How’d You Bring Naegling Back In Line?

It works well and is gnarly. I just can't justify going Savage Blade RNG when I can go COR and boost other DDs DPS.

I felt pretty selfish last time I went Savage RNG but that was only Dyna.

Dyna for example:
Kraken Club/WSDMG Arrow VS a 2nd COR giving all DDS Fighters/Save TP Roll. (On top of chaos and sam roll from 1st COR)

Both still Savage Blade for stupid numbers. Both can still Hotshot/Magical WS the W3 Boss. Only one can buff their party.

I'm not including Abrasion Bolts. I did toy with a crossbow decimation build though.

Wasn't great...

I love Ranger, it's my favorite. But it just feels kinda meh.

I am grateful some of the newer content still uses it for a few fights.

Anyways, heres "zero skillchain woes" according to ffxicalc

H2H: DK/FH/VS
DAG: SB/Exen/MS
GSD: Reso/SpinSlash
Axe: Cala/Onsl/Cloud - Axe has a shitton of problems on their WS choices beyond "skillchain woes"
GAX: KJ/MT/UF
Scy: Guillo/Cata
PLM: CT
KTN: Kamu/Metsu
GKT: Shoha/Kaiten (not that sam can use Naeg)
CLB: BH
STF: nothing endgame tier
BOW: Namas
GUN: TF/Coro


If you're gonna say "but most of those WS's are ***, theyre garbage", yeah...thats the problem. No one uses them because they're ***, and they're falling back to NaegBlade because it outclasses them drastically. Fix the problem by buffing the trash unused WS's so the meta isnt NaegBlade.


Fixing the problem by nerfing Naegling will reduce it to this:
Its gonna go from S-tier ambu weapon to E-tier alongside Nandaka and Gokotai, and if you dont believe me you havent been playing FFXI long enough or you havent been paying attention to every other "fix by nerf".

Alright, people, let me break it down for ya. Enhancing the other weapon skills? Oh yeah, that'd be a damn fine move. We all know it. It’d be the most viable, even beautiful option. But let’s not kid ourselves, we know it’s never gonna happen. Why? Because to make it right, we’d need a full-on rework like back in 2014. And with all due respect to Fujito-san, I trust more of you to get it done than I do him.

Now, let’s talk about the three power creeps, like the damn horsemen of the apocalypse, each one bringing more chaos than the last.

The first? Oh, it came in hot with Ambuscade weapons, Unity-Gear augments, and R15 REMAs. Not too shabby, if you ask me. They were all relatively balanced... except for the Naegling. And the Shining One? Well, it’s a tiny over-tuned, but I could deal with it.

Then comes the second power creep—Odyssey V0 items. Those? That’s what I call "Ambuscade Gear Version 2." Anyone and their grandmother can grab those V0s.

And the third, folks? The Master Levels. Now, that is where things start to really tip.

Look, I’m not here to ruin anyone’s damn party. I just want to take the whisky down a notch, from Blue Label to Green Label, and drop the escorts from 1000 euros an hour to, say, 750. That’s why I suggested lowering Savage Blade’s potency to 30%-30%, without messing with the fTP or touching the holy Naegling and its buffs. So, who here can crunch the numbers for Savage Blade at 50%-50% versus 30%-30%? Anyone?

Now, if I were to rework the game—and let's be real, this is a pipe dream, something that’d only happen in my deepest, darkest fantasies—I’d roll back that change where only the first hit of a WS delivers overkill. Let all the hits do it. Hell, I know you'd love to throw down with Evisceration at 1% and have all six hits make overkill. That’d make parse junkies weak in the knees, wouldn't it?

Quested Weapon Skills: 60% MOD, delivers a threefold attack. Accuracy? That varies with TP.
1H fTP: 3, 5, 7.
2H fTP: 2, 4, 6.

Relic and Mythic Weapon Skills: 80% MOD, delivers a fourfold attack. Attack? Oh, that varies with TP too.
1H fTP: 4, 6, 8.
2H fTP: 3, 5, 7.

Aeonic and Empy Weapon Skills: 50% and 50% MOD, delivers a fivefold attack. Attack and accuracy? Yeah, they vary with TP as well.
1H fTP: 5, 7, 9.
2H fTP: 4, 5, 7.

