[NEW MERCENARIES] Please note that all new forum users have to be approved before posting. This process can take up to 24 hours, and we appreciate your patience.
Those of you with the 6 items +15 - weapon & armor. How did you do it Honestly & how many fails at enhancing? Lots of boxes & really lucky - hours & hours to get Wilderness seals (200 per steel!?!) - 3 steels per monthly & Bravery from RaR & great drops aside, how did you possibly achieve this feat? I mean 60 steel per failure on an Astera weapon is A LOT of steel !!! Maybe smart ass comments/commenters can avoid this thread - please! I am wondering how did you accomplish it?
option 1: somebody else is paying bills and they farm all hours of day every day.
option 2: rich people buying gatcha and selling items
option 3: gold-buying their way to the top.
No regular person with a regular paying job and a regular life with school, family, events, etc can get such gear. It requires one of the options above.
I would like to add one more option.
Running farm bots for themself.
But the most realistic way is otion 2 or 3.
To do a full set of VVIP raids with 5 characters is like a whole day of playing, and nothing guarantees any good drops of worth that.
Make alts that do events. Right now you could be getting rune/etc on a other accounts. -> make gear on them buy unbinds when they are cheap (or event unbinds) -> send to main.
You still have to play for a long time, but it is best way to not spend money/NX. (Assuming they don't keep on bringing back the runes/items that expire.) And hopefully they even give you items you can sell. (IE best events they gave use gacha boxes => airtight regina/deathknight or other decent stuff.)
Also they really like to give out +10/11 coupons around when they release new lvl gear. Scroll them with free exq runes -> send to main. (Plus if you run 80 easy dailies = 3 star gear)
Make alts that do events. Right now you could be getting rune/etc on a other accounts. -> make gear on them buy unbinds when they are cheap (or event unbinds) -> send to main.
You still have to play for a long time, but it is best way to not spend money/NX. (Assuming they don't keep on bringing back the runes/items that expire.) And hopefully they even give you items you can sell. (IE best events they gave use gacha boxes => airtight regina/deathknight or other decent stuff.)
Also they really like to give out +10/11 coupons around when they release new lvl gear. Scroll them with free exq runes -> send to main. (Plus if you run 80 easy dailies = 3 star gear)
This for me. It's nice as a shortcut. And after that, way too much playing this game. Way too much. Focus on one or two characters, sell anything they don't need, keep it up and you will eventually get that stuff prepared. Seriously. I accidentally infused the 2 bal off my sword (it only took 2 or 3 tries the first time ) and spent easily over 50 stones (one run at it I amassed 36 intermediate element stones and threw them all at the thing to no avail, followed by another attempt with 8 so know that I'm not exaggerating) to put it back on. RNG sucks for sure, but stick with it long enough and it will succeed eventually. I have to add though that I don't have one character in all 15 gear. I have two characters with mostly 13's. If I focused on one and didn't buy so many outfitters I'd probably be at all 15's, but having the second character that can run astera battles means more astera runs in a day if I choose to which means more loot which means more steel and more chances to get weapon ess's. Like I said, I play too much.
I would also advise people against building astera armor. I have it on my main and it's way too expensive to reforge it.
As for that I guess what I would add is that it's entirely possible if you put in a lot of time and keep at it forever. Which is not a very sexy answer or fun or appealing for people to hear.
- Go full dullahan, due to the damage formula you will deal the same damage (yes, the same) as astera in all raids var hell mode, which is pretty useless dropwise. Currently, with maxed att limit and every accesory maxed out, I barely reach the cap in lugh (att cap is 38500 + 3450 from att limit and camp = 41950, and I barely hit 42k, good news is that soon nexon will lower his att cap by -1k), with all the money you save from going dulla you can afford gold bracelets and the sweet golden book pretty easily. There's also a myth that a dullahan character deals less dps in OS than astera, that's fake.
- Play on various accounts. Level atleast 1 character to 100 on all of them, and then just try to do all the events that can give profit to your main. They will also get strong thanks to getting all the event items your main is getting (you can for example upgrade their lvl 90 weapon to +15 for free). Be careful to not abuse this though, the more accounts you create the more you spent doing events, if you have too much you will end up not being able to play with your main due time constraints.
