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

Even as a bucc player, the nerf was 100% deserved and I do agree with the idea Super Transformation should indeed feel like a transformation rather than a permanent state, but this change does feels very incomplete. Adding a 60 second CD without any finishing touches to this is a bit excessive. I think a slight buff to Barrage and Dragon Strike would make things so much smoother. And/or even a CD reduction to Super Transformation.

For heroes, the class feels much better to play and is actually relevant now. Perhaps buff drks a bit to bring them up in the meta a bit more.

And pleeeeaaase remove the damage cap for paladins. T_T

 

Salute for this post bro, I keep getting attacked for basically saying this lol

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

What if...hb allows for 50% of the effect to break through the 30k barrier.
Introduce a lvl 120 quest line which activates a beginner skill that gives HB 2 effects:
30% of HB to be applied regardless of base HP
30% stance effect

This
1. prevents cheesing low lvl hb mules
2. adds utility for DrK to provide real party benefits, along with QoL for DrKs in general.

What you would do here is leave base hp untouched and remove the cap on the fluctuating hp. not sure how the coding would work but I imagine touching the one that can freely go down during combat is easier than touching the one that is fixed.

What I am envisioning is that players at 30k hp would get 39,000/30,000 upon usage of new HB.

This frees up design space in the future as well. You can introduce specialised potions that allow you to momentarily break max hp. A high skill cap player can potentially pre-eat potion or food that allows them to go beyond their normal hp to tank 1 hit. For example (very basic) a lvl 50 thief zakum helm buyer can pre-eat from 2200 hp to 3300 to survive hits without HB. It is also not auto hp/mp -able so it will purely be high(er) skill cap gaming.

 

12 attack stackable is way too powerful in exchange for 12 defense. I suggest changing it to you taking 12% more damage instead (hurray more washing am I right?). This also makes DrK not want rage and use their own dragon blood.

 

Just having a class who's identity is all about sacrificing HP for more damage, in a game where survivability is entirely based off potion spamming and what your max HP is, is so counter intuitive...

 

Technically the concept for drk works better when you can actually dodge things but map wide attack spam and touch dmg isnt it XD

 

Hi GMs,

First I want to thank everyone (GMs/Staff/Developers) who contributed to this update happening, no matter how big or small your participation was.

I only play bowmaster so I shall only give my thoughts on the archer updates.

The quiver wa buff is a great addition. I have not tested it out myself yet since I use soul arrow all the time but I am sure every archer right now would agree that this is a move in the right direction for archers that enjoy bossing.

Arrow bomb: I do not quite understand why this was handled in this manner because you are nerfing the early-mid game archers. End game archers do not use arrow bomb. We only use hurricane. If the reasoning was that arrow bomb was stronger than inferno and arrow rain, its not because arrow bomb is op but rather inferno and arrow rain are bad dps wise.

My opinion, which I thought the GMs would have agreed on as well, is that arrow rain and inferno deserves a buff instead of nerfing arrow bomb. Maybe other archers would feedback more on this with better, well thought out and reasoned explanations as I personally have not used arrow bomb since 2021.

Futuristic Quiver: putting a placeholder here as I have not done any research on the materials required but will provide some feedback on this when I can.

 

As far as I know, Arrow Bomb is mainly used for Von Leon. I guess now BMs will be using Arrow Rain instead in VL, which is effectively a minor nerf. Considering BMs were already the worst class against gargs/golems, it's really strange that they're being made even worse there. Especially since NLs got a buff in that same area, and Avenger was already far stronger. It does follow a concerning pattern of NLs getting buffs to cover up their weaknesses while archers get nothing or even nerfed whenever we have those exact same weaknesses (see pushing boss mobs)

I do agree that the formula for Arrow Bomb should have been fixed since it was inconsistent but I also think Arrow Rain should have gotten a small buff similar to how Avenger did, to make up for it.

The quivers changes are great though

 

As a player who owns 3 BM characters, I'd like to talk about BM.

Previously, when Ninja Storm got buffed, Dragon's Pulse was left untouched.
This time, when Avenger got buffed, Arrow Rain was... Arrow Bomb got nerfed!

