Weapon Tierlists 2025

Anyone looking at this list and thinking they can retire any weapon by getting another weapon is going to be sorely disappointed like...95+% of the time. That's not how FFXI works, it's just a bad take by an idiot.

Mpu Gandring is excellent for BRD when you want to do piercing damage and can't be arsed to get/maintain Carn AM3.

I use Mpu every piercing pack in Ody segs on BRD, because it's way too much of a PITA to get AM3 for a single pack and not worth it. Plus making a SC every WS (after the first) basically guarantees you'll be killing the mob quickly.

It's also RDM's best piercing weapon by a mile, though it still kinda sucks with RDM's access to atk...

And it absolutely rocks ***on THF too, giving access to incredible SC options and stacking well with SA/TA.

So yeah...it's an incredible weapon that all 4 jobs will be using from "all the *** time, never take this off" to "quite often"...which explains why it's such a high tier...

we've all made "bad" weapons because we just like the job that much, I wonder how much buyer's remorse has affected people's voting. nevertheless, giving top results and average helps correct this issue. if people are using these results as a factual resource, I strongly advise looking at both and trying to understand why the difference exists.

Some of these results are a little weird or maybe the community just underrates good things (seems more likely). The best weapons are pretty clear though.

My minor gripes:

1. Yoichi doesn't belong on the D-tier row. It isn't great but it has some potential applications and doesn't fit with the rest on that row. Definitely C tier.

2. Laeveteinn averaging out into the B tier is a travesty, definitely an A-tier Mythic given its extremely usable. I don't think BLM's viability should be held against the weapons power for the job.

3. Ochain showing up in B-tier is wild considering its outclassed with 20k muffins. Gandiva and Hvergelmir should be B-tier for what power they offer. The Death stick is slept on but it adds a lot of damage to death bursting.

4. Super minor, I'd move Anguta to B tier -- that thing can spiral hell.

5. Onion Sword is overrated.

I've had stage 3 Varga Purnikawa for a few weeks now and it is solidly behind Godhands in any situation I have used it in. Maru Kala is actually a very powerful and consistent WS, but it is breaking even with my Tornado Kicks (Godhands) so I'm only really pulling them out when I want to make distortion / darkness skillchains.

Now, will my tune change at stage 4? Probably, but Godhands are stupidly hard to beat as-is. The high base damage and TP Bonus are just too good.

If I was a PUP I would likely value Varga Purnikawa much higher. I'm still glad I made them as I had weak choices with other jobs that I "main" (Helheim was the big other contender to cover WAR & DRK). I'm guilty of collecting H2H, though (I even took Dragon Fangs from the bonanza kupon) so it was a foregone conclusion.

Going from Trishula to Gae Buide, there was a wow factor.
Going from Caladbolg to Foenaria, there was a wow factor, albeit for different reasons
Going from Naegling to Mpu Gandring, my WS damage dropped 18k. That doesn't feel good.

Even across a several dyna runs and EP parties, it felt like nothing special outside of Climactic Flourish, but I don't claim to be a good DNC, so I'm willing to chalk it up to that

I asked 'why' because I was looking for the wow factor, and a weapon change for a 10 pack of mobs with -50% slashing damage ain't it. Especially when I'd still reach for Maxentius first. You like yours, great. I'm thoroughly underwhelmed with mine.

As I pointed out earlier, this is your problem. It's not a Naegling replacement.

Try using Naegling on Arebati KI#1 and then get back to me about which one is better.

Try using Naegling on DNC, you can't.

Compare kill speed on Apex Bats with SB spam on THF and Ruthless spam on THF.

You have you use your brain a little bit with this one.

We got Arebati KI#1 down to 39% with a St5 Mpu. I highly doubt this is possible with a Twashtar (or any other dagger).

Also: if you're spamming SB you get 0 SCD. If you're spamming Ruthless you get 2 SC every 3 WS, so...in the end, using 3 Ruthless will be much higher than 3 SB on all 4 of those jobs. It beats Naegling in the right circumstances and (of course) it loses to Naegling (on 3 of the jobs, not all 4) in some circumstances.

Welcome to FFXI, I hope you enjoy your time here. Feel free to ask if you have other questions.

All you've managed to point out is that you are unable to articulate an opinion without condescension or a misplaced superiority complex.

Why would you expect to behave that way and be taken seriously?

