[Kameron8]

*For every 4 Scaled STR, +1 Power to all non-casting weapons.

To be sure, 'casting weapons' in this case refers to:
-All Tomes
-Spelledge weapons
-Weapons with Conduiz material
-While God Rod is in effect, Polearms with the Staff subtype
-While Apertaurus' racial is in effect, Axes

Basically, this bonus doesn't apply to anything that counts as a casting tool.

Additionally, this bonus would apply to both basic attacks and skills.

Applying this to multi-hit guns doesn't seem like a great idea. Either way, I think there's some other underlying problems present in the game right now that should be addressed before diving into the STR rework. Most notably, the ease at which players can stack incredibly high Damage Reduction % and the vast amount of free stats players can gain from items, buffs, food, and racials. Those two things are not unrelated to one another, but they have a stranglehold on which builds can be successful.

Furthermore, when the description for Strength has to have more than just one or two exceptions, chances are it's not a very elegant solution. If someone tries to swing a Spelledge axe at you, I don't see why it should do less damage than a normal axe outside of the context of magic.

[Chaos]

Applying this to multi-hit guns doesn't seem like a great idea. Either way, I think there's some other underlying problems present in the game right now that should be addressed before diving into the STR rework. Most notably, the ease at which players can stack incredibly high Damage Reduction % and the vast amount of free stats players can gain from items, buffs, food, and racials. Those two things are not unrelated to one another, but they have a stranglehold on which builds can be successful.

Furthermore, when the description for Strength has to have more than just one or two exceptions, chances are it's not a very elegant solution. If someone tries to swing a Spelledge axe at you, I don't see why it should do less damage than a normal axe outside of the context of magic.

As far as I can see, gun builds dump STR in the first place, and I don't see a decent multi-hit gun build stacking up more than +10 or so when stretched very thin. I think it's minimal at worst and gimmicky at best; it's not really a concern, especially when we're talking about stat + equipment investment and not an inate/passive skill.

STR's bonus is intended to exclude spells, and allowing any sort of casting tool to still utilize it is just going to push certain weapons (see: Spelledge weapons) into must-have territory, since you will be getting the best of two damage boosts. That's not what this effect is supposed to create. Yes, you can just say 'it doesn't apply' to cases like Ghostwind and Asura Fist; anything that would just use the weapon if its a certain type. Beyond that, however, weapons that actually serve as casting tools in their own right would dip a little too far in to be ignored.

Damage Reduction/'free stats' are different matters entirely and deserve their own topics. Quite frankly, I see no reason why they should stop STR from getting something substantial to bring to the table. (As, clearly, majority scaling/BW/Inv Capacity has failed time and time again to make STR good)

[Kameron8]

Damage Reduction/'free stats' are different matters entirely and deserve their own topics. Quite frankly, I see no reason why they should stop STR from getting something substantial to bring to the table. (As, clearly, majority scaling/BW/Inv Capacity has failed time and time again to make STR good)

The former two issues I mentioned correlate to build possibilities and damage dealt to people as a whole, which feels relevant enough for me to mention here. Boosting the power gained from Strength will dump more damage onto the board for some class setups, which will in some cases be the desired effect. In other (and arguably more) cases, it bumps the power level of people leveraging bonus stats to do everything, when damage is already wildly fluctuating because numbers like 80-85% damage reduction are possible.

To give my opinion on the numbers suggested by the change, I don't personally think a maximum of 16 power will change much of anything as far as the current x vs y matchups go. It's certainly nothing as impactful as global evasion, or even the bug fix for double-dipped weapon power, so I wouldn't go even remotely as far as to scream catastrophe if it got implemented.

[Snake]

I have no witty comments, tired of having another "Ether Invitation thread 2.0" that will run for months and months without a final veredict, because people can't just accept new changes that can make other gimmicks actually worth, or just because it will probably affect their own characters in some way, and overall, come on, just let this play out, ffs. +1 to the OP.

If this is confirmed 'broken'. (ahahahaha, +10 weapon power for overinvesting in STR is broken LOL), just change back, or make SKI be some sort of stat needed to balance out the bonus points (i.e, the power bonus won't go past X% Scaled SKI).

Like every experimental changes we had. Threads like this are no new hot stuff for the community and I don't know why the big ass surprise. All that's needed is some free time from Dev so we can figure out a new way to make STR matter, with this change being the base of it.

[noblekame]

*For every 4 Scaled STR, +1 Power to all non-casting weapons.

To be sure, 'casting weapons' in this case refers to:
-All Tomes
-Spelledge weapons
-Weapons with Conduiz material
-While God Rod is in effect, Polearms with the Staff subtype
-While Apertaurus' racial is in effect, Axes

I've got an easier idea, instead of it raising the weapons power, why not have STR increase the power of physical attacks, as far as I recall there are no physical damage based spells, all of them do magical damage.