Bomb, Arrow Rain, and Inferno each had different use cases, so there was gameplay around choosing between them depending on the situation. It's a shame that this has now been lost.

Regarding damage buffs, if any are needed, I'd rather see the DEX scaling formula improved instead of buffs via WA. Compared to other classes, BM struggles with scaling.
That said, personally, if you consider the extra damage from SE as effectively damage BM itself is outputting, then I don't think BM is actually struggling with damage.
If we can get useful QoL changes (especially involving Concentrate), that would be enough for me.

 

As i said here arrow bomb formula change was completely unnecessary and it should be reversed, as bm main, arrow bomb it always was my main AoE att for HT(wyverns) Auf (core blaze) and VL mobs (gargs, golems), sometimes i switch between inferno and arrow rain, those skills have their unique style/utility in diferent escenarios, now the dmg is super low (even b4 the patch was low), many ppl tought the same so hope gms can revert this formula soon

 

Every change that i suggested about economy changes was met with "but what about the new players" arguments. Now suddenly when it comes to making shadowers paywalled behind 80B of equipment to the point where no one will ever recruit weak shadowers to VL or to melee HT no one seems to care. There were 50 different ways to nerf smoke screen directly or indirectly. The staff seems to have chosen probably the worst execution possible.

The problem with smokes was that it was easily spammable because of its long time and its very good syncronisation with TL. It was possible to increase the cooldown of TL which would indirectly nerf smokes without adding that 150 sec rule.

It seems like the admins only considered how this change will affect the meta gameplay in each of their changes and completely disregard how any of them will impact newer/less funded players. Turns out that caring about new players is a selective argument and meta/economy changes are completely biased on this server. Sucks.

 

I like that rage now is stackable. 12wa might seem much but it isn't even as strong as SE ? Now hero will play important role in support that distinct them form DK. If not for this how is hero gonna be competible with dk ? Their play style is pretty much the same. It's just a matter of which class is stronger DPS wise which favors dk.

I like that enrage is stackable too but isn't it too much for hero ? With rage being supportive dmg boost, now hero plays important role in support with also good AOE. Hero's dmg shouldn't be too much. Maybe lower the duration of enrage to be 3mins ? and also lower the 26wa ?

When it comes to dk, they hardly have any supportability, the pretty much only thing they have is damage, needing a lot of buffs to max their dmg ( si and se ) (*edited), not only that, it's damage with a big cost, "Zerking", It might be ok if we make dk an intense burst dmg class, their single target probably should even exceed current shad, and on <20% their dmg might even get close to nl or even above nl LOL (*edited) . That's what the dk is supposed to be, isn't it ?

 

let bucc use snatch while not transformed, halve damage of snatch when not transformed.

this would let us serve our roles in bossing and lhc reliably while making transform feel empowering. im fine with demo being locked behind transform.

 

About this skill changes i can feel that GMs are going to Balance ALL JOBs and make every job can join into a party.I also think the buff of heros and other balance which is good.
I know many ppl in community have thought of that shad+bucc combo too OP and need some balance,I also knew that as a shad and bucc player,but which may be ignored that is the most strongest part is not their DPS but the perma smoke with TL if we got multi shad and bucc in one pt. Good news is that GMs have figured a great to prevent that is to set a whole map cooldown of SS. But i have to say 2 weird change and situation after this version.
1、this version nerfed the cooldown of ST of BUCC, i knew u may want to balance all jobs ,but ST is not a simple atk skill for BUCC, its relevant to Demo and snatch ,BUCC now without ST have nothing to do when HT hands without wings, and also V2 ship part, its not just what u said 2-3% DPS losing ,its about 60S doing nothing.
Like i said above ,the reason ppl enjoyed to play shad +bucc is their combo on Smoke, there is no any reason for u to nerf ST , if GMs do think BUCC are too strong now i guess there still some other ways to nerf like lower DPS of Demo, or even limit on TL.
2、another big problem after this skill changes is about big crush to players in late games. I do agree ur menthod to balance all jobs and make everyone in pt. For example, ppl used to enjoy with shad HT run which only fill in with shad bucc and pally, after this version, heros and many other jobs can join the content. Its great but i think only for new players who may played royals server for 6months -1year.
Lets think of why royals server lasts too long and why many ppl have played like 4-5years still got their interest. Besides of hardcore rules ,I think the main reason is ppl who played 4-5years still can get their better earnings from multi atk like trio HT /Duo auf ,or even solo HT and auf ,i think for ppl who played 4-5years or more they wont be satisfied with getiing in a new job in a 5-6man HT, it wont last long. Balance all jobs of course is good idea ,but in my opinion, its quite hard to balance all based on a 20years old game, in addtion, for ppl played long time on this server , its definitely a worse idea to balance all which they no longer have advantages in the previous jobs ,which will cause inactivity for old players.im not just saying about the skill changes of shad and bucc ,im concerning about the way of play in late game:so one person who open multi clients with his different characters is really unwelcome and have to use 1 char only to join contents which looks like more lively?
I hope GMs have figured this situation, its not only about the skill changes ,its about the way of playing for many old players habe to change after this version.

