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

Hot take: Mages don't need to be good at bossing. No other class levels as fast as they do (FP is especially fast post level 80), they're able to make insane amounts of money with leeching too.

They're a niche class. That's a good thing. You have DPS bossing classes that suck ass at grinding and leveling- are we making everyone good at grinding with mass multi mob damaging skills to compensate?

 

agreed to all except can we have one skill (maybe dragon’s breath) which affects mobs but not boss mobs? I need it to solo shao i.e push shao clones away and puppet while i kill shao.

 

Hello Evan

1. Mages don't need to be good at bossing. No other class levels as fast as they do (FP is especially fast post level 80) ???

>>> Even though Leveling pre 4th job and even 4th job mages doesn't seem to be that big of the aspect for me, what about FP before level 80? what about IL 3rd job ? Isn't Shad 3rd job fast too ?. And on 4th jobs nowadays non-mage classes also have many very fast leveling options like Shao, LHC, even some other bosses.

2. they're able to make insane amounts of money with leeching too. ???

>>> Most of Leeching arch mages can do bishops can do.
>>> Attacker classes can sell services that can earn a lot of money too, even though might not be on the same level as skele Leeching.
>>> Some attacker classes can do RG pretty well, probably even better than arch mages, that can gain 200m+/hr equivatent of profit.
>>> For single content mage faming, they only make like 50m/hr mesos, I am sure attacker classes can make more money than that rate.

I have stated in your quoted comment that even increasing DPS for mages by a lot, they still have elemental limitations, Bosses that they can do well with their element is probably less than 50% of the bosses. That's a trade of for their very-good 10+target mobbing skill. Were you aware of this point that I had already stated ?

 

1) Poison allows FP mages to kill much higher level enemies than they normally would be able to- this works 30+ but mist is much much much faster.
2) So you want them (mages) to be the best grinders by a margin SO wide- and also be good at a lot of bosses but not all of them because of elemental weaknesses? Funny thing is this isn't even a new argument- one of the old Staff members unironically wanted to make CL stronger than or equal to paralyze because they were slightly worse for bossing ignoring the fact that CL is multi target. If people want to boss they should play a bossing class. For games like maple to survive you NEED this sort of diversity and class identity.

Go boss on your mage if you want to- don't throw the meta of the entire game off because you're trying to shove a square block into a round hole. If you're that sold on it- go become the best mage the game has ever seen- break the mold. Nothing is stopping you besides the fact that people won't invite you- I mean heck- people will spend billions to wash instead of bringing a DrK for HB it's that big of a deal to people who boss regularly lmao.

Also honorable mention, in what universe is only 50mil/hr bad. You really think a hero is out there selling leech for 50mil/hr + all the drops they can sell? I'm not talking about bossing- since there's a cap on that. (is BF leech still a thing? Don't know- doesn't matter- when people say they're selling leech they're almost universally talking about ulu, skeles, etc).

 

Hello Evan

As we are discussing under the thread " [ Feedback Request ] Skill changes and Balancing "
Right or Wrong, ultimately, this is for the sake of better community.

There are some points I think it's worthwhile to reply

1. you NEED this sort of diversity and class identity ???
> Most things arch mages can do Bishops can do. Is this the diversity and class identity ?

2. About old school nostalgic identity of this game ?
> If there is a concern about this issue, I understand this perspective. Well... , in more-than-10-year-old Youtube videos of old school Maplestory, I think there are some that has arch mages in bossing like in HT, THE BOSS, and probably other bosses. This would help ?

 

I mean...... yeah all 3 of the mage sub classes are mages? Mages are different from warriors and bowman.

What exactly is the point you're making? Yes I think mages should play differently from warriors, bowman, rogues, and pirates.

 

Mages have about 25% as much DPS as the worst non-mage attacking classes (going off krexel DPS comparison thread). However, I would estimate that most non-mage attacking classes are more than 25% as effective as a mage when it comes to mob grinding. The ass that DPS classes suck at mob grinding isn't even remotely comparable to the ass that mages suck at bossing.

I agree that mages don't need to be GOOD at bossing, but a highly-funded mage should be able to outDPS a poorly-funded meme version of an attacker class (like non-zerking DK or paladin hitting elemental resistance). They can still be bad, but they don't have to be as catastrophically bad as they are now. And I think they will be bad even if their DPS is increased to average levels, because they also have to worry about MG being dispelled.

Also, here's my hot take: making mages *acceptable* for bossing as a sort of last-resort DPS will actually be healthy for the server, because the time that a mage spends bossing is time that they aren't spending on mob grinding and printing raw meso.

 

if an extremely funded mage should be able to outdps a poorly funded meme version of an attacker class, should an extremely funded attacker class like NL/Shad or even BM be able to have better mobbing abilities than a poorly funded meme version of a mage?

im sure you can see how that logic doesnt hold weight.


Try doing ulu maps with arrow rain and tell me if its 25% as good as genesis/blizzard/meteor shower

 

Mages have a class identity- they are not incapable of bossing. There is no reason to make them better- no one will make a bossing mage- bossing parties won't bring them the same way they don't bring a DrK for HB.

