In Discussion Class/Skill [Feedback Request] Skill Changes and Balancing

Buccaneer

Would be super cool to see Buccaneer hit over 199,999 damage so the class won't feel as limited in damage as you progress. This will feel rewarding to play the class Buccaneer.

Some other suggestions for Buccaneer

1. Backspin blow + Corkscrew blow to 6 mobs from 3 mobs
2. Energy charge to charge faster or make the duration longer
3. Energy charge to be stackable with attack pots
4. Energy blast to 6 mobs
5. Decrease the delay when spamming Dragon Strike

These are some suggestions I have brainstormed!

 

I'd be down for the fully-charged version of corkscrew blow to hit up to 6 mobs. Being limited to pushing 3 mobs is the only thing that really annoys me about playing a buccaneer. Disagree with backspin getting the same treatment because I don't think a 2nd job skill should be better than Rush. (You rarely hit more than 6 mobs at once with rush, and backspin also stuns and has iframes while being pretty fast.) Limiting it to fully-charged corkscrew would be fine because it's balanced by the charge time.

All of this seems like it's intended to make buccaneers better across the board, which I don't think is necessary. They're already a strong class; they're not so wimpy that they'd need extra w.att slapped onto whatever attack pot they're using.

The delay on DS is a healthy part of the buccaneer's identity because it encourages cycling between different skills. For example, in early 4th job you might mob with DS + 2x energy blast. Making DS more spammable would also make gameplay less interesting, and I wouldn't like that.

 

Archer:

I think dragon's breath is a really great tool for archer grinding, but it has a few issues that hold it back from preforming its role as a spacer skill:

Allow dragon's breath to work even in melee range [instead of bow/xbow bashing].

as a skill that's supposed to be a direct upgrade to the 2nd job power knockback, its bizzare that it doesn't do its job properly of giving you the space to take a shot.
Relying on a mix of both skills doesn't work perfectly either, as the 2nd job skill only has a % chance to work, and against big and fast enemies, that sometimes won't even buy you the neccessary breathing room you needed to take the dragon's breath shot.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Make dragon's breath castable mid-air.

Making it castable mid-air would allow for an archer to clear themselves a landing spot on another platform in a different elevation. Which would make grinding in irregular map designs less awkward. [cause archers need to deal with arrows getting absorbed into floors and walls in these maps otherwise]

Alternative solution:

increase vertical reach of dragon's breath (both up and down).

For such a big animation of a skill, the actual vertical range of the strike is fairly thin. That's not an issue in flat terrain maps, but as soon as you deal with the slightest of slopes, you'll find you can not hit your target when the enemy is a little above your shot.

 

-I would love to see I/L and F/P mages buffed in some way. Make their single target DPS 10% or 15% lower then the lowest on the Krexel DPS Comparison as Aqwrd has mentioned? Plus the changes proposed by Gunz seem justified to some extend. I'd love to have some Archmages to Boss with (Thanks for coming to Dunas v2, Neroc !)

-Corsair selfstun after using multiple skills feels more like a bug at this point, so fixing it would really be a QoL change neccessary.
The other ones, i'd be open to explore how they would act ingame and nerf again if neccessary but definately open for that.
- Add an icon for the top right buff bar for Bullseye / Homing Beacon so Corsairs know whether it's active or not, sometimes it's a bit difficult to tell as the little bird disappears over the heads of the bosses and with crowded bosses, or those that are stacked, such as scarlion & targa it's even more difficult to tell whether it's active or not

On the Content Side i have to agree with Gunz too.

PQ rewards should be buffed significantly to make them more appealing for players to attend. Bossing with 3-4 People in Neo Tokyo is fine and all, but getting BiS Earrings without a significant amount of team effort required is pretty boring.
I'd rather PQ with all kinds of different people, throughout a long period of time and have fun with them than just do Boss A with a set team over and over again. Feels more like a chore..
After all, Party quests are what people feel most nostalgic about in this mushroom game. Might aswell live up to that expectation.

Make the Shining Altaire Earrings 9 stats max or whatever, or give it 500 HP. Give LPQ Glasses better stats, Buff OPQ Glove so they can reach 7/8att/5slot clean or so?
Romeo & Juliet PQ is dead, yet i see people R> people smega just for the sake of fun. Could be changed if the Pendant was superior than it's lower lvl requirement counterparts, yet worse than HTP / MoN.

Remove Mule Meta would be a good idea if the autoban feature is enabled fully and working as intended, otherwise hackers just get even more out of it, since players are forced to attend bosses with additional people.

