I noticed that from old patches of Maplestory, the attack damage between blunt weapon, axe and sword is not balanced. Sword have a better damage in whole(not to mention a lot faster in attack speed). I know the concept for like axe have a better damage in slashing, but it has a lot weaker damage in poking(spurring? Sorry for my bad English). Did MapleRoyals balance it? If not, will it happen in the future? Hope we can have more and more freedom in choosing what we like and have more fun in the game )
Maybe axes were designed to look cool so that Fighters picked them over swords. Then they released 4th job which favored swords heavily so that all the Heroes had to remake their characters? This was a smart plan because then fewer people would continue after Lv. 120, giving the developers some time to work on end-game content which didn't exist at the time. Mapleroyals has not changed anything in regards to Axes that I know of.
So for your opinion, there should be an adjustment toward this unbalanced situation since a lot of players play toward the end now right? I just wish that every character has its possibility to become good, even if it's harder or mush more complicated. But being nerfed from the start, not even have its great time is just not fair.
I'm afraid not. There are quite a few (old) threads out there discussing this, one of mine included. :0
It's definitely not the highest priority on their plate. There's still bugged, unattainable skills and class imbalances so the blunt an axe thing which is even more minority may not be touched in a very long time.
Yes I think all weapons and classes should have a purpose and be niched in one way or another. Kind of like Polearms are useful for reaching a lot of mobs when grinding, while spears are superior in bossing situations. DKs have a good balance between the weapons in my opinion, and for Paladins there seems to be both pros and cons to both BW and Sword (perhaps not 2H BW though?) But for Heroes... I just don't know anyone who play Axe. It's just so inferior and doesn't have a single positive that I know of. This is how Maplestory was designed from the beginning and I have no clue how they thought. What Mapleroyals should do about it I don't know. Royals is already a better game than Maplestory was, in many ways and it's probably true that adjustments to weapons like this would fall very far down on a priority list, but one is allowed to dream, right? What should an Axe be good for anyway , other than chopping trees and splitting logs? Maybe some kind soul can link some threads that discussed this in the past, and we can continue dreaming based on those?
I was an axe hero til Lv 15x and remade a sword hero (Lv 182 atm), so I feel like I'm qualified to give some insights. In my opinion, axe formula should not be buffed. Instead, a level 120 axe weapon with a decent speed would be a nice addition (Necro Giant Axe). 1) People don't make axe heroes to have the best dps. It's kind of like a Paladin, where people who mained axe warriors before 4th job came for the nostalgia or people who want to stand out amongst the sword heroes with high numbers/different equipment. You have so much resources in mapleroyals so saying "I didn't know axes were weak" is not a valid excuse. 2) If axes are overbuffed, it would be unfair to all the people who spent 10 time more on their stonetooth or their expensive sword weapons. A lot of people, me included, think axes are cheaper but less dps, and vice versa for swords. I have a 137 Tomahawk (-6 from perfect) and I was only able to make that because I wasn't worried about blowing up something expensive. So they have to be weaker than a sword hero but not so weak that they're completely irrelevant. You can never balance them to be equal. 3) Bringing a level 120 weapon will solve issues 1) and 2). Necro Giant Axe has a Normal (6) Speed, so they're not penalized as much as 110 Tavar with Slow (7) Speed. Because Necro Giant Axe would be 122 att clean (Godly Perfect), it still provides the characteristics of axe heroes of bursty dps. The 11 att difference between ST and the Necro Giant Axe would still make ST come out on top because of the 10% penalty from the Brandish Mechanics, even when both heroes have SI.
1) Why shouldn't the formula or speed for axes/blunt weapons be buffed? There's an entire line of weapons from level 10+ and exclusive skills that people are going to actively avoid because of the weapons bad mechanics. Blunt/axes do have objective appeals and that's more weapon attack, swings more often, more damage swinging and a higher weapon multiplier. All that is negated because the stab damage is way to negative. Then we got the problem of most of those weapons being ridiculously slow, but with no real damage to make up for it. 2) If they were to overbuff the weapons then they could just change it again and make them a bit weaker. I perfected a Pyrope sword and then all of a sudden a better one (Flame sword) comes out. I think if two lines of almost unused weapons can become more appealing for players, then it shouldn't be so bad that we ended up perfecting a weapon we may have felt was the wrong choice. 3) An axe that good would help end game Axe users, but I don't see why the huge amount of available axes have to stay inferior.