@Simon

Thank You for the time and posts regarding DRK on this thread ^.^ much apperciated.

katana is like all the primes the best phys ws for its weapon and if you take out savage blade its their best phys ws period. I believe it also largely replaces both shun and kamu on the light side which is 2 of katana more mediocre WS so that's a nice plus. Still its a katana WS, so its kinda underwhelming and coulda really used an ftp or wsc bump(as is the case for basically all the non-hybrid katana WS)

Incoming ***post full of hot takes, and uhh... reasons I don't remember. Nice of the site to show me my votes though, so I can finally fully shitpost properly!

Some admissions:

Dynamis Divergence weapons were a category I didn't want to actually rank, because most of them just come off as Temu Empys. And I was tired of voting by making an entire list by that point, so I kind of phoned it in.

I put Doji in A tier, because the tier maker misspelled it with an A at the end for some reason. :^)

So to use a different wording to say the same thing we could argue that Dokoku is a pretty underwhelming Prime but because all other Katana options (except hybrids) are even worse, it feels slightly better than it would otherwise!

Sadly (or thankfully?) NIN is on Naegling so... we know how to end the sentence lol.


Only very small fix I would make to Nariont's excellent post is that while Shun is indeed mediocre (and it's a shame, sigh), Metsu is NOT that bad honestly, with R15 Relic of course.
Zesho Meppo is still better of course and Heishi Shorinken's Blade: ten has better potential/scaling but especially in lowmen situations Metsu is not that bad at all.

Lmao!
This is an incredibly funny -and effective- way to sum up things on Divergence weapons xD

Path A is basically a "temu empy" and Path B is a "temu mythic".
Both are weaker than the respective Empy/Mythics aftermaths BUT you don't need to store up 3k TP or use shitty WSs to activate the effects, they are always up.
Plus they have much higher base damage, very good acc, HP+ and the specific boons of high STP or SBII.

Considering you can simply "buy" them on AH they can be pretty good honestly, especially if you have a lot of gil and not enough patience to farm Empy/Mythics.


But, and here I conclude my long post about it, I think it would be quite limiting to judge Divergence weapons just by the Path A and B ones. The few ones who are really good, is because of the uniqueness brought by the Path C.
Not all of them are good, but when they are, well... they become very interesting weapons, similar to the original role Mythics used to have back then (job specific enhancements).

Path B is not Temu Mythic, follow up attacks stack with other multi attack and sb2 can allow a lot more jobs to cap out subtle blow.

I use Path B on NIN a lot, it also comes with a great attack bonus

Relics:
S: Shield, Horn, Gun
A: Scythe
B:
C:
D: Everything else.
Notes: If Bruvara AM was PDT II it would be S tier or at least A.

Mythics:
S: BRD dagger, PLD sword, RNG xbow, COR gun
A: WHM club, SMN staff
B: DNC dagger (maybe)
C: Everything else.
D:

Empyreans:
S: Harp, GKT, Dagger
A: GAXE, H2H, Gun
B: Katana, Shield (until prime stage 2)
C: Everything else.
D:

Aeonics:
S: Gaxe, GKT (until Prime), Horn
A: Gun, H2H
B: Scythe
C: Dagger
D: Everything else.

Dynamis D:
S: Rostam
A: Musa, Crocea
B: MNK H2H
C:
D: Everything else.

Prime:
S: Horn!!, GKT, Gaxe, Gsword
A: Scythe, Polearm (since DRG is never really optimal), stage 2
shield, Dagger
B: Gun, probably bow, staff
C: Everything else.
D:

105 Attack is not insignificant, and I suppose if you are solo/low TP feed killing something, Su5-B is an interesting choice on NIN, given their otherwise terrible SBII options. You have to maintain shadows to keep the attack bonus though, and you need to use an inferior WS (though Blade:Ten is still competitive). I guess it's main selling point is that it's incredibly fast TP.

Interesting though, I haven't heard of any NIN mains using this Katana for Path B shenanigans. What do you use it on?

Rostam is definitely S. All 3 paths are bis COR weapons.
Setan is not S. It's almost never bis for anything. It's B at best.
Xiucoatl is A. It's bis auto damage weapon for 1hitWS(ranged) setups. Zomorro is B I would say. Path B is bis for BLU on Bumba and would be interesting for tp denial strategies in general and path C is situationaly useful too. Father time is not bad for tp denial fights and it's the best drain weapon if you don't drain with Dark Seal, so also at least B. Sagitta is cool for hp set, so C. Gand ring path C is amazing solo aoe weapon and amazing evasion weapons. It's an A. Pang path C is great for master/pet turtle setup, so C.