Raid Completion EXP:
Yes please, 2-4 party runs would be so much more fun, to actually engage more with the community. Some good memes would be born from this


Edit: on the Content Side of things, i'd like to add, that the showa bodyguard boss(es) need some change in order to make the boss more appealing to run for parties. Maybe make the STR Earrings 7 slot too as they only give STR as a stat to atleast make them on par with element pierce and altaire earrings slot wise.

 

I dont know if this is the right fix but my god does something need to change with bossing. I cannot agree more there needs to be an emphasis on people playing with more not less players. Mules and multi clienting just exaserbate the issue.

 

When I was playing fully fully active back in 2016-2017 muling was honestly extremely rare, but it’s crazy to see people won’t even set foot in a zrun without mules…I personally don’t care if I don’t got SE/CR/SI but people are so spoiled/impatient these days it’s truly sad. A server a while back didn’t allow multi-client at major bosses (zak ht czak etc) but with multi computers it was fine, it pretty much narrowed down who really wanted to play with a community vs themselves. It’s funny we want the nostalgic aspect of the game yet the community plays extremely selfish.

but besides that, as for the buffs lol go slowly get back on topic, another way to “buff” heroes would allow panic sword to “darkness” bosses for party support allowing boss monsters to miss the party of incoming attacks. Also maybe re-fix the brandish formula so that the percentile isn’t all over place when doing 30k/30k lows and 60k/60k highs? A nice range increase in brandish allowing heroes to hit head B/A at HT would be extremely nice too. The enrage buff in terms of stacking would be the “simplest softest” buff but legs truly implement something here. Shad’s/buccs received some of the most significant buffs ever in terms of a pre BB server and we aren’t asking for the royal treatment but dang let’s get something done to not let classes like hero/mm bite the dust. They don’t have go on top but make them somewhat worthwhile instead of hearing constantly, “a hero? I mean I guess”

 

ive been suggesting the panic darkness reimplementation forever. it gives heros something, and at least its something that they were supposed to have way back in OG 3rd job, and it could be easily tweaked to be bossable, such as, if panic is cast on a boss flagged mob, it requires all 10 orbs, and only casts darkness for like, 20 seconds. it would be a really fun, selfless perk the player could choose to use to help the party with if they wanted to. as for a new ACA coma perk, i think an mp drain or a short slow effect, like hamstring would be fitting, and still be a purely optional/situational tech. both would be really fun and only benefit the party really, since the hero loses a minor bit of dpm, but selflessness is heroic~
(10 orb boss requirement means these effects would only at minimum be available after 140. it also requires the necessary acc to hit the boss, and a magic crystal requirement wouldn't hurt either, and perhaps adding the "your level or below" qualifier to make it even less exploitable. skills like crash, armor crash don't require acc, and can be cast on any monster or boss no matter what your level is, which should be considered)

as for mules, a lot of my suggestions on page 1 try to curb how easy muling is with popular skills, and imo are really healthy measures over time, not "punishments"

@LichWiz, i only agree with giving slightly more min distance to DB. a long range rush skill on a range char is already an amazing skill, even at level 1. i still think that it should have a slight recast delay, and cost more base arrows, or cost arrows based on the mobs it will hit, and only have a chance % to push LHC mobs, if considered

 

Read again, I was talking about vertical range... That means, the range up and down from the hitbox of the shot. It doesn't affect how far the arrow will reach, just help with enemies that are slightly above or below your shot.

 

i understood, I was just saying the min could be slightly increased, but i dont totally agree with no min distance suggestion, i think its fine as is, but id be ok with a slight min increase backwards if considered

 

Warrior

Spoiler: Hero

1) Rage W.Att stackable

Hero is being the only melee class that is not able to offer party buff because rage removes attack potion.
Rage cannot give party STR/DEX/INT/LUK buff as this can be abused for stats requirements with gears.

2) Enrage W.Att stackable or Super DEX buff

I prefer W.Att buff for enrage.
In short term if that is technically feasible buffing STR is better alternative although I don’t really like it.
It is interesting to see that if you buff DEX that equals to the same WA as alternative. Let see if super buff hero’s accuracy for 4 mins. let them able to hit some higher accuracy required bosses but overall accuracy is useless for hero anyway.

3) Panic and Coma

As for now panic and coma skills are inefficient and dead 3rd job skills. It is interesting to see hero using panic for single target bosses and coma for multi target mobbing up to 6 targets in LHC as example. Buff coma attack range as well as it is too small.

Reducing the combo counters consumption for Panic and Coma. Let’s say every panic/coma consume 2 combo counters and able to recharge while using panic/coma consistently and balance the ACA recharge rate. Damage losses depends on the recharge rate for balancing.