- Good time management, do the most profitable raids first. If you can only play 2h, you can do 5 astera lugh, 2 agares and 2 aes, since they currently give the highest amount of money on average.
- Avoid multiple costumes, the first one gives +250 att and +2 bal over the event ones, which is a neat boost, but once you buy the second you're spending money solely on cosmetic stuff, and lets be real only rich people can afford good stats and a big wardrobe at once. Remember that fusion runes also exists, you can create a cheap good look for around 20m (in EU) so you can have 2 looks. If you're creating this topic you're the kind of person who worries more about stats (I guess?) so this tip is unnecesary.
Those of you with the 6 items +15 - weapon & armor. How did you do it Honestly & how many fails at enhancing? Lots of boxes & really lucky - hours & hours to get Wilderness seals (200 per steel!?!) - 3 steels per monthly & Bravery from RaR & great drops aside, how did you possibly achieve this feat? I mean 60 steel per failure on an Astera weapon is A LOT of steel !!! Maybe smart ass comments/commenters can avoid this thread - please! I am wondering how did you accomplish it?
I failstacked everything to 100%.
I singehandedly funded the entire server buying gachas for outfits.
Literally been playing vindictus since I was born so every hour of my life goes into it for farming steel, bravery from RaR and monthly tickets.
Also I get a rare drop literally every raid so that helped a lot with reforging.
But for an actually serious answer it's a combination of sheer luck and being smart with my money.
When I started miri I got the first +15 dulla weapon for her and all the rest of my armour I had to reforge 2-3 times for each piece to get +15 after initially one shotting them all to +13/14. Dullahan armour btw. Astera is a gigantic and unnecessary waste of money that futureproofs you for content that literally won't show until this time next year.
I don't buy 400m wings or outfits either.
RAR and OS on multiple characters was how a few people I knew and myself did it.
Prioritize one character so its strong enough to run lvl 100 raids and do decent in OS while spamming RAR on all your poverty alts. 2-3 seasons of OS should get you the required steels for a full +15 Dullahan set assuming pretty lackluster luck. Should be even easier now with the steels reduction, so the limiting factor should be getting runes from the seal shop.
Attack isn't much of an issue for Dullahan weapons unless you have full attack limit which shouldn't be a priority till the very end when there is nothing else to work towards. Working on redeemer and vanguard stats will further mitigate the need for attack and crit and increase the lifetime use you will get out of a Dullahan weapon.
In the end its all about patience and tenacity as not everyone with their +15 set is a whale or goldbuyer. Many built their characters over many months of running dailies and preparing for future releases.
Alternatively if you want to hit the endgame in an mmo but skip the grind and not spend any money, the game is probably just not for you.
S1: not needed special gear. LVL 60 set what was famable most of it and a +10-11 weapon got you to acceptable level. LVL70 weapons and gears weere not really necessary (debepend on character ofc) As an Evie Wonderland set/ +12 Raiders staff was more then enough for me to be 1-3 in any raid, including Elchelus.
S2: needed to get a beter armor, weapon was still fine even lvl 60 if you had high enough. +13 Raiders staff and Wonderland set served me until Cromm. I even could run him with acceptable dmg output, being a mid card player.
S3 everything changed. Before rise. +12 weapon and lvl 90 armor was good enough....After rise. Shitstrom hit.
Progression in this game has never been easier. Before reforging was introduced, how many people actually had 6k ad? It was even rare even among the biggest whales as everyone was subject to shitty rng. The issue is that yall look at 6k ad like its a standard to be achieved without much of a time investment or planning when it is literally the endgame. You don't need capped stats and a crapton of ad to play the game, it is however something to work towards and now you are given the means to achieve it. When rise hit and the top characters had ad in the mid 3000s, they were still steamrolling through content so I'm not sure what the issue is about not doing enough damage. If your priority is to compete in damage contribution with the most geared people in a pve game, work towards it or get new priorities.
Onslaught is main source of Damascus Steel income. Average match with boost and top damage (35+35+20) equals to about one steel per 3 matches, which is roundly 30 minutes. Without boost or/and damage reward (2nd damage in team grants +10 instead of +20) this will take significantly more. Please note that this mode is not recommended for beginners or/and people with free gear, despite meeting minimum requirement.
