There have been a few good ideas floating around, regarding how Creation Weapon attack ratings might be improved. From what FC have announced so far, it seems likely that there will be some emphasis on creations - so thinking of ideas for improving the effectiveness of creations as weapons might be a good idea.
Here's some of the ideas that I've seen floating around. Have we got any more?
1) 100% Weapon-skill + 20% Nanoskill (e.g. 100% 2HB + 20% TS)
This idea includes the requirement for strong investment and tweaking to get a decent weapon skill level. Would check against the relevant evade. It allows usage of specials from group weapon perk lines. It also lends itself to more different armour choices.
You can look at future development in two ways though:
a) General buffs on items/equip may be developed more for weapon skills
b) MP specific buffs are more likely to be on nanoskills.
If we're lobbying as a profession for more skills-budget - then we're more likely to get nanoskills. But historically, weapon-skill buffs seem to have been a bit more common on general items.
2) Present Attack Skills - but check against Nano Resist (without AAD)
This idea sets the present 80%TS + 20% Weapon-skill against Nano Resist instead of against one of the evades. The benefits here, are:
a) that Nano Resist values should always be set around a value that allows us to land nanoskill based attacks - since the rest of our tool-set is built around this.
b) that MP specific buffs are more likely to be on nanoskills
This gives some protection against the idea that weapon AR tends to inflate more than nanoskills. AR tends to be tied to AAD/Evades increases. Nano AR tends to be tied to NR icnreases.
3) 51% Weaponskill + 69% TS
This idea gives enough weapon-skill to allow usage of perk specials - but allows emphasis on Nanoskills. Counter-part to number 1.
a) Allows usage of group weapon perk specials
b) Leans more toward nanoskills allowing MPs to twink more toward core casting skills
Down-sides here may be, that if the historical emphasis on inflating weapon-skills continues, then MPs may be more susceptible to AR slippage
4) Swap all TS checks with MC check.
Helps, since we generally have higher MC than TS - and also fits with the idea of the creations being material creations
5) Attack skills 100% nanoskill (MC, or 50/50 MC/TS) + 25% weapon skill + AAO
Suggested due to the difficulties that may be encountered with getting suitable item buffs from armours etc, if Creation Weapons were to become the weapons of choice for the MP.
6) Attack Skills 100% MC Vs Nano Resist (set in percentage to give appropriate AR).
This was in conjunction with other ideas suggested in
Waylayer's post - and may not stand entirely well on its own as a result.
Taking an example skill balance of 2000 TS and 1600 Weapon-skill, these differing ideas give attack ratings of:
80%/20% Vs NR.... AR = 1920
100%/20% Vs Evade... AR = 2000
60%/60% Vs Evade... AR = 2160
100% TS/25% WS = 2400 AR
Clearly, there's not a huge difference between the different ideas in terms of AR - but the difference between smallest and largest is significant (240 AR = ~10%+).
The most directly effective is probably the idea of changing to an NR Def Check - though this also has the lowest overall AR, so using general weapon perks will tend to be a weakness.
A lot also depends upon how you believe skills budgets will inflate in future.
Any other ideas that have been floated that I've missed?
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