Improving Arch Mages’s 1v1?

Hey everyone,

I was just wondering if any of y’all here would be in favour of having Arch Mages’s bossing ability improved. Not to to make them an actual attacking class, but just to make them at least mediocre at it / give them a supportive role.

I’m not gonna go into details here into how to do it since I have no idea if any of y’all want it or even if the staff would ever make changes to them. Just curious.

I came up with a few ideas in my comments down below, please read them before voting.


Have a great day.

 

But... are mages (except BS) in general meant for bossing? I've always wondered that...

 

I'm all for Arch Mages being able to contribute to boss fights in some way, but I would prefer for it to be in a supportive capacity, similar to bishops.

EDIT: Looking at the Arch Mage's 4th job skills, it seems like there could be some synergy between Paladin's Elemental Charges and Arch Mage's Ice/Fire Demon skill. I think this synergy should be buffed to encourage Arch Mage and Paladin participation in boss fights.

 

I main a bishop, but I think the following applies to arch mages as well.

Mages already have insane advantages over other classes in grinding.

If we make mages good at 1V1 and keep their grinding capability, it's just unfair to other classes.

If we make mages good at 1V1 and, in exchange, sacrifice their grinding capability, then mages won't be able to farm as much mesos as they do now. Personally speaking, I like getting 60M/H loot from ULU2 and would never exchange it for better 1V1.

 

I agree, mages should just continue as mobbers because making them good at 1v1 would just give them too much of an advantage. It would be like why play any other job when mages can do everything themselves.

Say we take away meteor and give them a single target fireball attack, that would be more balancing. you just cant have both.

 

I'd gladly play an archmage that loses ultimate or gains a cooldown on ultimate, and gets a buff to other skills in exchange (or a replacement single target skill in exchange)...I just don't think they'd actually make such an option available.

 

massive NO!!
and that's come from main mage.

we have huge advantage over any other class when it come down to farm and grind..
and to improved "bossing ability", it will be just game braking..

so no!
i strongly disagree!..

 

@Kai Well, I know most of you guys avoid Post-BB like the plague , but me personally I never got to 120 before BB. Post-BB mages were still shitty bossers at first, but slowly they made improvements and they became known as "glass-canons" (Aka decent damage but squishy), at least during the first few years of BB (Since I quit later on). Of course I'm not asking to have those changes since no one would want it and I'm pretty sure its impossible to code. Just some tiny changes here would be appreciated. For example, if slow could be fixed so it worked on all mobs and boss, that would already help a bit (I can confirm that Slow doesn't work on Pap or BF here lol). Also, why is Paralyze here at 210 Basic Attack when it says 240 Basic Attack when I check on Hidden-Street (The Pre-BB version of it). Fixing slow would already make it useful for all mobile bosses, and having that small increase in Paralyze or even "going crazy" by doubling it wouldn't make them near as strong as any attacking class, but would still make them stronger.

@Hwaiting Supportive capacity. I don't know if bosses rely on their MP to cast their skills, but if they did, making MP Eater work on bosses would be a great way so AMs can tag a long on boss runs. This way, as long as the AM is constantly attacking the boss (Assuming it recovers MP while it recovers HP), its MP will be constantly drained and it won't be able to seal/dispel/seduce/etc... Problem with that is that that makes those all-cure potions useless and its kind of the job of the Bishop do to that I think. Talking about Fire Demon, I have no idea how Paladins work, but Fire Demon is suppose to make mobs weak to fire and it currently isn't working either. If it will be fixed one day, it would be great if it made mobs weak to fire & poison, or just poison (While having the effect work on bosses). Meteor doesn't need any damage boost imo, and this way Paralyze gets a small one.

@PhotonSphere @Jasecooper No one said anything about making them good at 1v1, just small improvements. Lets say on a scale from 1 to 10, NL (Or whatever is the top DPS class) is 10 while AM is currently 2. Making them 4 or 5 wouldn't be game breaking imo; most classes would still be in the 7+ area.

@Nes True, that would never happen since 99% of the people here made their AMs in order to farm stuff, therefore needing to Ulti spam. I've read somewhere in forums that they will never add new skills to classes, so that's that. But even with the current skills, there's wiggle room and tweaks can be make. Apart from what I said ^^, the way Infinity works here is pretty stupid. Not having to use MP for a short period of time while potion cost is clearly not a problem... If that could be changed to how it works post-BB; [MP Cost: 80, Recovers HP and MP by 11% every 4 secs, Increases damage by Magic ATT by 11% every 4 sec, Chance of Activation Power Stance Effect: 72%, Duration: 42 sec] with 3 min CD. Still the same skill, but just changing how it works.

