Buccaneer Class Feedback

Dear all,

As we all know, it is fair to say that this class requires a some balancing in regards to skill changes and play style of buccaneers.

The purpose of this thread is to collect information and feedback from the community and factor them into our decision making process. So, let us know what you think!

All unrelated spams will be deleted to make this thread more manageable.
Please keep this thread constructive.
Thank you.

 

Idea: demolition cd decrease, slight skill damage buff, barrage attack range

 

From the way I see it the main problem of the class is it's DPS which is extremely low compared to other classes (bucc is the weakest attacker class right now)

The class has been buffed a few times recently but the buffs were really small and didn't address the main issue. In fact Bucc was actually nerfed in new source due to the removal of the infinite transform bug and SI no longer working on mages.
A damage buff (for example buffing barrage from 230% to 300% damage and demolition from 400% to 500%) is pretty much a must to make the class viable
Other ideas would be to make Energy Charge's attack bonus stack with attack potions or to make SI makes you go past the speed limit (it's kinda absurd that despite SI being your own skill there is no difference between SI 1 and SI20 for buccaneers in speed)

Other improvements would be buffing the class defensive abilities to make it more like a warrior (as right now bucc doesn't have any defensive buffs aside from a bit higher HP and ranged classes like NLs are actually better sed mules than buccs are)
For example you could make energy charge give you a power guard effect that reduces touch damage (as it already does damage to the mob like power guard does) or give the Transformations either a lot more DEF or a damage reduction (similar to Achilles)

Also the range of barrage is way too short and you are often unable to hit Horntail's arms or some of the arms in zakum with barrage so it could be buffed a little bit.

 

Energy charge should charge faster, or it should last longer. The uptime is abysmal since v83, especially when using demo. A melee class without stance is painful. The attack bonus should also stack with pots.

I'd like to see a permanent crit chance added to stun mastery. Right now the skill is worthless since only the niche skills stun and this obviously doesn't work on bosses. This is a better alternative to straight damage buffs since the class kinda revolves around party play.

 

Definitely can look into giving buccs a passive crit buff. I was pretty hyped at one of the class reworking video showing buccs doing crit dmg. Unfortunately it didn't happen Also, bucc's can run into dmg cap real fast if you increase dmg multipliers (last few lines of barrage are really high multiplier) so it would be much preferred if buccs receive a buff in terms of reduced animation time instead

 

So I've just seen that people want increased attack speed, and that SI1 is equal to SI20 for the Buccs themselves. Maybe make it so that Buccaneers (and no other classes) can break the speed cap? And make a proportional reduced delay of skills according to this new Speed 1 weapon speed. Makes it worth maxing SI other for just the party aspect of it, and also doesn't further boost already powerful classes.

 

Addition Of Critical Damage might Be an insane addition and boosting of skill Attack speed cap might be valuable options for discussion.

And of course There are Other Buffs that Mapleroyals can add into The kit of Buccaneers.

But before suggesting that much, Us players must understand The Game Adminstrator’s difficulty and pain of game balancing.
Alot Maths, Trial and error , testing are needed before releasing the balancing of the class.

At this point of time, many might agree NL has to be Top DPS, having an insane amount of players investing the royal career assets into one. and with an Critical Buff, it might make buccs too insane, and might change the entire metagame of royals, creating an Negative effect.

 

I can do the math for dps under ideal circumstances. I remember doing some calculations while speculating on buccs receiving a passive crit. If I remember correctly, you can give buccs a passive 35% crit chance for 1.5x dmg and they'll be on par with bowmasters with SE. And this isn't anywhere near NL- levels of brokenness.

And to be honest, NL being the metagame is what's broken. On this note, I'll suggest changing the attack speed of claws to 5 so buccs are more relevant. This will make bucc's really relevant since NLs will be looking for not just archers in their parties, but buccs too. And this won't change the fact that NLs do the highest dps (after applying all buffs)

We shouldn't be afraid to change because we don't know how to calculate the end result of nerf/buff. Maplestory has been around for very long and we know the formulas for most of the stuff.

 

On the above comments, I think the passive critical buff is abit much and also if you add passive critical, it would be like a night lord that will depends on sharp eyes. However, here are my suggestions:

1. Backspin Blow + Corkscrew Blow increase to 6 mobs
2. Energy charge (faster charge or make duration longer) and stackable with attack pots
3. Base % damage increase for barrage and demolition and lower the delay b/w barrage and dragon strike and also demolition
4. Longer transfomation/super transformation period or lessen the cd on it
5. Better defense on the energy charge (stronger power guard)
6. Range increase for barrage

 

What about allow demolition to be used in Transformation?
Or realease book 30 for SI, nerf NL's boost to + 1 speed, so NL reach 3 attack speed the most, then he will need SI to gain max attack speed!

 

Some sort of base critical chance would help substantially, even if only triggered by Transformation or Energy Charge. But a buff to barrage range/damage% seems to be needed at the very least, you have to practically be on top of mobs at this point making HT/Zak Arms a royal pain. Any help is appreciated, still going to main my Bucc regardless, but some not so laughable damage would be a serious help.

 

I don't think a passive critical or a huge skill speed buff is asking for too much. Is there a boss or grinding map where they're the best or at least out perform most classes?

 

Crit damage is the ability of Bowmen, why bring it to Bucc? I don't think it's a good idea (That is why every class in newer Maplestory are the same, crit damage, flash jump, ...)
Buff what Bucc currently have is good enough.
Don't make it loses its unique, Bucc is famous for Attacking Fast, then just buff it!
Make it Attack fast 1, only Bucc get Attack fast 1!