Reforging Astera weapon is indeed very costy - question is: do you really need to? Reforge cost for Dullahan items were reduced recently, and combining it with jump stones/runes that allow easier +12/+13, perhaps that's the way to go for now?
There's also a myth that a dullahan character deals less dps in OS than astera, that's fake.
It's not wholly untrue, but for practical purposes, yeah the difference isn't very meaningful. At 6,000 ADD, the difference is around 5% damage. At 15,000 ADD it's about a 2% damage difference.
Progression in this game has never been easier. Before reforging was introduced, how many people actually had 6k ad? It was even rare even among the biggest whales as everyone was subject to shitty rng. The issue is that yall look at 6k ad like its a standard to be achieved without much of a time investment or planning when it is literally the endgame. You don't need capped stats and a crapton of ad to play the game, it is however something to work towards and now you are given the means to achieve it. When rise hit and the top characters had ad in the mid 3000s, they were still steamrolling through content so I'm not sure what the issue is about not doing enough damage. If your priority is to compete in damage contribution with the most geared people in a pve game, work towards it or get new priorities.
I really struggle to think what the powercreep of reforging adds that positive to gameplay for the average player. If this was back five years ago, where 15s were supposedly like 30 per server (a number I heard once upon a time), the distribution of average damage is pretty evenly spread, with a few super-super-dedicated people having high power. Otherwise you could run a raid with no-name randoms and expect the same result pretty much.
Compare that to today where there are names and there's everyone else. Where you're seriously obliged to sit and wait, ignoring people you don't recognize hosting in QB because there's a chance VellaGoddess or Hesvyr or someone is hosting the same raid, meaning you'll clear it in like a third of the time the PUG run would take. I can host boats just fine, but I quit trying because I can't hook whales into my raid and a Macha that would take VG or whoever 10/12 minutes to clear would take my party 30 minutes to clear.
If additional damage, counterforce, and attack cap removal all disappeared tomorrow, you wouldn't have that. They designed these raids around people having whale stats and then, to add insult to injury, recycle the same attack animations and even the same BOSSES from old raids, more often than not. It's downright insulting.
I really struggle to think what the powercreep of reforging adds that positive to gameplay for the average player. If this was back five years ago, where 15s were supposedly like 30 per server (a number I heard once upon a time), the distribution of average damage is pretty evenly spread, with a few super-super-dedicated people having high power. Otherwise you could run a raid with no-name randoms and expect the same result pretty much.
Compare that to today where there are names and there's everyone else. Where you're seriously obliged to sit and wait, ignoring people you don't recognize hosting in QB because there's a chance VellaGoddess or Hesvyr or someone is hosting the same raid, meaning you'll clear it in like a third of the time the PUG run would take. I can host boats just fine, but I quit trying because I can't hook whales into my raid and a Macha that would take VG or whoever 10/12 minutes to clear would take my party 30 minutes to clear.
If additional damage, counterforce, and attack cap removal all disappeared tomorrow, you wouldn't have that. They designed these raids around people having whale stats and then, to add insult to injury, recycle the same attack animations and even the same BOSSES from old raids, more often than not. It's downright insulting.
Reforging directly makes the gearing progression system more approachable for everyone, especially the average player. Before reforging was added, most people would get their gear to +12 or +13 and call it good enough since even getting that far required quite a bit of luck. Many players wouldn't even push it that far, especially for their armor.
Now sure, I'm not saying reforging is cheap or easy, as it's really not. In fact, it costs almost as much as mass enhancement costs for an equivalent item. However, the way it's presented to the user is way more approachable. Even if your gear blows up at +12, that item is not a paperweight if the goal was a +13 or higher. Yes it sucks, but at least you can continue to work on that one item. You're even guaranteed to eventually hit +15 given sufficient resources, which was definitely not the case in the mass enhance days.
An often ignored benefit of reforging is that since you can continue to enhance the same item, there's no major loss if you blow up an improved piece of equipment when it's not at the enhancement level you would like. In the old system, you would be a fool to throw the best scrolls on an item if it wasn't already at the enhancement level you desired, since the chances were very good that you would lose the item. In the current system, go right ahead and throw Heartless Capture on your pants, even if they're only +12. Throw those quality stars on your blown up +13 weapon. Go right on ahead and infuse it, too. Synth those untradeable mysterious shards. You can always reforge the gear.
