[Shujin]

ADDENDUM: I don't think Dev ever intended for us to be putting in so many stats, given how the soft cap used to work at the start of GR I think the original intention was to have 40 + racial base in a stat in order to maximize its effiecency, bit as ot stands..we're going upwards to the higher 50s and lower 60s, perhaps this could also be the problem, and also why tanking is so efficient comparatively to other methods.

I think overall good points have been made, but I want to reply to this here. 
I think its honestly more that defensive stats are more effective, since they fullfill 2 roles at the same time, making them twice as valuable as pure offensive stats. I think many problems that we have could be reduced by alot if defensive stat scaling on weapons was massively reduced or even removed. I know what you mean by saying this but I feel like if we reduced the Stats per level for example, basic attackers have it even harder. 
Its not the amount of stat points that makes a tanky mage being able to fill in a fluff stat. Its that they need less stats to be effective because of how powerful these stats are. Vise versa the fast basic attacker archetypes struggles cause they need so many stats to even fullfill their base needs and then some.
Just my personal take on this point in particular. 


As another example of what works versus what doesn't:

My main character that I have pretty much played since the start of SL2, that I have played alot has a rather simple concept combat wise and always has been doing something like that with light shifts when something was just not working anymore.
Skilled Swordman with high ice focus, fast and versatile who just goes into the field.

Since I am as a person am trying to avoid meta as much as I can, in favour of a good character concept who then attempts to use maximize efficiency of that concept as long as I can justify it.

So to create the character I imagine that I pictured in my head I went and is I believe fairly unique overall (well duh its not super effective so why would someone?):

Firbird with sword and verglas. Cause Kensei doesn't help with baisc attacks at all anymore and Ghost just doesn't fit the image of her that I want, atleast not if I want to play ghost effective. Firebird has atleast the cool concept that I like, that she is stronger when surrounded by Ice.

Though with how Verglas works now you need a massively large skillpool, since verglas also uses fist weapons, I can not get away from building Strength unless I entirely gimp my damage (which is already low) so additionally to what normal basic attackers have to deal with...I need a lot of Wil to have FP and some extra skillpool slots (I still have 7 skills I kinda wanna use in my backburner but cause they are niche/dodge skills I am sorta okay with it. I jus talso have alot of Skillpoints on calsses left to spend so I kinda wish I could make stuff like brainfreeze etc. a no slotter)

I attempt to compensate for my squishyness by using Phoenix talon/Meditate to generate more HP but that drives me away from the "Just go in and fight" mentallity that I used to have with her pre Kensei/Verglas update espically if I try to use ice greavers/ice point guard to further compensate for lack of survialbility and damage. Instead what happend is that I have to spend serval turns buffing which makes me feel "Slow" but hey better than not standing a chance at all.

The problem is that even while trying to go through the mental gymnastic to try and figure something out with extreme effort, it will never be as effective as one of the current cookie cutter builds. I could make this work if I gave up on Basic attacks and instead build for tank/auto attacks(which kinda compromises my efforts in long-term playing this char when someone does the 'smarter' thing and just follows the meta and suddenly is the new ice king. Same problem that our certain Mercalan priest has). But thats not what I think is fun to play, I love the flashy speed of basic attackers and the rewarding feel you get for landing big combos, even if each hit just deals 27 damage on a crit, its fun to watch.  I do not want to have the first few rounds a starring contest of buffing up, and go straight into the fray what I could do before with Kensei/verglas cause they had all these passive things making the gameplay feel much more fluid and put you in the position where you could apply pressure.
Instead now I see me buffing up, see a Chargemind on the other side and already know "I am dead." And still have only half my buffs applied. It went even so far that at some point we speculated that even if I landed a Vorpal hit with every attack, I'd still lose the damage race. And thats just giving me that big ol "Why bother?" feel. Unga bunga beats strategy most of the time.
Others went and became "meta slaves", cause thats still better than nothing I went and just stopped playing cause I didn't enjoy the gameplay anymore.
heck I love the game, but I do not like to be forced into that one route of being "Samey" to be able to compete at all, espically if most people see PvP as their one and only holy grail of solving/progressing events.




That all is fine and dandy but...I overall agree that there is a lot of railroading in the equipment system simply because most weapons do not have anything going for them, awkward scaling and sometimes the effects so niche that you do maybe see them once in your lifetime actually used. One of the prime examples of that are Fangfare daggers. Super rare, scaling ain't too bad, could be better but its okay it can work. But its effect? Heck its a chance even with two of them, only on pure dodges and even then you teleport behind them and create an ice statue which...You can't really do much with, but I guess it looks cool? Just that no one will ever bother using basic attacks against you to begin with, if they cant hit. Making a super rare weapon not only niche, but even the niche isn't good for anything but being stylish (But I personally give plus points for being stylish), but ultimately inferior to very easily to get weapons like fan daggers with on hits or Vorpals.

I could give many more examples, how fists with all being strength make it difficult to do anything but Auto Attacks. How many weapons are just the other weapon but slightly better (Ironically usually the lower star ones being the better option when it comes to "Upgrade weapons")
And so on. Many here have made good points and many here have a way better grasp of whats currently going on with the game, I haven't played it actively for almost 2 years now just sometimes snowing in and testing new toys and see whats kicking. So my Opinion in parts is probably not entirely up to date, but from what I have heard and seen? Most of it have only gotten worse instead of better.