New THF WS - Aeolian EdgeFollow

Playonline.com today has a video of all the new WS's. :) THF is fairly close to the beginning of the video (00:27)

http://dl.square-enix.co.jp/ffxi/US/WS_US0601.wmv

Looks to me like a 2-hit AoE... but maybe i'm just reading into the swirling and such.

Thoughts?

Make it modified by INT and our AF hat finally has a purpose :P

Quicker vid to load. (0:30)

I don't know what to think of this ws, we already have good ones for weak & high defense mobs on top of having plenty of skillchain options. This ws probably fills in what's left to cover for sc options, or improve from old ones (Shark Bite +1).

From the video it appears we're getting an ELEMENTAL weaponskill (in fact, all of them appear to be elemental in nature). Aeolian Edge looks like a modernized cyclone for higher levels. Elemental weaponskills use the magic damage formula, NOT the melee one. Base damage is calculated by dINT instead of fSTR meaning your intelligence is weighted against the enemies intelligence, and secondary mods applied regularly (25% dex, 10% chr, 50% vit, 25% mind, etc etc would work as normal as does the first hit fTP bonus). Furthermore, attack has NO BEARING on elemental weaponskills. You can eat red curry buns, sub /war, get chaos roll and raise your attack until your face turns blue but it won't raise cyclone's damage one iota. Magic attack bonus is the final multiplier. The moldavite earring for example WILL increase cyclone's damage whereas a merman's earring will not. Similarly snow rings are better than thunder rings if you're considering cyclone.

Now, Aeolian Edge looks interesting but we'll have to see it in practice. Elemental weaponskills can never miss (but they CAN resist to 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and and 1/16 damage just like an offensive magical spell can) but with unknown modifiers it has potential. The reason cyclone is lame is because its secondary mods are too weak and it isn't suited for use at level 75. However with the right set of modifiers Aeolian Edge could have a place at level 80. A (2 hit???) wind based elemental weaponskill with strong enough mods fills a niche that Shark Bite, ManStab, Evisceration and Dancing Edge can't because it's magical in nature whereas the others are all physical. We just have to see what mods affect it and we'll go from there. I'm looking forward to this myself, I'm just hoping its mods are good enough.

Edited, Jun 7th 2010 6:22pm by Melphina

Even if it is a useful elemental WS....I question whether I have the room (and whther or not it will be good enough to justify) to put together yet another specialized gear set in my already overtaxed inventory space.

I hope we're all wrong and SE decides to woosh us and make it physical...

...or maybe its elemental, but the first hit has added effect of dispel and second hit drops mobs def by 50%








Yes I know my optimism has no place here, but I can dream right?

Tachi: Jinpu stacks with SATA despite being a magic WS.

Edited, Jun 7th 2010 10:33pm by Lobivopis

All SAM Great Katana weaponskills stack with Sneak Attack. They're still physical in nature with elemental damage added (check WS like Kagero, Goten, Koki, and Jinpu). Pure magic weaponskills will penetrate Utsusemi and will not expend Sneak Attack's use.

You've got pure elemental weaponskills like Blade: Ei that you can use for Utsusemi penetration, but you'd have to gear hard to even make something like that decent (or utilize the 30% magic damage increase associated with Innin).

BRDs can use hecatomb, too.

Yeah the different between your +30 int and +5mab sample and normal ws gear was 25dmg. Just so you know, elemental type weapon skills can't be stacked with sa/ta. So remove that from the equation, and you have a triple attacked WS w/ int and mab just about tying in dmg with the one done in your normal set. If the WS had a big int mod on it I would think it would have come out doing higher dmg.