The BM summon is very underwhelming and is often seen as a waste of time. It attacks every 4~ seconds for 12k damage. To stop your attacks and spend time summoning might even be dps loss. It's an attacker class summon yet is only good for killing low level mobs. Not only that, but you can outrange your summon, as an unwashed bowmen, having to sacrifice your range in order to get your summon to attack is a flaw imo, even if you are washed. Buffing Phoenix can also be seen as making BM stronger in the mobbing category which is something they aren't very good at right now, which could make us viable for LHC. I propose we increase the attack range of Phoenix to match the BM's range. I also suggest buffing its damage from 12k to 40k. A bowmaster can fire 600 shots a minute, a crit for a strong bowmen can be 40k no problem, and with how slow Phoenix attacks, I think 40k is an appropriate number. I don't think this puts Bm's above any other class but will certainty help them be seen as an attacker instead of just an SE buff.
I don't think a range increase and damage buff to a useless skill is all that crazy. And is your point that BM's aren't an attacker class?
I fully expect this sort of response when thread #26 about why we should buff mage single target damage so they can boss better gets made
Regarding the damage output, I think it scales with your damage range. Attached is a screenshot of my phoenix hitting 16k damage on a normal monster so I assume it goes higher as our damage range goes higher. I did mention before in one of the threads last year that phoenix was indeed underwhelming at the moment but I simply made the best situation out of no situation, i.e. summoning phoenix when the boss im attacking is under cwa so I dont lose any dps or when papulatus is hiding in his shell like the bitch he is. I also summon phoenix before the boss spawns for that extra dps albeit negligible. If we think about it, phoenix when maxed, lasts for 200 seconds. Assuming it hits once every 4 seconds (I tested), it attacks for approximately 50 times assuming it doesn't get 'stuck'. 16k damage x 50 = a mere 800k damage. If we compare that with my hurricane, and being optimistic, I would say I hit an average of 30k damage per arrow when appled. That would mean the entire duration of phoenix when summoned, would fork out dps equivalent to 26.667 arrows of hurricane (3-4 seconds worth). Since it takes 1 second to summon phoenix, I would say summoning phoenix would be extremely worthwhile while bossing because you get a whopping bonus of 3 whole seconds worth of dps every time you summon phoenix. But lets not forget that the main usage of phoenix atm are to farm stoppers. I personally wouldn't care much if my phoenix cant hit papulatus when im hurricaning. But if they increase the range of phoenix, it would just make the lives easier for stopper farmers rather than increase the QoL of BMs. The dps output could be debatable though. I think its laughable atm but take my opinion with lots of salt, im just a merchant so might wanna leave this topic to the min-maxing bms out there.
Thanks for your insight and testing. Regarding your damage numbers, 800k over the course of 200 seconds is really abysmal. It blows my mind when you further compare the entire duration of phoenix attacks equal to about 3.5 seconds of hurricane. Really puts into perspective just how weak the skill is. A fourth job summon being only good for farming stoppers. However lets be honest, no one is making a BM/MM to farm stoppers, so I really think buffs would help the QoL of us during boss runs. With the proposed buff it Phoenix over 200 seconds would be about 66 arrows, which is a little over 10 seconds. A little more reasonable. Let's further compare it to the NL's summon, which practically doubles their dps and is a 3rd job skill. Okay maybe thats an unfair comparison? Let's look at Sairs, they can summon an Octopus every 10 seconds that last 45 seconds, up to a max of 4. Each one of their octopus hits for the same at around 16k but attack faster, and you can have a max of 4..... Not really sure why BM have to have the short end of the stick in Multi-Target and Single Target, and this would be a start to improve both.
