[Neus]

WEAPONRY

The 'expertise' skills all got changed. All of them have two subpaths between them; Balance, which reduces Battle Weight, and Adaptation, that enables you to equip them regardless of your main class. However, they all have a unique subpath based on the type of weapon.


Blade Expertise
1.5 SP per Rank

• Balance - Reduces the Battle Weight of Sword and Dagger weapons by up to SR * 1.5
  
• Adaptation - Allows you to equip any Sword weapon with a Rarity equal to or less than SR*2.
  
• Reliability - For Sword and Dagger weapons: increases Hit by SR * 1.5, reduces Durability consumption by SR * 5%.

Swords are usually seen as the middle ground of weapons, balanced in most respects. Reliability helps keep them in shape.


Axe Expertise
1.5 SP per Rank

• Balance - Reduces the Battle Weight of Axe weapons by up to SR * 1.5
  
• Adaptation - Allows you to equip any Axe weapon with a Rarity equal to or less than SR*2.
  
• Deadliness - For Axe weapons: increases Critical by SR * 1.5, and Critical Damage by SR * 1%.

Axes have more destructive force than the other melee weapons and they have a strong emphasis on deadly blows, hence Deadliness.


Polearm Expertise
1.5 SP per Rank

• Balance - Reduces the Battle Weight of Polearm weapons by up to SR * 1.5
  
• Adaptation - Allows you to equip any Polearm weapon with a Rarity equal to or less than SR*2.
  
• Thin Tip - For Polearm weapons: increases Power by SR * 1.5 when attacking an enemy in melee range who is facing you.

One of the things I wanted to change about the weapon expertises is a less focus on generic power increase and go for situational power instead, to help the weapons feel a bit different. That's the general idea behind Thin Tip, giving you an edge against foes trying to attack into your spear.


Archery
1.5 SP per Rank

• Balance - Reduces the Battle Weight of Bow weapons by up to SR * 1.5
  
• Adaptation - Allows you to equip any Bow weapon with a Rarity equal to or less than SR*2.
  
• Close Shot - For Bow weapons: decreases close range Hit penalty by SR * 5%. Doubled for Shortbows.

Close Shot makes melee range bow shots slightly less punishing. For regular bows, instead of suffering from -50% Hit, you can get away with just -25% Hit, which is still pretty punishing. Shortbows don't exist in live but you can expect to see a few in the beta test, and they're better suited to close quarters, suffering from no penalty if you rank Close Shot up to SR5.


Unarmed Combat
1.5 SP per Rank

• Balance - Reduces the Battle Weight of Fist weapons by up to SR * 1.5
  
• Adaptation - Allows you to equip any Fist weapon with a Rarity equal to or less than SR*2.
  
• Dizzy - For Fist weapons: basic attacks that hit reduce the target's FP by SR * 1. 50% effective VS Light Armor, 25% effective against Heavy Armor.

Fists and MAs have always been very good at anti-mage roles and Dizzy helps that, since a lot of mages prefer to be unarmored. Armored opponents won't feel much of its effects, however, especially heavy armor users who will only lose 1 FP at most.


Marksmanship
1 SP per Rank

• Volley - For Bow and Gun weapons: Increases attack range by SR * 1. (Max SR: 2)
  
• Wind Read - Increases maximum range before Farshot Penalty is applied by SR * 1. (Max SR: 3)
  
• Adaptation - Allows you to equip any Gun weapon with a Rarity equal to or less than SR*2.

Marksmanship retains its role in helping long range weapons. Wind Read can be useful for archers with low/medium amounts of Guile, and more attack range benefits pretty much any Bow or Gun user.


Maintenance
2 SP per Rank

• Self-Service - For yourself: Restores Durability of equipped weapon(s) after every battle by SR * 1, up to 75% max. Durability. If you have two weapons equipped, half the effect is applied to both weapons.
  
• Squad-Service - Allows all other party members to receive the benefit of your Self-Service, at SR * 20% of its usual effectiveness. (Note: Only the highest Squad-Service in the party applies.)
  
• Mastery - Increases the maximum durability your Maintenance effects can repair up to, by SR * 3%. (90% at SR5.)
  
• Emergency Service - Grants a battle skill that can only target those with a broken weapon(s). On use, consumes 2 Murai and restores the broken weapon(s)' Durability to SR * 1 (has a 5 round cooldown).

Maintenance is similar but quite different. The talent is a good deal more powerful if invested in, going up to 5 durability repairs per battle (or 2 per weapon, if multiple). Not only that, but you can give everyone else in your party the same benefit. And, if your weapon snaps in the middle of a battle, you can avoid being up the creek without a paddle with Emergency Service. Maintenance is a very helpful party talent, and I thought it might be interesting to make it more impactful, perhaps for any squire-like characters out there.

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Overall Thoughts: Overall my goal with the expertise category was to make them feel a little less mandatory, as they don't necessarily give you any Power or Critical anymore. That said, people will still probably want to invest in them, which is fine, but for some people they might only put in 4 points to max out the unique subpath and have one extra point over. Maintenance was expanded to let characters who heavily invest in that idea to be very useful party members, instead of everyone and their mother having it active all the time.

I suppose that isn't guaranteed to change, but at least people will have to invest more heavily in it to achieve that, and the ones who take the talent up to rank 10 will always have some edge on those who didn't.