v86 Skill Tables

Please read through all the posts on the thread before you vote or decided to abstain from voting, thank you.

So I've become increasingly aware of how underpowered certain classes are (MM, Palllies, Shadowers, F/P; just to name a few) and a cursory search through the forums has brought to my attention the sentiments/arguments for and against such an implementation. Beware the following tldr; and my parenthesitis:

1. This would ruin the nostalgia.
Nostalgia is a fleeting indulgence, and varies from person to person. I had never reached 4th job during version 62 (there was no universal 4x, see, and it took months to reach even 3rd job). In case of nostalgia, what I look back upon with fondness were me and my friends' explorations throughout the numerous ludi and ant tunnel dungeon maps, which were horribly exciting seeing as how 1 or 2 hits from a Spirit Viking would immediately end our little adventure. (There was no free nx from voting see, and thus we did not have an abundance of safety charms, auto-hp-equipped pets and ap resets for hp washing).

I also look back fondly upon Ludi pq. I remember how there was a party doing the pq in every channel, and how we had to camp at the channels our tracks were, then start spam-clicking like mad during the 10 second time period they were out. (On MapleRoyals, forget Ludi pq, you would be lucky to find 2 people to do Monster Carnival with you.)

The thing is, MapleRoyals is actually very, very different from the Maplestory v.62 that I remember. And I don't give a toss; just because the grass looks greener when you look back does not mean that it actually is greener. Would I enjoy grinding at 1x exp from level 1 to 150? No. Would I prefer Ludi pq over Monster Carnival, the latter of which gives less than half the former's exp? No, just as I would not enjoy spending an hour cc-ing and chasing after tracks and still be no closer to entering a Ludi PQ even once. Would I feel more excited if I had absolutely no access to safety charms, and therefore lost 10% experience every time I died? (which for an archer is very, very often without auto-hp.) Yes, but would I prefer it? No.

So why am I still playing on this server, if not for nostalgia? Nostalgia was what attracted me here, but once it wore off and I had discovered all its flaws, what kept me was the excellent community and the friends I have made. Also, I just got to 4th job, it would feel a bit of a waste to start over again in some other server.

In any event, what I'm saying is that I'm staying for the game, the game that MapleRoyals is now, and not some phantasm of a past game and childhood which simply no longer exists and that I'm desperately clinging on to. So I would be very much delighted if it were more balanced and thereby made an overall more enjoyable experience, even if it would bring it further from v.62 and closer to v.86.

(Besides, even if I had achieved 4th job in version 62, I'm fairly certain that imbalanced 4th job classes which did not concern me would not have been one of the things I would have harboured nostalgic affection towards. I'd be far more concerned about the obsession with hp washing, 4x exp, and the complete absence of horntail runs and by extension its skillbooks; if I were arguing for nostalgia. (The lack of players is another one of the many things this game needs to (has partially managed to) adjust to).

2. There's more to a class than power.
Of course there should to be more to a class than damage, i.e. their mechanics which contribute to them dishing out that damage; but what is the point of mechanics if you go through all that elaboration only to be completely overwhelmed by everyone else in 99% of situations? Classes like bishop which lack bossing damage (and are goddamned boring, but to each their own), make up for it with their supportive abilities and currently supreme mobbing capacity. Pallies have both shitty bossing and shitty mobbing, and they don't have any buffs people want either. They are completely underpowered, and I do not enjoy the fact that Pages spend so much effort training only to be doomed to be the weakest class in the game. It's like, enjoying swimming, but the only class which can swim is the magikarp, so you're stuck flopping around as a magikarp forever.

3. Just make a different class.
Frankly, that's like offering someone a strip of chewing gum when they politely asked for a glass of water.

Some people enjoy paladin's mechanics, and some people enjoy marksman's mechanics (e.g. me); just enough so that they would overlook how underwhelmed these classes are and make one. What I'm suggesting is that we make these classes balanced so that everyone can choose whatever class they liked without being handicapped. You enjoy playing Hero? Lucky you, you're balanced and you don't need to choose between enjoyable mechanics and decent damage. You enjoy Paladin? Tough luck, you're shit in every aspect so either choose the class with mechanics you like or a class which is useful and deals damage.

