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

After 6+ months, I still totally agree with @GunzGaming post hoping something will change soonTM, especially the straight % damage nerfs on shadowers. Unpopular opinion but honestly needed with how over tuned they are compared to the warriors. In addition, I believe that smoke screen should be reduced back to 60 seconds (update 65). The range buff was much needed for shadowers to excel but the since the new source the delay from boomerang step is greatly reduced, so to balance it out I would reduce the damage of the main skills (bstep,assassinate&bot) by 20%.

 

Spoiler: inb4 MengQian runs out to attack...

I do agree Shadowers need a damage nerf. I've been told that I'm being biased in thinking about that since Shadowers spend the most money in order to fully realize their potential (even moreso now that so many people are flocking to Shad again and the questionable amount of money people have these days). And also that they'll get whited against other classes in certain bossing scenarios. These are good points but as said before, in the content of a non-rebuilt pre-bb server, Shadowers have the most avoid and survivability of all classes as well as good utility (Smokescreen) and shouldn't exactly be nearly on-par with other classes in damage at their realized potential. I think Matt was very generous with the Shadower class in Royals as it offers the most damage/potential compared to other servers.

I'm not going to offer exact damage nerf numbers since that's up to Matt/Staff. However, I'm a bit optimistic that even with a damage nerf Shadowers can still retain some damage output via QoL changes. If the Dev can accomplish these:

• Dark Sight is removed from Assassinate
• Assassinate's Dash will only be performed when holding < or > movement key
  
• Boomerang Step can be performed in mid-air

It'd allow for Shadowers to achieve additional stabilized DPS that was otherwise missing.

 

Buccaneer
I do hope Staff does bring Buccaneer down to a respectable spot. Right now, I think they're too good at both Single Target and Multi Target. When Staff made the decision to make Bucc have ~100% upkeep time in Super Transformation years ago, they in turn accidently made Bucc's too good at Multi-target when their Multi-target was situational/limited before. My opinion is that Staff greatly lowers their Multi-target damage output (but still have higher potential at 6) and just brings their Single Target to a decent spot. They could toy with the idea of making Buccs hit up 8 targets on AoE in return for lower multi target DPS.

Hero
It was mentioned about making Hero more single target oriented by using Panic, but speaking as a Hero main myself, I'd like to retain using Brandish as my bread-n-butter skill. I know in the past, Hero mains would say they'd like to hit 4 targets with their Brandish and Coma being useful.

Thematically, it makes sense for Heroes to be more AoE oriented since they're waving their huge sword in big circler swings. Also, nostalgically, Heroes were always in the center of Zakum hitting multiple arms compared to Drks struggling to stay alive hitting at the side of Zak.

Dark Knights
I know people have mentioned that Dark Knights are fine and need to be left alone. I disagree. If possible, adding a true Berserk scaling would really help out Drk players. Drk players can't and shouldn't be expected to be Sparky95/awlz or they lose out on a lot on DPS with the current feast/famine scaling. We should have something similar to this:


If the Dev is unable to do this then let Drk players receive 35~50% of their zerk scaling normally and they receive the rest at 50% HP. But a true scaling is ideal.

Donn1e had made a list of ideal Single/Multi Target. My ideal Single/Multi target thoughts lie in this:
Single target:
1. Paladin
2. Drk
3. Bucc
4. Hero = Shad

3 targets:
1. Hero
2. Drk >= Shad
3. Bucc
4. Paladin

4 targets:
1. Hero
2. Shad >= Drk
3. Paladin = Bucc

5+ targets:
1. Shad
2. Hero >= Bucc
3. Paladin >= Drk

 

i have a 200 shad, absolutely love the class. i remember when royals lifted the nate charge. and i totally agree that assassinate, and bstep need to be nerfed. 10-20% off the top of each is what i roughly think as well, but i'll get into that. the way shads have turned bossing out is frankly problematic for the server. i partied with a lot of the original shad only/5 shad 1 bucc, 4 shad, 4 shad 1 bucc 1 bs, etc smoke bombing parties. it felt like we were getting away with murder, and it feels totally unchecked still, especially after the smoke buff.