And then you’ve got your Prime Weapon Skills: 60% and 60% MOD. Delivers a sixfold attack, with a critical hit chance that rises with TP. 30%, 40%, 50%.
1H fTP: 6, 8, 10.
2H fTP: 5, 7, 9.

I forgot a damn paragraph. But hey, it’s 3 AM, and I’m drunk, so y’all will cut me some slack, right? Now let me tell you what’s obvious—Dynamis Divergence, Sortie (18-man), Odyssey (18-man), Ambuscade, Escha, all three zones, Omen? Yeah, I’d tweak ‘em, give ‘em a little revamp to base the difficulty and stats on Master Level 25 instead of that weak Master Level 0 crap. Why? ‘Cause you know damn well my adjustments are gonna bring a fourth power creep, and with that? Even those big, bad V25 bosses? Pfft, they’d be a walk in the park.

Make multi hit WS show "full" damage so can "win" parses by overkilling mobs at 1%.

Stay classy.

Yeah you can tell all this nonsense is focused around seg farming.

S/E knows what they are doing. Rather than fix weapon skills it's more profitable to make new weapons as a fix. They know we will grind for them and those sweet sweet monthly fees will keep coming in.

Look, it’s not just about winnin’ parses. Those overkills? They make the game a hell of a lot more fun.

Now, the smart thing? Get rid of the overkills. DDs wouldn’t bother usin’ WS when the enemy’s down to less than 15% HP—it’d just be wastin’ damage. But if it’s a tough enemy, like those damn Uragnites, you’d still throw out a WS with low HP to make sure it doesn’t wreck your whole group.

I get what Fujito-san and Matsui were tryin’ to do with REMA-R15, Unity-Augments, Ambuscade weapons, Odyssey V0 gear, and Master Level 50. They were tryin’ to make the game easier for folks. Make it more casual, more accessible.

And yeah, I agree with y’all—buffin’ other weapon skills is the best way to go. Or hell, just go make yourself a Prime Weapon if you’re serious about it.

What I wanna see? Jobs need to go back to their roots, use their original weapons. We’ve had four long years of this sick "META" runnin’ FFXI into the ground.

Right now, with some mid-buffs, my WAR/DRG does about 50k-55k damage with the "little sword" at 2000 effective TP. The rest of my jobs—DRK, SAM, WAR, DRG—they’re doin’ about 30k with a variety of weapon skills at 2000 TP, except Torcleaver, which jumps up to 40k. If we did the nerf I’m suggestin’, my WAR/DRG would hit about 40k on average. Still plenty strong. We’re just knockin’ it down to be in line with "Torcleaver."

And hey, if y’all think Torcleaver’s weak, I hear ya. I respect your call.

What are "mid buffs"?

Meh, I think the weapons are fine.

Would it be better if prime sword had a WS that could out do naegling? Sure, but a WS that matches it that is not savage blade is also good due to WS wall.

The WS wall is the "fix naegling" mechanic.

The jobs that were crap before are still crap. No weapon will change that, and no large scale job balancing is ever going to happen anymore.

Not going to lie, I wish the prime sword weaponskill had a spirit taker/Entropy style mechanic to it.

There are already a ton of sword options, it doesn't really stand out to me.

This. Every job has a comparable ws now. Stage 4 is a few months grind. Most jobs have comparable options pre primes. Naegling isnt going to get changed. The only change i endorse is throwing it in the river and forgetting it ever existed but then all the Omg Leet Fencer Warriors in thier R0 Sakpata would be sad.

I also want to save a step in my Aminon cycle by deleting Aspir from it.

And to somewhat justify katana WS not getting a buff, whenever hybrid WS are viable, Blade: Chi/To/Teki are NIN's best WS options over any physical katana WS or Savage Blade. And hybrids get a huge buff upon obtaining augmented Nyame B gear due to the combo of WSD and MAB, so I view Nyame's existence as effectively a greater relative buff for katana (and great katana, which can also take great advantage of hybrids) than it was for other weapons including Sword.

Tying that directly to seg farming, hybrids work well for the majority of families you encounter there. For the ones that don't, and slashing/phys is still good, just using Blade: Ten for a pack of mobs isn't really that big of a deal (or something else, say, Shun to light SC with someone's Savage). I do use NIN in seg farms regularly, and the majority of the time I'm using Aeonic katana with hybrids for better results than swapping to Naegling and spamming Savage.