently trigger Red and Blue inside Abyssea doesn't really upset over all game balance especially since Abyssea is a direct contradiction to "Game Balance" in the 1st place lol. Any job can alter their intended job role inside Abyssea by choosing the right Atmas upon entry, so lets just go ahead and say, who cares if a WAR could trigger all Red and Blue... I mean really, who would care? I mean, I would be pretty happy about it personally, but my point is WAR is already on the edge of this reality as we speak.

What you don't understand is what you just said was the reality of things even before Abyssea. Everything was limited to a very few selected jobs, restricting players that don't have those jobs to never be included. Yes Abyssea upset the balance, or lack of balance that FFXI originally had. At least now with the !! system, the people that only have jobs like PUP can be invited to participate. This greatly rebalanced the game so that the not so popular jobs are now viable in certain roles.

So, lets toss that fear to the wind since Abyssea party sizes are down to 2-3 members anyway.

While this is true for you and a lot of people, this is not true for everyone. Not everyone has the luxury or the ability to be in lowman groups. Just because this change doesn't do anything game breaking for you aside from it just being "cool", doesn't mean this doesn't effect other players on a massive scale. Not everyone can lowman things simply because their jobs of preference are not the preferred jobs of the general populous. In a single swipe, you completely denied thirteen jobs from participating. That translates into a lot of players missing out on content just because you just want to be cooler.

I say it sounds much more logical to give WAR access to all the weapon skills based on the 13 weapons we can use since they have the unique pleasure of wielding all these weapons. A weapon skill doesn't make a job unique, job abilities make a job unique. With that logic alone, a job ability that gave access to weapon skills would speak DIRECTLY to the functionality built into a WAR. SCH is a great example of this. SE designed SCHs to be versatile Mages, giving them access to both sides of Light and Dark magic right. That's their DESIGN. A WAR is designed to be the MOST versatile melee job in the game, so that's their DESIGN.

Just because WAR has access to thirteen weapon groups does not mean that they have become or should become a master of all of them.

What makes a job unique is more than their Job Abilities. Their ability to use job specific WS greatly effect what defines them as that class. What you've essentially stated is that every job should have access to every weapon, because it's not the weapon that defines the job what-so-ever. Yes, what will DRK be when WAR gets access to Guillotine? A WAR that rarely uses it's Job Abilities, with just slightly higher skill as well as access to some magic, but lacks every single thing that WAR powerful. Yes that's defines a DRK, his ability to Soul Eater; because we all know that WARs are equally good at using scythes as well.

Just because WAR has access to so many weapon types and SCH has access to so many magic types, doesn't mean they're meant to be used in all situations, or even in any situation. Just because my car has four wheels doesn't automatically make it just as effective in the water as four wheeled cars specifically designed to be amphibious.

WARs are very versatile, but they aren't always asked to come to certain events due to other jobs simply because of their differences. SCH's the same way. SCH can both nuke and cure, but it by no means can replace either a nuker or a healer. Your suggestion is simply saying SCH by DESIGN should replace BLM and a WHM. WARs should replace all other DDs, tanks, healers and nukers. I mean, they're DESIGNed to be versatile. You're the one that said,

Any job can alter their intended job role inside Abyssea by choosing the right Atmas upon entry

[kingfury]

WARs are very versatile, but they aren't always asked to come to certain events due to other jobs simply because of their differences. SCH's the same way. SCH can both nuke and cure, but it by no means can replace either a nuker or a healer. Your suggestion is simply saying SCH by DESIGN should replace BLM and a WHM. WARs should replace all other DDs, tanks, healers and nukers. I mean, they're DESIGNed to be versatile. You're the one that said,

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lol looking back over this post again... I just can't bring myself to even begin to process these horrible responses man lol. It's like you're agreeing with me and disagreeing with at the same time on some of these >< lol but I'm gonna show you enough respect to respond though since you did take the time to at least create a long post my friend. Thank you for your feedback Valkrist /salute ... even though I truly couldn't make heads or tails of most of it >< Most of the stuff I said you simply took completely out of context and went 360 degrees in the other direction lol so perhaps there was just a bit of misunderstanding going on. It's all good though

[Redfrost]

While it is a pretty good idea I think that since War's are the kings of Parses there really doesn't need to be anything added. Having war's able to proc most all ws's really doesn't do much for a end game player. I guess soloing/dual boxing it would help but we have a ton of stuff that is simply amazing. I just don't seen a point to having all of the ws's unless it is for procing and even then it would be a stretch.

[kingfury]

While it is a pretty good idea I think that since War's are the kings of Parses there really doesn't need to be anything added. Having war's able to proc most all ws's really doesn't do much for a end game player. I guess soloing/dual boxing it would help but we have a ton of stuff that is simply amazing. I just don't seen a point to having all of the ws's unless it is for procing and even then it would be a stretch.

