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

what about archer mains who do single client content? Wouldnt they be affected?

they would be losing 10-15% dmg. Wont this change make the already low dps class even less desirable to main?

 

NLs and BMs are very directly comparable to each other, classes who are primarily strong at ranged single target damage, and have among the lowest AoE damage.
But BMs need to spend more to HP wash, have FAR less mobility, have far less damage, have far less avoidability, and are just generally inferior in every way.
Marksmen have their niche as a very strong AoE damage dealer while still bringing SE, so BMs should be allowed to be equally strong single target damage dealers. I get that certain classes can "specialize" in damage, but how did NLs get to "specialize" in damage, avoidability, and mobility when all BMs got was "you bring the buff that makes someone else strong, but not you"?
One skill balance idea in this regard, what about enemy weapon defense? If demolition can ignore defense, what about hurricane? It's even the same color as demolition, maybe they're... related or something. I've never seen any actual formula for how enemy defense works in this game but I think that would be thematic or fitting, at least.

 

im so confused why are BMs underselling their class, saying they have low dmg?

iirc, they have the third/fourth highest DPS (almost on par with shad and stronger than bucc) when uninterrupted, just behind fully buffed NL and sairs, and they are fully self reliant (dont need buffs from other class, well maybe rage now). You could argue that their attacks get interrupted far more often than the others, but the same could be said for corsairs, only that BM provides one of the strongest buffs and corsair provides nothing to a party but damage, which is a fair compensation for the lack of utility.

The main reason why BMs don't feel as important/useful right now and why SE feels overrated is mostly due to the meta of shad/buccs, and sure, they could maybe use some utility tweaks to their AOE, but they are definitely not lacking in damage as what some of the players here are claiming. It's a meta problem, not a BM damage problem.

If anything, their counterpart MMs are the ones that need a little bit of damage buffs.

 

Hi, Saledor

It will be useful in pt runs when times come, you should be proud of it !

 

For archers I think the problem is way bigger than just bad damage and lack of stance, for instance half our kit just doesn't actually work and is bugged (or have been made obsolete with aggro changes). They'll unfortunately have to put substantial energy into reworking archers to actually make us work. We've already summarised some, but can do again since it IS very good to keep things concise:

• Make them scale better
• Give Dragon's Breath recoil and better knockback¹
• Fix Dragon's Breath bugs²
• Revert monster behaviour changes³
• Give focus and thrust more avoidability, possibly stance
• Make Concentrate scale with WA buffs⁴
• Give Puppet a 5 minute duration.

All in all, reducing the amount of repositioning and making our mob control actually function again will increase our damage (and spice up the optimal gameplay) a fair bit since we won't be stumbling around as much, and fixing the scaling so we're not incredibly difficult to fund would help us climb another step on the ladder. I think the main thing here is that the devs actually have to put in real time and effort into actually testing archers, which they've said hasn't been the case this patch. I know it's easier said than done (I am a gamedev myself, and have worked some with MS before), but it's clear that real proper testing is NEEDED at this time, especially since core gameplay skills are completely bugged, or made obsolete by the aggro changes. Currently BM/MM mains are the only ones who see these faults, that simply shouldn't be the case.

If I missed anything let me know, could be good to keep a list around to update should the discussion change.

¹ Including knockbacking bosses, just make specific bosses immune later if it's actually a problem. KB is kinda half our whole shtick.
² It currently yo-yos and doesn't work, it is unusable.
³ Current monster behaviour makes Puppet as a skill just not work properly at all, decapitating our mob control. Also makes mob control useless as they disregard any attempt to control them.
⁴ Nothing-burger skill that nobody typically uses because it doesn't do much, and is WA taken account for in our kit that's just not actually there.

 

I don't think anyone is proud of maining a class that everybody else just makes a mule for because the only thing they bring to the table is SE. It's honestly a bit degrading.

 

Too much, too complicated. We don't want big bang balancing vibes.
Just buff damage slightly for BM for higher machine gun numbers on hurricane and remove damage cap for MM so they can work towards showing big dick energy numbers.
TBH people still won't pick bm/mm. Meta has changed to efficient/low effort gameplay. BM/MM is too high effort for low reward (low damage) with their constant repositioning and no stance. Forget any damage buffs for BM/MM, add some stance and you'll see people coming back to SE mains.

EDIT: the problem with stance is that BM could become the new pre-nerf bucc. Very afkable hurricane for multi-clienters (breathless attack). (They nerfed this already by getting rid of alt-tab hurricane). To get around this issue, give them mid level stance or forget stance altogether and just buff damage.

