First off I would like to mention that this was first intended to be posted by an acquaintance Buccaneer friend of mine, PackaPunch. He had originally wanted to pursue a change in Buccaneer damage for multiple reasons, but dropped after feeling a lack of support among his own peers. I'm here to further ask for support on this matter, so please listen to me. Buccaneers are one of the most unique individual sub-classes in the game. We are arguably the 2nd best agile melee class (after Shadowers) due to our Transformation modes giving us max speed and jump. We have some of the quickest and efficient mob suppression skills (Corkscrew Blow, Backspin Blow). We come along with two very unique support skills: Time Leap (which reduces buff cool down) and Speed Infusion (which increases weapon attack speed). As a melee class we come in with decent HP. Not as good as core warrior classes but we're still very well ahead of Night Lords and Bow Masters. Now at the surface, Buccaneers look great. We have utility, mobility, and flexibility. However, me and many other Buccaneers feel very different about the class. It is very fun class for us to play, don't get us wrong. However many bossing parties have little incentive to invite us, even with all our promising traits. We're looked at as a waste of a spot, and this is why. We're on the low end of the 1v1 damage spectrum. Unless we have very godly gears (looking at you @Buccaneer) we won't even be able to match up with other classes at our level. Even with maximum super transformation and demolition, we are still heavily out damaged by a majority of the other classes. Heck it's so bad, a decently geared level 140 Night Lord with Sharp Eyes out damages me, a decently geared level 165 Buccaneer. With damage alone, we have a hard time joining boss runs like Zakum, Krexel, let alone Horntail. Many organizers will take another Night Lord over us, it's a given. Speed infusion doesn't increase the attack speed of Bow Masters, Night Lords, and Shadowers. It's not that Speed Infusion is broken, but because these three classes already have the fastest attack speed possible with just their own respective booster skills. Corsairs, Marksman, and all Warriors classes do not reach cap attack speed due to their weapons being slower than Bow Masters, Night Lords, and Shadowers. Although at first glance this doesn't seem to be an issue for Buccaneers, it's the greatest weakness we bring. Night Lords are the most powerful and efficient 1v1 bossers in a party setting, not only that but they're the most numerous. For every Night Lord in the party, the more a Buccaneers efficiency decreases. We're basically dead weight in a party full of Night Lords and 1 Bow Master. The only time we're not dead weight is in a party full of classes consisting attackers that have weapons of attack speeds 5 or higher (Corsair, Marksman, and Warriors). With our Speed Infusion at max level, we give these parties at best an extra 8% damage (I got this calculation from the weapon attack speed chart in Sire's Warrior Guide, where I took the number of attacks if Speed Infusion is in effect and divided by the number of attacks if Booster is in effect). However, a Bow Master or Marsksman would give an almost similar damage increase due to the Sharp Eyes buff (6% damage) and still have higher damage than a Buccaneer (since we can only use super transformation a third of the time). Not only that but Bow Masters and Marksmans Sharp Eyes can work on Night Lords, and Speed Infusion does not. Time Leap is great from the skill description but almost useless in practical team bossing environments. At best the most important thing time leap should be used for is when a Bishops Resurrection skill is needed. That's great, but it doesn't increase solo damage per minute, and if we'll be going on runs where the party consists of ranged attackers and high HP tankers that can benefit from Speed Infusion (not squishy Night Lords) then I don't think Time Leap is too much of a selling point either. If no player dies, then there isn't a real use for Time Leap. The only OTHER practical use for time leap is saving it for Echo of Hero and using it for long boss runs (and infinitely if you have higher than level 10 Time Leap). However that is still impractical. My entire time as a Buccaneer (and I'm sure many others) do not actively boss with level 200s. Bossing with them is seldom, as they mostly have little incentive to do anything outside of Horntail. Not only that but they are also few and far in between. According to the MapleRoyals Ranking page, as of October 31st 2016, there are only 185 level 200 characters. Although that may seem like a good amount for a server with thousands of unique daily users, how many of those players are actually active? Heck, even if they are active, how many are active bossers? I'd be surprised if the number is greater than 1/3rd. And even if you were to run with a level 200 in a place like Horntail, the probability of your entire party not having Echo get dispelled even once (by Dark Wyverns or Horntail's Head B mass dispel) for the entire run is extremely low. If an organizer doesn't have a level 200 in their