I think a lot of people make bms for stopper farming mainly because the phoenix has a longer range than other summons like bishop's dragon or mage's ifrit/elq etc. But as I mentioned above, I stand to gain from any buff BMs have but what I would like to see is a detailed suggestion on why its needed and how its going to be implemented if any would be given in the first place. I dont want to compare BM's phoenix to NL's shadow partner because I think NL is a main attacker class and BM is more of a support/utility role. Neither would I want to add in Pirates' summons into the pot because they have their weaknesses too (sair ship health, dismounting) Perhaps we could narrow the discussion towards "Is phoenix useful in bossing" rather than comparing them to other classes. I agree with you that phoenix is underwhelming in this regard but I respectfully disagree with the point on BM drawing the short end of the stick when compared to other classes. If we start pinpointing which skills are lacklustre its just going to be a roundabout of each class wanting their skills buffed and its a never ending cycle. I never farm stoppers or the likes of it and the only time I use phoenix would be when Im doing hp quest or if im bossing. So if I have to state what I dislike about phoenix now, 1) My pets cant loot the drops from mobs that my phoenix kills. Nothing I can do about that as it has been explained in previous threads i.e. too op stopper farm 2) Negligible dps (obsolete) 3) Unlike old school maplesea, summoning phoenix in royals does not give us a hp buff. It gave us like 2k-3k hp in maplesea pre bigbang and the buff icon was seen on the top right corner of our screen. Royals do not have this. Things I like about phoenix 1) Nostalgia, it follows old school maplesea which I played in and it just makes sense for a BM to have a flying bird around it. 2) No summoning rock needed. Not many people pay much attention to this. Our 3rd job silver hawk requires one so having phoenix not require one is a huge perk. I really dont see the GMs changing this to be brutally honest with you because its not really a "hole in the sky" kinda issue like the Soul Arrow tragedy. But in the case where the GMs wake up one day and decide they like bowmasters a little more, this thread would give the oomph they need to lock a buff in.
I won't disagree with that but I think when people sit down and think of which class they're going to play the game with, they don't say "Oh I should play a BM because it can also farm stoppers well." I think people who have the intention of farming stoppers choose BM sure. but I also think they are the minority to normal BM players. I respectfully disagree with this. I see no valid reason why BM's shouldn't be considered an attacker class. They don't deserve to be punished or seen as lesser because they provide NL's with SE. NL's have to wash a lot and in return they are the second highest damage class to sairs, but also far easier to play. Buccs don't get punished for providing SI, they have power stance, a ranged attack, great mobbing and have to wash less. The exact same thing can be said with Shads, great mobbing, single target, SS, meso guard, avoidability. You can't call BM a support class because they provide a buff and then give them low damage when that isn't the case with other classes, its unfair. Sadly, I agree.
Oh I apologize if I did not express my point correctly. BMs can be played as an attacker class for sure. It all depends on how you want to play it. Most people regard it as a support/utility role because there are other classes that would outdps them in a party so theres no reason to have more than 1 bm in the party if you get what I mean. Its inefficient thats why. If you wanna play BMs as an attacker class by all means. In fact, I main bm myself and I can hit pretty hard on auf (50k+ arrows on gelt). The reason I mentioned them as support is mainly because our SE is so important to others you dont see NLs running a boss run without us but at the same time you dont see BMs running a boss run with 6 SEs. Hitting hard as a BM is seen as an added bonus to parties. Nobody really asks what range a BM/MM has when recruiting for a boss run because you already contribute more than anyone in the party by providing SE (assuming no mules) If you hit hard like an attacker as a BM it just means your value in the party increases and more people would seek you for future boss runs. And although I find this comical, a lot of mid game boss runs dont really know how to tell whether a BM is funded or not. Like can the average player tell whether a BM is appled? Thats how much they care about the BM's dps because they already know your value as an SE.
I feel like a tamer of the party, for the simple reason of giving bonus SE, even little by little over the years I am getting stronger and thus contribute more for faster runs! so I'm in charge, xD
If anything, i'd say double the summon's attack speed but halve the duration, rather than changing damage formula (for archer and mage summons). The dmg per summon stays the same but the dmg occurs over shorter time. It won't change summon farming (eg allow you to farm stronger mobs) for the attentive players.