since were on it, here's all my shad balance input:

assassinate:
-10~30% off the top
-as i've requested for years now, making the 4th hit manual when holding left or right, not automatic, and never triggered by any other interruptive elements.
-since we're discussing base nate's first three hits being nerfed , and should be nerfed, i think buffing the 4th hit is a good idea. it can't be used on all bosses, it puts the user at risk via touch damage as well as risky positioning, and is slightly slower. giving it a slight buff such as 100% crit, or a slight base % buff to make it have any incentive or utilitarian use that is not simply a slight positioning tactic would be nice.
-keep the ds rq.

bstep:
-10-20% off the top
-lower stun % 10-20%. shads already have insane mid-range attack and speed. stunning everything they mob with 90% is a crazy buff, but i understand if this scrutiny is overlooked

assaulter:
-i don't think the length of the skill needs to increase at all, i just think the speed from a to be could be increased though, but not the recast rate. folks are surreptitiously asking for a lite flash jump that attacks. i think it has great range.

ds:
-can cast hw or hw10 through ds
-dispel will dispel DS, so you can at least heal if you're stunlocked in ds. i see no problem with this since when using nate, you're in ds for a few frames. small hiccup you may not even notice vs getting stunned and dispelled vs stunned and no mg stuck in ds.

smoke:
i'm of the opinion 60 smoke was fine since royals dropped the ball and didn't commit shiftergate. another consideration is RNG: the same reason the server raises the stance effect bc people can't stop begging for it, RNG is a really important aspect to these super skills, they lean on them, they think they have to have them to play. you don't need stance. sharp eye's doesn't work on all attacks, that's what makes it such a balanced skill (it should require a magic rock and last slightly less but i'm also insane). i'm not suggesting smoke not work sometimes, but that the duration have a variable, like between 40-65 seconds, with better visual cues that it's about to end in a few seconds.

MG:
to me this is the most broken thing about shads, not nate, with all shad smoke exploitation being the second biggest issue. 50% is op. start testing at 30% up to 40%, but no higher than a 40% dmg reduction from MG. 50% is crazy for a server that just hands you mesos. and no, do not just raise the cost of MG. the point is 50% all damage reduction is an insane 3rd job skill for a small amount of mesos, even if you have 30k hp. on a mid hp, mid range, super fast, mobile, i-framed, extremely hard to hit melee class, a 50% dmg reduction shield for almost no cost is insaaaane. i know this wrecks a lot of hp builds and bossing, but halving all damage for basically nothing in 3rd job is wild. at least make it require a magic rock or two as well, or last half as long if it's halving all damage in the game.

shifter:
shifter should cost mp instead of royals attempting to lower the rates. if you have low or no mp, your dodge rates are halved. the shifter debacle was because they saw 4th job thieves dominating. instead of making shifter a free passive skill, just make it cost mp. lots of major bosses have mp drain skills, and more bosses could get them. it's a potion burn with a risk of losing avoidability when at no mp, which is more practical approach than nerfing the skill, because the classes basically require their avoidability to be playable in terms of survivability, and the stance effect shads need for their wind-up assassinate.

---
dropping TT's base dmg% is also something to consider. not bc i'm a NL hater, and i obviously agree shad's damage, as a shad, could also be reduced, because both classes share an actual useless skill, ninja ambush. damage is total dogshit, even at max, even if your gear is stacked, it takes forever to cast, there's a huge cast time, and the skill lasts all of 12 entire seconds at max. it's a joke. it has a nascent utility in casting it when weapon cancel is active, because it ignores weapon cancel for some reason, but you're better off just relaxing or thinking about literally anything else than using it, it's actual trash, and i'm the "no useless" skills person. yes the dmg cancel utility can be helpful, but 40k-ish damage in 12 seconds is not worth the points this skill requires, not at all.

if both of these classes get nerfed, buffing NA would be a great supplement to this. making it cast waaaay faster, increase time, or damage, or some combo, ignore w.def, etc. i like that att potions do not affect it, because NL would get a lot of abuse out of this, but the real issues of the skill are already mentioned. shads will have to choose between venom and NA, due to SP. idk about NL.

 

Nah I think Shads are good.