party and knows their runners might not die, they'll rather just take another Night Lord with far greater damage than some Buccaneer that is decent 1/3rd of the time. We are not efficient in the seduce role. A couple of organizers that I have talked to want to boss with Buccaneers if they have 30k hp. That's an extreme amount of HP washing. Most of the Buccaneers I know don't have anywhere near that much. Even with 30k we're still lacking the Achilles and Power Guard from Heroes. Night Lords with max HP would do even better than Buccaneers, Shadow Shifter puts them a level above us in terms of Sed muling. Buccaneers are very weak in terms of support, attacking, and tanking. Now that I've laid out exactly what makes Buccaneers so weak and susceptible to not being invited to bossing runs, let me explain what shouldn't change. Speed Infusion. It's still a nice damage buff, even if it doesn't work on Night Lords or Bow Masters, it's a boost for most of the classes in game and that's fine. I duo Krexel and Zakum with Heroes' daily. Zakum and Krexel are something that should be reasonable for a Buccaneer to duo with a stronger class as long as the Buccaneer is 150+. Time leap is still a great skill. Okay, Echo of Hero isn't available for every boss run. That's totally fine. But being able to bring someone back to life when Resurrection is still on cool down for 30 minutes is great. We're a support in that way and that should never change From me and all my Buccaneer friends right now, to you, the community: What we need right now is better damage. Because right now in Horntail, Buccaneers with our low damage and most of the time low HP, we are dead weight. We need more carrying power in Boss runs. We need better incentives to get invited. Our support skills our great, our utility is great, but we can't carry if the big hitters die, and most of the time we're viewed as a liability. Now that I've finally explained what exactly we want and why, let me explain the perfect change that should be made to accomplish this said "damage buff" while retaining the Pre-Big Bang feeling in both game play for Buccaneers and bossing in general. On July 29th 2009, the Cygnus Knights were released in Global MapleStory (v73). With it came 5 absurdly OP classes, all which were based on the 5 regular classes at the time (Night Lord, Bow Master, etc.), all with their own unique skill sets that put them apart from regular classes. The Cygnus Knight Class that was based off Buccaneers was named Thunder Breaker. Most of the skills were very similar, but elementally themed. However, there is 1 minor change that set them very far apart from regular Buccaneers. In 3rd job, instead of being given a Marauder's Stun Mastery, they were given Critical Punch. Critical Punch was a passive skill which at max, enabled a 40% chance to deal 200% critical damage. This was a mass improvement over Stun Mastery, which is a 60% chance to deal 160% critical damage to mobs which are stunned whereas Critical Punch would work on any monsters. This means Critical Punch would have an effect on bosses, while Stun Mastery critical hits do not. This gave Thunder Breakers an overall 40% extra damage with max Critical Punch. Me and many others have agreed that with Buccaneers having their 3rd job skill Stun Mastery replaced with Critical Mastery would be the perfect damage boost that Buccaneers would need. Not too much, not too little. It does not change the way Buccaneers work in boss runs (we are still going to be a support class with trash damage) but it will give us much more carrying power. Buccaneers still retain that Pre-Big Bang gameplay, nothing changes except for damage. I know the coding for this sort of thing may or may not work, due to the content being from a different job from a different version, but I do hope that with the points I have provided and some support from the community, it is something that will at least be looked into. A lot of the Buccaneers I know are some of the most hard working players in Royals and we would all be damn pleased if this could happen. It definitely doesn't have to happen by the time the new source hits, but it would definitely be a win if it ever does happen at all. Of course, it would be dumb if I say that I speak for the whole community, as I only know a few active top 50 Buccaneers. So I want to ask you, the community. Do you think that Buccaneers deserve a damage buff by switching out Stun Mastery with Critical Punch? Or do you think Buccaneers are just fine? I'd really like for there to be constructive discussion so please give your honest opinion. I don't expect everyone to echo my opinion so that's why I want some feed back on this movement. Credits to: What Came When in GMS Guide Sire's Complete MapleRoyals Warrior Guide The Beast Buccaneer Guide @PackaPunch for putting this idea in my head @iNeophyte for pushing me to go forward with PackaPunch's idea
I wouldn't mind seeing Buccaneers get buffed, and Critical Punch sounds interesting... but I wonder there their DPS rankings would land if they had that + SE. Would it then be too much? I don't have the calculations to figure that out, just food for thought.