 

I don't think fixing bugs and undoing custom changes that completely ruin core skills from OSMS counts as "big bang balancing"...
By buffing their utility (making it actually work) you promote a more engaging gameplay, one that archers subscribed to when maining it, and one that we want. If we just wanted breathless attacking nonstop one button gameplay we'd play NL (no offense but it's silly to me how people say it's bad to promote this yet NL keeps getting buffed in every scenario). And giving us stance and avoidability is essentially half of what I said, so you do agree to some extent. I don't see why making our skills actually work is an issue.

 

Hi, Uibi

If what you said is true, it would be sad then...

 

It's lower than Buccs, Sairs, NLs, and Shadowers.
BM damage is on par with Warriors, who have massively better AoE damage, while also having far superior survivability and equally useful party buffs.
Ultimately the differences aren't huge, it's not like a BM can't tear a boss like Krexel to shreds, but in a game where people will pay tens of billions for a 2% DPS increase, having BMs be ~15% lower DPS than their fellow ranged single target DPS classes NL and Sair makes the class feel underwhelming to a lot of people.

 

If you haven't seen it yet, this is a helpful reference if we're talking about dps rankings of classes:
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/krex-class-dps-comparison.224575/

Important to keep in mind is that these are top players on vl pot, some with borrowed gear (and some even banned now) so it's not a very fair representation of typical runs with reasonable gear, on apple. Especially because classes like pally start to suffer heavily from damage cap at that point.

It's more meaningful to look through the older threads that are linked to from that one. Those give a better picture imo.

In those ones, MM is a whole minute behind in last place. And the two spots above us were hero and drk, so after the buffs from last patch that gap has probably only grown between us.

And that's WITH si. Imagine taking a whole 15% dps off of that without it. We'd be so far behind. Would even NL with no SE be stronger still than us without SI?

This is also krex where there's no repositioning. Usually we'd suffer even more dps loss at all other bosses compared to other classes.

So that's why the triple whammy of low damage AND needing a party buff AND constant repositioning are all really harsh for this class

 

iirc the pally vid was actually on stoppers, because they were damage capped so often that a higher pot wouldn't really make much of a difference.

 

Gotta love a class that gets heavily penalized for being good. At least you can save money by... not buying better gear because it won't matter. I wish damage cap was 250k.
Or change blast to be like a 2 hit attack, maybe similar looking to a Final Attack proc, that does 2 smaller hits instead of one huge hit. Obviously while not changing overall DPS, because without damage cap penalties (aka at lower level and pauper gear levels) Paladin DPS is actually right where it should be compared to the other warriors, IMO.

 

multiple lines on pally would nerf their ability to pin bosses on lower funding or lower att pots.

 

The two lines could (and should) be unequal. Instead of 290%/290% it could be like 120%/460% and they should still have no problem pinning. This would also keep the class identity as the "one big damage number class", but just partition a little of it off to a second line to avoid damage cap.
If it actually had a different two-swing animation that would probably necessitate it being slower so the damage might need to be a little higher to compensate, and I'm convinced NO one knows how the heck weapon defense would impact this, but you get the general idea.

 

This is why T^T

MM may not be accurate since they don't use only strafe

HT = 18.55 hit/min

 

Piercing Arrow can already deal damage exceeding the damage cap (likely through either removing or raising the cap for that specific skill) — so simply removing the damage cap from Pally's Blast skill in the same way should be straightforward.

Though raising the damage cap could benefit more classes at once — Bucc, Mage, MM, and Pally.

 

Blast visually hits one time, so it should deal one line of damage. Raising damage cap iirc has been previously said to be relatively easy, and can even be customized per skill

 

That's why I was suggesting the change in animation, but I know that that would not be acceptable to most people.
Yes, the very, very obvious solution to this problem is remove or increase the damage cap, but seeing as this has been a problem on this server for over a dozen years, I assumed there was some reason they hadn't just done that yet.

 

well, that's to be expected isn't it... Different bosses, different outcome. BMs not doing as much DPS at HT has nothing to do with BM's damage, but more to do with the map layout and boss design. I just think using the worst case scenario to judge a class DPS is the wrong approach, conversely if you put them in zipangu content where they can use their range advantage, they are one of the strongest class.

And if you do one for NL vs Sair, you will see a similar and even possibly sharper drop off from sairs. On top of not providing any utility, they are pressured to do all that dismount gymnastics in every hard hitting boss so they do not get side-eyed by their party. That doesn't necessarily mean sairs are weaker than nl and in need of a damage buff.