 

First of all, you shouldn't mention those 2 names together as it can trigger some people.
One basically invented the pot set ups for zerking in hard bosses, and provided video evidence + demonstration, the other only ever had a heavily edited death compilation and took 30 mins to kill a singular anego while having the audacity to say "get gud".
Being good with words only and trying to buy yourself a reputation with that should not be something we support as a community.
Personally, I would find the comparison insulting.
Anyway, thats beside the point.

As for zerking - I believe thats one of the things staff actually got right in this server.
It's a pretty unique situation, every boss is just about zerkable and it introduces skill and preserves the idea of manual potting.
The skill required is not high at all, using 2 unagis after getting hit in VL is not rocket science.
How do I know? I've done this myself and i have seen my friends do it as well as newer drk players (shoutout @biackcurrent).

The reason it's not popular is because people are too afraid of the idea to even try.
If you are a dedicated Drk player who wants to do all the bosses, there's really nothing that stops you except for your own fear of messing up and dragging the party down.

Judging by other servers who have the exact system you mentioned, it just leads to a situation where you find an auto-pot set up for all bosses that is "good enough", and just like that the idea of manual potting is not worth it anymore.
The currect drk mains are happy with this system and most believe that if you are not willing to put in the minimal effort of clicking a pot after you get hit, you dont deserve the extra damage.
I'm very much against this idea.

 

Overall I think shad is a strong class but I think the weaker classes just too far behind for modern old school Maplestory and they should be buffed instead. We have also seen in recent years that the playerbase isn't keen on nerfs at all.

I think the suggestions from darko are a good baseline to start working from if you wanted to touch shad. I'm a bit worried the damage nerfs will make the class quite weak for anyone who isn't ultra funded since the class has such extreme scaling at the very top end.

I'll address some other suggestions since I think they are the wrong direction for the class.

What's the problem here? I think having some unique gameplay related to a class is fine and healthy unless its the best thing to do by far.

Why do you want to keep the dark sight requirement? Wouldn't it be better to remove it so there is no ping based abuse to increase the dps of the skill and level the playing field?
Removing it would also make the class feel less clunky to play and lead to less confusion.

How is this in any way relevant? Basically everything that takes more than 1 or 2 bsteps to kill is immune to stuns. This would only nerf low leveled or undergeared shads which I don't think is the right direction.

Again, why not just remove the dark sight requirement from shads instead of adding these workarounds?

I don't understand this at all. While inherently rng can be fine in skills, just having it doesn't make something balanced. Personally I think having the longer smokes makes shads feel playable at lower avoid levels and about on par with the stanced melee classes in the late game.

I think meso guard is iconic, it is a selling point to pick shadower as a new player and there a plenty of skills in the game that are "insaaaane". The skill is active and dispellable so it has some downside and requires player attention. I see you have this attraction to these small annoyances like adding magic rock to the casting cost, but I don't think they are effective at reducing power level or a good design philosophy (make something strong but annoying). You could shoehorn either of the rocks to many powerful skills but is that we something really want?

I don't see how this does anything. Either you have spare mp from washing (I have 10k+ on nl and shad) and every hp pot I use heals me to full mp too or you don't have the mp but your pet mp potion heals your mp back up after a mana drain before you can even get hit again.

I think shad has enough usable skills as is. I think the current iteration of venom is 99.9% useless and could be replaced easily if you made ambush something people wanted.

 

DO YALL REALLY GET THE CONCEPT OF 20% DMG NERFED ?

 

Yeah 20% is huge, it would make Shad fall below Hero and become the lowest DPS attacker class, and probably the worst class in the game

 

Dear Misters and Misses, I understand Shadower is now really strong, but most of the nerfs i read above are way too overhelming, let's review in overall

Let's discuss it seriously , if Assassinate & bstep got nerfed 20% , this is literally making the class unplayable, by checking krex timers, donnie took around 12min to kill the right eye, after main dmg -20% = time x 1.25 = 15min, which is almost the slowest already

1. Warriors got buffed ( let's say at least pally's uncapped )
a) Pally get uncapped and becomes the 3rd highest single dps
b) Drk / Hero perform better in both single and multi targets comparing to shad.
=> Conclusion: Shadower's the next Hero after that, and still its not motivating players to make a Hero.

