Game Tips: 10th Birthday Trades
The yearly tradition of picking a free weapon to add to your collection has returned. This year we get a total of 3 picks instead of the traditional one, so it's a great time to pick up some tools you've been slacking on.
In this post I'll break down the various weapon series you can claim and give you some ideas for which are worth it.
I'll be listing only the ones that are harder to get, as in my opinion, you get the most value from the skip by not having to farm, rather than the weapon being the best.
At the end of the day, if a weapon is incredible but also easy to farm, you might as well just go get it rather than waste your precious skip tickets on it, right?
For info on how to farm weapons, see this post.
When picking weapons, check the Advanced Grids page on the wiki for the respective element for what uses they see before making a choice. You can also reference my What to Farm guide for my personal breakdowns. I'll be offering a lot of choices here, and which one(s) are best for you will fully depend on what you currently have.
You have an entire year to make your pick here, so if nothing strikes your fancy, you can just hold onto the ticket until you find yourself in a pinch missing something.
Worth noting that Magna 3 will be coming out soon, so the usability of any given weapons may heavily fluctuate. It's up to you to decide whether you want an immediate upgrade or to hold off on future changes.
For Regalia weapons, it may be worth getting the "M2.5" type weapons. These are weapons that were added to the respective drop pools several years after the original M2 release, and have a much lower drop rate (they also are not affected by purple chest campaigns).
All other Regalia weapons are trivial to farm with minimal time commitment and should not be considered unless you have no better picks.
This denomination encompasses the following weapons:
Ancestral weapons still see a reasonable amount of use in grids these days, making them a decent "B-tier" pick. It's worth noting these do not come with any AX attached, so they're going to be weaker than the ones from the raids. Should you get an AX one after, you can apply it to the fully uncapped weapon, so it's not a huge deal.
Low priority but can be okay if you really need one now and don't have the ability to farm them immediately. Not personally recommended but you can defintely get a lot worse.
Colomba is a decent slot filler that is entirely superseded by Schrodinger. If you're low rank and find yourself playing charge attack based water setups, it's Okay. Not my ideal recommendation but it can help fill a slot if, once again, you got nothing else you're eyeing.
Obs: Majestas is essentially useless these days outside of incredibly niche usability in high end raids. Chances are if you're at a point you'd even consider using a Majestas in the first place, you already have several. Don't pick.
Agonize is still good. Yes, you absolutely can just grab two copies of it here and never have to touch the raid again.
Agonize is absolutely not a must-have for every setup as it was on release, but it's still a fantastic pick if you find yourself running any skill damage based compositions. Probably one of the most popular picks in here overall and for good reason.
None of the other Menace Weapons see any amount of use you'd ever want to trade for.
Honorable mention here to Cerberus Order as it's seeing some high-end use in Dark Rapture Zero.
Chances are if you're reading this and this usecase matters to you, you either already have one, or were already in the process of making one. Do not buy, I just thought it was an interesting nod.
Don't get Fimbul either, you can make one for free with pendants if you really need it.
Do not pick weapons in the following series:
These do not come with AX skills (when applicable) and are trivial to farm indefinitely due to being endlessly repeatable free quests. Not recommended.
These come at level 1 awakening, meaning you still have to go farm the bosses for more anima to actually get them to a useable state. Chances are by the time you get enough anima you got several dupes already.
Proven weapons before 5-star with awakening have been rendered entirely useless these days. As these do not come with materials to uncap, and you can't get the materials to uncap outside of the event, they're essentially dud picks.
Warning: This ticket expires April 10th. Make sure to claim it in time.
Don't claim this until the last day as you can dupe the one you pick on Roulette.
Afterwards, either pick one you don't have already if you wish to strengthen another element or pick one for your main.
These are essentially useless for magna aside from their call, and they can be suptixed, so the value and commitment is low. Not much to say here.
(edit, thank you Ittousei for pointing this out) Wilnas and Fediel's calls can one-shot the Campaign Exclusive Quest by themselves at 0-star. This is a useful niche to have if you're a new player with no good way to handle grinding that yet and don't have any other preference here.
Superlative Weapon Trade Ticket
Warning: This ticket expires April 10th. Make sure to claim it in time.
I'm going to preface by saying Superlative Weapons are, in 99.9% of situations, dead. They've been buried hard by power creep over the years, and the final nail in the coffin was the release of Illustrious. Even farmable weapons often clear them in many places.
I'm going to tell you which uses they currently see right now, but I think you'll notice the pattern that all of them are very high end. These are weapons you use as a "cherry on top" of an already busted grid. Trying to force one of these on a grid that sucks will likely make it suck more, to be frank.
Similarly to the Six Dragons ticket, I also recommend waiting on the last day, as the value of the picks here may alter based on new content or roulette pulls.