I'm all for choice in choosing classes, but my primary concern is that people who enjoy balanced classes don't have to make the choice people who enjoy these underpowered classes do.

Tldr; what I'm saying is that job paths are varied, and different paths attract different people. If the path I liked were red, I'd choose red, but unlike the other paths it's narrow and obstructed and ill-maintained, and needs some tweaking done to have it be as comfortable as the other classes. This is because colour (mechanics) should be the only difference between classes, not their overall ability; which should be balanced to the furthest extent possible.

4. It's extremely difficult to code.
If that were the case then I've nothing to say, and I'll accept our fate. In any event, I hope that even if it were nigh on impossible to update all skills to version 86, some planning could be done to look into tweaking the underpowered classes, to balance them and make them actual viable choices; so that new players do not have to consider that a class is underpowered before choosing one, which every decent game should never have them do.

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An excellent summary of the deficiencies of the four most underplayed classes by UrbanJuggernaut:

And the following are the v72/83 changes I've mentioned listed by Maggles:

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So what do you think? Would you prefer a balancing of skills? (Btw the mage spam culture persists, v86 imposes no cd on neither Meteo, Gene, nor Blizz.) Please leave a vote, and point out anything which I may have gotten wrong! (Which I suspect is a lot...)

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P.S. This is what my more fabulous twin has to say:

 

But v86 was before BB... Did I missed something?

 

Not only Skills... i think the time to add new content (Maps, bosses, mobs "free" NX, equips) to server has come.

In my opinion this will never ruin nostalgia.

 

This will.

 

1) Too much new content will definitely ruin nostalgia, and to me nostalgia is still a part of why I'm here (and I've been here longer than most). Sure, it would be nice if the classes are more balanced, but each class has it's strengths. Which leads me to 2.

2) There IS more to a class than power. The game isn't just about seeing big numbers when you hit things, it's about game play too. If you're a person that likes doing a lot of damage then make a high damage class, like BM, NL, or Sair. Other wise just make a class that you find fun. Personally I don't care much for damage, I'm a bishop (mostly for convenience right after the wipe) with an Axe Hero and I'm in the process of making a MM. Why? Because that's what I find fun.

3) Like I said above, make a different class if you prefer high damage, or if you prefer the game play just make the class. Sure, I'm telling you to suck it up, but that's how it goes. As I stated above each class has it's strengths and weaknesses. For the classes you listed here are some strengths:

• MM: With level 20 Snipe you'll be doing near equal damage to BM, and with max snipe (eventually we'll kill HT) you get better DPM (compared to BM's better DPS). And with the raised damage cap in Royals (199,999 instead of 99,999) you'll be even better. There's also the utility of being able to freeze mobs that other DPS classes lack, which helps with grinding in 3rd job.
• Shad: One of the fastest jobs from 70-130. One bf at level 70 gets you SIX (Thanks Marty!) levels. For most jobs 70-75 is a mini period of hell till you can party at Wolf Spiders. Also ME is very useful in Zak even before 4th job and in 4th Smoke Screen is a very nice party skill. In fact, Shads are the reason why we were able to kill Zak as early as we did post wipe. And Shads have their utility in HT as well.
• Pally: Ok Pally's are with out a doubt the worst class, but they still have strengths. They are blessed with elemental abilities that help them train at Skele's and, eventually, ToT. Once ToT comes out it'll be a major boon to Pallies.
• F/P: F/P's are not underpowered. Everyone knows that misting in 3rd job is one of the fastest ways to level. You can go to skele's as early as 80 or 85 (whenever you can survive them) and mist a few channels. Then use the snail shell skill to kill when they're at 1 hp. Or just squids if you don't want to burn as many pots. Then in 4th they're every bit as good as I/Ls. In fact, Meteor and Paralyze have a higher base damage than Blizzard and Chain Lightning because Blizzard freezes and CL mobs. As for 2nd job, the Pizzard build is vastly underrated. Basically use Poison Brace as a single target mist at Death Teddies. It's not as good as I/Ls 2nd job but it balances out in 3rd job; I'd even say F/Ps 3rd job is better. And as I pointed out with Pallies, when ToT comes out F/Ps will have fire weak mobs to grind on if desired.