 

Gotta say I agree with the sentiment that Archmages were meant to be grinders and shouldn’t have real 1v1 damage options in comparison to the other classes in the game that don’t get a mapwide spammable 15mob nuke attack.

I do want to point out that, from what I’m told, Paralyze and Chain Lightning are just straight up 1v1 weaker than Meteor and Blizzard. Haven’t tested it myself since I don’t have an Archmage, but if that is indeed true, I’d say a small buff to those two skills to actually make them worth using would make sense. They don’t have to and arguably shouldn’t be stronger than any other class 1v1 skill but it is questionable to me that your mapwide nuke is stronger than your single-target option.

How is this the same skill in any way other than sharing the sane name?

 

There is little that can be done without messing with mage kits.

If you want to boss on a more than "hey lol lets bring a mage along" capacity, you should make a bishop, but it's still supportive. Mages in general are better mobbers/grinders/farmers than every other class by leagues, and that's the trade off. NL are ideal bossers but can't grind to save their life or grind, if you shift the scales, you have to do it for everyone, and then, what's the point.



I kid of course, but the general point is, if you take away what makes some classes special, then none of them are special and it turns into it "well my class is better" for completely subjective reasons. Mages have their niche, they don't need to be in the bossing scene IMO. There are other classes that don't have a solid place and kind of "meh" everywhere, they need the TLC more than mages do.

 

Maybe the trade off shouldn't be so drastic though. Why is it that bishops can both grind/leech amazingly, but also get brought along on boss runs? Bishop is the do it all class. When comparing Arch Mages and bishops, AMs get an advantage in a select number of leeching spots, but lose out on HS, door, resurrect, heal, and dispel. Maybe their dps shouldn't be increased, but I still think that if Ice/Fire Demon are fixed/buffed, Paladins and Arch Mages can have their day in boss runs. Arch Mages can't even kill trash mobs on boss runs right now.

Every class has something in bossing. The archers have SE, buccs have SI, corsairs have DPS, NLs have DPS, Shadower has smokescreen, bishops have resurrect, DrKs have HB, Heroes have multi target DPS, and Paladins(lol). The value of these things is different to everybody, but these classes have at least something to offer. I say we should throw Arch Mages a bone.

If a class' niche comes down to one skill(meteor/blizzard), that niche is too small.

EDIT: I should clarify, I'd rather say: If a class' niche comes down to one aspect(selling leech to fund another class), that niche is too small.

EDIT: while it is true that NLs can't grind well, they can still grind. Arch Mages may as well not be able to boss. Arch Mages don't have access to much of end game content outside of leeching.

 

What you are trying to convey here is what Post BB Maple is trying to implement - Homogenization. Not homogenization like every class having flash jump or crit buff, but homogenization that makes mages ON PAR with other classes. This diminishes the uniqueness of the mage class.

I have no inputs on how to make mage acceptable at bossing because it should stay the way as it is.

On a side note, Paladins are the ones that should be more of anybody's concern when it comes to balancing.

 

You can make archmages much stronger attackers in 1vs1 (about on par with strong classes like nl or corsair) but have cd of at least 20 seconds on their ultimates. That's kinda what they did in big bang and I think it was a good change cause right now mage skills are kinda broken, people just level meteor/blizzard and the summon for farming and ignore every other skill. It's realistic too cause I don't think there's a game where you can spam attacks that hit the whole map, usually they are meant to be the ultimate elemental skills that cost a lot of energy and time to use in exchange of a lot of damage. But here with mp pots being so cheap the high mp cost doesn't really mean anything and you can just spam them.

 

Totally down with that idea but on par with a NL would be wayyyy too much to ask of here. Like I said earlier: "Lets say on a scale from 1 to 10, NL (Or whatever is the top DPS class) is 10 while AM is currently 2. Making them 4 or 5 wouldn't be game breaking imo; most classes would still be in the 7+ area."

@Michael Apart from the animation/skill name & icon, it is completely different indeed; its a full skill revamp. But its something that could be useful. All Arch Mage skills except their Ultimates are pretty much useless atm. I'll admit with this request it's a bit much to ask, but having the small boost that Paralyze received back in GMS Pre-BB and fixing the broken skills... that shouldn't be too much to ask, would it? :/

@Evan Talking about NLs and grinding, this comes to another point that I wasn't gonna talk about, but that I think if implemented would be great way to level, especially for non-mage classes out there and promote grinding in a party; LHC. Atm, from what I know, the only way for non-mages to level is either continue get leeched (Which is boring af) or boss. Having more end-game content would be great. LHC is post-BB tho, so most people here would be against it, but I still think it would be a great addition to the game.

