Any point raising Buster Sword proficiency past 50%?

[Jitsu]

So, i hate this system, forces me to play with the strong stance all the time even if i dont want to, but anyway i got to 50% and unlocked the barrier piercing skill, so now i wonder if there's any point in keep raising it, for what i seen the barrier pierce is the last skill to unlock for it, and i dont know if proficiency affects damage or something, any info on that? Because i cant raise it with commands anymore and its gonna get a loooot slower.

[Mrpoke]

It's a pretty god-awful system that didn't need to exist. I'm about to just stop using it. I heard it adds minimal buffs like +50% limit break damage bonus. I've beaten the original game on hard without this garbage system and I think we'll be fine not using it.

[Jitsu]

Originally posted by Mrpoke:

It's a pretty god-awful system that didn't need to exist. I'm about to just stop using it. I heard it adds minimal buffs like +50% limit break damage bonus. I've beaten the original game on hard without this garbage system and I think we'll be fine not using it.

At least so far the bonus that it unlocked are inmensely useful (break the 9999 limit and ignore barriers when using battle stance), but raising the proficiency is so friggin annoying, its a system that takes over the game and forces you to play a specific way instead of keep using your magics and other tools, i wanna get over with it asap.

[ScootaKuH]

Originally posted by Jitsu:

So, i hate this system, forces me to play with the strong stance all the time even if i dont want to, but anyway i got to 50% and unlocked the barrier piercing skill, so now i wonder if there's any point in keep raising it, for what i seen the barrier pierce is the last skill to unlock for it, and i dont know if proficiency affects damage or something, any info on that? Because i cant raise it with commands anymore and its gonna get a loooot slower.

50%? I finished the game with just over 2%. I'd already got fed up of trying to increase it any more, especially when it's not even necessary to finish the game, at least for me because I focused more on strengthening my materia.

[Jitsu]

Originally posted by ScootaKuH:

Originally posted by Jitsu:

So, i hate this system, forces me to play with the strong stance all the time even if i dont want to, but anyway i got to 50% and unlocked the barrier piercing skill, so now i wonder if there's any point in keep raising it, for what i seen the barrier pierce is the last skill to unlock for it, and i dont know if proficiency affects damage or something, any info on that? Because i cant raise it with commands anymore and its gonna get a loooot slower.

50%? I finished the game with just over 2%. I'd already got fed up of trying to increase it any more, especially when it's not even necessary to finish the game, at least for me because I focused more on strengthening my materia.

Yeah but im trying to do all the sidequest and stuff, and it gets really tough. I guess it's not totally necessary in the end anyway, you eventually get attacks that ignore defense and such, but i'm a bit of a completionist in that regard.

[ScootaKuH]

Originally posted by Jitsu:

Originally posted by ScootaKuH:

50%? I finished the game with just over 2%. I'd already got fed up of trying to increase it any more, especially when it's not even necessary to finish the game, at least for me because I focused more on strengthening my materia.

Yeah but im trying to do all the sidequest and stuff, and it gets really tough. I guess it's not totally necessary in the end anyway, you eventually get attacks that ignore defense and such, but i'm a bit of a completionist in that regard.

I understand where you're coming from. Admittedly I'm not a completionist. I do try to do as much as possible before I reach the end of the game, but the buster sword proficiency is so tedious that I just couldn't be bothered. I have started NG+ though, so intend to at least finish all the missions this time around. I likely will never reach anywhere near 10% proficiency of the sword though, let alone 50% 😅

[Lannie]

For whatever reason my proficiency leapt up from 8% to 20.5% in one fight and I have no damn idea why. Well, at least I can ignore it now though. I'd rather use the item that gives the damage break though so I don't have to ♥♥♥♥ around with that stupid stance crap (can it even be considered a stance if it's active for what, 3 seconds, or one attack?)

[Xenomus]

Easily the biggest buff it gives you is the fact that if you get it high enough it makes almost every attack that hits you do 0 damage, while in the stace, outside of attacks that can bypass guarding like Ultima or Tonberries.

In the end though, it's not needed at all and is just an added benefit that you can choose to exploit or not.