4) Honestly I don't think we need to, so the coding difficulty makes it less desirable. I'd rather work on fixing current bugs than get new content out.

I'm not totally against this idea, but I don't think it's entirely necessary either.

 

I think there are some skills that require updating. (in my opinion)
especially since we are getting post-v62 content.

Version v72 update (we need this one!)

Spoiler

Common Skill for all classes edited
Warrior Awakening skill can be leveled up to level 5.
Maple Warrior master level increased to level 30.
Warrior job skills revised
Warrior skill “Power Strike” initial damage has been increased to 165%. Damage after mastering remains the same.
Warrior skill “Slash Blast” initial damage has been increased to 72%. Damage after mastering remains the same.
Spearman skill “Hyper Body” effective period increased to 300 seconds.
Fighter skill “Rage”, upon mastering, increases attack by 12.
Page skill “Threaten” applies to boss mobs. Effective period increased up to 120.
White Knight skills “Blizzard Charge” and “Ice Charge” damage increased to 110% upon mastering.
Paladin skill “Blast” attack range increased
Paladin skill “Sanctuary” cooling time decreased to 20 seconds.
Hero skill “Enrage” cooling time decreased to 6 minutes.
Dark Knight skill “Berserk” HP use limit changed to 50% upon mastering.
Mage job skills revised
Mage (Fire/Poison) and Mage (Ice/Lightning) Skill “Elemental Amplification” attack increased to 140%
4th job magician skill “Big Bang” charge time decreased to 1 second.
Ice/Lightning Arch Mage Skill “Chain Lightning” extra damage increased.
Bowman job skills revised
Hunter, Crossbow Man short distance attack range decreased.
Hunter, Crossbow Man short distance attack damage increased.
Ranger, Sniper skill “Strafe” initial damage increased to 71%. Damage after mastering remains the same.
Bowmaster skill “Concentration” effective period increased to 240 seconds.
Marksman skill “Piercing Arrow” charge time decreased to 1 second.
Marksman skill “Snipe” cooling time decreased to 5 seconds based on mastered skill.
Hunter skill “Arrow Bomb” damage until initial mob attack increased.
Thief job skills revised
Chief Bandit skill “Band of Thieves” attack range increased.
Chief Bandit skill “Assaulter” moving range increased.
Chief Bandit skill “Pickpocket” calculations revised.
Night Lord skill “Ninja Ambush” range increased.
Shadower skill “Boomerang Stab”; delay after using this skill decreased.
Pirate job skills revised
Outlaw skill “Flamethrower” and “Ice Splitter” attack range increased.
Viper skill “Dragon Strike”; delay after using this skill decreased.
Viper skill “Barrage”; delay after using this skill decreased.
Viper skill “Energy Blast”; delay after using this skill decreased.
Captain skill “Rapid Fire” damage increased to 170% based on master level.
Captain skill “Battleship”; when battleship is disabled, waiting time is changed to 90 seconds for all to ride again.
While using Viper skill “Transformation”, can use all skills except for “Oak Barrel,” “Double Fire,” “Demolition” and “Snatch”.
While using Viper skill “Super Transformation,” can use all skills except “Oak Barrel” and “Double Fire”.
Viper skill “Energy Orb”, extra damage added.

