Weapon potentials, utility, and versatility

[LonelyGaruga]

So, reading around here, there has been a distinct recurring complaint with the game: a lack of a reason to use anything but the highest damaging weapon available. Usually, I see Elder Pain being cited as one weapon that actually has utility. And by usually, I mean it's basically the only one that gets name dropped. Which leads me to think, surely there must be other weapons that are actually worth using outside of the biggest stick? All-class weapons are obvious, but not all of them are actually good (Knuckles come to mind), and some, like Madam's Umbrella, have the problem of being rather unwieldy to equip, leading to weaker weapons (in this case, Lambda Aristin) being preferred. With some weapon potentials making weapons worth using over more damaging ones, and some weapons having awkward equipment requirements, the strongest weapon clearly isn't always the best one.

With that in mind, I wanted to do here is create some sort of discussion on which weapons are actually worth using, besides the ones with the highest S/R/T-ATK. Even if it's just a weapon's potential making it more damaging under specific circumstances (which I wouldn't know if any exist in the first place because pretty much no one talks about these things and I'm not exactly in a position to test them all personally), it would be useful to know about for people trying to decide on what to aim for. As a personal example, I'm curious to know whether the Baridran Wand's potential would allow it to outdamage the 11* Wand from the XQ stones or not. It would be nice to know so that I can be certain of whether or not I should try to get it, as I would like to aim to make myself as useful as possible to the players around me, and maximizing damage output would be one way to do so. I have little doubt that others want to improve their efficiency as well, so why not have a thread to talk this kind of thing over?

So yeah. This is an attempt to encourage people to discuss which weapons are worth using, whether it be for damage in specific situations or a useful weapon potential, or whether their all-class designation is worth exploiting or not. I don't know if this is worth talking about, but hey, might as well try to start a topic on it.

[Shinmarizu]

We have some weapons, or rather, some new potentials that make certain weapons more useful, whether it be enhanced strength for a given PA, or bonus damage against certain enemy types. While this is a nod to PSO's weapon system (and boy do I miss that...) I'm not sure if these attempts by Sega to make older, marginal or even 'obsolete' weapons somewhat unique is a genuine move in the direction you and I are likely hoping this will go, but I'm sure this also serves to stir up market forces in order to perpetuate and intensify the unending cycle of 'earn meseta > spend meseta, repeat.'

Oh and how do we make them more useful? *shakes fist at Dudu* ... which reinforces the latter argument.

More on topic: Personally, I like my Daganslash a lot. It's a Darker killer with its latent (Negative Destroyer), and this is shared between all of the Darker weapons. Also useable with all classes, so I'm getting a lot of mileage out of it. It was also my first 10* rare, so yeah. Also, the Holy Ray for its chance to inflict Stun off Just Attacks. (My first Ultimate rare weapon from a boss in PSO.)

Aside from Elder Pain, people will likely suggest a few other weps:
Seitenheise/Kagudachi for their PP regen latent
Ebony Nyoibo for more affixes from drops
the Machine part weapons for Machine Destroyer and so on for the other species-slayer latents.

I'm not counting the damage modifier latents such as from the Lambda 574 series weapons, because they're self-explanatory, and serve little else aside from promoting the gamestate you're lamenting.

[UnLucky]

Weapon criteria:

Same-type Atk requirement, or low enough secondary stat to automatically equip by level cap.

Strongest Atk stat (including 50 element)

Potential boosts a good PA, Just Attacks, has an identical skill as your class, or gives PP regen for Force.

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So for rods, the Psycho Wand is the clear best in slot gear because its potential reduces PP consumption, has the highest T-Atk in the game, and can be equipped by a lv60 Fo/Te Newearl with a lv100 T-Atk mag.

Other than that, it's either the Seitenheise because of it's PP regen potential despite it being 36 T-Atk lower than the best AQ rod, or Haze Evol because it's 74 T-Atk higher than Seiten. If an 11* ever gets released, it could be preferred since technics don't take the weapon's element into account.

Most, if not all, of the 11* XQ weapons are garbage since they are impossible to 50 element at this time.

None of the 10* swords have good potentials save for Elder Pain, but the Lambda Ardillo has a good potential and is easier to 50 element.

None of the 10* wirelances have good potentials unless you spam only Other Cyclone (Gigas Spinner) or Heavenly Fall (Assassin Claw), which is a bad idea because you should be using Cerberus Dance and Holding Current and Air Pocket Swing. Again, a 9* has a JA potential.

For partisans, the Gekitsnata is the best because it has a high S-Atk and boosts Assault Buster. Use that all the time. You could also use the 9* with the JA potential and 50 element, though.

