Disclaimer: this is not being suggested as an alternative to reverting the changes to Meso Guard. It is meant to address problems that existed before those changes were even made. I agree that the changes to Meso Guard should be reverted, but I don't agree with the idea that reverting those changes is all that needs to be done. I would like for potions to be made usable during Dark Sight. This isn't an especially complicated request, but I believe it to be a necessary one in order to prevent random unfair deaths to bosses that no other classes struggle against. As every shadower is well aware, getting stunned while using Dark Sight as part of your assassinate+bstep macro is basically the same as being seduced. This is especially dangerous since we no longer take halved damage from 1/1 attacks, but there are plenty of bosses that can kill a stunned shad in DS even without 1/1 attacks (such as Ephenia, or any boss that can two-shot you). Getting hit towards the start of your macro also interrupts it and leaves you in Dark Sight, which is not quite as dangerous as being stunned, but still more dangerous than most situations that other classes will ever encounter. And it happens very often. Everyone knows that a washed shadower with Meso Guard and maxed Shadow Shifter has the best survivability in the game. But that is only true if that shadower is not attacking; as soon as Dark Sight is involved, most of that survivability goes straight down the toilet. For some reason, I have seen many arguments against this potential change, and I will list all that I think deserve mention. "Using potions during Dark Sight would be overpowered" No, I think you've got it confused with something else. Attacking freely during Dark Sight would be overpowered. Using potions, not so much. There is actually only one advantage to Dark Sight, which is immunity to contact damage. Against stationary bosses like Zakum and Krexel, this advantage is 100% irrelevant. Against Horntail, contact damage only matters when you are the seduce target, which could allow you to avoid death if you are in DS and get seduced into walking right--which is a problem, don't get me wrong, but it can be solved by making seduce affect a different character if the primary sed is in DS. And when using Dark Sight as part of your attacking macro, this is irrelevant because you'll take contact damage as soon as you exit Dark Sight to use Assassinate anyways. It might help a little when dropping meso bags for Meso Explosion, but this is fine because dropping mesos in Dark Sight means that you're not attacking, so you lose out on potential extra DPS if you choose to do this, and you still have to deal with magic attacks. Sounds fair to me. Does the tiny/nonexistent benefit of contact damage immunity justify the massive drawback of not being to use potions, which is realistically the only way that a sufficiently-washed character can actually die? Yeah, I didn't think so. "The original developers intended for the skill to work this way" First of all, even if they did, who cares? Pre-BB MapleStory is one of the most messily-balanced popular MMO games of all time, and we've gone against their original intentions loads of times for the sake of class balance (to the relief of every buccaneer, paladin, and marksman out there). That said, I don't think this interaction was intentional at all, for several reasons. First of all, the skill description of Dark Sight says nothing about preventing the use of potions. Which doesn't suggest that it was unintentional, but it does suggest that they didn't think it was an important part of the skill's identity. Second, Dark Sight is a 1st job skill. It is meant to be used at a time where monsters don't use magic attacks, so being in Dark Sight would mean that you'd be 100% safe (and not being able to pot is more of a minor inconvenience than anything). In 4th job, every boss except Bigfoot uses magic attacks, meaning that this 1st job skill is unbalanced and horribly suited for later stages of the game, offering none of the benefits and all of the drawbacks. Which would be fine and understandable if you didn't have to use it. But you do. Finally, Assassinate was never intended to be used at bosses in the first place. In GMS, it was a gimmick skill that dealt measly damage unless you charged it up by staying in Dark Sight, which you obviously couldn't do when fighting bosses. So you wouldn't have noticed this negative interaction because you had no reason to use Assassinate when bossing in the first place. People only use it in Royals because it was heavily buffed in damage output, and now shadowers are dealing with a problem that never existed in GMS. In other words, we can't look towards GMS for guidance; this problem is specific to private servers that buffed the power of Assassinate while leaving Dark Sight unchanged. I think the original developers put about as much thought into preventing use of potions during Dark Sight as they did into making characters get more MP on level-up or fresh AP added to MP depending on how much INT they have, which everyone knows is one of the worst decisions they ever made (though I'm sure it worked out for them financially). If you think that random autopot failures were an iconic and intentional part of the shadower's class identity, I'm not sure what kind of dimensional crack you're on, but I'll buy it from you for 3m. (And I won't give it to my shadower.) "You can right-click Dark Sight at the top of your screen to cancel the buff" This is not obvious at all, needs to be done in a split second as soon as you realize that you're stunned in DS (and not simply stuck in DS due to an interrupted macro), and must be combined with