[Autumn]

I'm not entirely sure why my post was quoted for this, I wasn't exactly singling out what you'd said and criticising, honestly - I was more trying to highlight the fact that the post so far has been completely skewed in favour of the same talk of global fleur and evasion buffs, as if there's only one play-style with that sort of creativity problem, when to be honest it's practically running in the blood of the game.

I feel that it just needs to be stressed again and again that this problem extends further than just the current focus, and I will put that forward as much as I can to make sure Dev understands that this isn't just about basic attackers, as it feels most of the responses are making it out to be.

It just often feels like nobody cares about that, the style of playing is powerful, why complain about it? Because it's not unique, you're put down to just another tank, just another mage, etc, to people. You don't have much space to stand out and be different.

This isn't about what should and shouldn't feel strong, at least to me. It's about feeling unique. In strength, some playstyles are better than others, but in uniqueness, and standing out, most playstyles are in a bit of crisis.

The point some people are trying to make here is that statting up a tank or mage already feels unique, you have so little need for stats comparatively to basic attackers that you can just fit in less-than-desirable stats to sort of fuel your desires with, a mage can slot in almost any element that they want, even acid and still have unique traits apart from other mages, liikewise for tanks.

The point that is being made in regards to basic attacking, and why it devolves to this, is because basic attacking's stat tax is tremendous, and item scaling is not diverse enough to support that.

Imagine for a moment, there should be at least 1 of the following archetypes of scaling for every single weapon type:
-Primarily or entirely STR scaling weapon
-Primarily or entirely WIL scaling weapon
-Primarily SKI scaling weapons
-Primarily or entirely GUI scaling weapons.
-Primarily LUC scaling weapons

I think we've hit a certain point where STR has become worth it as a stat again, and so we can open up avenues where builds are not required to be using it, for example:

-What if the Magical Weapon line was 100% WIL 10% STR
-What if some Katanas like Hisen/Sogensara were more dexterity based, scaling from SKI/GUI

and so many more possibilities. The point that is being made here is that its going to devolve to basic attacking, because basic attacking or dodging feels unfair compared to just bulking up and hiding behind a shield while throwing rocks or water.

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 efficiency, but as it 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.