Having said that... I do agree with your later points somewhat. While I do like the additional damage mechanic, the way it's implemented is backwards in my opinion. The difference in damage between +10 and +11 should be larger than the difference in damage between +19 and +20. Those high enhancement levels should be a cherry on top for people with a stroke of luck, but a skilled +13 user should still be able to be somewhat competitive with an average skilled +16 user, rather than a +16 w/ full ALR user doing literally double the damage of the +13 user.
As for the "names" argument, I totally agree. When I'm on a low damage character (like one that still only has a +10 freebie set of armor and +13 weapon) I definitely will wait for a boat that has at least one strong person on it because I really don't want to spend 20 minutes fighting Dullahan. That is a direct result of the way the gearing system is laid out, since they have to basically balance the game around everyone having an average additional damage stat of 4000. A boat full of 2500 ADD players is going to be a long run.
As one of those names myself, I find it way easier to host on my main than on my (very well geared) alt for what I believe to be that reason, and it can be quite irritating. As such I do try to join random boats rather than host, unless I'm running with a group of friends.
There's also a myth that a dullahan character deals less dps in OS than astera, that's fake.
It's not wholly untrue, but for practical purposes, yeah the difference isn't very meaningful. At 6,000 ADD, the difference is around 5% damage. At 15,000 ADD it's about a 2% damage difference.
There's also a myth that a dullahan character deals less dps in OS than astera, that's fake.
It's not wholly untrue, but for practical purposes, yeah the difference isn't very meaningful. At 6,000 ADD, the difference is around 5% damage. At 15,000 ADD it's about a 2% damage difference.
There's also a myth that a dullahan character deals less dps in OS than astera, that's fake.
It's not wholly untrue, but for practical purposes, yeah the difference isn't very meaningful. At 6,000 ADD, the difference is around 5% damage. At 15,000 ADD it's about a 2% damage difference.
Who in the world has 15,000 additional damage?
When rage comes back: Everyone.
I don't know what rage is, but I can't help but think this is a gross exaggeration just based on what I see looking around at people's add on boats.
I really struggle to think what the powercreep of reforging adds that positive to gameplay for the average player. If this was back five years ago, where 15s were supposedly like 30 per server (a number I heard once upon a time), the distribution of average damage is pretty evenly spread, with a few super-super-dedicated people having high power. Otherwise you could run a raid with no-name randoms and expect the same result pretty much.
Your issue here is with the changes to Rise, not the implementation of reforging which was introduced to address the disparity between the biggest whales and those with shallower pockets and non-spenders. Before reforging was a thing, there was literally 2-3 people on the entire NA server with the offensive stats comparable to someone like VG. After reforging was introduced, that ceiling have essentially remained the same yet getting closer to them became achievable for a significant portion of the entire server.
Going to your example of 5 years ago and comparing it to now, instead of 30 uber whales having +15s, now a significant portion of the server have access to it. That is literally the opposite of catering to whales where a select few mega spenders are significantly stronger than majority of the server.
Compare that to today where there are names and there's everyone else. Where you're seriously obliged to sit and wait, ignoring people you don't recognize hosting in QB because there's a chance VellaGoddess or Hesvyr or someone is hosting the same raid, meaning you'll clear it in like a third of the time the PUG run would take. I can host boats just fine, but I quit trying because I can't hook whales into my raid and a Macha that would take VG or whoever 10/12 minutes to clear would take my party 30 minutes to clear.
A maxed out character of 6k ad, 3350 atk limit, max crit has roughly 2.5x the offensive capability of character of modest stats with 3500 ad, 35k atk, no attack limit and crit in the 160 ranges in the newest raids.
A maxed out character can literally run through the newest raids by themselves within 15 minutes so a party of 4 taking 30 minutes to clear the same raid is either playing their characters extremely inefficiently or didn't conduct sufficient research into game mechanics and build up their character foundations before attempting what is literally endgame content. That is like me back in my s2 days jumping into Lakoria or Kraken with my lvl 60 weapon and 11k attack on a character I just hit level 80 on.
In any MMO, it is pretty much expected that the player conduct some research and build up their character to a certain extent before jumping into the newest and hardest content.
