Oh a fellow FM, let us see!
As you may have guessed a lot of players are a bit unhappy how NCWest been handling a exploit issue weeks ago, as their "fix" hit a lot and a load of stuff seems to be removed by error. Can't tell much about it, none of my 4 Accounts been harmed, either did I even visit the zone of buggy NPC and with F5 I probably had luck.
Most of the FM plays Lightning (3rd spec) as it max DPS atm.
For the weapon, guess it's better to re-roll for 8 slots and for start you can get a better one from story. So I guess: best approach for now is to finish yellow (story quest) again, then do orange quest as far as you can solo.