As I personally am a bit out of the loop. Then I'd like to know in regards to the S-grade items one can buy...if one get grade penalty, which character will perform the best...a mage class or fighter class?
Also are soul/spirit shots for S grade easy to acquire these days or are they hard/expensive?
Fighters should perform best with grade penalty in my opinion, mages would take forever to cast one spell, unless you kill 1 or 2 hit mobs.
And soulshots are easy to acquire.
soulshots are just one of those things are a necessary expense. i remember leveling back in the day without them but i really couldn't imagine doing it now no matter how little money i have. And i've never really thought it was effective to ever do anything with a grade penalty cept when doing raid bosses solo at low levels.
Bear in mind that if the penalty will be too high you will have problem with hitting the mobs and it will be even worse in pvp. Mele characters can get accuracy buffs and dance, which makes it somehow easier. For mages it's just meh when you fail yet another nuke.
Check NC cash shop for Mysterious Shots of grade S and R, that have no weight :D Current price of normal SSS on the market is 80 adena each. 270 adena for BSSS. S grade weapon uses only 1 shot per swing/skill.
there are 4 grades of penalty now. wearing gear 4 grades too high results in some loss of 16 accuracy, which *can* be hard to wield as of GoD - because VR does not trigger on every hit. this great loss of accuracy will lead to too many swings without HP return; too many imo for overgearing to be worthwhile.