Emperors Sword

[Noxifer]

The base item is still there ... just glamoured.

Unless I am mistaken in how glamour (in the world of FF14 not just glamour prisms) work.

In a way, you're right. The whole glamour thing is just casting an illusion on the gear you're using to make it look like something else. Hence why bikini tanks can still take as much damage without going splat as a tincan tank. Does it look weird? Yes. Will it disturb people? Yes. Will it disturb the enemy, seeing their thrust to an "unprotected" belly go clank! and not even scratch the skin? Sadly no ;_; It should.

And from a combat standpoint, it would make equal sense to make your weapon invisible -- the enemy wouldn't be able to predict where the point of your weapon is unless they were really, really, really good.

To make this game more realistic (keeping the 'fantasy' setting in mind, of course) and immersive, ridiculous or half-naked glamours should give a bonus to attack and defence for the first X seconds of a fight, due to the enemy being so shocked at your appearance. And glamouring on an invisible weapon on a weapon with more reach than fists/knives should also provide a bonus to attack and parry (or block in case of shields), since the enemy wouldn't be able to predict its location as easily. To make things fair, it should also give a penalty to attack and defence to your team mates unless they also have the glamour buff, because they'll be equally distracted by your appearance, and/or worrying about your life and sanity.

Will we get that? No. Because it would be really, really tricky to program in a system that checks whether your glamour is 'appropriate' or not. And because everyone would utilize that in order to get the buff, which in a fairly short amount of time would lead to the enemies becoming immune to it because it's so commonplace.

And because most people don't seem to remember that your glamoured outfit is an illusion (based on the comments to "lightly clad" people in Coerthas/Snowcloak, and 'muh immersion' complaints regarding bikini/snowman tanks), SE will keep implementing glamour items and weapons based on how reasonable they would be as actual equipment, and not as illusions ^^;

(Thanks for reading my long ramble.)