Weapon Skill Points

Overview[edit]

Weapon Skill Points (WSP) are hidden points that are accumulated by using Weapon Skills and executing Skillchains with special weapons, which fall into three categories: The first type are the weapons involved in the Trial Weapon quests that are used to gain access to special Weapon Skills for each weapon class (generally available between skill levels 230 and 250, depending on the weapon). The second type are weapons with special effects that are unlocked by accumulating Weapon Skill Points and are obtainable through Kindred's Seal NM battles, also known as KSNMs. Finally, points must be obtained on the weapons that are dropped in Nyzul Isle in order to allow access to the Mythic Weapon Weapon Skills in the Unlocking a Myth series of quests.

In order to accumulate Weapon Skill Points, you must perform Weapon Skills or Skillchains on enemies that check as "Incredibly Easy Prey" or higher. The game provides no method of keeping track of how many points you have accumulated, so it is important to use some other means to track your progress. However, the weapons involved in the Trial Weapon quests have some Latent Effects that will cease to affect your character when the requisite number of Weapon Skill Points have been accumulated, which provides a simple way of checking if enough points have been accumulated by un-equipping and re-equipping the weapon and watching to see if the appropriate attributes change. Note: It is now no longer necessary to do this; the elemental resistances on the trial weapons update immediately.

**Warning!** Style lock will aversely affect the weapon's latent effect status update! Your weapon will gain WSP but will not update until the total number of WSP required to remove the effect have been acquired while using the weapon in its unaltered form (This is unnecessary as a trial weapon can be turned-in to the quest-giver once it has reached its WSP target even while the effect exists on the weapon). Currently the best way to avoid this problem is to avoid using style lock on your trial weapon.

Weapon Skill Points are only credited towards the weapon performing the Weapon Skill (either your ranged weapon or the weapon in your main weapon slot). Points are stored as data on the actual weapon, and you may change weapons at any time without the weapon losing the points it has accumulated, but it will not receive any further points until you re-equip it in the appropriate weapon slot. (Note that when using Dual Wield, weapons in the offhand/sub slot will never gain Weapon Skill Points.)

Points cannot be gained from monsters that do not give experience points. This includes monsters in Limbus, Besieged, Salvage, Einherjar, BCNM, ISNM, Campaign Battles (even when fighting without Allied Tags), or certain HNMs. Despite not being part of the regular experience system, you can get points in Reives. Dynamis used to not work, but after the major revision, it does now.

You can gain points while using Level Sync at any level, as you still obtain experience points while under its effects. You may also gain points by performing Weapon Skills on enemies that are at least Easy Prey to you but are Too Weak to a higher level person in your party (meaning you would not earn EXP upon its defeat); however, since most of the weapons that utilize Weapon Skill Points already require level 71+ to be equipped and no new monsters become Too Weak from level 75 onwards, this is rarely a factor.

Points will also not be granted in the event of a missed Weapon Skill. In the case of a multiple-hit WS, it will only be treated as a miss if all of its attacks miss. Hits for zero damage are still hits, and will still bestow Weapon Skill Points. WSs that do magical damage, such as Shining Blade, can be useful due to the fact that they can never completely miss a target under normal circumstances. The Club Weapon Skills Starlight and Moonlight are unique in that they always give 1 Weapon Skill Point when performed regardless of what enemy you are engaged with, as they are performed on yourself as the target, not the enemy.

Blue Magic used under the effect of Chain Affinity is capable of opening and closing Skillchains, but are still not Weapon Skills themselves and therefore do not yield Weapon Skill Points. Additionally, Wild Flourish can be used as a Skillchain opener but again is not itself considered a Weapon Skill, and therefore does not contribute to Weapon Skill Points. However, skillchains created with an Automaton, Fellow, or Alter Ego do count as Weapon Skill Points.

The game keeps careful track of Weapon Skill Points earned on a weapon, but progress toward a goal amount of points is not readily reviewable by the player. A good way to keep track of the number of Weapon Skills you do is to equip a bow and arrow (Marksmanship works as well); every time you hit with a WS, use your ranged attack. If you need 500 Weapon Skill Points, carry 5 stacks and 5 singles of arrows or bolts, and by the time you use all your ammo, you'll have the amount of points needed. An alternate Free method would be to write it down.

Each successful Weapon Skill that meets the qualifying conditions will result in 1 Weapon Skill Point earned for the weapon that performed it. If a WS results in the closure of a Skillchain, additional bonus points are rewarded only to the weapon that closed the Skillchain, based on the level of the Skillchain closed (or more specifically, one extra point for each element that the skillchain is comprised of). Higher-tier Skillchains are comprised of more elements and will reward more bonus points, but it does not matter how many WSs were used to produce the Skillchain.

Currently, the best method for getting points is to use Trust: Ayame along with two mages that don't melee to keep you alive (e.g. Trust: Cherukiki and Trust: Joachim). Ayame will open skillchains based on your previous weapon skill once you get 1000 TP. She only has default Great Katana weapon skills, so there are some gaps in her capabilities.

Points Method
1 Landing a Weapon Skill
2 Closing a Level 1 Skillchain (one element)
3 Closing a Level 2 Skillchain (two elements)
5 Closing a Level 3 Skillchain (four elements)

Example 1:
Player A : Tachi: Kasha
Player B : Savage Blade

Tachi: Kasha + Savage Blade = Light-Icon.gifLight

A receives 1 WSP, B receives 1+4 WSP.

Example 2:
Player A : Vorpal Blade
Player B : Red Lotus Blade
Player C : Howling Fist
Player D : Dragon Kick

Vorpal Blade + Red Lotus Blade = Liquefaction-Icon.gifLiquefaction
Liquefaction-Icon.gifLiquefaction + Howling Fist = Fusion-Icon.gifFusion
Fusion-Icon.gifFusion + Dragon Kick = Light-Icon.gifLight

A receives 1 WSP, B receives 1+1 WSP, C receives 1+2 WSP and D receives 5 WSP.

This article uses material from the "Weapon_Skill_Points" article on FFXIclopedia and is licensed under the CC-BY-SA License.