Which Prime Is Lining Up To Be Most Job Changing?

As subject says, after a year or so of testing, which Prime weapon(s) do yall think is shaping up to be the most job changing? Sorry if this has already been talked about, I did a search but only found where the testing was being done.

A year of testing? They were released in May 2023 and the earliest anyone could get a stage 5 is October...so there's like 3 months of testing (with stage 5) at most, for elite groups.

I'd say the results are pretty clear though
Has potential to actually be job changing:
Horn, Scythe, Shield

All the rest of them are some combination of: has a new SC property, that's neat to make X skillchain. Also probably does the highest physical damage for that weapon type. Not going to change your life, but a nice DPS weapon.

Scythe i guess, its cata with scaling and an additional MP drain. For the rest, and even scythe it's mainly just giving SC flexibility, as well as potentially a overall better WS

EDIT: Forgot horn/shield, yeah horn especially is a big winner, shields a better ochain

I should have said since release, was what I meant in my head, but y’all aren’t in there lol.

The weapon for the job you play the most.

This is absolutely true. There are a bunch of primes I considered picking up and there are quite a few I still want...but ultimately I'm going for the primes for the jobs I play the most.

Ultimately, you won't be disappointed with any prime you pick, they're all at least as useful as the job(s) that can use them.

If you never play PLD, what good is the shield?
If you never play BRD, what good is the horn?
If you never play DRK, what good is the scythe?
If you never play BLM/SCH/SMN, what good is the staff?

You're gonna burn 6+ months of sortie farming for a weapon you never use because "FFXIAH said its an S-tier prime"?

Staff is a noticeable upgrade even at stage 4 (for BLM and SCH).

Absolutely none of them are job changing:

1. Shield does Shield stuff.
2. Horn plays a song.
3. Scythe is an HQ version of the relic scythe that allows you not to have to use entropy.

The Horn is probably the most useful to parties when you are att attack cap. All 2 handed weapons are BIS dmg option now for thier jobs . All one handed should be close to BIS or right on savage blades ***.

By no means job changing but definitely worth making for jobs you enjoy.

It was just a topic of discussion, not meant to be so deep. Personally I’m just getting started on VR with my 4 characters, and I hate sortie with a passion, so idk if I’ll even finish a prime. But, I also enjoy playing every single job, and since I’ll have the opportunity to build 4 at once, I was curious what the best choices were.

Dagger - 4 Jobs
GS - 4 Jobs
Staff 3 Jobs
Sword - 3 Jobs

Horn is the best Prime its not close.

Shield is useful at Stage 2.

Scythe has the best gimic, but WAR,SAM,DRG are built better for primes scaling TP.

From my observations, none are unequivocally "best"

some are more impactful than others, the scythe seems to be a fan favorite, personally I have the greatsword at stage 3, and for my warrior, it's putting out some nice numbers inside sortie. My decision to go for that first was largely due to the fact that I already have chango, so the g-axe had little appeal, I have naegling and no sword comes close for savage spam, I have shining one for piercing damage, loxotic +1 for blunt, the only weapon in my arsenal that I really lacked was a solid gsword.

I play blm and smn regularly, but the staff doesn't beat out the respective mythics until stage 5, and even then, only when the mythic aftermath is down, and let's be honest, we tailor fights around that aftermath window.

Thf is one of my mains, but already having aeneas, twashtar and gandring, at best this would replace gleti in offhand, and only at stage 5.

dragoon is quite happy using trishtula and or shining one, though the damage on this weaponskill seems quite high, so maybe something to consider?

the club, while having very high mab, would really only greatly benefit geo since whm nuking isn't normally a focus, and more geos will be aiming toward an idris, and this offers nothing for the bubbles. There's also no information as to the potency of the aftermath regarding cure potency, so it's likely raetic rod +1 will still be the better healing stick.

I do understand the shield is also quite nice even at the base rank.

