Weapon Tier List Discussion

[SupremeTentacle]

I'm bored, so let's do this.

I'll give my opinion in bits and pieces in reply to others mostly, instead of posting the huge blurb here, assuming the discussion gets going.

So, how do you think the tier list should be ordered, assuming that every weapon has Lv. 105 Maga?

I guess, to start off the discussion, I'd like to vouch for wand as the absolute top tier.

[Miyako Tachibana]

Wand>Axe>Bow>Staff>Sword=TwinSword

I have no idea where Odachi belongs, maybe between Axe and Bow due to having such enormous power.

Spear I dunno yet, I haven't done my research on how good they are late game.

[maxwell3094]

So why wand? Not implying that it doesn't deserve top spot. I'm just asking because I have essentially no experience with the other weapons.

[Ryxa]

So why wand? Not implying that it doesn't deserve top spot. I'm just asking because I have essentially no experience with the other weapons.

100% element scaling. Since damage is SF*element and not SF+Element wand has exponentially higher damage than all other classes. Pretty comparable to how axe full slice and sword full slice builds (and bow full pierce build + MRS but only one person I know did that) used to tower over the other builds as well.

[Ryxa]

Wand>Axe>Bow>Staff>Sword=TwinSword

I have no idea where Odachi belongs, maybe between Axe and Bow due to having such enormous power.

Spear I dunno yet, I haven't done my research on how good they are late game.

Wand>Bow>Axe>Sword = Twin Sword>Odachi>Staff>Spear

I'm not too certain about where Odachi would belong either since I have yet to see damage from Odachi that I can compare with.

I might also be underrating spear/staff/oodachi for various reason. Spear and staff because I haven't seen how ougi 5 affects them and spear because I might be a bit underestimating them based off the fact they already had lit this entire time and the damage I've seen from spear isn't actually much higher currently despite having a lot more sf than everyone else.

I mentioned in my previous post why wand is broken.

Bow is just retardedly safe with more damage output than a sword has by around 1.2 to 1.3x. It's not that they have insanely high damage that makes me rate them so high, but the fact that THEY ARE 100% SAFE while doing so.

Axe/Sword/Twin Sword I think are so close together in a "tier" list that I'm not sure where to place each since they're better in certain situations.

Axe has the damage to one-shot nearly any mob no matter the circumstance which is a lot more valuable than some people realize. The less time monsters are alive, the less time they have to kill you.

Sword and Twin Swords are... well... swords and twin swords. Not much to say here. Wand/Bow are going to outpace them in damage soon, but their ide range of skill/utility is still always there. HOWEVER... recently mobs have become more and more resistant to their damage instead of before, where they were WEAK to either slice/lightning/holy/fire and these two weapons are falling off in terms of damage output fairly fast. I don't think they'll ever be "weaker" than Staff/Odachi/Spear though simply due to the innate mobility and situational skills these two have.

[Gravedigger]

Given the current game state RIGHT NOW, meaning dungeons, if I were to assume a tier list using 105s being available, this is what I would put.

Staff
Bow>Wand>Axe>Oodachi>Sword>Twin Sword>Spear

The current gamestate really reflects that bows are the dominant class, much like when Kaga was first released. Now, I don't base my opinion based on popularity, as that would be a fallacy. Back in the days of sewers, TS/Swords were dominant because TB was the Ougi of choice. Given the current bosses, long range is much more favored. I put bow as top tier simply because of Amaya's. It has more power than Spirit blast, a more effective range, a good element typing, and keeps the user safe (Spirit blast also tends to cancel if you roll too soon). Now instead of Tb->TB to victory, it's spam the living sh*t out of Amaya's, even if there's just 1 enemy. Bows also have slightly more range than wands with charge shot/exorcism thingy and an amazing utility skill with icicle arrow. These put it slightly over wand. Wand has much more raw power (perhaps the highest in the game), but given the dungeons, having concentrated power over AoE isn't ideal unless it's a boss fight. With Frost Glaive costing a massive amount of SP as the main AoE move, it just can't handle all of the little things. Giving wands even more damage doesn't solve that. Also losing the ability to block is sometimes fatal if your character is in the middle of an animation.

