Skill Branching: "Everyone Wins" Concept

[ForsakenRoe]

Would be cool to have materia on your main weapon apply a skill buff but considering how often SE changes skills and introduce more jobs I'm sure while it's doable, it's probably a lot more resource intensive to replace old skills. I can see at most skills like sprint duration/cd or role skills like Bloodbath/Second Wind get a buff, but then materia can be applied to every gear rather than just the weapon and modify the skills in different ways.

IDK how others have it, but I'd limit it to 'these High Materia (name wip) can only be melded to weapons, and only one can be melded per job' for two reasons. One, so you have to choose which effect you want instead of just having several/all of them, and two, to force the materia to be used only on the job it's intended for, to avoid the 'remeld gear' issue that WAR used to face due to it's non-participation in the DHit meld loadout that the other tanks used. Alternatively, melding it to the Soul Crystal itself, or creating a new menu that lets you choose from the different effects that is attached to the Soul Crystal. Idk how the job-rock works though, if it's possible to give it a materia slot or anything

Role actions are a good idea too. Like, I'd make Peloton get 'you can use it in combat, and it lasts 10s, but now has a 3min CD'. This doesn't stamp on SCH's toes, because SCH has that effect natively, it doesn't have to sacrifice it's 'High Materia' slot to get it. But a BRD using that effect would have to make the decision to use that, over other effects like, idk, 'Warden's Esuna effect is now AOE' or 'Minne now heals upon application for 300p', or 'Troubadour now applies a barrier upon application equal to 250p' or whatever. Maybe the speed is good for safety getting to positions faster, maybe you'd prefer to have the AOE Esuna for P12S P2 to save some healer GCDs, maybe you'd rather have the extra defensiveness of the Troubadour because the damage from Caloric being cast kinda hurts

And I wouldn't want a single one of those options to lack a tangeable gameplay effect (and perhaps utility without a direct impact on rDPS). If it's just bonus damage and/or a visual rehaul, that should just come from item level or skill/aura glamours, respectively.

I wouldn't be entirely against it if it were a VFX change and effect change combined. Like, for DRK, an effect that says 'Rampart is upgraded to Shadowskin, increasing it's mitigation to 25%, and also applying a barrier upon use equal to 10% of the DRK's maximum HP'. Just changing the animation would be bleh, but changing it while also making it look different feels a bit more justified

Choosing a 'skill set' from the Soul Crystal by melding a special materia to it could be a way to implement 'skill glamour sets' I guess. Like, melding a 'Umbral-tainted Materia' allows DRK to have all it's skills be recolored to be umbral/holy looking, all whites and light blues instead of blacks and reds