New savage raid gear has weapon and armour effects. Thoughts?

[Packetdancer]

Oof damn that sucks. I never done any panda savage raids lol not really a midcore or hardcore raider. thanks tho!

I will note that once raid tiers are no longer current, it does become easier to farm them for glamour purposes. I helped take some folks through E8S and E12S a couple of weeks ago, so that they could get some Edenchoir and Edenmorn glam they wanted; at this point, you can do E12S (the final Eden raid) without needing to see lions in phase 1, and finishing phase 2 before Intermediate Relativity. So to drag people through, you really only need to teach Junction: Shiva, Junction: Titan, and -- admittedly the sticking point for some 'let's get you some glamour' groups -- Basic Relativity.

For anyone who doesn't do savage, that basically translates to "the fight is a great deal shorter, and you can skip both of the mechanics that could turn into party finder memes when it was current."

So if you want the weapon, but are willing to wait some while -- probably into next expansion, admittedly -- it will eventually become possible to just roll in unsynched and sort of brute-force the fight for glamour purposes.

(Admittedly, I half-think that once a raid tier's expansion is past, they should open up the savage gear to be bought at inflated rates with the normal raid tokens. Then there'd still be a purpose to the stuff you sometimes end up with in your inventory after raid roulette. Want the Edenmorn fending top? Go run E12 normal and get like... 24 chest tokens, which could be used in place of 8 savage books. Once it's no longer a current tier, the gear's only purpose -- save for niche cases like BiS for certain ultimates -- is as glamour, so I feel like giving an easier path to get it wouldn't be terrible. But that's neither here nor there.)

[Lunaxia]

It's a bit garish for my tastes. I prefer the simple design and palette of the last tier, since we don't really get much in the way of sleeker, cool-toned armour sets, but the heavy gold and bright reds and purples were always destined to come back eventually, I suppose.

The armour itself isn't too bad (though I wish they would diversify their concept of a "robe") but the glowy parts give off too much of a chuunibyou vibe. It feels more like dungeon gear, and I usually expect a bit more elegance from savage sets. I also can't help but feel they're playing on players' addiction to glowing weapons to draw more people into savage, which isn't exactly wrong, but it feels a bit underhand...

Lately I can't shake the feeling their key demographic is becoming younger and younger these days. I can't really put my finger on it, but when I see the excitement over stuff like this, I do wonder. Or perhaps I've just been playing for too long.

[Packetdancer]

I also can't help but feel they're playing on players' addiction to glowing weapons to draw more people into savage, which isn't exactly wrong, but it feels a bit underhand...

To be fair, it's always felt weird to me that the savage weapons were frequently underwhelming (though when they were good, they were generally very good) compared to like... crafted weapons from extreme trial materials. Whether or not you like these specific glowy weapons -- and I will say, I don't like these ones half so well as the Asphodelos ones -- I do kind of like the idea of savage weapons which have a chance that you do not immediately glam straight over them.

[LuciaMirain]

I love it. Am looking forward to clearing this and being edgy and shiny af.

[Lunaxia]

To be fair, it's always felt weird to me that the savage weapons were frequently underwhelming (though when they were good, they were generally very good) compared to like... crafted weapons from extreme trial materials. Whether or not you like these specific glowy weapons -- and I will say, I don't like these ones half so well as the Asphodelos ones -- I do kind of like the idea of savage weapons which have a chance that you do not immediately glam straight over them.

What you call underwhelming, I call understated and well-designed. I don't agree that a weapon needs a neon glow that can be seen from the other side of Limsa to be worthwhile, and we already have relics and primal weapons to fill that particular niche. Bringing savage weapons into it feels unnecessary, especially when that "glow" looks like a rehash of what we've seen before.

[VerdeLuck]

They look pretty good, I hope the effects are for the normal mode gear as well, it would be pretty bad to give everyone who doesn't clear savage a gimped version of gear clearly designed with particle effects in mind.

[Packetdancer]

What you call underwhelming, I call understated and well-designed. I don't agree that a weapon needs a neon glow that can be seen from the other side of Limsa to be worthwhile, and we already have relics and primal weapons to fill that particular niche. Bringing savage weapons into it feels unnecessary, especially when that "glow" looks like a rehash of what we've seen before.

I should clarify I don't mean that a good weapon design needs to be glowing; it's very possible to have lovely weapons that don't glow, and conversely it's possible to have glowing weapons that are just plain ugly. (Certain stages of some Eureka weapons definitely fall into that last category, in my opinion.)

Truthfully, if I'm to have a glowing weapon, I personally usually like the glow a little understated; I vastly preferred the Solstice Recollection stage of the AST relic last expansion to any of the later, more ostentatiously glowing steps. In fact, one reason I do like the Asphodelos weapons is that they are somewhat understated and elegant in many cases. The WHM weapon is basically just a staff (which, if you dye it chestnut brown, even has a wood grain and looks lovely) until drawn, at which point even then the glowing element isn't like... some massive neon flame.

Heck, the Edenchoir cane is one of my favorite WHM weapons in the game, and it only "glows" inasmuch as you could say that, for instance, the Bluespirit weapons glow (e.g. the crystal portion is slightly luminous). It's understated, elegant, and just plain beautiful.

But it feels to me like the weapons team often (albeit, not always) puts in a little more effort on glowy weapon designs, hence why I like the idea of them doing that for savage. Because there are many, many raid weapons which I've felt had little to distinguish them from, say, leveling gear. Whereas, whether you think the glow is garish or not, the model for the crafted Susano BLM weapon is better than a lot of BLM raid weapon designs. In my opinion, at least... which is, of course, subjective.

For this specific image? Glow aside, the shape of some of these weapons looks good to me, at least based on the image. The WAR axe looks pretty solid, I like the option for some NIN weapons that aren't curved and spikey, I'm certainly hoping for a SAM weapon where the sheath isn't covered in "kibble" (e.g. "stuff glued onto things to make it look ornate"), etc.

(Of course, if we eventually end up with something like certain Eureka weapon stages where you literally can no longer see the weapon through the glow effect, I may eat those words. Hopefully, there's no finger slowly curling closed on that monkey's paw...)

[Elucesta]

I dont really like it, its seems to....rough imo. It just looks like big glowy armor to look "cool"

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

I prefer my gear to be simple and elegant.

Overly intricate, draped in accessories, lots of bits and pieces stuff doesn't interest me. All my glams use fairly simple gear pieces.

[SargeTheSeagull]

Best raid set in the game. By a lot. I'm getting every single piece in this picture.