They designed these raids around people having whale stats and then, to add insult to injury, recycle the same attack animations and even the same BOSSES from old raids, more often than not. It's downright insulting.
If they designed these raids around people with maxed out whale stats, a party of 4 maxed out characters shouldn't be blitzing through them in 3-4 minutes. There would also be a much bigger incentive to go full Astera rather than sticking with Dullahan which is significantly cheaper to reforge and enhance.
If newer raids coming out had similar stats to Hell Mode redeemers and became the most profitable runs to do, I would have agreed with you, but that is obviously not the case and hopefully never happens.
The raids are designed to be cleared in a reasonable amount of time with a competent party of 3000-3500 ad while the progressive increase of counterforce requirement with each raid release streamlines players to increase it with each new raid release. My biggest gripe here is with counterforce which essentially locks a character's potential behind a grind wall but its not like the enhancement materials are rares arent easily farmable.
Yea the game has some issues such as enchanting, the abysmal drop rates of certain mats in newer raids, CF, and the whole ad situation that came about from rise, but reforging is nowhere near as bad as you are making it to be.
Comments
You don't want to invest into Astera unless you have too much money lying around to pour into steels.
option 2: rich people buying gatcha and selling items
option 3: gold-buying their way to the top.
No regular person with a regular paying job and a regular life with school, family, events, etc can get such gear. It requires one of the options above.
Running farm bots for themself.
But the most realistic way is otion 2 or 3.
To do a full set of VVIP raids with 5 characters is like a whole day of playing, and nothing guarantees any good drops of worth that.
Make alts that do events. Right now you could be getting rune/etc on a other accounts. -> make gear on them buy unbinds when they are cheap (or event unbinds) -> send to main.
You still have to play for a long time, but it is best way to not spend money/NX. (Assuming they don't keep on bringing back the runes/items that expire.) And hopefully they even give you items you can sell. (IE best events they gave use gacha boxes => airtight regina/deathknight or other decent stuff.)
Also they really like to give out +10/11 coupons around when they release new lvl gear. Scroll them with free exq runes -> send to main. (Plus if you run 80 easy dailies = 3 star gear)
This for me. It's nice as a shortcut. And after that, way too much playing this game. Way too much. Focus on one or two characters, sell anything they don't need, keep it up and you will eventually get that stuff prepared. Seriously. I accidentally infused the 2 bal off my sword (it only took 2 or 3 tries the first time
I would also advise people against building astera armor. I have it on my main and it's way too expensive to reforge it.
As for that I guess what I would add is that it's entirely possible if you put in a lot of time and keep at it forever. Which is not a very sexy answer or fun or appealing for people to hear.
- Go full dullahan, due to the damage formula you will deal the same damage (yes, the same) as astera in all raids var hell mode, which is pretty useless dropwise. Currently, with maxed att limit and every accesory maxed out, I barely reach the cap in lugh (att cap is 38500 + 3450 from att limit and camp = 41950, and I barely hit 42k, good news is that soon nexon will lower his att cap by -1k), with all the money you save from going dulla you can afford gold bracelets and the sweet golden book pretty easily. There's also a myth that a dullahan character deals less dps in OS than astera, that's fake.
- Play on various accounts. Level atleast 1 character to 100 on all of them, and then just try to do all the events that can give profit to your main. They will also get strong thanks to getting all the event items your main is getting (you can for example upgrade their lvl 90 weapon to +15 for free). Be careful to not abuse this though, the more accounts you create the more you spent doing events, if you have too much you will end up not being able to play with your main due time constraints.
- Good time management, do the most profitable raids first. If you can only play 2h, you can do 5 astera lugh, 2 agares and 2 aes, since they currently give the highest amount of money on average.
- Avoid multiple costumes, the first one gives +250 att and +2 bal over the event ones, which is a neat boost, but once you buy the second you're spending money solely on cosmetic stuff, and lets be real only rich people can afford good stats and a big wardrobe at once. Remember that fusion runes also exists, you can create a cheap good look for around 20m (in EU) so you can have 2 looks. If you're creating this topic you're the kind of person who worries more about stats (I guess?) so this tip is unnecesary.
I failstacked everything to 100%.
I singehandedly funded the entire server buying gachas for outfits.