[Jitsu]

Originally posted by Xenomus:

Easily the biggest buff it gives you is the fact that if you get it high enough it makes almost every attack that hits you do 0 damage, while in the stace, outside of attacks that can bypass guarding like Ultima or Tonberries.

In the end though, it's not needed at all and is just an added benefit that you can choose to exploit or not.

Ah so there's a third skill, sigh =/ it was going relatively fine so far because using the stance + jump was basically doing 99,999 damage to everything, but now it's not raising anymore when beating enemy by commands, so i have to start finishing them up with strong attacks, and that's lame.

[Xenomus]

Originally posted by Jitsu:

Originally posted by Xenomus:

Easily the biggest buff it gives you is the fact that if you get it high enough it makes almost every attack that hits you do 0 damage, while in the stace, outside of attacks that can bypass guarding like Ultima or Tonberries.

In the end though, it's not needed at all and is just an added benefit that you can choose to exploit or not.

Ah so there's a third skill, sigh =/ it was going relatively fine so far because using the stance + jump was basically doing 99,999 damage to everything, but now it's not raising anymore when beating enemy by commands, so i have to start finishing them up with strong attacks, and that's lame.

Not just strong attacks, you also need to get hit while in the stance to raise it too

[Jitsu]

Originally posted by Xenomus:

Originally posted by Jitsu:

Ah so there's a third skill, sigh =/ it was going relatively fine so far because using the stance + jump was basically doing 99,999 damage to everything, but now it's not raising anymore when beating enemy by commands, so i have to start finishing them up with strong attacks, and that's lame.

Not just strong attacks, you also need to get hit while in the stance to raise it too

Yeah i hate that part too, getting hit on purpouse is never fun.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by Jitsu:

Originally posted by Xenomus:

Not just strong attacks, you also need to get hit while in the stance to raise it too

Yeah i hate that part too, getting hit on purpouse is never fun.

You've obviously never played Mechwarrior then.

[Heimdall313]

iirc it caps at 95% and there's no perk past 50%?
I've just been spamming Hell Thundaga/Firaga/Blizzaga, haven't figured out how to break the 9999 HP/999 MP and AP limits yet. Aerial Drain is about the only AP move I've found that's actually useful. High Jump was fun but burned AP fast and didn't heal me.

[Jitsu]

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

iirc it caps at 95% and there's no perk past 50%?
I've just been spamming Hell Thundaga/Firaga/Blizzaga, haven't figured out how to break the 9999 HP/999 MP and AP limits yet. Aerial Drain is about the only AP move I've found that's actually useful. High Jump was fun but burned AP fast and didn't heal me.

U get accesories to break the limit eventually if you keep doing the side missions, i looked a bit more into it and it seems u get another skill around 75% proficiency that breaks barriers (meaning that you don't have to deal with them the rest of the fight, so you can use other skills and magic without the stance)

[Xenomus]

Originally posted by Jitsu:

Originally posted by Heimdall313:

iirc it caps at 95% and there's no perk past 50%?
I've just been spamming Hell Thundaga/Firaga/Blizzaga, haven't figured out how to break the 9999 HP/999 MP and AP limits yet. Aerial Drain is about the only AP move I've found that's actually useful. High Jump was fun but burned AP fast and didn't heal me.

U get accesories to break the limit eventually if you keep doing the side missions, i looked a bit more into it and it seems u get another skill around 75% proficiency that breaks barriers (meaning that you don't have to deal with them the rest of the fight, so you can use other skills and magic without the stance)

The thing with that is I never even got the skill to pierce or destroy barriers and I'm still capped at 90% despite 100% actually being possible to get on PS5 apparently

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by Xenomus:

Originally posted by Jitsu:

U get accesories to break the limit eventually if you keep doing the side missions, i looked a bit more into it and it seems u get another skill around 75% proficiency that breaks barriers (meaning that you don't have to deal with them the rest of the fight, so you can use other skills and magic without the stance)

The thing with that is I never even got the skill to pierce or destroy barriers and I'm still capped at 90% despite 100% actually being possible to get on PS5 apparently

I got that skill at 51%

Sword proficiency isn't even the worst thing, trying to get Genji armour is as the DMW is all rng. You could play for 1000 hours and never see one of the flashbacks required.