With these changes brandish still being useful for 3 targets bosses. Panic is able to do slightly better single target damage than brandish and coma is able to do better 6 targets mobbing damage.

4) Power Guard

I don’t think PG is useful nowadays. PG can only reduce touched damage but not able to reduce magic attack. Make PG able to reduce magic attack for some more purpose using this useless kill. As well as reverting PG to block 1/1 similar to mesos guard for better seducer ability. Warriors has lower avoidabilities than shadowers. I can’t see this change is overwhelming.

Spoiler: Paladin

1) Revert or buff crash range and durability.

I personally prefer old crash. I missed the old days when people calling CNC for crash next cancel. I missed you need 117 jump for cancel HT’s head B under HT’s belly iirc . I missed the days when the pros carry 3 x 200 crash mules spamming Heaven’s Hammers. I missed the old days I’m able to do anything in HT. Trio-clienting 1 attacker 2 Cr-Sed-HH-Echo mule 3 Bishop HSing Healing and dispelling defence. I’m the type of player like to do challenging and busy gameplay.
But with the update these old days memories are gone. Revert it !

I really dislike new crash. The range is ridiculously small and the durability is ridiculously short. Paladin is wasting lots of damage while rebuffing CR. It is often need to rebuff 2 times for the melee attacker spot and the ranged attacker spot. Pleas please please. Buff the range and durability for crash. At least 180s and the buff range same as all other warrior’s crashes. We are here to play to the game not playing with the headache.

Why is CR being the shortest party buff ? If you want to promote so-called active gameplay. But in fact people still bringing mules. Why don’t you make all party buffs to ridiculous 30s? Yes imagine 30s SE/ SI/ TL / HB/ MW20 for ridiculously 30 seconds. And don’t forget to nerf the all the party buffs range same as CR. This type of super active gameplay style solves the problem of mulestory. Let’s do this. Shall we ?


2) Remove damage cap for blast

 

My 2cents :
For Paladin :
1. Remove damage cap for Blast.
2. Lesser the after skill delay of buffs like fire/lightning/ice/holy charge - Total Crash (Paladin loses quite a chunk of dps when we have to rebuff because theres booster-power guard-stance-charge-mw and the additional total crash)
3. Remove after skill delay for Heaven's Hammer (its crazy long now. And we wont be mages because theres the 20sec cooldown)
4. Would be great to widen total crash range ( HT Head C can TC shads 4part platform and ranged on top platform )
5. Remove damage cap for Blast.
6. Is Power stance 30 really 90%?
7. Increase the range of ACB by abit.
8. Remove stun and knockback for Guardian (make it like Shadowshifter is good enough no need the extra stun and knockback ty)
And Finally,
9. Remove damage cap for Blast

For Bucc :
1. Remove damage cap for Barrage
2. Im good with the duration to charge but the duration of the buff itself is too short i hope it could be extended to 200secs because stance is highly needed in HT ( Warriors has Power Stance, Shads has shadowshifter + high avoid, the only melee that doesnt have a solid stance is bucc)
3. Weapon attack buff when energy is charged is stackable with atk pots (if this is too unbalanced, add 20wa like usual when not using atk pot but add 10wa when atk pot is used and stacked)
4. This skill can only be used during Super Transformation (i think this is already on the todolist)
5. Corkscrew blow up to 6 Mobs

Thank u..

 

Hero:

The problems with hero I think are:

• Enrage clearly needs a rework
• Panic/coma are worthless because of the lost orbs
• No variety while bossing. Hold attack button.

To fix:

• Panic/coma have a cooldown added to them. Say 15 seconds at max.
• Enrage is changed to temporarily remove the orb use mechanic from panic and coma while it is active, so that they only operate on a cooldown and are actually positive to dps to use

With this change, a few things happen:

• You still lose the orbs from activating enrage.
• You are now so "enraged" that even using strong attacks can't stop your combo from building.
• Brings a variety of actions to bossing, rather than holding the attack button the whole time

Notes for balancing:

• Changing cooldown time for panic/coma can adjust the dps as needed to keep in line with other classes
• This will bring a hero's single target dps to be more competitive but still not necessarily its strong suit.

 

in Enrage coma doesn't consume orbs

• The motivation. Is a class lacking in some area they shouldn't?

heavily lacking in single target DPS while providing no utility compared to other warrior classes (DRK gets HB and paladin has crash)

• What do you expect or hope the change will accomplish?

increase single target DPS so that it is at least middle of the pack, give it more class identity as a selfish DPS

• Where does this proposition place a class or classes in the big picture?