 

Sample may not be large, but it is already quite evident that majority of those who main mage do not like the idea of 1v1ers.

On par with NL/corsair but nerf bliz/meteor to 20s cd. Let me rephrase that for you... make another NL/corsair named 'mage' that have a skills with a 20s cd that have no point placing onto your keys.

 

Forgive me if I misconstrue your perspective, but are you saying that part of Mage's uniqueness is that they can't boss? I respect your perspective that Royals should preserve a pre-bb feel to all of the classes, but if we apply the same train of thought to Paladins, it quickly becomes hypocritical:


"What you are trying to convey here is what Post BB Maple is trying to implement - Homogenization. Not homogenization like every class having flash jump or crit buff, but homogenization that makes Paladins ON PAR with other classes. This diminishes the uniqueness of the Paladin class.

I have no inputs on how to make Paladin acceptable at bossing because it should stay the way as it is.

On a side note, Arch Mages are the ones that should be more of anybody's concern when it comes to balancing."

I don't think that Arch Mages should have good dps in boss fights. We agree on this point. But if PurePoisonXD's MP Eater suggestion could be implemented, and/or Ice/Fire Demon were to be buffed/fixed, I think that we could reach a reasonable compromise.

 

They wouldn't be really similar, while both are strong NLs/Corsairs greatly benefit from strong atk pots like apples or stoppers mages don't get much damage from them, and mages would still lose in 1vs1 (and probably lose to hero/bm too) and if it won't work you can simply make mages a bit weaker. .In exchange mages have some interesting mobbing skills, you have fire demon that makes mobs weak to ice so you can hit them higher with your ice summon, big bang as a charge attack, chain lightning/paralyze as 1vs1, seal and others. Besides some classes already have strong skills with cd (heaven hammer, air strike, snipe) and they are not really useless.

 

Side note is called side note - out of topic. Not any form of support I am using.

I am not sure what you mean by strong because those 3 skills aforementioned are not as frequently sought after in boss runs.
Also, it will be easier to compare mages with non-mages by macro instead of micro just since numbers have to come into play when making real micro comparisons like attack buffs and potions.

Classes are in a decent spectrum range. From weak to strong mobbers, from weak to strong attackers(1v1).
NL/sair > strong attacker, weak mobber
Mages > weak attacker, strong mobber
Everything else is of course in between, unless you can think of a stronger attacker than nl/sair and stronger mobber than mages. If bishop was to be compared here, I personally think they are weak attackers. If at all Mages are wanted in boss runs, you can make them fill a supportive role. I do not have much to say but just a big nono.

Also, as of this timing, >70% voted 'Heck no', can't go against numbers. It's definitely a nice change that mages can 1v1 better, but it's more desirable to keep each class off balance rather than making them good at everything to maintain uniqueness and nostalgia.

 

I meant this things more as a hypothetical thing, these changes will never come here and they wouldn't really work (if you put cd on blizz/meteor you'd have to do the same with gen and it will kill leech which is one of the main things of the server), As for classes in general some are bad at both mobbing and bossing (like bucc lol)

 

All I really have to add to this subject from my own point of view is the nostalgia factor everyone so very much loves to talk about.

Mages were trash at 1v1 dps, that's how I remember them. They were great at mobbing and farming and collecting exp but terrible at everything else. Same goes for every other class along the spectrum - Paladins were known for the style but not much else, Dark Knights were known for being the party-friendly warrior, Night Lords were damage classes and Bowmasters were their supports, blah blah blah. When you rock the boat, you disrupt what the point of having a pre-BB Maplestory originally was - re-experiencing the game that we used to play back then, but with minor conveniences that make the game less tedious/unenjoyable, like having access to free NX on a daily basis, and a higher exp/drop rate to save us time on the grind. Changing classes (or any other part of the game) to be things that weren't what we knew them to be is forgetting the game we came here to play and instead aiming to create something different. What you're asking for is to give mages options that they weren't ever given before, which I can understand from a game balance point of view, but not from a Maplestory point of view. That's why I don't really like the idea. Every class has useless skills, I can list three for each one, honestly. Coveting what other classes can do and forgetting what they covet of yours is a one-way ticket to dissatisfaction.

You main a Fire/Poison Mage - remember that your class has the fastest third job grind in the game, one of the fastest fourth job grinds in the game, hypermobility that every other class barring Night Lords dream of, the unique ability to destroy fire-weak monsters in an unmatched capacity, access to a summon mob that enables farming potential with little to no effort and lastly as a Magician you have natural tankiness that surpasses nearly every other class in the game from first job onwards. I think that that's a lot of positives - there are a lot of negatives too, but that's why you have the choice to make whichever character you wish.

Just my two cents.