Axes are probably the most rare, but perhaps it's because the items needed to make it a top tier weapon of choice cost a lot/take awhile to get. From what I've seen and know, Axes have the most DPS. With magas like Wadatsumis, they have the most explosive damage, and can compensate for their slow movement using blue fang blade for range. Asura's Thunder is a great tool since enemies will crowd around you with you being slow if you use wadatsumis. The weapon selection is also good because they have multiple STAB (Same Type Attack Boost) bonus benefits. With a cushion of high HP from investing in Pow, it makes the class a tank, which is pretty top tier in most games.

Swords are more versatile forms of TS. They share their 2 ideal Ougis, have similar moves and aim for the same things. What puts swords over TS? Skill cards. Lightning is the ideal element for both classes because Thunder Beast is hands down their best Ougi. Having something like Lightning Slash VII on a skill card for Swords is amazing. This allows EASIER access for rank 6 magatama usage for swords. Nekos are the best option for TS classes, because rank V moves are easier to manipulate. This limits TS in terms of damage. Since we are assuming the 105s are out, we can throw that problem out the window. But why are swords still better than TS? Pow. Dex may give extra crit to compensate for that lack of damage, but Swords have more base damage, and generally people invest in dex as a secondary, so the crit difference isn't as important. A big thing is Pow. Swords have more HP to cushion that damage, while TS users are more like glass canons. More and more people have opted to just using 4 magas instead of 3 and 1 chiami since damage is so high, it's not like you were living that hit form the boss in the first place (or in preparation for the new ornaments, but I'm disregarding that here). But when it comes to smaller enemies, swords are more likely to live the hit. Now one could say that a TS user could easily just throw on some HP ornaments. TS users mostly focus on SP since their HP is usually low, but slightly higher than something like a wand user since wands don't need to invest in Pow. If we want to talk about magas, we could say that if a TS user is concerned about dying, they could slap on def magas and have the same def as a vitality user. I'm just talking about classes at its core.

Spears used to be the best class. Easily. They suffer from lack of AoE, range, or escape methods like TB or lunge step. High def and a lot of HP might let you eat the hit, but it won't keep you alive in the middle of the next attack. Eternal thunder is much like Asura, sure, but it lacks the raw damage. Dungeons used to spam really small minions, and that made spears shine. They didn't need to use ougis because WDS was the best move. There was no point in using something like spirit blast on a group of enemies would just die to WDS anyway.However many bow users feel it is appropriate to amaya an ant because they want to show dominance. With bigger monsters, that doesn't cut it anymore. Spears are slow and can't do explosive damage like the other classes. Their damage is more dispersed.

Oodachi is a mix of Spear and Axe, but more so like the axe. They both invest in Pow, so they have HP to cushion the hit. It lacks the niche of both those classes. Axe has explosive damage due to wadatsumis. Axe also have BFB, which is a STAB move in many cases due to the weapon selection, which gives axes a way to deal with long range enemies so they don't necessarily need a method of escape. Ougis. Asura vs Shining Slash Thingy. Oodachi has the edge due to its typing. Oodachis are pigeonholed into using the Air cleaving sword due to its STAB bonuses and lack of other choices. Oodachi also suffers the same problem is spears, in that it's slow, and lacks AoE. Lack of AoE sound familiar? Wands. So why are wands way higher? Wands can do massive damage from a distance, which is insanely important as of now. Bosses in the sewers were large and slow, but now they are fast (not the Nue). CQC like TS has a hard time with many of the bosses because they simply can't take a hit. Oodachis deal with smaller enemies the same way spears must. Slowly. One group at a time, but Spears have WDS to compensate and axes have BFB. It feels like such a waste to being using so much raw damage on a small group of enemies. Oodachis truly shine in boss fights when aggro is drawn away from them. If it weren't for the 105 magas, I would put Oodachi below the spear. They lack the damage of axes, but with their damage SF wise being equal, it shoots Oodachi up the tier list.