There is also another even further update in v86.
v86 skill changes

Spoiler

Magician
• Fire Arrow: Now attacks multiple targets up to 3 enemies
• Thunder Bolt: Range for this skill has increased
• Elemental Amplification: The magic attack has increased to 150%
• Explosion: Damage has increased up to 130 and the casting time was reduced depending on skill level.
• Meteor Shower: Damage has increased up to 620, MP cost was reduced to 2900MP
• Fire Demon: Damage has increased up to 140
• Paralyze: Damage has increased up to 240
• Blizzard: Damage has increased up to 600, MP Cost was reduced to 2900MP
• Ice Demon: Damage was increased up to 120
• Chain Lightning: Damage has increased up to 210


Pirate
• Certain abilities can now shoot from close range
• Double shot: The range has been increased and damage has increased up to 110%
• Recoil Shot: The delay between uses has been decreased
• Flamethrower: The range of this ability has been increased and damage has increased up to 190%
• Energy Charge: The chance of activating Power stance has been increased up to 90%
• Energy Blast: The range of this ability has been increased. There is now a chance to stun the target up to 40%
• Ice Splitter: The range of this ability has increased. Damage has increased up to 160%
• Rapid Fire: The range has been increased and damage has been increased up to 200%
• Battleship: The battleship now has more health
• Elemental Boost: Damage over time has increased to 10% and the freeze duration has increased up to 4 sec
• Demolition: The range of the attack has increased
• Dragon Strike: Player should now experience less delay between attacks


Warrior
• Threaten: Now reduces the enemies’ ATT, DEF and ACC up to 20%.
• Flame Charge: Damage has increased up to 140%
• Fire Charge: Damage has increased up to 140%
• Thunder Charge: This ability can now overlap with other elemental attributes such as Fire, Ice, and Holy.
• Lightning Charge: This ability can now overlap with other elemental attributes such as Fire, Ice and Holy
• Charged Blow: The range of this ability has been increased up to 180 and the duration of the stun effect has increased up to 6 sec
• Blast: Damage has increased up to 580%
• Holy Charge: Damage has increased up to 150%
• Divine Charge: Damage has increased up to 150%
• Hex of the Beholder: Beholder’s buffs will not overwrite buffs of equal level. Beholder’s buff will however overwrite lesser buffs


Bowman
• Arrow Bomb: Damage has increased up to 150%
• Iron Arrow: Damage has increased up to 200%
• Inferno: Damage has increased and a Damage Over Time component was added
• Strafe: Chance to freeze has increased up to 100%. Frozen targets have a fixed percentage chance to be killed instantly
• Piercing Arrow: Charge time for piercing arrow has decreased by 10 percent
• Snipe: Cooldown time for this ability has decreased per skill level


Thief
• Endure: HP and MP recovery has increased up to 100HP and 40MP respectively over time.
• Steal: Damage has increased up to 130%. Can attack up to 4 enemies and a chance to stun has been added
• Band of Thieves: Damage has increased up to 250% and the poison damage duration has increased
• Assaulter: Damage has increased up to 500% and range has increased
• Meso Guard: The amount of Mesos consumed has decreased to 61%. The duration of the effect has increased per skill level to a maximum of 180 seconds.
• Venomous Stab: The chance to apply poison has increased and the duration of the poison damage has increased.
• Boomerang Stab: The delay between attacks has decreased

After v62 there were several skill changes.
- Berserk gets buffed
- Mana reflection gets buffed
- Threaten gets buffed
etc.

Shads, MMs, Paladins will forever be weaker then they should be at this rate.

I think balancing classes will let everyone have a change on playing a class they truly enjoy without worrying about a lack of DPS due to balance reasons. Anyways just a suggestion. If not balancing to v86, then at least v72.

 

Just my bit on this:

I don't think switching to v86 skills will help "balance" the jobs, since most jobs are pretty balanced in v62 in the first place. You will never be able to achieve perfect balance, since it's a personal matter, too, since some under- or overestimate the power of e.g. Marks(wo)men.

Robb has made a very good point: MMs have Snipe, a very powerful bossing skill, Shadowers have Meso Explosion (which, by the way, gives 6 levels at Level 70 AFAIK) and Smokescreen. I myself am a Shadower and find it impossible to train without spending a ridiculous amount of mesos on bombing, so it comes at a cost (which is why I'm making a bishop to leech myself).

Paladins, true, aren't good atm. But, with the arrival of ToT (which will be soon), they will have the obvious advantage of elemental damage.