Hmm I think its a step in the right direction but it ends up being 3 seconds worth of hurricane over 100 seconds instead of 200. It still sounds trash to me and I think many others, but now in return we become the worst class for farming stoppers and have to pay twice as much attention.
Unless the GMs decide to give it a buff and by buff I mean not a trade in which GM take something away at the same time, I think phoenix should not be touched. I dont see how increasing its attack count would make it any less useless than it is now, much less when its duration would be halved. Its either the GMs want it to be useful or useless theres really no inbetween. I believe they realise how under populated the archer class is which was what brought them to buff our arrows in the first place, going in the direction of making archers more competitive. They should have no difficulty seeing how phoenix needs to be somewhat addressed. Otherwise I rather they not touch our class at all.
What if they had an npc which you could talk to and you could make it so that you are never able to summon phoenix in the stoppers map and in return you get a damage increase? This would be permanent, meaning once you accept it, you can never farm stoppers as a BM.
I consider summon's damage to be "damage per summon", but rewarded overtime. In your example, the single press of a button gives you 3 seconds of hurricane that ignores damage reflect, ignore your status debuff (stun/cursed/seduced?), ignores defense and keeps attacking if you need to afk for some reason. During times without crash/crash is not buffed and boss casted weapon cancel, you can even use it so you are not wasting time waiting. I highly doubt one is constantly using hurricane without ever stopping in a boss fight, there's always chance to cast the summon. - For me as a sair, I know that when I press my summon, i'll get ~340k damage and I know I won't deal that kind of damage in the duration of summoning with rapid fire. Increasing attack speed (or dmg) and halving the duration will either 1. double summon's damage if you're an avid summoner 2. Have no changes in damage if you only summon every couple minutes (your freedom of choice). If you like to use the summon often, it'll make pressing that button more worthwhile, if you're not, then there is no changes to your life. - Double attack speed actually makes it attack very very slightly faster than sair's octopus. I personally won't reply to anything about stopper farming since you're not really playing at that point, and technically i'm adovcating for both archer and mage summon's to attack faster with half duration. It's not a big buff, no. I don't want summons to suddenly increase BM's damage by like 20%, but it does increase summons damage.
People are saying not to buff Phoenix's range or damage because it could lead to easier stopper farming. Or it could lead to farming stronger monsters whilst afk. So give the people who never farm using phoenix an option to disable the summon on very specific maps in return for the buffs.
I dont think people want to be limited with what they can/cannot do with their class/skill on a private server. I never farm stoppers but I also dont want to have a restriction on me that I can never farm stopper with my phoenix on the small chance I decide I wanna hunt stoppers for fun.
or a simpleer way of dealing with this is just dont add the pheonix skill remind me again whats this thred about ?
How bout leave my big red bird alone n move on with ur life? Also fyi, bm washing to the same amt of hp is more expensive than nl n shadow partner doesnt double the dmg, it adds 3 50% lines so its just 150%. Btw blocking phoenix in stopper map does jackshit since at that point u nid to decide which maps exactly u wanna block. All stopper maps only? How about if the switch to farming maple pops? Or if they turn to farming something else? Tat basically defeats the purpose of the block n just gives bm a free buff. Phoenix is pretty useful for other things aside from damage n farming stopper. If u kill bf it helps clear the jr wraiths, if u pin anego it helps clear the mobs. Same with bga if im not mistaken. Oh ya, while this thread is abt phoenix, lets not forget that frostprey also exist guys. If they wanna buff phoenix, frostprey gotta be discussed too Lastly, @Saledor bro how come u nid resummon ur phoenix in pap? Shldnt u b able to down in b4 ur phoenix disappears with ur range? He shldnt b constantly hiding in the shell if u pur ur puppet at the right place.