DPS class with no party support for warrior classes (something like corsair)

• Does this change have its place in Royals?

You rarely see heroes nowadays, so yes unless you want beginners to be more popular than heroes

 

We are quite pleased with the effort and detail so far in many of these posts! Thank you to everyone that participated so far. We'll start to compile the suggestions and edit the original post as time goes on. We will eventually have to give this thread an end date, so please keep that in mind (not any time soon!)

I'm glad you brought this up. One of the concerns we had when making this thread is that it would end up being 100 conversations at once, which in some sense it is. In retrospect, it may have been better to create a thread for each job branch, but I don't think it really solves any issues from our perspective. With the amount of feedback that already exists, many of the ideas in this thread have been ones which were already mentioned before (I personally recognize a lot of them.) Some newer ideas that I haven't seen before are pretty reasonable and tame, unlikely to require a focused discussion.

Further, the point of this thread is to serve as a conglomerate of all sorts of feedback; we are summarizing existing propositions, as well as reviving any interest in giving a last chance opinion to, for example, refine ideas. Additionally, we can focus on "isolated" changes (e.g. removing damage cap for certain skills), as well as those that affect multiple classes at once (e.g. party play buffs) which does require some 'multi-threaded' discussion. I too like the more focused, specific threads (focusing on a set of skills, or a single class), but after weighing the pros and cons, we felt this is the better way forward. Note, it's not the only way forward, and it may be better to approach things differently in the future after this effort achieves its goals.

I can see how it would be hard for a player to sift through each post and participate in this thread, but from our side (@Zancks and I) we see no difference in work. In fact, I like having one thread to sort through, rather than a myriad of sources (20 tabs of forums open at all times). The real work will come after all the information is gathered and sorted (testing, calculating, painting the big picture).

If you have any suggestions for improving this process for the future, of course feel free to pass them along via PM or in a new thread, to keep this one on topic.

 

I wanted to provide a little bit of input based on my limited experience playing Paladin

• Allow Blast to exceed the current 199,999 damage cap. Uncapping Paladin's Blast

- This just feels ideal, similar to what was said in the many previous threads regarding this topic, it gives paladins the ability to push further investing in their gear/untradeables and not left feeling like they aren't getting their moneys worth. https://royals.ms/forum/threads/uncapping-paladins-blast.200287/#post-1185171 As per this post the increase in damage is up to 10% on an endgame paladin depending on the weapon they use. It's not enough that it would cause a migration of players to play Pally just for the damage.

• Make Guardian a toggle skill, similar to final attack toggle change. Currently, when wearing a shield with skill points in Guardian, one has the chance (25% at maxed) to "block" (dodge, like shifter) attacks. This also pushes mobs, including bosses, when activated. The main issue is that the push behavior is sometimes undesirable. Issue With Guardian Skill.
  • Proposal 1: Keep the block chance active at all times, but the push effect becomes toggle-able
  • Proposal 2: Both the block chance and push effect are toggled together (if Proposal 1 is not feasible.)

- The solutions to this problem of either removing the push effect altogether or just making it a toggle effect seem reasonable.


1-Handed Weapons

- When I came to the point where I was deciding on what end game weapon to choose there were two questions I asked myself before eventually settling on a Stonetooth.

How much is it going to cost for each weapon choice?
And
What benefit am I getting for each decision?

The cost of going for the perfect Stonetooth was cheaper than going for the alternative perfect 1H+Perfect Shield. The benefit of going for the 1H didn't seem to be enough to sway me. Sure the 25% chance to block attacks is great, but I never really felt scared bossing on my Pally. With PG/Achilles and high base HP the only time I felt in danger was getting Sed on top of Auf. Meanwhile when you look at this post https://royals.ms/forum/threads/the...eapons-data-included.53212/page-2#post-527262 Stonetooths are neck and neck with Pyrope Swords + (Flame Swords are 3Att higher max clean) when it comes to damage without SI and push ahead considerably when SI is involved. Only the Crushed Skull becomes viable with SI and without it it's not in the discussion at all. Maybe a few changes can make the investment more worthwhile.

- One thing that might be nice to have for 1H is stun immunity, maybe shield mastery could be changed to be 10 points max (White Knights only have 11 points to spare after everything necessary is maxed) and +10% Increased Shield Defense and +10% Chance To Block Stuns each level. This might be a niche change, but I think it could provide a boost to DPS in certain scenarios.