So a no for me, since it's pretty damn balanced already.

YESPLS.

 

If you only looking at the few advantages to those classes.

Snipe has like a 60 second cool down, and only does 199k damage. To most high DPS classes that is like three hits. & You have to remember Marksman have to use a third job skill to do damage (REALLY LOW %DPS COMPARED TO OTHER CLASSES). They are the only class including Dark Knights to still use a third job attacking skill, but Dark Knights get Berserk, what do Marksman get? a 60second cooldown skill.

Paladins are still far in superior to other warrior classes even with elemental help.

Shadowers can only compete when they blow away all their mesos!

 

Ty, I specifically said I was listing strengths, not weaknesses, the strengths of underpowered classes are often overlooked. And I did say that Pallies suck, there's no getting around that.

Also, if we can ever kill HT regularly for level 30 books some of these classes, specifically MM and DrKs, get a major boost. Granted that is a MAJOR if.

As far as Shads, if they're bossing they should be compensated for their mesos, which they usually are.

I never said these classes weren't underpowered, just that they have strengths that are overlooked. Sure, it'd be nice to balance out the classes more, but IMO it's not entirely necessary.

 

Tyron is totally right, I agree
P.S
YOU HAVE MY VOTE
P.S 2
In my opinion, nostalgia is not about PATCH 0.62, but PRE BB
without EE scrolls, miracles , super duper mini dungeons etc.
skill improvements are great, since we wont have miracle cubes, it would be nice to increase our dmg a little, and fix the cd.

 

F/Ps underpowered? What other class can go to Skeles at lvl 80 with lousy equips and grind successfully? Mages in general are hampered when it comes to bossing, because of the way the magic damage formula works (and by magic capping at 1999), but IIRC, the magic damage formula doesn't change prior to Big Bang.

As for the jobs that really could use a boost, fair enough, no issues with that except... there's a ton of stuff already that needs fixing and I'm not sure if changing the skill tables could potentially cause more skill bugs to spring up.

 

I've mentioned this in 3, about how you should be able to pick a class which you find both fun, and not underwhelming.

MM: I'm actually pretty happy with MM, I think we deal decent damage (I still want 5 second snipe though (((().

SD: Agreed that shadowers are useful (my pre-version 86 4th job was a successful shadower), and are very interesting to play. Even so, I feel that their damage/utility may be a little lacking in MapleRoyals, where almost everyone washes their HP and has auto-hp.

PALLY: Pallies do have the short end of the stick, and yes ToT would improve the situation (been 3 months since the announcement though) but not entirely. Would still place them above the drks however.

F/P: Perhaps I judged wrongly o.0 My F/P archmage was from pre-big bang, but there wasn't that significant an interval. Blizzard being able to freeze was a significant advantage to the little edge in damage we had, and the fact that paralyze could only hit one monster with pretty shitty damage did not endear me to the class (loved elquinnes though). Still, perhaps in v.62 F/P was every bit as good as I/L.

So it is difficult :/ And here I was thinking it's all tweaking a few numbers (I've little knowledge in IT). Can't wait for ToT though, and that damned first HT run. When version 62 had Horntail, most players did not have to wait till they were old and gray before they could purchase their skillbooks, so I'm pretty glad I'm fairly new to this server.

The thing is, I'm afraid that most jobs are not pretty balanced, and the fact that nothing could possibly be perfectly balanced holds as much vacuous truth as the fact that a perfect circle could never be drawn.

Snipe at 15 seconds (even though we don't have snipe at 15 seconds lol) is merely a poor supplement to our Strafe, a 3rd job skill. I could be wrong, as I'm not well-versed in version 62 Marksman, so if I were please do tell me.

(Embarass me with the math f3)

You've also pointed out that a shadower's only efficient training method is ridiculously costly (also quite a bother, everyone loved it but I secretly hated meso bomb -_-), and for a class to be so reliant on bishops to level strikes me as pretty imbalanced.