To be fair, me and the other Buccaneers in my alliance have funded ourselves with at least 5b+ in gears (each individually). I've already got my primary bossing skills maxed. All of us individually are out damaged by a decent 140 NL friend that has SE, funded with just 2b total, and it's kind of sad. They're pretty strong, it's simply the boost of SE. That's the thing. My buddies along with a majority of my alliance do not recruit Buccaneers for boss runs. There are simply too many of us to go around and we either join random runs or don't boss at all. Most of the HT connections I have made from level 130-165 have either quit or simply do not want Buccaneers to join HT at all. Other HTers either already have a designated Buccaneer or even have their own si mule to bring. Some will only invite me if I am willing to be a SI/TL mule outside of the main party. Funding ourselves 20b in gears just to be as good as a NL funded with 10b in AP resets + gears and still have 1.5x my damage output is just a huge gap. Well Critical Punch was introduced long before Big Bang was released, so I don't see how it would take away from "nostalgia." Many buccaneer skills are broken until the new source hits, but it doesn't take away from nostalgia just because they are broken. There are still plenty of buccaneers. If Buccaneers right now make you feel the classic MS with broken skills, why shouldn't Critical Punch, a skill also introduced Pre-BB? I agree with an increase in damage somewhere, if it's possible with even no skill changes. Although I'm not going to reflect changes in my original post until we have more Buccaneers share out their point of views on this matter. Thanks for your input, Jackson-sama.
And you know what, I think that's great. Buccs being as strong or even stronger NLs shouldn't be possible. I totally understand that both classes have fundamental differences, and when I organize my own runs (albeit rarely) I always take that into account. But when runs consist of a majority of BMs and NLs, why would we get invited in the first place? As I mentioned in my points above, SI isn't going to boost the damage of the most important members of a boss run. And Time Leap is too impractical to be expecting perma-Echo or ressing someone every 20 minutes at max, if players are not expected to die in the first place. It's not about being a top bossing class with similar funding, it's about what incentives there are to invite us if we're not needed and some other class can do the job better and faster. At the end of the day, the weaknesses of Speed Infusion and Time Leap still exist. They're support skills but they're limited in the way that they can provide support. Many players will continuously look down upon that. I'd rather not change those skills, as they are truly core to what Buccaneers can do. Agreed. Bossing guilds don't really have anything to do with the game. Advertising yourself is the best selling point. However if no one is interested, then they most likely have better alternatives. What do you mean by standing out though? HP washing? Funding your gear? Maxing out Time Leap + Speed Infusion to maximize support? All of the above? I tried googling skill and class revamps that came in between v73 and v93 (big bang) but found nothing. If I'm correct, the critical punch itself has never been removed. If you're talking about other skills, then I'd love for you to show me an available change log for said changes (since I couldn't find any for myself). As for "core" Bucc skills that are broken, energy charge normally doesn't take under 5 attacks to fill up. From my memory it would take many attacks. The fact that the casting requirement for the skill and the stance effect is currently broken surely changes the way Buccs can be played. I could tank Zak body for a long time without getting KBed but now I have to readjust every 20 seconds. I could be falling off the ledge much less at Horntail head A and Horntail head C, but now I fall down almost once per minute. A considerable DPM drop. Speed infusion is also weird and bugged, sometimes it just runs out for party members way before it's supposed to even though no booster was casted. Thus running around from my respective area of the map and having to rebuff, losing more DPM. Although Energy Blast isn't a core skill, the delay is a huge problem for 70-120 training.
Doesn't this just mean you're running a wrong party setup for Horntail then? If you play a buccaneer I'd say you should try to party with a group that has heroes, dark knights, corsairs and maybe even a marksman. They would definitely appreciate your SI buff as it improves their damage output by a fair amount, unlike Bowmasters and Nightlords as you have mentioned before. I mean you can still run with Nightlords and Bowmasters if you want, it just wouldn't be an optimal use of a Buccaneer character if you'd ask me. I would personally say there are many ways to stand out from other buccaneers, where the easiest way is to just be dedicated to the character and playing it to its fullest potential. There will always be other players who play the same class as you but either didn't invest their money efficiently, don't use their spells and cooldowns efficiently or are simply bad at basic bossing mechanics. If you got your character sorted out both equips- and mechanics wise, you should be fine to find good groups that want to run with you on a regular basis.