- Another thing to consider if we wanted to push 1H+Shield to be the true endgame for Paladins, given the investment required, is to create a new attack speed category for 1H swords to be able to reach with SI. With speed (2) being the max speed which can be reached by a Claymore and Stonetooth with SI while Flame Sword/Pyrope Sword reach it with just booster, maybe something like speed (1.5) exclusively for 1H weapons +SI so that the gap is bridged, whether by a bit or completely, I wouldn't be disappointed by either choice, it would definitely open more people up to going for 1H+Shield.

2-Handed Blunt Weapons

-If the damage cap is removed I think they can be changed by just adjusting the slash/stab ratio. Let them be slower than the rest of the weapons but hit harder more consistently. Just make them viable, I don't see any reason not to.

Right now allocating 110 skill points for elemental charges just for one viable blunt weapon in the game doesn't seem right.

 

BM is in a really bad spot the most expensive class to wash and you get nothing in return even marksman is more popular right now..
low dmg , zero mobbing , zero stance so cant even maintain hurrican in boss..
also training is a real pain..
lots of people are quiting thier BM and they becoming only SE mules..

- Need buff in the mobbing department (not saying BM should be a good mobber but right now mobbing just dosnt exists at all).
- Would be nice for training to make dragon breath skill possible to use from zero range like arrow rain / eruption as they dont have mobility like other ranged class.
- 1st job skill Eye of amazon make it max at 10 sp instead of 8 sp and raise the attack range just a tiny bit archers suppose to fire at long distance and it dosnt feel like it.
(can barely reach the rat / Bloctopus in LPQ stage 7 unless you and the monster are both at the very edge of the platform lol )

Edit : few things that doesn't make sense to me..
why NL have more crit rate then archer (both with SE) think they should have same crit rate with SE. also marksman have a freeze effect on Frostprey and Blizzard.. i wonder why BM dont have like a burning DOT effect on phonix and Inferno for the same duriation as the freeze for marksman.

i believe this small changes and what have already been discussed about Phoenix / Frostprey and Focus 1st job skill would make BM and archer class in general
more appealing well rounded and fun gameplay experience without affecting the balance of the server.

 

marksman definitely isn't more popular than bowmaster. marksman has always been, and is still criminally underated and underplayed. most commonly treated like a meme class, other than a filler/mediocre bowmaster or just SE/MW20 mule. (bossing-wise)

there might be people quitting their bowmasters and becoming SE mules not because of marksman having "recent" upgrades in comparison, but because bowmasters' mobbing abilities are indeed lackluster and 1v1 output will always be outclassed by night lords and corsairs when it comes to DPS.

- inferno could use a damage % increase, or at least for the damage overtime to be fully functional and relevant. this could put them in a somewhat useful position as SE + average aoe damage dealers at LHC/general training. (actually, did you know inferno crits, while blizzard doesn't? that's +1)

- dragon breath should also be possible to be used without minimum range just for utility's sake. it's meant to be a power knockback upgrade since damage is a joke anyway. normal attacking can literally hit higher than the skill itself at early levels. this could also put both archers in a better support position as LHC rushers too.

- archers actually have the highest attack range in comparison to night lords and corsairs respectively, so I think we're good on this already. (also arrow bomb, inferno and blizzard can extend that range, both horizontal and vertically when hitting far mobs in the area)

- night lords have more critical rate than archers due to the their 2nd job critical rate skill and LUK stat having control over the critical damage done if I recall. I'm not sure about the technical side of it and attacking formulas so I can't explain how it works, but I think it's natural for a ~thief, assassin~ to have more critical output than an ~archer, ranger~ overall on RPGs. hell, even daggers should be able to crit harder and they don't.

I understand where you come from, and the thing is marksmen nowadays are magically semi-relevant at LHC just for their mobbing output (4th job mobbing skill, piercing arrow) being better than bowmasters (3rd job mobbing skill, inferno). thing is we will forever be treated as SE mules.

just don't expect an archer to exceed at something specific. both are great solo and support classes since we have a big toolkit to work around with.

but once again, bowmasters DO need a bit of an upgrade to their mobbing abilities. not to exceed marksmen's, but for the class to be more ~bearable~.


PS: you know, I always thought bowmaster should've been the one with the aoe skills while marksman should've been the 1v1 class, thematically... but oh well.

 

i think Phoenix doing fire DOT at certain levels and above would be great for them, and sorry im unsure, but does Phoenix proc hamstring? if not, both would be good vs LHC mobs. or if phoenix buffed inferno passively at 21+ would be another work around

 

Hell man, even a % increase in brandish would be nice to put us in the middle spectrum of DPS since we have no liable party support. Funny thing is heroes do receive “crash” post BB, but then that’ll put the hero vs pali debate (even though to make things “fair” we fall behind them in single/target DPS)