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They're great upgrades from dungeon weapons / free company weapons but aside from their physical appearance and base stats they aren't very special. It would be cool if Ifrit/garuda/titan weapons had special effects like "chance to deal fire damage with potency 120 to all enemies in a cone before you" or something. Just a thought.
Thats why 1.0 was a better game. You had variety! Truly sucks for those who missed out.
A lot of unique things are lost when you attempt to cater to all possible fields of players.
Honestly I like this game but I've played it before, In the other MMOs released. Game has 99% borrowed ideas and maybe about 1% anything unique. Personally I found the most dumbfounding thing is weapons like "Firebrand" offer no bonus to Fire aspect damage (Even though the goldsmithing questline babbles on about how its affinity to fire etc), and instead offers a miniscule amount of Fire Resistance instead.
It seems like this game just dumbed down everything. Stats consist of nothing but the most basic of required combat statistics (Variables to effect Attack, Defense, Magic Attack, Magic Defense, HP, MP, and "Subskill" like Parry, Skill Speed, etc)... But any unique effects like Enhancing certain spells or abilities on AF or something... POOF.
AF armor is nothing more than a mediocre stepping stone thats as forgettable as the level 25 dungeon armor. Personally I'd love if they'd bring back some unique states. I don't need lame fluff, But say..
Firebrand. Enhances Fire Spell damage by 5 (10) Potency (NQ/HQ).
Icebrand. Enhances Ice Spell Damage by 5 (10) Potency. (same).
Both would be replaced in a few levels, but at the time they are there would give nice bonuses. I mean, Primal Weapons could give any number of unique bonuses. We may not all agree on Diablo 2 but it had a way of creating very unique and fun items, and even though the entire game is a grind, its that unique aspect of the game that kept many people coming back. Always something new and interesting to find. Item diversity has always been my biggest complaint with Modern MMOs.
I don't really want to preach on and I know my opinion isn't tantamount, but Item diversity is what i loved about FFXI. Items felt unique. When i had a "Fire Sword" it had chances to do Fire damage, not add +3 Elemental Resistance. They did have Elemental Resistance but they had many other things. I just wish every single modern MMO didn't go the "I.Lv, Bland Stats" route with gear design. Its lazy, unimaginative, and every game before it has done it.
Is it so much to ask for a little variety? Maybe add a new tier of Spectral Fire/Ive to BLM Relic, a New Tier of Aetherflow to a Piece of SMN Relic. Make relic armor/Weapons unique, but spread the love to other Blue Tier+ items.
Ifrit Books could all have a chance to deal bonus Fire Damage with a Potency of ~30 on a Spell/Skill/chance of burn. Garuda Wind with ~50 Potency, Titan Earth With a 20 Potency+Chance of Sustained Slow. (Think like a Mini-Enkindle Effect. Of course this is just a spitballed idea)
Adding depth to items and weapons beyond their DPS Value and how much of you rMain Stat they give you would be fantastic. It doesn't have to be complicated or gamebreaking, but would it kill an MMO company to not Copy>Paste gear progression from every other MMO?
Edit; This could even be passed on to Crafting. The "Relic" weapons of each craft could give like, a 10% chance to Boost potency of your Next move by 20%. There are so many things that don't need to be gamebreaking but can be done to make MMOs more interesting but it feels like all new MMOs just want to follow the same Copy>Paste gear formula of the one before it so its easier for people to understand and they don't have to use their brains as much.
^ Existed in 1.0.
Feels like a large downgrade to me then, and thats upsetting.
All of the AF Armor had bonuses, that were generally better then the GC armor set bonuses. Chiran Zabrans Tempest, and most of the other dungeon 50 weapons, all had special effects on them. Conjurers got to choose between 3 or 4 different elemental wands at 45, with bonuses for that particular element. I believe the reason they got rid of the elemental bonuses and weapons/armor, is because they got rid of the element wheel. Windbite might be labelled as wind damage, but since there's no elemental wheel, for all intents and purposes, it's just damage. Nothing has a particular weakness or strength to it. As a primary WHM, that makes me a little happy. As a gamer, not so much. WHM couldn't kill anything easily in 1.0 (half hour to kill Kokoroon, I timed it, and almost died. And i probably killed him about 30 times trying to get Kokoroons Scale Mail and Nestpicker), whereas a BLM could come in and nuke it in 2 minutes. Yes, I know, one is dps and one is healing, but because of the elemental wheel, WHM was at a fairly large disadvantage if it was the only class/job you had at 50 and you wanted to farm gear for classes you were leveling. Personally, I want the wheel back. But it's not a game breaker for me.
The primal weapons did add bonus elemental damage respective to their primal (fire,wind).
Yoshi has also stated that they will bring back Armor set/Weapon bonus's if they deem it worth balancing around and have time for it, so as long as it's feasible to have people create and then balance it, and if it's wanted enough, it may come back. But probably not.
i must admit i do love the battle system in this game but when theres no elemental resistance to think off it is a very straght forward system of hit-hit-DOT-hit-DOT-charge-hit-DOT-heal- i hope they do have some changes plannedin the future but i do find the world facinating and i would LOVE if say for ifrit you saw people putting on fire resistant gear in order to protect against the extra fire damage