Every player has one. Every. Single. One. With something like invig/medi, res, and RS staffs are just too essential. Even solo players use staffs for RS and medi. The occasional heal too. The class itself, however, has just been replaced. Chiami has pretty much taken away the need for healing, but with the declining use of it, maybe there's a chance? Everyone uses a staff. No need to dedicate an entire class to it. But I'm NOT disrespecting the class. It's a shame that it's where it's at. Yes dedicated classes do a better job with more SP for invig, but usually it's not needed. Staffs as a class need a better edge. This is why I can't place staff in a tier since it does not do damage nor have a special need class wise, but it is essential.

These are my opinions people. I do not dislike any classes. I love using low tier classes myself because they are much more fun to use. I just dislike seeing TB->TB or AmayAmayAmayAmaya. Skills right?

[Ryxa]

@Grave

Just a few things I wanted to mention. In terms of sheer damage, swords have a +-13% range (Or maybe 8, correct me if I'm wrong) while TS have a +-5% range. While this does mean that swords CAN do more damage than TS, it doesn't mean they do so consistently. TS have a higher average damage than sword but with a lower min/max. What TS offers that sword does not is consistency. Sword offers slightly weaker damage in trade for EVEN FASTER spells (Both classes are already really fast).

Meanwhile, the damage boosts from stats actually favor TS more than swords. As swords take pow as primary and dex as secondary, while TS take dex as primary and pow as secondary/tertiary, TS will gain more statistically overall. While sword gains affinity from pow, it does not gain the bonus affinity every 10 pow levels and it does not gain affinity from dex. TS on the other had, gets the bonus affinity every 10 pow along with regular affinity scaling from dex. On this same topic, TS taking dex over pow also means on average, most TS players SHOULD have more dex than sword players. The main difference here is the fact that sword has more available affinity titles than TS users do.

I'm trying my best not to be biased as I use sword personally, but there's a few more major differences that have not been mentioned. Firstly, the majority of TS skills have higher SF values than swords. In fact, there are videos of TS users straight up tanking gargoyles due to chiami + their higher damage and multi-hits that allow them to cycle skill repeatedly. In the case of swords, the extra hp from definitely does help. I've survived quite a few hits here and there with under 1000 hp to spare and I'm fairly certain I'd have died were it not for that little bit of extra hp from pow. Regardless, that little extra hp isn't much help as a best case scenario involves not getting hit in the first place. One last thing to mention is that recently sword's TSB got buffed by approx. 8% sf (Which helps A LOT. Like A LOT. Like it totally made this skill VIABLE when it wasn't viable for use in Edo before the buff WITHOUT needing a ton of holy) while TS's TSB did NOT.

Finally, (and somewhat off-topic) STAB doesn't really apply in Onigiri as anyone can build any element. The reason why Axe/Sword/TS seem to have this STAB effect (Also this isn't Pokemon... not hating, I like Pokemon too) is because ornaments like fated contractor and avenger on monsters, which are the primary crit ornaments, have slice on them.

Also, just going to mention one more time that these are opinions and I'm doing my best to be unbiased but it can't be helped sometimes. I know for a fact I defnitely see more of sword's weaknesses and see more of other classes strengths than a person who doesn't play sword as their main and that as a person I tend to get stuck on small details.

[Firon]

I've only really been using TS's in Oushuu and not all 105 mags are out yet, so I haven't seen all the other classes, but, which skills for each weapon are you comparing? I'm assuming this is following the 105 heavenly shield arrangement and that stat selection doesn't matter (it's pretty easy to max 2 stats and still have some decent amount of points in a 3rd at higher levels+max hp barely makes a difference when you're under 40% hp). For TS, I'd put down TB and CCC, TB is pretty safe to use for pretty much anything if you time it right (except for Tsuchikorobi), CCC, for it's damage capabilities and fast execution.

For wand, would that be fireball/crimson ougi or ice glaive? I really don't have much of an idea about wands.

Essentially, what skills are people planning to use with their 105 mags?

[SupremeTentacle]

@ Grave

Wand has something to compensate for what you described to be a lack of ability to handle mobs without eating through SP. Seeing as how Lv. 105 magatama are only of the fifth rank, this implies that wands are able to use rank 5 skills, which consume little to no sp for them. These rank five skills should also be sufficiently powerful enough to one shot monsters. For example, a wand could easily have a wand with triple rank 5 fireball. This skill not only has extremely low cooldown, but is also targetted, and does decent single target damage. Wand users are almost able to infinitely cast this spell with only one weapon if they do things correctly. This allows them to easily eat through mobs of a lower density without consuming vast amounts of sp. God sealing circle also decimates mobs of melee-based monsters.

