Beyond 3.0 Primals, their weapons and the elemental wheel

With the inclusion of Shiva to the game, the Primals now complete the elemental wheel reminiscent of past final fantasy games.
The following suggestion will look at a way to incorporate that wheel as a tactical aspect to Primal fights in the future - assuming that there will be a Savage mode Primal encounter added at some point down the line. This suggestion isn't a hot-fix and would require time to balance with current/upcoming gear.
(At present Extreme encounters are challenging enough, hence why this is titled a Post-3.0 suggestion).


Ok, this is going to be a long read, so first off some reference.

The Elemental Wheel:
Earth > Lightning > Water > Fire > Ice > Wind > Earth

As Primals:
Titan > Ramuh > Leviathan > Ifrit > Shiva > Garuda > Titan

Each Primal has their own weapon set, which are wonderfully designed, but are mere stop gaps on weapon progression and, more likely, skipped over all together due to other options now available - hopefully this will suggestion will breathe new purpose into these weapons and make them have that "Primal Power" feel that would be in-keeping with the lore of FF.

The Basic Idea
Completing a savage mode Primal fight will drop an item required for upgrading the current weapons to bring them back up to a competitive ilevel, akin to Levi's mirror. Perhaps more than one item will be required making it more of a challenge or to upgrade the weapons in steps rather then a single massive jump.

How they compare to Relics or raid Weapons
For arguments sake, let's assume the Savage modes are released at a time that Relic/Raid weapons are at i130; the Primal weapons would have an ilevel of i125 thus not being the highest weapon available or making them overpowered. However, the Primal weapons have added elemental resistance and elemental effectiveness which make them superior to the relic/raid weapons when in a Primal fight encounter.
Open world, Raids and Dungeons would still see the Relic/Raid weapons as the most sought after; plus they would probably be needed for completing a Savage mode Primal in the first instance before gaining the item necessary for the i125 Primal weapon. The Primal weapon would be a top tier situational weapon, not an outright replacement.

Elemental Weapons
An elemental weapon will have increased strength against the weaker element in the wheel noted above, i.e. the Ifrit weapon will deal extra damage against Shiva since Fire > Ice. Likewise, the Ifrit weapon will increase resistance against Ifrit.

Players and Parties will need to decide whether they'd prefer to have extra damage for quicker kills/DPS stages such as Titans Heart, or the added survivability of increased resistance, or a mix of both; for example Tanks & Healers being resistant while DPS go for effectiveness.

As mentioned, these weapons wouldn't be outright replacements for Relic/raid weapons, and they wouldn't be necessary for completing the Primals much like Nexus isn't necessary for Coil, but rather an endgame top tier weapon, and only for a given situation in order to gain that extra edge. Or an alternative weapon for jobs which may not be your main but still have some decent power behind them.

Job Specific Encounter
I'll add this in as it was also a thought I had in relation to this and I know people would like to see more job specific content in game.
This Primal weapon upgrade route could incorporate some sort of solo Primal encounter that you have to face in order to complete the upgrade alongside the Savage item drop(s).

This may be something the Dev team have already considered, planned or scrapped, but it would be good to hear some community feedback on the idea and hopefully can be pushed towards Yoshi & Co. as a way to not let those lovely Primal weapons sit on our retainers for the rest of time.

TL;DR
Primal weapons upgraded for elemental advantage in Primal fights.


[Blame the 1000 character limit]

If you hit the 1000 character limit, you can just hit the edit button and add more then the limit.