Chances are most of the following suggestions don't apply to you, and I don't believe any one beyond these is "worth it", so if you have no legitimate usecases, pick the one you think you'd have the most fun with.
Lyria wasn't kidding, this is a good deal - at least within this context. All six Excaliburs see some use.
The Light one sees use as it provides the highest available Bonus Damage on CA for Relic Buster, and it was used in the fastest setups last Light advantage Guild War. Pick if you're a Florence gamer and only for GW.
All 5 other Excaliburs see use in Chrysaor setups in Hexachromatic Hierarch. Hexa has "Deal 2m Damage Hits X Times" omens, which are easily broken by Excalbur when using Deuce Xiphos, as you can auto attack for 4 million. This requires a very high end setup, and is a binary check (either you hit 2m or you don't).
Dark Excalibur also sees some use in Full Auto Cosmos, once again with very strong grids. This setup is unstable and doesn't always hit blue chest.
Do not listen to Lyria, she is LYING to you. This weapon is way past its prime and absolutely buried for any relevant content. Fun weapon, would not recommend as a strong pick to anyone, ever.
Its damage cap up doesn't stack with any other, making it immediately useless on any good grids. Also, crit is falling off. Don't.
The third skill on Dama Knife is interesting for some incredibly niche setups that absolutely want the echo for Hits omens. I saw an insane Dark Rapture Zero grid with it the other day.
You probably don't want it unless you're already super deep in the weeds with these. The drop rate buff isnt worth it, just run The Storyteller instead, it's free.
You don't need this. No, it's not a good Manadiver mainhand, Manadiver wants to play with CA off to maximize its nukes.
Similarly to Gae Bulg, the supplemental here doesn't stack with any normal grid sources. Don't.
Sky Piercer still sees some niche "best-in-slot" usage in some elements. It suffers from a similar issue to Gae Bulg and Freikugel, as its teamwide echo will not stack with most other common grid/passive echo sources. (The MC-only echo is unique and stacks with everything, though)
Still, it is worth considering if you're really deep into an element and already tend to play Luchador in it often (or are banking on a good Row5 version). Otherwise, it's likely to just rot in your stash.
Fascinating weapon in that it's, in most cases, the best harp in the game, and yet in most cases, also entirely useless, as harp classes suck for any content you'd really want to minmax in.
When it's good, it's good, but it rarely gets a chance to shine. Maybe decent if you're a FA Lumberjack lover.
Similarly to Sky Piercer, this weapon may end up getting some great usability with a good Row5 harp class, so it may be a decent pick if you wish to futureproof an element you love.
Special shoutout to Water Lumberjack in Dark Rapture Zero going insane with this weapon too.
Far too unreliable to be any useful. Buy it if you want to meme like crazy, don't otherwise.
Revans Weapon Trade Ticket
Warning: This ticket expires April 10th. Make sure to claim it in time.
Given our current knowledge, these weapons come with no awakening. This means that even after you grab one, you'll have to go the respective raid to finish it.
No matter which you pick, they'll be paperweights when picked from the ticket. If you're sub rank-200, you'll never get any value from these no matter which you pick.
Please do not use unawakened Revans weapons in your grid, you will tank your DPS. Once again, I'm floored at Cygames' insistance on giving players Revans weapons with no awakening. Terrible reward overall in my opinion.
In the event that somehow, through some miracle, these weapons come with Awakening materials, disregard the previous point.
Alas, I'm still here to give advice, so assuming you can play the raids these come from and you can awaken them:
Extinction Blade: Decent in ATK and DEF as a strong stat stick on either side. Works great at one copy, good pick.
Schrodinger: Probably the best pick here, as hosting Diaspora is incredibly accessible and can be done with lower end grids. Even one with ATK awakening is a great upgrade to CA setups.
Sette di Spade: Sette works on a compounding effect. Having just one in your grid is a waste. Worth getting if you want to fast track another and have a few made, but not worth if it's your first.
Fang of the Dragonslayer: Best-in-Slot in ATK for great damage potential. Very strong choice, but make sure you have enough sustain to outlive the Damage-over-Time effect, or you will die.
Symmetria: Primal-only High Difficulty weapon. Chances are if you need it you already have it.
Forbidden Agastia: Very strong ATK weapon for magna and primal alike, especially in unboosted situations. Also a strong pick.
Phew, that was a lot. A lot of this info came out yesterday on the stream, so I had to rush to get this out with a decent amount of research.
While I did ask people to review this before posting, there's likely to be some issues here and there with something I missed. The game is complex enough even a small peer review commitee will miss things in such short notice. If you know of any information/setups I missed that changes the values of things mentioned here, please do let me know.
Thank you as always for reading.
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