Because BW have a payout. People have access to a crushed skull, and BW has a higher, but less stable damage (so in the end it pays off, axe has this as well, its just lacking the weapon). IMO, a level 120 1h axe that peaks at 160 attack with godly/perfect scrolling should be enough. I see no reason to buff all axes, or BW, as the tough road leads to a reward. It should also maintain its place below swords at peak levels, partially because both pally and heroes have access to swords (so theyre double booked in terms of demand), but the only reliable way to get a good sword is event/rare gach. Crushed skull will be available from CWK. Obviously there's some variables, like how DPS of Blast/ACB compares to brandish with an ax, and we have to be careful, an axe hero with a decent axe may already out dps a pally. We also have to keep in mind where they are in comparison to elemental weak and neutral monsters. We also have to note, I get a feeling most heroes are in it for the damage, where pallys are notorious for more... fun and it's less about the damage. Anectdotal of course, but most pallies I know do it because they enjoy the class and aren't in it for the damage. We helped bossing pallies, I don't think it's a bad idea to help fashionheroes but it's delicate and bigger than just us posting in the thread, ya know? edit: probably the best place to start is making brandish roll the normal 3:2 swing:stab rolls instead of being force swing and stab.
I look at the entire weapon line as important content most people don't want to touch on. Yes there's a crushed skull, but what about the 2 handed blunt weapons and all the previous weapons in the lower levels? I'm a sword user and we got it completely made compared to those other weapons. We have the best sword without SI (Flamesword), with SI on stoppers(Carabella), SI on apples(Claymore) and the most reliable one Stonetooth. What they all have in common is that they end up beating all Axes and Blunt weapons. I understand this is tough stuff to balance and it's not the highest priority to even attempt a change when there's still things like skill bugs around which is far more important, but threads like these keep getting made and may be helpful if that time ever comes around. I picked a Paladin because Heaven's Hammer at bosses like Zakum and Blast at Toad seemed really cool. I could do incredible damage when there's many bosses in one area or when there's only 1 compared to my Hero who only peaks when there's 2-3 monsters. In reality lone Brandish is better than acb, hh and blast in most situations, but bosses like Krexel and Anego are around so I have more fun on this guy.
Yeah, but as much as it sucks, if we begin balancing everything, we'll just end up going down the Nexon path (albeit smarter, but still). Currently anyone who uses Axes are unique and I'm sure they prefer to keep it that way, minus maybe a couple minor buffs/changes (like that to certain endgame weapons). Plus, having to figure out how to properly balance something while keeping it unique is pretty damn hard on its own.
Haven't read the whole thread, but thought I'd post this chart I made over a year ago, so that everyone knows what we're talking about in terms of numbers. It shows the DPS of different weapons under different conditions. It's important to note that these DPS numbers are based on skills that have a 3:2 swing/stab ratio (e.g. auto-attack, power strike, blast, etc..) (brandish has a 1:1 ratio, so this chart is not accurate for that). It is assumed that all weapons are perfect (godly and perfect scrolled). One-handed weapons are paired with perfectly scrolled maple shields. 'Att from other sources' are things like gloves, cape, shoes, pendant, attack pots.
1) I have +19 mastery on both sword and axes on my sword hero, with 12 axe booster. I can choose to max booster if I wanted. There are no "exclusive" axe skills that people are FORCED to avoid since there are plenty of unusable skills in the Hero Skill Line (Final Attack, Shield Booster, etcetera). And you are right about the weapons being not equal. But does it really HAVE to be equal? What if all weapons were perfectly balanced? Then what's the point of choosing one weapon over another? It's ironic because your request of buffing the axe formula would normalize the dps output of said weapons which goes against keeping the characteristic of an axe hero alive. 2) The devs/admins are already busy with plenty of other issues, it would be inefficient for them to keep tuning dps/formulas every time a complaint is brought. We as players must attempt to adapt before bringing complaints to the devs/admins. I adapted by switching to sword. Adaptation is part of the game. (Axe heroes and Pallies are still cool in my book though! It's just that they have a different goal in mapleroyals, not being the strongest dps warrior but being the best they can be while limiting themselves to such equipment/class.) 3) The huge amount of available axes that stays inferior does not matter at all in the grand scheme of royals. From lv 10-100, you're going to keep swapping weapons. It's not going become your end game weapon. However, I believe an end game weapon is necessary for Axe Heroes to keep their persona as bursty hitters. Also, I would like to see the screenshot of this perfect Pyrope sword, because I don't understand why you would even complain about this if you have a weapon like that. If you really perfected a sword, you should understand what the end game entails, why are you complaining about something like this? Lv 1-120 is figuratively the tutorial of this game.
