Let's talk about the game's itemization system again.

tl;dr at the bottom because I'm writing this while drunk.

So as you all know, the meta for weapons has been Yuria < Liverto < Kzarka, as that's what so many researchers have concluded. The other weapons might as well not exist if this is truly the case (Liverto and Kzarka's positions are, just because of the AP difference).

However, there's a plethora of other weapon types that just get left in the dust, possibly only in the game because they're trap items or because they're not very well thought out.

So I decided "Hey, I'm going to try something else out and see what works." Turns out that pre-Liverto (Kzarka's just going to be out of my reach forever) it doesn't mean much at all, and it depends on how the class scales. The AP is lovely, but the ACC is a kicker of a stat. I went with Azwell just because of how much accuracy it numerically gives (the actual calculations are ambiguous). I love it so far, and because I don't have to spend money on Liverto with the use of magic crystals I could have a similar crit rate to Liverto (though the same is true as well for Liverto, who I can just slot with the +4 All Accuracy crystals, and it'd probably do more damage but at a much higher monetary cost than an Azwell of the same level). What am I trying to say here? That I like to look at the class as well. For something that has a lot of CC I wouldn't actually bother with crit. I'd rather go for a Rosar if I understand "resistance ignore" (though I'm not 100% convinced the Rosar does what it says it does, or what "resistance ignore" even means). For something like Striker I always want that extra accuracy (and crit) just because of how hard he actually does scale.

Secondly... there's the issue with Awakening weapons. Awakening weapons are a mess design wise and I believe Pearl Abyss (I don't have a source, it's just hearsay from this sub) said that Awakening weapons are way too strong compared to the base weapons, so they were going to cook something up to fix the power discrepancy (the playstyle angle to the itemization is a different topic as far as Awakening weapons go). I have to pose a question at this point that I did back in 2015:

Why was this game's itemization designed the way it was, rather than having a much more populated roster of items that are moreso sidegrades and/or playstyle-focused? Why direct upgrades if there is no level restriction on combat equipment?

I can't answer these questions because I'm not PA, but from my experience in every game that is an RPG or has RPG elements, direct and linear-ish progression required that levels be there so that on top of the currency and/or stats the weapons made sense for the power level you just reached. This is absent from Black Desert in that weapons are just treated as tools on a practical level but are artificially valued differently without the weapons being too distinct from each other. This is comparable to first person shooter games like Brink that have a ton of different weapons but they all do the same thing but slightly differently, only without the player investment angle that BD has. What makes this situation more perplexing is the ranking system, which is basically manually increasing power rather than comparing a tier 1 and tier 2 version of the same weapon without weighing in the special effects that give the weapon nuance. If the manual weapon ranking system was taken out and you were just left with grade 1, 2, and 3, you'd barely notice a different at all between a grade 1 and a grade 3 in terms of practicality (I'm aware that the reform stones do add one or two ranks of a stat, but the point still stands that there isn't enough to differentiate between the grades).

I think it's time for a change on how the game deals with combat equipment. I'm not advocating for a Borderlands-style loot diarrhea, but I am advocating for a system in which every weapon in the game Aside from the level restriction of Awakenings (and the other conversation to be had on Awakenings' effects on playstyle viability) there is no governance of power nor is there anything in place to make weapons different enough to justify the power gap between weapons of their own category and rarity.

tl;dr In this game there are lots of trap items, the itemization is very limited, expensive, and needlessly linear, and the actual power of said weapons must be 'felt' because there is no hard data on the stats in contrast to the scaling classes get. It's not an intuitive or creative system and it does the otherwise excellent action combat and the players a massive disservice. The game needs hard data on all its stats (that properly function the way they say they do), more variety in each weapon tier, and more (and perhaps customizable) added effects outside of magic crystal augmentation.