I have no experience with pallies (all I had was a pally friend in version 62), but everyone avoids them like the plague and, there's apparently a general consensus that they're underpowered. Hopefully ToT whenever it's released will change that, but quite frankly I would still find the slightly above-average mobbing insufficient compensation for their bossing.

Well anyways, I really hoped you'd be for this, cause you're my favourite GM on the server (emotional blackmail +1). It doesn't matter though, perhaps using v86 skill tables was too far-fetched of an idea; but atm I still support a tweaking/buffs for pallies, and an alternative to Horntail for skillbooks.

For me what truly drew the line for the nostalgia was the potential system and the unchecked power creeping. Anyways, hooray for the vote!

P.S. Have had too much beer so pardon the grammar.

Okay F/Ps are not underpowered, my bad!

 

Haha, this is not the first time this has been brought up, this is literally like the 5th thread.

F/Ps are underpowered in the sense where they do no damage to bosses.
v72 increases elemental amp for this reason.

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@All those people whining about meso explosion.

At level 180 it will take approximately 50 bfs.
1 BF = 7m mesos
50 BFs = 350m mesos for just one level.

Shadowers are not meant to rely on meso explosion.

 

Than I/Ls are also underpowered. But either way mages are not bossing classes, they're mobbing/grinding classes.

Regarding ME at BF, you're discounting the fact that can make money by selling BF leech and Dep Stars. Not to mention the EXP you get from making Deps.

But if we were to only go by BF leech you can sell it for 10m per bf, that's a profit of 3m per. 3*50=150m from selling leech, then selling dep stars for ~80m per and it's not bad mesos. (Although mages will still make better mesos simply because of their ultimate's farming ability.)

I agree that Shads aren't meant to rely on ME but they also have a means of negating the cost of it.

As for MM's, with max Snipe they out damage BM's, especially with the damage cap increase in Royals. But with level 20 Snipe with a 60 second CD they're definitely handicapped, but still do decent damage.

Like I said I'm not against it, I'd just rather get bugs fixed first.

 

I have already tried to ask for skill table changes its not gonna happen

http://royals.ms/forum/showthread.php?t=2600

http://royals.ms/forum/showthread.php?t=2551

 

What about the Sairs? In v72 they decreased Battleship's cooldown from *6 minutes* to a minute and a half! plus they added more hp in v86! PLEASE MATT.

 

This is exactly why no one plays arch-mages. They only have mobbing/grinding capabilities with no hs/door/dispell. v72 increases their dps. Ice Lightening mages can start grinding with chain lightening at ludi monsters instead of going straight blizzard newts, or actually attempting to kill bosses and not taking 10x the amount of time as a NL/Hero/Sair.

You have a point about shadowers, but try comparing them to a class that doesn't use ME and kills bf in the same amount of time and gets 10m instead of 3m!

 

I'm pretty indifferent about the whole thing but I don't really see how it would be fair to make these changes without wiping the server again. For example, FP/IL mages have spent a ton of time getting to their levels already, but new ones could reach that same point so much faster with the major buffs to ele amp.

Also, to me these changes indicate the start of Maple's power creep (everything buffed, very few nerfs). Without also releasing harder content, it seems as though the server would face the same issues that 10x had. With buffs all around, it will feel as though the server is being made easier, which I thought the community was against.

 

I don't thing arch mages will mind getting a damage boost, even if they are pre-existing.

I mean if we are getting updates past v62, why not get skill changes to keep up with some of the mobs which are harder?

 

The thing is with Arch Mages, the vary nature of a private server, unless it's 1x, works against them. People reach end game very quickly compared to when GMS was in v62 and the only thing left to do is bossing. They're amazing at grinding and farming, but there's not as much end game content for them. I don't think this is a reason to buff them though. (I feel like it's important to say that I mained an I/L in GMS and I actually found their play style more fun after the ulti nerf. Grinding with CL at ToT was suuper fun.)

As for shads and selling leech, other classes can't efficiently sell leach as early as shads. CBs can sell leech efficiently and kill bf faster than most 4th job warriors. But again, relying on ME really does suck and it's not intended to be that way.