a manual potion in order to save you. It is insanely stressful to be forced to do this. Corsairs are an unpopular class because of the interactivity and attentiveness that they require, but at least they don't have to deal with this shit just to stay alive. "Reverting the Meso Guard nerf would be enough" Even with the Meso Guard nerf reverted, shadowers would still be the class most threatened by 1/1 attacks (outside of dojo/sed) because they are the only class that might not be able to autopot after being hit by such an attack. Also, Ephenia and super heavy-hitting bosses can still kill you easily in a Dark Sight stun despite not having a 1/1 attack, especially if you didn't wash to crazy amounts of HP on a class that everyone advertises as not needing to wash. I am not an unwashed shadower, but even for me, attempting DS+bstep+nate against Ephenia is a risk not worth taking. Post-nerf shadowers are awful, but that doesn't necessarily mean pre-nerf shadowers were perfectly fine. People have been complaining about this even before the whole Meso Guard outrage. Even if you weren't at risk of instant death after failing to autopot after a 1/1, it's pretty goddamn annoying when it happens and I don't see why shadowers should be the only class that has to contend with this. "This drawback is balanced by shadowers' high evasion and offensive capabilities" Some of you may be familiar with an item in the Fire Emblem series called the Devil Axe. It is a very powerful axe with a small chance of backfiring and damaging the unit who used it. And it is (understandably) extremely unpopular when you consider how Fire Emblem punishes death as harshly as it does. The Dark Sight+Assassinate combo is pretty similar to the Devil Axe: it's strong, and it usually doesn't fuck you up, but sometimes it does. Dying in MapleStory is not as harsh as in Fire Emblem, obviously, but it is still not something that you expect to happen regularly. And it is harsh enough that a class that has a small chance to get randomly fucked and die is infinitely less appealing than a class that doesn't, no matter how small that chance may be. Any luck-based defense will eventually fail, especially considering how long the average boss run takes. The bolded argument might be more compelling if Assassinate was the strongest attacking skill in the game and shadowers had decent alternatives for single-target damage. Neither of those things are true, of course. I don't think I'm asking for all that much. I chose a class that was advertised for having the "highest survivability in the game", but despite paying close attention at all times, my decently-washed shadower has died more times than any of my other characters, and not all of it was due to the changes to Meso Guard and 1/1. Please do something.
I do have a question though. Why is removing dark sight from assassinate not supported because it is nostalgic, yet healing in dark sight is not nostalgic (this is something you and becca commented on in the other thread). Both were always present in the past, but Royals had buffed assassinate so that dark sight does absolutely nothing but slowing the cast of assassinate. What exactly is nostalgia to you? I disagree on the HT part, as I had posted on the other thread, HT tail and leg, which is the main killer for SED targets in early HT. would be of no concern for a seduced-in-dark-sight shad if healing is allowed. I still personally support removing dark sight from assassinate cast requirement. It’ll allow shads to retain their play style where they can deal damage and have the highest survivability, while ~1/3 the time they are invincible with boomerang step. Also, if I remember correctly, dark sight being in the macro combo is dependent on ppls ping, so some people playing shads tends to deal lower damage than others (think this was from a thread years ago? Not sure if someone came up with a solution to that). Nothing against you, I do want shads to have the survivability they had in the past, I just don't really support other skills being buffed if alternatives with same result are available. I don't quite mind which ever method they'll do, if healing in dark sight happens, I can make high LUK smoke mules instead of bloodwash, to save pots, so I'm happy either way.
To be honest, I think this is better than what I'm suggesting right now. It solves the problems with ping, it makes shads significantly less macro-dependent, and it removes the random interruptions when you take damage. And (I assume) you will still be able to cast assassinate within DS if you want to. The only reason I'm not suggesting this (even though I support it) is because it changes gameplay a lot more than just allowing pots during dark sight. Change is not a bad thing, of course. This would be a positive change for sure and I'd have no complaints. But idk, the people in this subforum like to screech about perfectly reasonable buffs being "overpowered" for whatever reason. Previously I said that dark sight should remain as a requirement for casting assassinate. I take that back. I suppose all that really matters to me is that you can cast it in DS, not that you must. I see what you mean now- the only reason why sed mules don't do this right now is because going afk in dark sight would mean guaranteed death. This is a good point. Well, now that I know you are arguing that we should remove the DS req for assassinate and not arguing that we should do nothing, I don't mind as much. It is a HT-specific problem and perfectly solvable with some additional changes to HT mechanics, but it would be a lot easier to just do what you suggested, and I see no reason why we shouldn't do just that (besides "nostalgia" bullshit).