 

its not about the nerf bucc had its more about the mechanics to play bucc now are not fun
and that most of the players who made buccs whould not make bucc under this meta
cause the game play isnt what they made bucc for

 

My impression to the patch. *Warning of repetitive opinions.

Party Buffs Range

I expected that if these were to be changed they would probably have the range similar to old SI/HS. But all of a sudden we get so many map-wide party buffs which feels even more arbitrary, I genuinely laughed when seeing this. This feels like some cheating.​

Hero

Rage is now like a 2nd echo. I see a few concerns but no they will not become a rage mule just because of this. What would become a mule is something like CR, SE that easily slow down the run by 10-20% speed if you don't have.
Enrage is indeed a bit OP. 26wa in 4 out of 6 minutes is at least 5-8% dps increment, at the cost of .... 10 orbs that you can regain in 5 seconds. This will nullify the advantage Drk used to have over Hero. If we consider those fights that last for let's say 10 minutes or 15 minutes, the dps boost is even more.
Brandish - I guess its good intention, thumbs up.​

Paladin

Charged Blow: Not sure what the announcement meant. I did a test and nothing has been changed. There're 2 aspects when we talk about the attack range of Charged Blow, one is the range to hit the initial target and the other is the range that once hit how far will the damage chain extend to. We already know Charged Blow somewhat copied all these from the 1st job Slash Blast, which means a short initial hit range, and a longer damage chain range. And after the patch? No... nothing has been changed. Question mark Question mark Question mark​

mages

Meditation: nice little buff i guess.
Seal: Reserved comment. The example sounds weird to me. (1. bstep is still way better solution for the mobs there. 2. I know I'm probably the only one who has this issue but with a 260-280 ping, sometimes you're going to eat the "tornado-blasting" anyways. When occasionally the ping jumps to 300+, on character A's client the mob has already used the skill before character B's client even able to send skill packets to the server.)
Doom: Reserved comment​

BM

Good thing to take care of the formula consistency, thumbs up. Given the ammunition changes I'll take it as an overall buff to archers.
Some people care about Arrow Bomb mostly because BMs use it in VL. But let's be real, 1. BM is already at the very bottom of the mob clearing hierarchy, why would you care about the difference between 0 and 0.0001 2. The splash range of Arrow Bomb is so short that it doesn't really hit 6 mobs, imo BM players better use Arrow Rain or Dragon Breath even before this patch.​

NL

Avenger: nice QOL for NL to do LHC content and HP quest.
Taunt: Interesting one but i can't think of any use right away, might be good for card collecting.​

Shad

Dark Sight: I don't feel any necessity to change this. You could already press the normal attack key to cancel DS, it doesn't matter that now it's also ur DS key or the other skill keys. If I recall it, the only dangerous situation when I had to cancel DS by clicking was when the VL bird stun. But I would just take it as skill issue and I needed to focus more, that's it. Why make a class that already has insane survivability to be even safer.
Smoke Screen: Great job. The first step of skill balance. If you don't do something to smoke you don't talk about balance. If anything smoke could be nerfed even more, or accompanied by 5-10% multi-target or single-target damage nerf (nerf multi-target by nerfing bstep and slightly buffing assassinate).
We still have zero clue as for why smoke was buffed to 90 seconds.​