2. Those who used to do solo contents on shad now takes 125% time then they used to need
a) Shad as a melee still requires to do HP wash (even with MG ) , and its expensive that im sure everyone agrees with that
b) Shad needs a 2nd weapon ( khanjar ) , extremely high in expense but dont perform better than others
=> Melee shadower still needs alot of fund for washing HP, and their 2nd weapon, but slower when doing every solo content comparing to warriors now

3. Shadower's position in those popular bossing parties ( cwk / ht / zak )
a) no one's gonna take a smoke mule when its single target dmg is low af
b) no one's gonna take a smoke mule when its multi targets dmg is low af


Special contents ,
1. Neo Tokyo, I believe it is considered as a solo content for high end gamers, the most popular class would be back to Nightlord in majority
2. Shad HT, with a group of 4x 10k clean shads ( mid high ) usually takes around 9min on each prehead with stoppers > 18~19min taken before entering the main body
With full apples it takes around 38~42min. During the fastest 4 part on right side, it usually takes 3~4 smokes = 4.5~ 6min
After nerfed, the 4 parts ( right arm alerted ) gonna take 6min and that requires at least 4 smokes with perfect timing and has the risk of getting extra mass sed that might cause buyers die
=> Shad HT is almost killed

Let's wrap this up:
Tbh what makes players feel shad is OP is because it's having a good mobbing ability while the single dps is also good,
And for the most popular content, aka Horntail, bstep can hit up to 4parts on right side, while Hero & DK can only do up to 3 targets, what we need is a better content for Hero players
or increase the range of brandish slightly maybe.

And again, after shad got nerfed like you wish, game is back to NLstory again, no other choices unless u are in love with the class , or merely to enjoy the nostalgia
Soon people complaining NL opop ... nerf NL ... deadloop

 

To clarify I meant this:

• Band of Thieves: 250% > 230%
• Boomerang Step: 600% > 580%
• Assassinate: 950% > 930%

I was just throwing out numbers, (it could be less or more) not a full 20% nerf on damage overall. I do not think Staff would blindly just nerf it without testing, so it would not be a issue anyways? It really depends on the direction staff wants to take; increase power creep levels or mitigate it to potentially extend the life of the server.

Realistically nothing changes tbh, I am just putting out my thoughts as someone that has been around here for quite some time

Shads do not need outside buffs (se/si) to reach full potential compared to counter parts and it is amazing how one class can even have a position, in every boss let alone a top position in all the popular bossing parties - what about von leon??

Lets not forget they have amazing evading skills like shadow shifter and smokescreen. I do not think any other class has the luxury to do both consider how high shads are placed on single target/multi target ranks!

 

Some of Cooler's shad suggestions got me thinking, along with autismax's replies to those. I'm not going to touch on everything.

Assassinate: What does the Dark Sight requirement actually do for the gameplay experience? It adds a few frames where you aren't doing damage (more on this later) and are vulnerable to server hiccups or stun ending your macro. Though rare, I've been killed by an unlucky stun + 1/1 + magic attack from Pap. To prevent this now, I keep my mouse cursor near the top right of my screen so I can right-click Dark Sight to turn it off if I get stunned. This is a pretty awkward solution that I only have to use because of the clunkiness of Dark Sight and macros. I'd rather remove the DS requirement and nerf Assassinate by a small percentage to account for the higher uptime (2-3% maybe?). I still have to pay attention to play the class, but now I don't need to use my mouse in a hurry to prevent my own skill from killing me.

Assaulter: Yes, people are asking for a lite Flash Jump. It's already a positional skill, so you might as well lean into that. I only use it to get into Assassinate range and to get onto higher platforms or move through walls (try it in Purplewood Forest 1). I don't have any problem with its range. The only problem I have with it is that its on-ground movement speed is the same as haste-walking speed (or near enough to not matter). Lowering the cooldown doesn't affect DPS in any way; it only means that shads can move through maps more quickly.

