[Raigen.Convict]

I say tomes deserve weapon parts, oriented towards basic attacking, and maybe a few elemental oriented ones, so they can keep up with weapons and have their own unique flavor, I've wanted to do basic attack tome builds for so long... They just don't work as good as weapon builds when tomes are so much easier to make use of for some builds. Im not sure what they would be but we can be adult and brainstorm, right?

[renowner]

Well, Tomes have the ability to have that minus youkai summoning cost thing, that we also can't make tools to apply. So that should also be a priority.
But I suppose the weapon slots would be, Binding, Cover, and Paper? If they wanted three.

Or perhaps just Binding and Cover since paper is already the material, and already applies an elemental attack bonus.
Perhaps one part would be "Summoner's cover" +1 Youkai contract slot. Sorta like a weaker versa vorso. Other ides would be like, sharp paper or something that gives small amounts of lingering damage on critical, like a paper cut.

[Shujin]

Binding
Cover
Bookmark?

[Snake]

I think tomes are fine as they are. We do have Spelledge weapons to fulfill that role anyway.

The real problem here is the massive disadvantage it has when the term is materials. A tome's pages should grant it better bonuses than just -2 FP cost on X spell.

That is just an absurd in terms of mats.

[Shujin]

I mean either way they are NOT fine, as you say.

Its on obvious disadvantage over spelledge weapons that you can even two-hand, to the point that in reality you do not use tomes unless the tome itself has an desireable effect/potential...Or you just think its cool.

If we change how the papers work, or if we add parts to them...doesn't matter, they are inferior to weapons, I do not think it would make the weapon overpowered just because a basic attack possibly has a chance of landing now, because material/Parts actually help with it the same way weapons do.

[Rendar]

A primer upon Tomes

While Tomes are inherently strong due to not requiring STR scaling, they are all around less useful than some other weapons that count as casting implements. Their most 'equal' alternative, the elemental staves, has equal scaling (if more WIL focused) whilst also providing a boon of bonus elemental attack, being classified as a polearm (staff), being able to be 2-handed, and having weapon parts.

As is currently, the only tome that sees any real major usage is the Zerotrain, a 3* tome due to it's strong scaling (70% SKI, 50% WIL) that basically everyone has stat wise for with the 70% SKI scaling. There are other tomes that are used, but are generally seen as edge cases due to something mechanical that they provide.

As an example, my character initially wanted the Light-based staff. It looked good, it had weapon parts.. and then I realized it scaled off of FAI, which while high.. was still lower than my 60 scaled SKI. While it had more hit, it wasn't enough to justify the 20ish SWA point difference, alongside the synergy that the tome provides with Tactician. So I swapped to the tome and did not ever really look back.

Spell Edge weapons, generally, are not used by pure mages, rather by hybrids that actually have an investment in STR (or explosion mages that want to run some other class that requires a sword)... Their main benefit is that they're able to be made of Remains and a wielder is able to be 2handed for the full power up (as opposed to Staves not being able to reach 20 weight, and tomes just not being able to be 2 handed)...

How I would see changes to tomes go underway is a few different ways.

Materials
We will be removing their paper typing, at the moment, shifting that to a type of weapon part and moving tomes to use wood. While this is a change, I still do not believe it to be too much of an adequate one, since metal category weapons are, in general, the best in the game due to their ability to utilize Remains (Looking at you Fireblood Remains and Dragon Remains). That, however, is a balance fu topic on the nature of Remains versus Metal options.

Allowing Tomes access to Wood for their making at least allows for a few key elements to get used and gain +X Atk, while also providing some level of customization.



Weapon Parts
These weapon parts are in three categories:
-Paper
-Binding
-Ink

The Paper category will be similar to what we have now, except it will also provide a small bonus on top of that.  Each elemental category will provide -2 to their respective element, and +3 elemental attack to it. On the flip side, it will also provide a -2 to the opposing element (as based purely upon Elemental Enchants and Light Vs Dark)

High Quality Ash Paper will provide a -1 to all spells.


The Binding category is, as always, a tad harder to think on. I, however, think that there should be five major types for this and would be willing to hear out suggestions.

-Binding 1: +5 hit, -2 Power
-Binding 2: +2 Power, -5 Hit
-Binding 3: +5 crit, -2 Power
-Binding 4: +5 Crit, -5 Hit
-Binding 5: +2 Hit, +2 Crit, +5 weight


The Ink category is where I am struggling to figure out what to do. I am half tempted to allow for these items to change the base-scaling on the item in different ways. A basic level 1 tome going from 100% WIL to gaining different WEAPON TAGS based upon what ink is used. Of course, this might be a bit much, but it would allow a level of tome customization that would make them stand out from the rest of the weapons.

The base ink types would likely be Fire, Ice, Wind, Lightning, Earth, Light, Dark, and Ghostly (or some such for Sanctity).

A lot of ink types, but I do also realize the inherent imbalance of this on certain tomes, (being able to make the Rose Whip Finesse, Electrical, and Cold would give it 10% WIL, 70% SKI, and 40% Luc scaling, for instance.)


I'm open to feedback, but it's just a general idea I had, in hopes that we might be able to see some more use out of tomes rather than everyone leaning hard onto spelledge weaponry.

[Raigen.Convict]

I'm liking the ideas presented so far with the binding category... I was wondering if Ink could potentially have a part which extends the basic attack range by 1 but reduces hit chance by like, 10 with another perhaps granting added scalng based on element type to basic attacks only in exchange for 5 crit, something like +10% more scaling.

[renowner]

Tomes have huge weight and bad base stats and don't even have good green effects compared to normal weapons. Many normal weapons also don't have str scaling. (you can't even make the one that makes summoning cheaper!)

Outside of potentials or passives the tomes have, there's only two real things that make tomes worthwhile.
1: The talent that lets you have 5 more skill slots with a tome equipped. WHICH IS NEGATED BY THE FACT THAT YOU CAN JUST SWAP IT OUT AND RETAIN THE SKILLS.
2: Tome smack. Not sure if other people agree, but I Think Tome smack is the best special attack in the game. Most special attacks are good. Really just the bow one is terrible, but Tome smack despite costing 4m is still the one I think is the best.

But having 20 less power and being able to use less skills and not even having necessarily better scaling as opposed to elemental staves is pretty meh. Most mages just use impure idol anyway, which means even pure mages tend to use the staves for the +10 power they get for two handing.

I like the ideas presented so far, but would also like to see:
1: The green effects on tomes to also have lightweight or heavy, instead of +2 durability.
2: The ability to create the green effect on tomes that reduces summoning cost.
3: Bindings should also influence weight.
4: Ink should have ancillary effects, passives. In fact if this were to be the case, I Think the green effect that reduces summon costs should simply be one of the inks provided. Maybe one ink makes enchantment class effects last another turn, maybe one could raise FP regen by 1 or 2. Maybe another increases the potency of your capacity talent's recycling level.

I believe these would give tomes a sidegrade compared to the two-hand scaled power of other weapons.