Bucc

Good intention good outcomes. No more easy multi-attacking. Probably deserves a damage buff given it's complexity now.​

Drk/Sair

I don't play these 2 because I knew it's going to be extremely uncomfortable to play these classes with 280 ping.​

OPQ/PPQ/RJPQ/Pap/Ellin/EPQ/BF hunting/Zak/CWK/Krex/Scarga/Shao/LHC - ???
Toad/BGA/NT/Auf - ???
Shadtail

Tail rush: If you can't finish tail in 1 smoke, switch to left side before smoke fading and use bstep, it's similar overall dps and nothing is going to change largely. Before: kill tail fast and leg slowly / Now: kill tail slowly but leg faster
Right hand rush: I'm not entitled to commnet on this. I've been hating HT for it being the major driving force of the shad meta and I'm happy to just be a noob at this specific part.​

VL

Pally didn't receive any damage buff probably because... it's already the best 5-6 targets dps and 4th best single target dps (only slightly below Shad)? It seems like less than 1% of the population know the fact that Pally has slightly better single-target dps and much better multi-target dps than Bucc when mobs have holy weakness. In VL and assuming we don't use any smoke, Pally has the #1 overall dps and also has almost the same main body dps as experienced Shads who have learned how to play without smoke. It was the long lasting smoke abusing that misled people to think bucc is OP.
How smokes benefit a VL run is it boosts ~10% dps of those experienced shads and 30-40% dps of the inexperienced ones. It allows player to skip learning the mechanism and the 12-man 10-man runs have evolved to permanent smoke end game farming, or game-ending farming to be accurate. With the new patch we still have 50% guaranteed smoke uptime so this won't change much.
​

Consumable buffs retention

Looking forward to see how can we adapt to this huge QOL.​

 

The buffs to Heroes is the cherry on top for this patch. They are finally in a somewhat decent position in the game. There is absolutely no reason for them to be nerfed again. It baffles me how players want Heroes to be dragged down into the dirt just so Drks can become slightly more relevant once again, which to remind you, they were always inferior to the meta, damage dealing classes. Just advocate for more Drk buffs rather than arguing for Heroes to be nerfed again.

 

i dont think the issue is that heroes should be nerfed so drks would be great again.

drks were never great.

they were okay, they had their contents to shine in (cwk / lhc / rg), but hero could also do a good job.

the issue is - the buffs for heroes made the entire class irrelevant, cause if they were competing with a slight advantage to a dk before.. now there is absolutely no reason to open a dk.

to balance it out, heroes shouldn't be hard nerfed BUT drk's should get some buffs as well to keep up and be relevant.

why zerk and risk dying for no actual benefit while heroes gets a 38 att buff for existing?

drks and heroes always competed with each other due to similarity in gameplay, now the only difference is 5% damage reduction in favor of dk (which is honestly irrelevant for heroes since they dont need to zerk) and a better power crash.

you'd open a dk just because of these things? no.

I think that hero's getting buffed is fine, they're actually more popular now and are beneficial to the party, good for them, really.

was it too much? yes.

buff paladin and drk as well so there would be even a reason for new players to debate which warrior path they wanna follow.

 

My friend and I were thinking about this: the logic that “ssince it’s a transformation, it would be unnatural to stay in that state all the time” is only acceptable in games when the character “can fight decently even in their untransformed state, and becomes stronger once transformed.”
When I mentioned this, my friend said, “Isn’t that exactly what Sair is?”
That’s a funny joke, but it’s also kind of spot-on.

Can the current Bucc actually fight decently in his untransformed state?
Maybe if the enemy is a single target on the ground.
But what about other cases?

If you’re going to argue that this logic is correct, I think there should at least be some element of fun or surprise involved.