Another point is that, this is a VERY big ask from a very small number of people. Very few people care about Axes, because a viable alternative (swords) exists. Meanwhile there are other classes that desperately need changes much more urgently (e.g Buccs) that more people require since there's no way to be a "strong" bucc (in the sense that, with godly equips, other damage classes will still outdamage you with similar equips). This is a broken system implemented by Nexon that the Devs are working on making enjoyable to us. For many people, they in turn enjoy the nostalgia of exactly how the axe warrior works, so why fix it if it ain't broke? Something like a proper end game weapon, yeah sure, but revamping the entire weapon system's formula? I think you're asking a bit much.
There's an entire line of weapons from level 10+ and exclusive skills that people are going to actively avoid because of the weapons bad mechanics. Where in this sentence am I wrong? Axes are different than swords and do more damage when they swing. Those are already 2 good reasons to use them, but their stabbing is much worse than it should be and that's why people rather not use them. There are even some people who stopped using them. Does staying on topic on a thread about axes and blunt weapons in the feedback section stop them from focusing on the more important tasks? Maybe because most people who enter the server have a choice between 13 classes/weapons and it's gonna be what they stick with for 100 or 200 levels. Most people don't want charity boss runs or a pat on the head. They want to feel useful and actually contribute to their solo or bossing team and if a class or weapon is really lacking then certain classes or weapons are used less or completely ignored. Why would I want to complain about axes/blunt in this thread? Where else am I going to do that? I like the whole experience from level 1 and above, rather than exchange quest and leeching to 130 which is easy for me to do.
I just want to clarify something: In my thread on this topic, I did some decent research on the subject, and found that the extra damage that Axes and Blunt Weapons get from Swing animations does not make up for the severe loss of damage from stab animations. For both one-handed and two-handed Auxiliary weapons to not only be worse in average damage, but also be slower, is kind of dumb. :v
I don't think you're listening to my arguments. 1) There is NO exclusive skill that they are missing out on. Almost all skills can be raised because there are plenty of skills that are useless. If they want to raise Final Attack or something for nostalgia, you cannot say that they are missing out on a skill because they themselves are choosing to be inefficient at the cost of nostalgia. Also, weapons from 10-80 doesn't matter as much since brandish mechanic does not apply til they are lv 120. They are indeed slower than your sword counterparts, but I feel that it doesn't matter as much as you say because there aren't too many bosses that require 1hr+ to beat at the stage of the game, hence my reasoning for a stronger end game axe to supplement the low dps when brandish is available. 2) You're not answering my point about adaptation. Maplestory is a game that has tons of different types of players, which includes people who want the highest dps possible and people who have goals to be the best they can be in a given class. Yes, it's important that people don't feel left out in a game. But at what point do you sacrifice the time and the hard work the veteran players have made just to help the lower level players / people who made the wrong decisions in terms of dps feel competent? I'm being biased here, but if I made the effort to create a new hero, if people made an effort to wash NLs to be able to HT at 155, why can't other people make the same efforts? This in itself is another topic that requires a lot of attention, but I digress. And yes, it might not seem like much for GMs to focus on one topic, but multiply a forum post like this by x100, and add all the ban appeals and maintenances and events, and you wouldn't be saying the same thing. 3) LOL You actually have the Pyrope sword! I remember when Red Katanas were all the rage, and I would buy perfect RKs or farm them at Zipangu and try to 30% them. Now Flame Sword came out gg You're right in that this is the only place where you can discuss things like this. I did not mean to say that it's a waste of time and I apologize if you felt that way. I was genuinely curious that someone who spent that much time and resources to make a perfect weapon would actually care about a topic that's not relevant to his weapon. However, if people don't want a charity or or a pat on the head in the boss runs, they must align their goals to be a DPSer. When there is plenty of information online and in the community stating that Sword DPS >> Axe DPS, and they choose Axe anyways, how can they expect to be a good DPSer? That makes no sense. This goes back to my topic 2). I'm not going to reply after this comment as I feel like I am no longer contributing to the thread due to my bias/off-topicness, and also because it's taking an exorbitant amount of time to reply to these questions.
Thanks for everyone that had spent your time and effort looking into and discussing about the topic. I'm an axe hero myself. I don't care much about the dps I do, tbh, but I enjoy the growth of my character. However, I don't think that the lack of possibilities for a class should be the barrier for one to choose what they loved. For example, if my child is just not smart, I still hope that one day they can have the possibility to be better then others in some areas. And it does not make up for me just right that the weapon and money spent is less, but just a little benefit with a bigger disadvantage behind the scene. I'm not eagerly looking forward to adjustment of the axe/blunt weapon issue though, since I know that the admins are making a lot of effort to keep the server maintained. No complaints for them, just respect. Keeping the issue up is just the way to express my thoughts and read others oppinions. In whole, I disagree with not making progress in balancing the weapons. It's nostalgia, but it can be better then that.