The horn grants both the effects of the emp harp (2 additional songs) and the relic horn (all songs +4) as well as a brand new song. That being said, you'd have a difficult time convincing people who already have the relic and the emp to forego them just for this, which lacks the additional stats of both. but if a person lacked one of both, that would be a clear winner.

I cant speak on behalf of the katana, gkatana, sword, axe, bow, gun or h2h as those aren't my primary jobs, but none of those really seem to appeal to people.

This is a huge oversimplification though. It's like saying Aegis isn't job changing because it "does shield stuff". The shield is the best physical shield while also being 2/3 of an aegis while also giving status resist and meva. It's by far and away the best shield you can use for most content and will improve your tanking results.

All horns "play a song". In optimal scenarios, this song increases WSD by tens of thousands of damage. You could say Marsyas "plays a song" but that's dramatically undervaluing what that song does. Aria is huge and really improves kill speeds and allows a lot of jobs to do much better damage.

Scythe is "just" relic scythe, except Origin does at least double, maybe 3x the damage of Catastrophe. The scythe also has a ton of other advantages over Apoc, it's not even remotely comparable; it's like an Apoc on crack, plus the MP advantages of being able to ride Schere and/or cast your other spells without having to waste TP on a terrible WS. Just like Apoc, it enables different styles of gameplay not previously available, and it (more or less) totally takes over Apoc's spot in the "I can't die" niche.

Based on my knowledge and seeing certain ones in action. If one of your characters is a BRD, get the Horn 100% as it will aid all 4 characters including BRD. Other than that, get what you will use as none of them are game shattering for any job. They are all strong... 2handed options seem to come out on top in terms of damage potential.

For example... I made the Prime GA but I still actively use a whole bunch of the other GA's all the time. A better way to look at Prime Weapons in my opinion is that they are simply another tool in the toolbox.

Based on reports from player using it, the 30 INT and ~80 mdmg, it seems Stage 4 is already better for BLM. Stage 5 is definitely better in all scenarios (for BLM). For SMN it's probably a closer call, I don't have experience with it, maybe Papesse or someone can weigh in.


Seen Ruthless Stroke numbers much better than Rudras, and also it can make Light which is not easy for THF to do without resorting to one or more bad WS. It would definitely be a main hand some portion of the time, and is VERY good for DNC, BRD, RDM.


AM information is available here so IDK what you mean by "no information" but it is available. It's probably not competitive with Raetic unless you are having MP problems because of Raetic's increased MP cost. Even then, it's not gonna be easy for WHM to keep up AM3 so...niche. Does offer the only Darkness option for club though, so that's a thing. As far as GEO nuking goes, Bunzi is already better than Idris so if you don't need the pet DT, it's better to use that than Idris. At stage 5 it could be better than Bunzi, but I wouldn't count on it, and certainly wouldn't build a stage 5 prime for GEO nuking set, especially one that requires AM3.


Other than debuffing, the "additional stats" on Gjallarhorn are totally irrelevant for BRD. Similarly, Daurdabla's "additional stats" are only useful for Horde Lullaby II. That said, I don't think any serious BRD is looking at prime and thinking "great, now I don't need to build relic/empy" or building a stage 5 prime to save inventory space. They're doing it for Aria, which is an absolute monster. It's a clear winner, even if you have every other BRD item in the game.

This is far from being true though. BLMs and SCH usually swap out of their mythic-rod once they get stage 4 staff. Our BLM swapped out of mythic staff even at stage 3 (in sortie only).

NO ONE should be building a Prime based upon what looks best on paper or a forum. The time investment is simply not comparable to anything else in-game except the crafting shields, and a large part of that belief is the way committing to one locks you out of parallel progress on other ones for 6 months.

Would you simply give up your years of enjoying Woodworking because some forum post said that the WW shield was a waste and you really should only make the Alchemy shield? Maybe some would I guess...but that to me reeks so much of playing a game as a job instead of for enjoyment. And investing so much time into a weapon for a job you might not like much, but "tested well" feels quite the same.