Wadatsumis are not relevant when 105 maga are taken into account. Everyone is able to obtain roughly the same amount of skill force. Asura has a problem, in that it can only hit four monsters for maximum damage. If you get stuck in large mobs, such as the one room in Alluring caverns with anywhere between 50 and 100 monsters, you're pretty much a sitting duck as you cannot cut through them faster than they can eat you alive. Do note that approaching ranged mobs with Wadatsumis is also relatively annoying. The reason that I vouch for axe being amoungst the high tiers may be slightly different for the rest of you though - I believe Rock Shattering Strike will soon enter the meta as a dominant skill due to its sheer power.

TS's best Ougi is Fuujin's circle dance, which, in combination with several other factors, such as their damage consistency and scaling, puts it a good tier above sword. Do note that TS has access to more wind skills than almost every other weapon, implying that wind builds are extremely viable and efficient. I would say that a wind build is far superior to a lightning build for TS.

I would advise for every TS user to have exactly 100 power due to affinity, so I don't believe that they are any squishier than sword users.

Spears do not really suffer from a lack of AoE or range. Higher ranks of Water Dragon Spear, Ice Blossom and Revolving Blast have large amounts of both. Although this isn't relevant to our current discussion, spears will also have their mobility problem solved soon because they are getting a dash ougi. However, I don't believe spears are incapable of burst damage. They were recently buffed; spirit blast's damage was increased by approximately 50%. (Yes, this is applied to our server already.) The result of this is that spears are able to do incredible amounts of damage for hitting the "sweet spot" on spirit blast. While very small monsters will only be hit by three pillars, most bosses are relatively large, and should get hit by all five pillars. This pretty much eats through their hp, as spirit blast even allows Lv. 9x players to hit over 700k stuff in Pipe 3.

Like Ryxa said though, spear suffers from the problem that its damage will not scale up as much as any of the other weapons. It also does not really have access to some of the better ornaments... so it's left behind in the dust.

Odachi Meteor is long ranged. CFBS also reaches pretty far, and can do like 500k per tick after 105 maga. Contrary to popular believe, I believe Odachi's strength comes from its ability to be nimble. This doesn't sound quite right off the bat, but when you take some specific skills into consideration, it should click. Odachi has a much more powerful Holy Empty Sky Slash than swords. This skill is not only fast, but also devastating. It's able to kill monsters with just two of the five ticks, and is roll cancelable. Likewise, it also has Tsubame Gaeshi, another fast skill. Odachi can dart around and effectively spam these to pick off monsters. The play style itself is rather fun, but I don't really think Odachis are that high up the tier list. Even if aggro is drawn away from them, I don't particularily think that they are able to DPS as hard as most of the other weapon types.

Heal is detrimental. I've seen a staff do 400k per tick with Nether Trap (in our server, on the dog boss in oushuu). I think it's quite usable as an offensive weapon, just not optimal because of limited elemental selection and low base damage.

@Ryxa
Wasn't TSB buff 11%?

@Firon
In my opinion, wand should have the following set up.

Bright homing 7, Freezing Ice bullet 7, frost glaive 7
Inferno 5/5, Hellfire 7
Bright homing 7, earth glaive 7, lightning blast 7

Wait, isn't that alot of single target? Yes, yes it is. That's because the ougi will be the player is mostly depending on for mob clear. A mix of Fuujin Raijin and God Sealing Circle, in combination with the newer stuff, whenever we get it, should handle fairly well. I'm not really a fan of crimson ray. It's just weak.

Note that once 120 cap, gargs and battleships roll in, the meta should change a bit. A few weapons should rise because of niche builds, but that's not particularly relevant atm.

tl;dr

TS > Sword (for now)
Odachi is meh

[puri]

How does Miyamoto factor into the discussion, considering with awk level 5 you have pretty high vanguard uptime. Her single target abilities are pretty strong and also insane mobility and buffs. Does she help complement the more AoE-focused weapon types?