Literally been playing vindictus since I was born so every hour of my life goes into it for farming steel, bravery from RaR and monthly tickets.
Also I get a rare drop literally every raid so that helped a lot with reforging.
But for an actually serious answer it's a combination of sheer luck and being smart with my money.
When I started miri I got the first +15 dulla weapon for her and all the rest of my armour I had to reforge 2-3 times for each piece to get +15 after initially one shotting them all to +13/14. Dullahan armour btw. Astera is a gigantic and unnecessary waste of money that futureproofs you for content that literally won't show until this time next year.
I don't buy 400m wings or outfits either.
There really isn't much to it tbh
Prioritize one character so its strong enough to run lvl 100 raids and do decent in OS while spamming RAR on all your poverty alts. 2-3 seasons of OS should get you the required steels for a full +15 Dullahan set assuming pretty lackluster luck. Should be even easier now with the steels reduction, so the limiting factor should be getting runes from the seal shop.
Attack isn't much of an issue for Dullahan weapons unless you have full attack limit which shouldn't be a priority till the very end when there is nothing else to work towards. Working on redeemer and vanguard stats will further mitigate the need for attack and crit and increase the lifetime use you will get out of a Dullahan weapon.
In the end its all about patience and tenacity as not everyone with their +15 set is a whale or goldbuyer. Many built their characters over many months of running dailies and preparing for future releases.
Alternatively if you want to hit the endgame in an mmo but skip the grind and not spend any money, the game is probably just not for you.
S1: not needed special gear. LVL 60 set what was famable most of it and a +10-11 weapon got you to acceptable level. LVL70 weapons and gears weere not really necessary (debepend on character ofc) As an Evie Wonderland set/ +12 Raiders staff was more then enough for me to be 1-3 in any raid, including Elchelus.
S2: needed to get a beter armor, weapon was still fine even lvl 60 if you had high enough. +13 Raiders staff and Wonderland set served me until Cromm. I even could run him with acceptable dmg output, being a mid card player.
S3 everything changed. Before rise. +12 weapon and lvl 90 armor was good enough....After rise. Shitstrom hit.
Reforging Astera weapon is indeed very costy - question is: do you really need to? Reforge cost for Dullahan items were reduced recently, and combining it with jump stones/runes that allow easier +12/+13, perhaps that's the way to go for now?
It's not wholly untrue, but for practical purposes, yeah the difference isn't very meaningful. At 6,000 ADD, the difference is around 5% damage. At 15,000 ADD it's about a 2% damage difference.
I really struggle to think what the powercreep of reforging adds that positive to gameplay for the average player. If this was back five years ago, where 15s were supposedly like 30 per server (a number I heard once upon a time), the distribution of average damage is pretty evenly spread, with a few super-super-dedicated people having high power. Otherwise you could run a raid with no-name randoms and expect the same result pretty much.
Compare that to today where there are names and there's everyone else. Where you're seriously obliged to sit and wait, ignoring people you don't recognize hosting in QB because there's a chance VellaGoddess or Hesvyr or someone is hosting the same raid, meaning you'll clear it in like a third of the time the PUG run would take. I can host boats just fine, but I quit trying because I can't hook whales into my raid and a Macha that would take VG or whoever 10/12 minutes to clear would take my party 30 minutes to clear.
If additional damage, counterforce, and attack cap removal all disappeared tomorrow, you wouldn't have that. They designed these raids around people having whale stats and then, to add insult to injury, recycle the same attack animations and even the same BOSSES from old raids, more often than not. It's downright insulting.
Reforging directly makes the gearing progression system more approachable for everyone, especially the average player. Before reforging was added, most people would get their gear to +12 or +13 and call it good enough since even getting that far required quite a bit of luck. Many players wouldn't even push it that far, especially for their armor.
Now sure, I'm not saying reforging is cheap or easy, as it's really not. In fact, it costs almost as much as mass enhancement costs for an equivalent item. However, the way it's presented to the user is way more approachable. Even if your gear blows up at +12, that item is not a paperweight if the goal was a +13 or higher. Yes it sucks, but at least you can continue to work on that one item. You're even guaranteed to eventually hit +15 given sufficient resources, which was definitely not the case in the mass enhance days.