Meso Guard: I don't know what the Wizet devs were thinking when they added this skill to Shadowers way back when. It really is too much on top of highest avoid. I think people like it because it means they don't need to HP wash. Anyway, I don't think reducing duration or requiring magic rocks would actually affect anything other than add slight annoyances to playing the class. Shorter duration just means I have to recast it more often (oh no, I lose one second of DPS every 60 seconds instead of every 120 seconds), and requiring magic rocks or some other item just means I waste some ETC slots. I think there's a reason why 4th job skills don't require magic/summoning rocks (do any 4th job skills require them?), and it's probably because the original devs realized that they don't add anything to the game. Blocking less damage would be effective but it's countered through washing, which people would complain loudly about. I think the HP and potion system in this game is inherently broken already, so I'm not sure what could be done without radically changing the way the game works.

Shadow Shifter: I have set my MP autopot appropriately and now your suggestion is moot. I already have too many potions due to thieves simply not using potions as often as other classes, so it's not like I'm spending more mesos. If you want a suggestion that would put me in a mental institute, how about a cooldown on Shadow Shifter after it activates? Maybe you have to wait five seconds (or more?) before it can activate again. Then you have to rely on your natural avoidability more often.

Smoke: People want reliability. They want to know that their skills will work and they want to know that they'll work for the same amount of time every time. Adding randomness here is just adding unreliability. "Dealing with it" as a counter isn't really skill, since all you can do is say "oh well". There's no counterplay to smoke ending early other than taking the next hit.

Ninja Ambush: Anything to help this failure of a skill would be nice. My 190 NL is sitting on 27 skill points waiting for HW10 or MW20 since Ninja Ambush is so pointless. I didn't know it hit through weapon cancel... but I'd rather spend that 10 seconds of downtime to cast my buffs again.

Venom: You mentioned this in passing, but I find venom to be pretty worthless outside of Rose Garden, and I don't know if it even makes much of a difference there. Doing a single line of damage every four seconds means nothing on enemies that go down in under ten seconds. If the thieves' main attack damage was nerfed, making poison more effective or usable on bosses would balance things out and incentivize people to put points into the skill.

 

... What's next? People are going to get triggered because I mentioned Tim? Let them get triggered then. If they have an issue then they can bring it up to me in DM (as if they'd bother anyways).

You and others are against a true scaling because it'd allow ALL Drk mains to have options. Dark Knight players would still have to zerk same as before or they won't be doing ideal damage. How much effort one puts into Zerking should be decided on the player themselves and how comfortable they are being 1-hit to weave in peak damage output or within an inch of death and still have optimal damage output, not how the *Good* Drks (or Elite players) feel everyone should be at...

The current scaling is due to Nexon's bad game design and not coding a proper zerk. If the Dev can be able to and Staff agrees, they should pursue a true scaling.

 

That's why I mentioned these:

Those QoL will allow a general DPS increase for Shadower at all levels/progress which I'd guesstimate to be a 3-5% increase in overall DPS. Slightly nerfing Shad damage in return for those QoL should be considered and is reasonable. I don't know and don't think Staff will do a hard ~20% nerf as others suggested (but I suspect they'll do a nerf either way).

@MengQian and other Shad players can respond to me if they agree/disagree on this notion of a ~neutral buff/nerf while allowing more comfort in gameplay in those QoL suggestions.

 

first, this is also exactly what i meant. 10-30ish% off the top, not reduce the total by those percentages so pls chill lol.

this is a balance thread. not a "what we want + qol democracy". there's lots of qol suggestions and that's great, it's good to tinker through these things outloud and share all kinds of possibilities and feelings, but the issue is, even in the staff blog, shad has completely dominated the game, and is a frankly overpowered, unchecked class. you don't even need to wash it. in terms of how unkillable, strong, and party and mule utility, it's too strong. if it kept all the survivablity and utility and was slightly less strong, that's the simplest fix, and that's the basis for most of my suggestions. there needs to be some balancing. all my suggestions, starting with MG, are ways to tune down how OP this class plays, and bringing the risk back into the reward of the benefits a class like this gets. bucc is definitely next in line, but we're talking shads.

1. shad is too strong. buffing other classes to be up to it's standard is creating the same issues, not solving balancing issues. bad perspective.

2. playerbase isn't running a server's decisions, thankfully. the staff did a bad job at explaining why they made certain nerfs, and justifying them. some of them were also flatly bad decisions and nerfs themselves, but that shouldn't mean the server can't make nerfs now because of that.

