A Few Things That I (Still) Don't Understand.

I might have mentioned that I don't understand some people. Ok, so I talk about it all the time. Some people get so obsessed with some gear that they don't know when to give up on it's pursuit. Some people get so used to doing events that they don't realize when it's time to move on. Some people don't realize that just because they have the gear from an event already doesn't mean that everyone does, and that sometimes you need to do things you don't want to do anymore to get people to help you. These things can even contradict. One person's treasure is another person's trash. But none of this is what I really want to talk about today. Today I want to talk about Magian weapons.

A common topic? Yes, definitely. I have talked a lot about Magian weapons, but I don't think that some people even get the point right now. I think the problem may stem from the lack of difference there really was from level 75 to 80. The problem is that you can't just look at a Magian weapon and say "Well damn, I have to have that or I am gimp" because the increase in damage is just the next step up, it's not a paradign shift in game mechanics. I think most people (myself included) thought that the jump in level from 75 to 80 was going to be accompanied by the same jump up in stats that happens from 1 to 75. That wasn't to be the case. The only really consistent increase came in the form of skill increases (which arguably is even more important than raw stats but that is a discussion for another day). Instead of the exponential increase in damage most people expected to see from a higher damage weapon and 5 additional levels, it instead turned out to be more of a linear increase in damage. Nothing ground breaking, and a lot of time that is the only thing that will get people out of their rut.

I think there are more than a few reasons to move on Magian weapons now, instead of later.

1. With the rare expection, they really are the best weapons in the game. Outside of a very few number of weapons, there is nothing that can beat a Magian weapon. All jobs now have access to weapons that have higher damage or more attacks per round than anything else available. Relics and Mythics generally excepted, I believe that Ridill is the only weapon that still can make a claim to being overpowered. And that is arguable...

2. Outside of Mythics and Relics, Magians will definitively be the best weapons in the game after the next update. While one could argue that we still don't know what is coming for upgrading weapons in the future, we can look at the end-point Empyrean weapons and say that they are obviously not complete. Also, it is undeniable that the base damage has to increase as the level cap increases. All of the old weapons just can't keep up with the march of progress.

3. You are going to have to do more work to upgrade your weapons in the future. If you fall behind now, you just have more work to do in the future. It's not like the trials are going to get easier. SE is just going to add more and more trials onto the end of the ones that already exist. And they are going to make Magian weapons even stronger. When the next update comes, are you going to want to be killing Treants in Grauberg? Or are you going to want to finish off your Indra Staff to get the next step in Lightning Damage Potency?

4. If you aren't working on upgrading your Magian weapons then you really are gimp. This is one of my unapologetically elitist moments, but in the end it's not elitist at all. Up to the penultimate Empyrean stage and up to the final stage of the rest of the weapons they trials just aren't that hard. Sure getting some of the 20 drops for the high damage OAT weapons can be a bit of trouble, but there is nothing that is stopping you from doing it besides yourself. The problem might be that for almost the entirety of FFXI people had to work with other people to get the best gear, but instead of working as a motivating factor this actually just encourages people to be free-riders. But now, when faced with a set of quests that require individual action for the most part, the free-riders are left out in the cold. And they should be.

I might be an elitist dick, but this isn't about criticizing gear because it's hard to get or because it takes a lot of time to get. In this case, I am not the elitist dick, other people are just lazy dicks. And I would much rather be just about any kind of dick than a lazy dick. :)