[Fern]

Snake has taken the thoughts out of my head. Really, if it ends up being too much of an issue, it can just be reverted- it's truly not that big of a change.

As for the 'STR increasing the power of physical attacks' idea, it's probably worth considering, though I'm not sure if that would affect cases like Black Rend from Shaitans.

[MegaBlues]

I don't see why Strength should only affect melee attacks. It's not like Will (Elemental Attack, extra FP, status infliction) only affects magical attacks.

I feel like, somewhere along the way, boosting Strength has become about making physical better rather than making the actual stat better.

[Trexmaster]

I'm in the camp that, after some thought, STR isn't in as perilous a position as some people may make it out to be in.

It's simply one of the more niche stats, if not presently the most niche due to its uselessness if you opt out of all of the things it supports (Fire ATK, STR-based scalings, BW, encumberance) compared to every other stat in the game that gives you -something- that is useful to any setup. One may look at this and say 'Oh, STR needs to be put on par with the other stats!". To that I say "No, look at what the niche uses of STR actually are."

STR is, as stated already by Spoops, the most potent stat in the game for creating ludicrously high SWA, out-performing every other stat by a margin of over 50-60 in the highest numbers it can achieve. This is mostly due to the Two-Handed bonus combined with high (110%+) STR scaling weapons, and the fact STR also possesses the highest possible Scaled stat number, going upwards of 70+ Scaled Strength due to the Dragon King's set. As Fern pointed out, 200 SWA is easily possible, while the upper limits for weapons scaling on other stats is around 140 (A Rebelling 1* tome with the observed maximum scaled stats for it, I'm unsure if any other non-str scaling weapon breaches that number aside from a two-handed Bamboo-bo.)

Alongside having the best potential for SWA, STR also contributes to Fire ATK, as Sarinpa mentioned before being swept under the rug since, somehow, STR's effects aren't relevant to STR. If you overlook the potency of cinders entirely, STR is weaker, but until when and if they're ever adjusted, cinders are certainly a factor in how powerful STR is. Liberally abused, cinders are second only to lightning criticals in how lethal they can be if not hard or at least soft-countered.

With all of this in mind, I don't think adding even more damage onto STR is going to suddenly make it any more appealing to people who don't already take it, it will only serve to further bolster builds that already use STR, while giving other builds no reason to grab it anymore than before, as the small bonus isn't worth the heavy investment beyond what they might passively get from APT/other bonuses. It'll just serve to make the STR-stacked doomwalls two-shot people with a slightly wider margin than before, and reward all-stat whoring builds even further.

I think if we wanted to make STR more in line with other stats, it needs something every build would benefit from. While some might say 'BW' it's trivial to reduce your BW to a number even base STR can manage with Balance and Hauler. The best, least invasive thing I can think of is the small HP boost. Str is niche, but very, very good in its niche.

TL;DR
STR has plenty going for it despite being a niche stat, further empowering its niche will do nothing but bolster people who already used it, or builds that stack so many bonus stats they passively benefit from it.

[Slydria]

I'm mostly indifferent to the current idea. I don't think it would really serve to make STR an appealing stat to builds who don't normally require it, outside of multi-shot guns with the original post wording (which just feels weird to build STR for a multi-shot gunner build so it can do more damage.)

I wouldn't suggest trying to add more raw power since any boost you get would only really serve builds that stack STR and they already can get large amounts of SWA. At first I wanted STR to add a small amount of HP but I don't think that would be meaningful to most people either.

The only thought I have as an idea would be making BW have a more of an impact in general so there's more reason for players to pick up STR. So far, it's largely of no consequence, since whenever you have weight issues, it's easy to just use Talents to offset that: Hauler or weight reducing Weapon Expertises instead of Strength, so those particular things may need a nerf.

But other ideas could be things like:
- More talents revolving around BW, e.g. something that gives you extra Hit/Evade/Move if you're at or below a % of your Battle Weight.
- More incentives to build Light and Heavy Armor such as new Armors, buffing old ones, adding new skills or talents for them.
- Considering adding non-Weapon and Armor equipment to your BW.

Just some thoughts.

[Autumn]

But other ideas could be things like:
- More talents revolving around BW, e.g. something that gives you extra Hit/Evade/Move if you're at or below a % of your Battle Weight.
- More incentives to build Light and Heavy Armor such as new Armors, buffing old ones, adding new skills or talents for them.
- Considering adding non-Weapon and Armor equipment to your BW.

Just some thoughts.

All three of sly's suggestions ring a special tune for me, while I do admit I was exaggerating before, I think my concerns have been covered by other posters so that I do not need to elaborate any more.

As I brought up in the previous thread, I think editing the current strengths of STR to be better accomodated for would be more worthwhile in the end of things.