Unless you plan to give the slowest leveling classes a significant boost in terms of grinding speed to compensate (which is an equally stupid idea) it's just a bad faith arguement to have mages be good bossers when they are BY FAR the best grinders and have other unique perks like the ability to sell leech for good money.

The best thing we can do for the longevity of the game is every class sucking in it's own way. Once you start pushing one class to be good at everything- if not the tippity top of some things as well- well why would anyone play any other class. There's SO many examples of how this destroys games- OG maple being the best- besides flavor text and a few unique class skills everyones jumping around at max speed with max range killing shit.

 

Yes, it should, and if it were that simple, it would. The problem is that a mage is very hard to mess up with most of its power coming from base stats and SP and not that much from gear, so it is impossible to achieve this without changing the magic damage formula. But if you ask me whether a character with hundreds of billions of funds should completely outclass a character with less than 100m funds for both mobbing and bossing, regardless of class, I'm going to say yes and I don't see the problem with that.

Of course, the Pandora's box has already been opened with mage ultimates being grossly overpowered for mob farming and the meta having adapted to that for an entire decade. Should mage ultimates have been this overpowered to begin with? No, but the damage is done and there is no reversing this. I am not going to propose that NL and BM should have their mobbing ability increased to match lv1 genesis from a naked lv120 bishop, but I do think that poorly-funded mages should be made worse.

That is true. No one will make a bossing mage unless their DPS is buffed way beyond what is reasonable. However, making mages simply "the worst bossing class" and not "the worst bossing class by an insane margin" would benefit people who are playing for nostalgia and made mages as their first character simply because they played mage in old school GMS, without knowing that mages are a pure farming class that are never chosen as a main and actively get worse at moneymaking for every level-up past 140. I want to tell these people "you can still contribute some DPS during runs with guildmates if you're highly funded and hitting elemental weakness" and not "your DPS is so embarrassing that people will tell you to not even bother attacking". Do you think they'll be happy to hear that the character that they made as a main can't do 99% of endgame content but they'll get to sell leech and telecast for the rest of their entire life? No! I understand that we shouldn't make every class excel at everything, but there is a minimum expectation for how bad a class can be at something, and mages are well below that expectation.

 

poorly funded mages being made worse is an interesting idea. Do you mean like making the aoe range of skills like genesis/meteor shower/blizzard smaller if they have lesser tma? Of course with a cap to how much aoe they can reach if they do fund it.

 

Hot take: I think every class should have a reasonable endgame and therefore be worth funding to endgame (including auf)

 

Hello

<sorry for limited English capability>

*** Mages are best at mobbing by far ???
> I think that's not always true. In facts there are many maps, situations that attacker classes can do better at mobbing than mages (no multi-client ). For examples, Silver-mane-etc map where shad can do better than mages, a big map like TOT probably, when clearing Gargoyles or even Golems in VL where Shads Buccs can do better.

If we don't give arch mages (some) bossing content, especially end game content, it's hard to find any other meaningful content for them besides selling leech, multi-mage farm.

 

Greetings, flagless sair here
Usually I don't write my thoughts out on the forums, but I do have some personal experience to write down regarding the "buff mage bossing" idea. Gonna preface that I'm INCREDIBLY casual and I don't look at balance that deeply (like down to calculations). I simply like playing.

I do have a story for this exact hot take!

I have a friend who I met during Lv. 119 who was an I/L mage. Both of us are very casual and single clienters. Me and him grinded and ended up going through early 4th job together (think Papulatus and Chao).
While me, a Corsair, was finally reaping the rewards of my painful grind (bossing), my I/L friend found themselves in a loop of "I'm here now... what next?". They ended up grinding for like 2ish months, literally doing nothing but farming for his only character.

There was a day where I decided to bring him for Papulatus for fun, cause I wanted to do it with someone else (early 4th job), and Pap is weak to electric.
He had the time of his life. He said it was the most enjoyable thing he did on mage, and was glad there was an opportunity to use lesser-used skills (1v1) on a mage.
This actually ended with him attempting to solo Pap multiple times for the next week. It was really cute.

Unfortunately, the reality set in - mages really just don't justify the 1v1 aspect at all, they simply do too little. Literally no one else would give him the opportunity to boss, other than me, a person who was open minded and wasn't worried about time consumption.

He went back to farming after the week, and eventually told my guild he's officially going on hiatus as there was really no more goals he could accomplish.
As a single clienter there was little reason for him to continue, and making a new character meant doing it the lazy way (leeching) which means... playing even more mage. And then abandoning the mage after he hits boss levels.
​

Now, I'm not saying that mage should be uber buffed for bossing! Absolutely not! Keep them a farmer first and foremost!
But I feel like slight buffs will do enough to at least justify the existence of their 1v1 skills.

What comes to mind is my experience with how axe Heroes and BW Paladins are seen by most bossing players (not the extremely funded, but the average person).
People would see them using less efficient weapons, but the efficiency is not so terrible that it justifies saying "no we don't want you". They're still a Warrior.
Some slight damage buffs to up mage into such a territory ("Okay, I'll consider you cause you are the only other option") would be nice.
(This is also how I feel about Polearms, where I'd like them to be buffed up to axe equivalents, but that's another story.)

Of course I don't have any actual say in upcoming balance, but I just wanted to give my two cents. Not trying to argue with anyone either, just giving some perspective hopefully.