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Say wha'zit?! Nothing needs to be added??! >< lol No thanks! I've had my full share of updates where WAR got nothing(or nothing great lol), so I'd have to disagree with you there friend lol. Plus, damage output isn't the topic here lol and AGAIN I'll say that Abyssea is NOT the reason I put together this proposed JA lol. I know it may sound like it since triggering Red and Blue is a large part of a WARs life right now due to Abyssea, but my concern is the natural progression of WARs abilities The point of gaining access to all the standard, and possible quested weapon skills, would be to make sense of having access and very efficient skill lvls in 13 usable weapons ^^; so no "stretch" here.
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Anywho, thanks to the great feedback from everyone, I've made some edits that I think sound pretty fair:

Recast: *Edit* 4mins
Duration: *Edit* 2(maybe 3) successful (weapon skill hits target. If the ws misses the target, the weapon skill charge will not be consumed) weapon skill charges. The possibility of a 3rd weapon skill charge could be random similar to how Seigan + Third Eye works, but at least 2 charges will be guaranteed. An Icon displaying the active JA would disappear once the ws charges have been consumed. The 2-3 ws charges will remain active for up to 2 mins if not used before wearing off.

[Ragmar]

5 min recast 3 min duration to go with berserk and aggressor cause why not lol. It's not game breaking at all and tbh wouldnt likely get much use. WAR's aren't going to abandon GA's to wield scythes so they can use guillotine 3/5 minutes. Why not ... because we do more DMG already with our GA's and would do more than with a Scythe still. It'd be fun and totally in line with job progression. NB4 WAR Tachi: Fudo (I dont think I can support relic/mythic/emp WS's) but WSNM not a prob. The most useful I could see this would be 2 WAR swappaing usage of another weapons WS to create skillchains but lets be real when was the last non solo skillchain you saw that was planned out. When I low man WHM MNK THF BLU BLM we often chain light to distortion using MNK BLU THF and BLM MB its a lot of fun to take 50% of the mobs HP after proc but I dont see others doing this ever anymore. I even get /tells asking "how did you do that!!!" from the aby only crowd.

[kingfury]

5 min recast 3 min duration to go with berserk and aggressor cause why not lol. It's not game breaking at all and tbh wouldnt likely get much use. WAR's aren't going to abandon GA's to wield scythes so they can use guillotine 3/5 minutes. Why not ... because we do more DMG already with our GA's and would do more than with a Scythe still. It'd be fun and totally in line with job progression. NB4 WAR Tachi: Fudo (I dont think I can support relic/mythic/emp WS's) but WSNM not a prob. The most useful I could see this would be 2 WAR swappaing usage of another weapons WS to create skillchains but lets be real when was the last non solo skillchain you saw that was planned out. When I low man WHM MNK THF BLU BLM we often chain light to distortion using MNK BLU THF and BLM MB its a lot of fun to take 50% of the mobs HP after proc but I dont see others doing this ever anymore. I even get /tells asking "how did you do that!!!" from the aby only crowd.

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Lol it's true that many still don't understand how to get the most out of skillchains, it's unfortunate, but true ^^;
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Well, in response to "WAR's aren't going to abandon GA's to wield scythes so they can use guillotine", I say part of that reason is because most (and I mean like damn near every WAR that I've known lol) WARs rarely ever take the time to actually procure the highest dmg'ing non "Main job" weapon and REALLY test the limits of what they can do with it. I'm talking OUTSIDE Abyssea testing of course lol, and when I say testing the limits I mean like pushing for 1k+ dmg (or more) with any weapon skill. Why would a WAR put down a GA if they don't have experience pushing the limits of any other weapon? They wouldn't lol.
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A+ weapons are pretty easy to do dmg with, you just point and shoot and BOOSH. Non Main-job weapons take a bit of testing to get the most out of them. A good example test that I did a few months back was successfully clearing 1k dmg with Combo more than once lol. Then testing to see what I could skillchain together to push it further.
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"Why would I do that when I can use a GA", is what most folks would ask, unfortunately lol. I just laugh, and say you're one of those people that would question,"Why would I ride a bike when I have a car?" It's about enjoying the freedom of choice and variety not just being the best at one weapon. You should strive to get the most out of any selected weapon option ^^ That's what a WAR is, VARIETY and CHOICE. I consider it VERY limited that some jobs like WHM can only wield like 4 weapons, and have to be stuck using their Main weapon only if they want to do any kind of moderate melee dmg. That's just not fun in my eyes ,though it's perfectly fine for others.
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I would say given the opportunity to test all the new possibilities that this JA would open up, it would be completely up the user to make the most use out of it. Which would help clearly distinguish even more so a professional WAR from an inexperienced-standard WAR. An inexperienced WAR would do well to just focus on Abyssea triggers with it, and GA and Axe until they put time into mastering the other weapons. I'm almost certain a pro WAR would bring new light to most all of the under appreciated ws's that most other jobs neglect due to just plain o'l misunderstanding of how to use them. Either way it would be a blast in my opinion ^^

[hiko]

I had a similar idea but not war restricted:
<skill> mastery merit (2lvl): lower 'weapon skills rank' by 1
(wsr 1= all job , wsr2 sub job need, wsr3 main job needed ex hexa strike is wsr3 (whm main only) with one point in club mastery it became wsr2 ( active /whm)with 2 point wsr1 (all job available))


on your idea instead off limiting in #WS just limit to the curently equiped weapon
5min recast/duration, switch weapon cancel it

[kingfury]

@ Hiko: That would be interesting