The Primes that I'm impressed with seeing in action compared to existing options are always being played by players of jobs I've respected long before Sortie was released. The great DRG I know who build the Polearm? Yeah he was a great DRG prior and is still one after. The amazing DRK who made the Scythe? Ya, still great. And the garbage DNC who flaunted all his merc'd RMEA daggers prior? Yup, he's still garbage just with a different look. None of the weapons, including shield and horn, are sudden kingmakers that can take a bad player and make them great.

End of the day, put a solid weapon in the hands of someone willing to do the work to build good sets unique for that situation and you get good results. Put anything in the hands of someone who just wants to plug 'n play XI, and it's going to under-perform.

Polearm feels job changing for DRG, in so far as I can actually use a polearm and not feel like I should be using naegling instead.

Yeah, but there is a catch 22 here.

You choose the weapon based on the job you play the most, or the job you play the most is that one that has the best weapon?

For example, when Delve was released and peeps started to beat Tojil before the others, Oatixur made happen a swarm of Oat MNKs.

While is true the best weapon is that one that you play the most, its also true a not negligible percentage of players are bandwagoers, and given the undisputed best option, they will invest toward that best.

You could argue that 6 month commitment is a huge time to invest, but considering the stagnant stage of the game, if there wont be any major new release/gear coming in the near future, maybe the current status quo is something to be aware of.

I never played with scythes, but if a strong scythe could add a tier of my scythe-job over my other non-scythe jobs, I would invest on it, surely, because if I have one job one tier above all my other ones, then that will be the job I will play the most once I get that scythe/tier.

Obviously if the change is just a couple of dps, then nvm.

Also, just comparing the dps side of the weapons.

Good monk with Rigors >>>>>> shitty mnk with Oats.

The point is building a weapon with a huge time investment for a job you wont play because “its s-tier” is dumb. If you never play drk, why would you make the weapon? Sure its easy to gear jobs in 2024 but if you dont like the drk playstyle, you wasted 6 months making that weapon.

Get your primary jobs weapon first then work on the collection. Yes I know most people have multiple jobs these days, but everyone has that main job theyre routinely on.

Can Aria be taken advantage of on boss E & G? Y/N?

This question is entirely too narrow. This isn't FFXIV where you look for a green arrow to tell you which gear to use.

Depends on what buffs you have in the party.
Depends if you're using SV or not.
Depends how much defense down you have in the party.
Depends what job you're applying the Aria to.
Depends if the person/people you're applying it to have other PDL gear options, and how those compare to their non-PDL options.

I use Aria for all basement bosses, SV on F, G, and H, marcato on E. Your mileage may vary depending on your party setup.

WAR DRK
HM Minx3 Aria

Can't just throw BoG frailty+dia2/3 at a thing and have mob def be floored, if the def isnt low enough and the atk isnt properly compensating for 20%~ more PDL, then its a wasted song

fair enough, the last I had looked, there wasn't a link to information on many of the weapon stats. I don't spend a lot of time digging through the forums for that kind of information, clearly since I was unaware of much of what you mentioned.

Maxed Duban probably makes PLD easier to play, but against many monsters, but depending how you play PLD it may instead do very little for you.

If you get hit by magic wearing a maxed Duban, you take about twice as much damage as you do when wearing Aegis. It would be pretty easy to design a monster that still requires Aegis, if they don't already exist.

Saves you from having to swap to Aegis in some endgame fights, probably, but I don't know how common it is.

Thats a lot of endgame right now. Aminion, Aegis. Basement bosses, Aegis. V25s, Aegis.

PLD can already soak up physical damage. Its a great shield but its hybrid combo just screams bring a RUN. Stage 2 I'd say is required.

My biggest gripe about Duban is that they didn't give it enough MDT II to make it so I never have to wear Aegis ever again.

And mine is it doesn't give us access to Uriel Blade or Flashaga.