You didn't mention Musa and Crocea Mors!

Oh sorry I was commenting Vyre list and forgot to post and now it doesn't look like it's connected :) Musa and Crocea were in right spots, so I havent mentioned them :)

Morgelai should be way above D too, since it gives a huge boost to regen at the cost of your (often worthless) current TP.

I would put Pangu a bit higher since it helps tremendously for situations where DT is the priority which are quite common for BST in my (limited) experience. I think I put it as a B, but it could be A. IIRC, it's impossible to cap pet DT without a Pangu (or su4 maybe?) But i don't play BST so take it with a grain of salt.

Not everything belongs to D. Mandau is still great tool for RDM as piercing weapon especially when you can't offhand tp bonus. There was a video of Arebati V25 kill with RDM doing very significant part of the damage with Mandau. Mandau is also great as gravitational, double darkness option for RDM. I can see it being used on Gartell in 9boss run for example. It could make darkness with Rudra (Climactic rudra closing for 99+99).

Excalibur is also very good for PLD and RDM when you can't use sub or dual wield. For example it's very good on Aminon. Similar to Mandau it's also very good fusion, double light option for RDM. It will make light with Savage. I haven't done 9boss runs, wouldn't Excalibur be pretty good on basement bosses when you are /drk? At least on E and G where light SC is beneficial?

that blame falls entirely on me

How many KI, on which KI?

E G in elite groups are a blink of an eye, like 30s. It matter so little.

I hope you simply forgot about Tizona right?
Like you know, the most OP mythic in the game? The only sword beating Naegling in raw damage, giving BLU unlimited MP in most scenarios and having 70 macc and occ. 2-3 hit for superior TP. It's probably the best designed job specific weapon in FFXI, alongside maybe Apocalypse, followed by Annihilator.

Liberator as only an Absorb macro piece is enough to be B, but it's also simply very good dps wise, especially if you need very fast tp gain for any reason.

I guess you forgot about Idris too.

Aymur is also at least B if not A. It has very good magic WS, fast tp gain and TP bonus +1000 for pet which is very significant in tp denial strategies with Fatso.

Epeo is at least B, but more like A
Vajra is B because its very strong in low pdif
Laevateinn is second best nuke staff with am2?
Murgleis is still highest macc with am1, so both desrves at least B.
Capuchin covered Nagi.
KKK is also B or A.

And F in 9boss is kited making it a child's play, same as H. While in 8 boss runs with 2DD F and H are Made with SPs also making them as fast as E and G if not faster. So by this metrics nothing meters everything is D.

Oh yeah Tizona is S, didn't consider Epeo or Idris - they're only kind of mythics.

Speed still matters on FH

Only thing that matters is what the sim says.

Because everyone knows the game is played purely in a sim.

You are welcome to provide in game evidence based on at least 100 runs in controlled environment disproving Sim results.

It's a really well developed tool, which has its limits, but there is nothing else even close as accurate.

Well its basically my dps katana of choice, unless I am SCing with aeonic or I can't get away with tp bonus offhand. Naegling with tp bonus offhand still beats it for pure physical but having significantly lower tp feed and higher tp gain is nice. Also Hybrid ws's are still a thing and when those work well path B mainhand with tp bonus offhand is pretty great. Of course when I can't use tp bonus offhand because of accuracy or I want aoe shadows then aeonic mainhand becomes the choice.

I used it a lot for triple oddy runs for points where we weren't going for kills but wanted nice controlled fights with low tp feed.

I use it for most times I am using Hybrids like dynamis or Master levels.

I've always been amused by how often the su5 A and B katanas have been ignored by nins, su5 was even one of the better offhand Katanas before oddy came out since you still get the attack bonus and the high acc which is relevant for the times you feel you can't use tp bonus offhand. Path A isn't bad either it just lacks the subtle blow utility of Path B and it's store tp and white damage tends to be a bit less impactful than the follow up attacks especially if you get sam roll a lot.

In 9 boss run it doesn't matter any more than E or G. The only limiting factor is 3 min mark wipe moves on G and H and 5(?)min mark on F when he becomes very tough. None of those are really close to happen and otherwise F is the easiest boss in 9 boss runs, it's basically so slow, that it almost doesn't move with gravity.