An often ignored benefit of reforging is that since you can continue to enhance the same item, there's no major loss if you blow up an improved piece of equipment when it's not at the enhancement level you would like. In the old system, you would be a fool to throw the best scrolls on an item if it wasn't already at the enhancement level you desired, since the chances were very good that you would lose the item. In the current system, go right ahead and throw Heartless Capture on your pants, even if they're only +12. Throw those quality stars on your blown up +13 weapon. Go right on ahead and infuse it, too. Synth those untradeable mysterious shards. You can always reforge the gear.
Having said that... I do agree with your later points somewhat. While I do like the additional damage mechanic, the way it's implemented is backwards in my opinion. The difference in damage between +10 and +11 should be larger than the difference in damage between +19 and +20. Those high enhancement levels should be a cherry on top for people with a stroke of luck, but a skilled +13 user should still be able to be somewhat competitive with an average skilled +16 user, rather than a +16 w/ full ALR user doing literally double the damage of the +13 user.
As for the "names" argument, I totally agree. When I'm on a low damage character (like one that still only has a +10 freebie set of armor and +13 weapon) I definitely will wait for a boat that has at least one strong person on it because I really don't want to spend 20 minutes fighting Dullahan. That is a direct result of the way the gearing system is laid out, since they have to basically balance the game around everyone having an average additional damage stat of 4000. A boat full of 2500 ADD players is going to be a long run.
As one of those names myself, I find it way easier to host on my main than on my (very well geared) alt for what I believe to be that reason, and it can be quite irritating. As such I do try to join random boats rather than host, unless I'm running with a group of friends.
Who in the world has 15,000 additional damage?
When rage comes back: Everyone.
I don't know what rage is, but I can't help but think this is a gross exaggeration just based on what I see looking around at people's add on boats.
It's an onslaught mechanic that was in the first 4 seasons and will return in a season or two. Below 3000 HP your ADD gets buffed, up to 15k at 1 HP
Your issue here is with the changes to Rise, not the implementation of reforging which was introduced to address the disparity between the biggest whales and those with shallower pockets and non-spenders. Before reforging was a thing, there was literally 2-3 people on the entire NA server with the offensive stats comparable to someone like VG. After reforging was introduced, that ceiling have essentially remained the same yet getting closer to them became achievable for a significant portion of the entire server.
Going to your example of 5 years ago and comparing it to now, instead of 30 uber whales having +15s, now a significant portion of the server have access to it. That is literally the opposite of catering to whales where a select few mega spenders are significantly stronger than majority of the server.
A maxed out character of 6k ad, 3350 atk limit, max crit has roughly 2.5x the offensive capability of character of modest stats with 3500 ad, 35k atk, no attack limit and crit in the 160 ranges in the newest raids.
A maxed out character can literally run through the newest raids by themselves within 15 minutes so a party of 4 taking 30 minutes to clear the same raid is either playing their characters extremely inefficiently or didn't conduct sufficient research into game mechanics and build up their character foundations before attempting what is literally endgame content. That is like me back in my s2 days jumping into Lakoria or Kraken with my lvl 60 weapon and 11k attack on a character I just hit level 80 on.
In any MMO, it is pretty much expected that the player conduct some research and build up their character to a certain extent before jumping into the newest and hardest content.
Well yea, if they took it out tomorrow, pretty sure no one on the server will have that.
If they designed these raids around people with maxed out whale stats, a party of 4 maxed out characters shouldn't be blitzing through them in 3-4 minutes. There would also be a much bigger incentive to go full Astera rather than sticking with Dullahan which is significantly cheaper to reforge and enhance.
If newer raids coming out had similar stats to Hell Mode redeemers and became the most profitable runs to do, I would have agreed with you, but that is obviously not the case and hopefully never happens.
The raids are designed to be cleared in a reasonable amount of time with a competent party of 3000-3500 ad while the progressive increase of counterforce requirement with each raid release streamlines players to increase it with each new raid release. My biggest gripe here is with counterforce which essentially locks a character's potential behind a grind wall but its not like the enhancement materials are rares arent easily farmable.
Yea the game has some issues such as enchanting, the abysmal drop rates of certain mats in newer raids, CF, and the whole ad situation that came about from rise, but reforging is nowhere near as bad as you are making it to be.