3. meso explosion isn't a balanced or healthy skill. it being unique or iconic doesn't mean it's exempt from the scrutiny of healthy balance. 6 shads exploiting smoke and ME in record times, making tons of money and crashing the markets isn't healthy or how the boss was suppose to be fought. unique and funky is great, exploitable and OP is not healthy for server or class balance. if you don't understand what the problem is in that particular quoted message, i don't think you should have any input on it as a subject.

4. because the ping is the issue, not the skill. i can make the same fallacy about DS that you later make about MG, it's iconic, therefore it's sacred. that's not why i'm arguing for it. the risk the player takes to use this super powerful skill combo is what makes it worth it. you can't just give players easy damage like that sometimes. if anything, we should bring back the charge, if were talking about appeals to tradition and sacred cows. assassinate is super strong because it was a wind-up skill that also needed charged. now it's a wind-up skill with no charge. and now you want just the super strong damage with no wind-up or charge on an already broken class. no, that's not balancing anything, that's buffing an already op class lol

5. lowering the stun% chance on a skill that gives you a ton of iframes (which also contribute to the problematic domincance of the class), which you can fire off from an almost long range distance, very quickly, was suggested because again, overall, the class needs to be toned down in how efficient it is right now. not all these suggestions need to be implemented, but even if they were all implemented, you wouldn't really notice, trust me. everything on shad just needs to be turned down from 11 right now unfortunately, this was one of those considerations, including the damage. the poor young shads (LOL) will be fine, this would barely make a dent in their gameplay. but if you want my personal opinion, bstep shouldn't stun at all, it's already an insanely quick, long range attack with exploitable iframes that are easy to learn and abuse. the stun is totally unnecessary

6. the DS complaint is answered. this isn't and shouldn't be a thread for people who want more without any risk or work. fix the ping, or bring back the charge. or drop DS and severely lower the damage to nate. the skill is fine. the suggestions to HW working in DS and dispel working on DS is the best QOL that we could get, while also maintaining a risk/reward gameplay. shads aren't just a melee class and shouldn't be played like them, but they are, and they need to be tuned down a bit. removing DS makes them even stronger and easier to play. that's not a balancing decision at all.

7. the smoke argument of yours is saying nothing at all. my suggestion is to address how exploitable the 6 smokes or smoke mule issue is. how else would you approach the issue of smoke being such an exploitable skill? your answer is it's "nothing". my suggestion of RNG with better visual cue means players have to pay more attention. they would still get a long spell of total invincibility (and they would even have the chance of getting a few extra seconds of it!). taking away the tools and tech to make the game playable on autopilot is a good thing. pay attention to the visual cues. i think instead of saying "it's fine", you should come up with a solution to make it less exploitable for the server. i think this is a good way to do that. pay attention. it requires attention. also, you're looking at the suggestion all wrong. it guarantees at least 40s of invincibility, so count on that, with the chance of it to go higher. that's great :] (obviously these times are suggestions)

8. your MG counter is again just bringing nothing. nobody is contesting it's iconography, many iconic things here have been changed for the sake of balance. we have new ways to get HP now. MG does not need to be so absurdly strong. it being dispellable doesn't make it justified either. magic gaurd, the other MG, is necessary because mages don't have insane avoidability or smoke or iframes or mobility skills or darksight or even the natural hp thieves do. if they get dispelled, they're squashed. if a shad does, it has probably a 70% or higher chance it will survive totally fine without MG for each hit. and all it costs you is some mesos, it doesn't even eat into your MP, which translates nothing, because you can npc some random eq and have enough money to boss and grind with MG all day. lowering the damage reduction from MG is worth looking at for the health of the class and the nature of a thief class with super fast skills, mobility, mid-long range attacks, invincibility party buffs, and in insane single target skill that you also want buffed, instead of nerfed. it's problematic, sorry. it's worth considering.
adding magic rock to more exploited/mule skills is worth considering as well, it's not to be annoying. it's meant to curb exploitability, and add more active requirements than pressing a button. it should apply to a lot more skills: HS, smoke, SE, SI, holy shield, CRASH. NL need summoning rocks to stay in optimal damage, it's the exact same thing. it's a good gating mechanic.
these skills should also cost more MP. if we're going to allow and promote multiclient sweaty gameplay and have an open thread about balance, then this is my input, like it or not, it's valid countermeasures for being able to access such fantastic and helpful skills, not punishment. punishment is some of the late game mechanics and requirements for some medals and bosses, but that's a different thread, which wouldn't need to be so punishing if some other aspects of the server were curbed.