As what Dimitri said, maybe you should change up who you bring along in bossing parties. I used a Dragon Claymore for my Hero, so whenever I was organizing a HT run, a Bucc was one of the higher desired class I sought after. XiaoViper was generally my go to player for Bucc, and occassionally Privateer if he was online. Generally, majority of my my runs often incorporated Corsairs and DrKs to take advantage of SI. I'm not saying that I never recruited NLs because I also had several dedicated NLs that ran with me, but I did make an effort to recruit Corsairs/DrK/Heroes for the runs where I had a Bucc to go with me. Privateer actually outdamaged (white) many DPS class that were in similar level ranges as him. I always thought Buccs were on the weaker side until I started partying with him. He would consistently white me and other NL/Sairs during boss runs, and it not like he was whiting unfunded characters, quite the opposite actually. Maybe it's Privateer's gears, maybe it's his general knowledge and experience he gained through playing Buccs for a long time, maybe it's a combination of both. Point being, he held his weight, and he was always welcomed in my runs. Kinda off topic, but I even had a dedicated Shadower (2PACALYPSE) for my HT runs. I never even considered bringing Shads to HT, but I gave him a chance since I was buddies with him. My opinions on shads for HT has since then changed. He carried his weight in DPS, and as a bonus the Corsairs in my runs loved his Smokescreens. You don't need to be play a popular DPS class to boss. Just play your part well and party organizers will notice. Your reputation travels fast as you get higher. MapleRoyals is still a small community, it gets even smaller as you reach 170+, everyone seems to know each other in some shape or form. #BieberSquad
Bucc will always be my #2 favorite class. I'm never a fond of melee classes, or close ranged of any sort. But Buccs have that unique playstyle that I loved. I made one bucc here, decided I wanted to remake it into a better HP washed bucc for the hell of it. So I don't have much experience bossing as them outside of zak, but I've bossed with them as a NL. I think the changes that the new source brings will be sufficient, if not even better than that. The increased stance effect will bring Buccs up to par with warriors for positioning (not falling nearly as often is always a huge help), and being able to use our other skills while under transformation (like barrage!) will be great too. Also, I like what Justin (Prideful) said above. Find parties that actively look for buccs based on their setup. As an un-washed NL, I would be staying out of parties that don't have a BM or MM for SE and usually I don't run without a dark knight as well.
I'm currently working on a Buccanneer and it's quite powerful with the right skills and equipment I think the changes that happen in the new source would already be a decent enough upgrade.
I'd like to point out that specific class populations far outweigh others. How many would recommend maining a buccaneer in this server? Not many I can tell you that and that reflects on the population of buccaneers on this server that are NOT SI/TL mules. Now the question is why? Well if you consider the single dps stat of buccs, they are pretty far down there. Even with the super transformed demolition that is supposed to be our best dps skill, it still has comparatively low dps compared to many of the other classes. And the transformed state lasts only 2 minutes with a total 6 minute cooldown! Never mind the low dps of barrage + dragon strike (even though one can argue overall dps with dragon strikes mobbing capibilities is fine, it's less reliable than warrior attacks like brandish), theres definitely a problem with buccs damage overall. I think someone mentioned "getting better equips" relieves this issue, but if that were true, it would be fine maining Paladins(barely anyone does at this state, similar to buccs), which is also a class in badly need of a damage boost. You can make "strong buccs" or "strong pallys" in the game but how strong are they in comparison with other strongly equipped classes? Thats the main issue and using "strong" in a relative sense isn't proving buccs are fine as is with their damage. With all that said, as a bucc, I believe changing stun mastery will solve the overall dps issue of buccs considering the stats of demolition and barrage dps. If that is not a viable change, a boost in damage of some form is definitely whats needed.
are buccaneers now really demanded for boss runs? i was reading and all looks like bucc its really neccesary for ht runs. its SI a lot of neccesary?
I honestly feel that the small boost to being able to crit on bosses/base dmgs increase is enough. Its simply the delay in their attacks that make their dps so low. The delay contributes in a big loss of dpm as most classes can add up that damage very quickly. I'm not saying that they should be a top bosser or anything like that but a boost in their bossing potential even if by a minimum effect would be efficient enough to be solid as an attacker. They are easily shut down by dispels and etc which also makes them miss out on potential dps.
Afaik the transformation glitch is still a thing. I've also never heard of anyone getting banned for it. So I'd assume that the use of the bug is basically allowed. I'm going to assume that that bug will be fixed in the new source. Which would lead to buccaneers being significantly weaker when the new source eventually does come. If the admins are actually telling the truth when they say they may look into additional skill changes after the new source is released. I'm sure buccaneers will be looked into because they will definitely not be good enough with the changes that have been decided.