None of the 10* dualsabers have good potentials at all, so either use the one with the highest S-Atk, or the 9* with the JA potential.

None of the twin daggers are good. Use a dualsaber.

None of the knuckles are good. Use a dualsaber.

Emperor Axeon is the strongest gunslash, but only a Ranger would have enough Dex to equip it (though even they need a bit extra at cap). For anyone else, get the Rouge Coffin since it's easy to 50 element, or the 9* JA potential.

Rifles actually have good potentials. The Signo Head Gun does more damage to machines, which have troublesome weak points for Rangers, but then again the Divulnigel is a shop trade-in which boosts Fury Stance.

Launcher Legacy has WHA.

Yasminkov 9000M has ZRA.

Use the talis with the highest T-Atk you can equip, or just any old thing to throw out support or something that doesn't rely on stats.

Wands suck and all have bad potentials. Use the strongest one with 50 element if you use it for melee, or get an Umblla Stick (all class rod) if you use technics.

[BlankM]

I've heard that Ebony's potential is pretty worthless. Haven't gotten to test it personally since I sold mine.

I want more status effect potentials or extra range on certain PAs or additional effects or something. Percentage boosts just add more number crunching to a game thats already heavy on it...

[Shinmarizu]

If the concept for latents were special abilities, then it would have been nice to give the throwback weapons their unique abilities or attacks they had in the games they came from. The closest to that we have right now is the Holy Ray (its special attack caused Paralysis). The Flame Visit, for example, should have had a latent that worked like Burn III/IV/V instead of just having the Burn V affix. Take that affix off, and give it the usual Mizer/Shot V/Spiritia Boost, and you just have a launcher with bigger numbers and a fancier skin. Which you can then cover up with camo if you so desire.

As for versatility, utility or specialization, it'd be interesting to see what, if at all, Sega has learned (or what else Sega has forgotten) for upcoming weapons.
All-class weapons are quite useful, just ask anyone here... but versatility often comes with a sacrifice in performance, which should make sense.
Latents that boost class skills are out there, but they tend to be on outdated or weaker weapons that, even if unlocked to maximum, are generally outclassed by the sharper, shinier or bigger weapons. Either make the boosts huge so that these weapons can punch above their weight, or give them unique special abilities that make them stand out. Weapons that promote a specific skill or build (Madam's Umbrella/Coat Edge, elemental scepters like Agni, Adaman, Indra, etc.) and/or come with unique and useful/relevant special abilities (Elder Pain, Holy Ray, weapons that boost PAs) are a step in the right direction, but will it continue?

Hopefully Sega releases rare weapons that actually give the word "rare" some significance.

[Macman]

Holy Ray inflicts stun (like Stun Concido) on enemies with JAs. Pretty handy for the more annoying mobs.

[Alma]

didn't karakasa jikomi have latent ability for gunslash PA too?
i forgot the PA name though....

[Bellion]

^Yes, Thrillerplode.

[otaku998]

For Dual Saber, i feel like Double Gwan potential is the best, increase to darker 10% lvl 3. Which is like more than half enemies in the good. Otherwise, the rest is crap.

[gigawuts]

I honestly feel like conditional damage bonuses shouldn't be considered in something like this. Yes, they can trim the hits required to kill something, which most definitely has a use, but we're talking literally only a few percent against only a portion of enemies in most maps. That's really not a huge deal, and not exclusive to that weapon - because you can just use one with more damage and get the same results on everything.

So what really matters is something you can't get anywhere else (or is highly limited in its availability). Most of the examples I can think of off the top of my head have been cited here, the most noteworthy ones being Elder Pain, all allclass weapons, and Holy Ray.

I feel that Madame's Umbrella had a purpose once, but is now outdated. Maybe if it had a useful bonus like a PP reduction for all PA's and techs used, or a PP capacity bonus, or built-in PP Revival. But it doesn't. With a built-in PP Revival it would be indispensable for certain class combinations, but utterly worthless or redundant for other class combinations. That's the whole underlying theme of utility weapons offering something completely unique that no other (or only a few other) weapons can do, but other class combinations might be able to do. A weapon that heals you for hurting enemies is unique, but healing yourself is hardly something no other class can do.

This used to be the whole point of the game, creating a whole metagame where you wanted to construct a character's armaments around either your playstyle or just plain minmaxing to get utilities that accentuated a class combination's base abilities, but now that everything has been pushed onto the skilltree to do that you have to pay real money and well that's not really working out for a whole bunch of people.