9. this is a suggestion to actually support royals shifter "faux pas". i actually liked the progressive attitude they had in trying to lower the shifter rates. the two classes were dominating, but everyone whined so much they buckled. shads are too tanky, and NL just stand in the back anyway. the shifter rate drop was a bold balancing act. but the server couldn't justify the decision and buckled to two of the most entitled, comfy classes in the game.
shifter requiring mana is at least a potion burn, and something you need to be aware of. maybe pets won't be allowed in some future bosses, maybe potion lock will be in issue. maybe having no MP in dojo will hurt your chances of survival, maybe your pet won't heal you when you think it is, and you dodge at 0mp, or it's too low, and you don't get a good shifter dodge? then you burn more HP. this is at least a middle ground suggestion if shifter rates are going to be so high. even if i explain all these from the balance POV, and even if they're valid balancing suggestions, people just focus on what they lose, which is the wrong perspective to have. this suggestion doesn't do nothing, it puts pressure on resources.
...pets were a bad idea lol

10. venom is great, infinitely better than ambush. (which i forgot to suggest, and this is QOL not anything to do with balance: make venom toggleable on/off). great for tanky mobs and early shad life, fantastic for unfunded players. it should not work on bosses atm.

so again, this is a balancing thread. i'm not addressing nate again in reply to you, i apologize. this is not a what we want thread. a lot of the things i brought up, like assaulter, is because i don't think people trying to buff assaulter, for an OP class, has anything to do with balance. sure, i think the a-b speed could be increased, but that's it. it's an invaluable skill as it is, especially in dojo and general mobility, 10/10.

i appreciate that you're willing to see where i come from with MG, even if we don't agree. agreeing isn't the point of the thread. it's an OP skill that most of shad's dominance hinges on, therefore it should be scrutinized, that's plain and simple, and therefore it should be on the examining table as well, if not the chopping block. i disagree about magic/summoning rocks. they're integral to NL gameplay. i think they should also be applied to highly exploited skills like i mentioned above. it's not about the annoyance, it's about the gating and requirement aspect of such useful skills, and it's worth considering.
[if you want the most radical and simplest solution to the problem this and all servers share, here it is]

a shifter CD is a great idea too.

smoke is still reliable up to 40s . anything plus, that's called a bonus. it's all about perspective, and anyway, i explained why i made this suggestion. there should be more than zero thought put into the problem, that's all i'm saying. there's no point in dashing suggestions to problems if you aren't bringing any yourself. exploitability isn't a good thing for the game. look at it, talk about it, discuss it.

i mentioned NA becoming a supplemental skill if nate/bstep are lowered by 10-30% off the top, not total damage.
you mentioned venom working on bosses if those skills were also lowered.

here's the problem with both of those suggestions. while we use lots of skills in synergy, they shouldn't all have to be used at once to maximize our damage, they should also be situational. the problem with both of these suggestions, and again, venom and NA have nothing to do with balancing shad right now, but this is an example and this example extends to all other classes that might be balanced, is that this then means that venom, and or NA, become required skills. requiring previously unrequired skills for gameplay is a bad design choice for your players. you need to make them organically fit into your toolkit. if you want to play sweaty, you need to bring more than the capacity to press an extra button. they need to be situational, they need to have requirements or risks and rewards. otherwise you're creating a new meta that didn't exist before, and people don't like the pressure or feeling forced like they have to have all the same homogenized builds, or that they aren't useful until level x.

 

It wasnt said in a mean way and its relevant to the subject since thats what he based his feedback on, not to mention it was just a side note.
What i said was simply factual and i wasnt "flaming", as i didnt insult anyone.
What you did in my opinion is over moderating as this didnt start a "flame war".

If you want to remove my posts and issue WP go ahead, but dont edit my posts and twist my words please, i like speaking my mind.

 

quit power tripping dude.