 

Since I'm not good with %'s on skills, I'll let others do the numbers, and focus more other aspects/ general things. tl:dr on bottom.

For second job skills, not much needs to change in my opinion. As stated earlier, changing corkscrew blow and backspin blow's mob to 6 would be really useful. An interesting idea (though I'm not expecting it to happen at all) is to add a damage reduction to oak barrel if you are hit while the skill is active.

For third job skills, I would suggest changing energy charge, transform, and stun mastery. In GMS, charge has an increased rate at bosses, and I think that this would be helpful for bossing. Like what most others are saying, having a stacking buff from bubble would also benefit marauders considerably. As for transform, there is no use for it aside from using it as a mount or shockwave. Personally, I went the energy blast route on my bucc, so transform was completely useless aside from using it as a "haste" effect. Using transform (and super transform) actually DECREASES dps due to the addition of a few frames while transformed. (I don't know how frames work, but removing a few to match non trans speed would be nice.) To prevent the loss of dps, adding back the attack buff of transform would be useful (hoping it will stack with other atk buffs as well). I think there are a few ways that stun mastery could be changed. If you want to keep it as a stun oriented skill, I would suggest changing the success % to 100% or adding stunning capabilities to other skill (like energy blast or dragon strike). The only skills that can stun right now are double uppercut and backspin blow. Meaning at most we can stun up to 3 mobs from one skill. Adding stuns to energy blast and ds would increase this number to 6 while adding utility to our main mobbing skills. Another way (the way that I and seemingly others prefer) would be to add a flat critical rate % to the current skill, allowing buccaneers to crit regardless of stun.

For fourth job, buccs have 2 main attacking skills: barrage and dragon strike. Barrage would definitely be improved by a lower cd. Since it is our main 1v1 option, I would love to be able to use it without much (or even no) delay. The main reason why buccs "combo" attacks is to maximize dps between our attack cooldowns and take advantage of iframes. Reducing barrage cd would maximize our dps, and since it also has iframes, there wouldn't be a loss of invincibility. Regarding the range of barrage: I'm split between it. Being a close range class, i do understand its supposed to have a small range, yet at the same time it is annoying when I cannot hit parts of Zakum. Dragon strike also needs a significant cd reduction in my opinion. It does hit hard, but has such a long cd that I tend to use energy blast still while dealing with mobs (especially before lvl 20 where it starts hitting 6 mobs). Super Transform has the same problem as transform, just add an atk buff and I think it will be fine. I have not leveled up my demolition yet, but from my experience playing with it on gms, it has the same problem as barrage, cooldowns. If it can be spammed, our dps would be better. Snatch and Energy orb are completely irrelevant to buccs, but I think it would be cool if we could use snatch outside of super transform (I mean its just throwing and pulling a rope...).


T L : D R
2nd job:

• backspin blow mobs hit increased to 6
• corkscrew blow mobs hit increased to 6
• possible damage reduction on oak barrel if hit while skill was active

3rd job:

• energy charge
  • charge rate increased while fighting a boss
  • stackable attack buff while charged
  • 100% stance?
• transform
  • adding attack buff (hopefully stackable with energy charge and attack potions)
  • maybe decreasing frames for attacks (if that's possible)
  • 100% stance?
• stun mastery
  • stun based
    • make success rate 100% OR
    • add stunning ability to other skills such as dragon strike and energy blast
  • permanent rate
    • add a flat critical rate% while adjusting current skill
      • in GMS this got turned into flat ignore def I think, which is also an idea

4th job:

• barrage
  • lower cd time
  • maybe increase range (to be able to hit bosses like zak and ht)
• dragon strike
  • lower cd time (to make this an effective grinding attack)
• super transform
  • same issues as transform
• demolition
  • lower cd time
• snatch
  • make it usable outside of super transform

 

Hi it's me. I will reiterate what I have suggested years ago, but I'm glad to see this in a bit more of the forefront of suggestions. A 12k range bucc is similar to a 6.5k range NL. That means that a NL can use Lucky7 and do the same damage as a bucc, which means NL are 50% stronger than buccs.

That being said, I think the core of the buccaneer class should be the same: same iframes and attack speed and skills.
I've seen a lot of suggestions over the years from shortening skill delays, to changing the speed of knuckle weapons, to adding critical damage.

Why I believe each of these suggestions is not a very good quality of life change for the buccaneer

1. Shortening skill delays, changing speed of knuckle weapons
Shortening skill delays
The buccaneer class in pre-bb has been know to have iframes. Those are certain timeframes in which the class cannot get hit after using skills. An example would be using barrage or corkscrew punch. Both skills have a set amount of time that no mob attacking skills can hit the player. By changing and shortening skill delays, this would inherently change the iframes of the class (I would assume making them shorter). While I can't be for sure about this, it also would not have a huge impact to the class. The skill delays of the buccaneer class are quite long.
Here are the delays of barrage + dragon strike and demolition


Since buccaneers hit Faster 2 with their Fast 5 knuckle (-2 booster, -2 speed infusion, capping at faster 2), you can see that the delays are significant unchanged. Barrage + dragon strike takes a total of 2,910 ms to complete and demotion takes 2,340 ms to complete. If you want a 10% increase in damage to all 3 skills, you can see how much delay needs to be removed. For the barrage+DS combo, that is 291 ms removed for a 10% increase in DPS. And for demolition, that is a 234 ms change. Just looking at demo and the change in delays for each speed, each speed is ~210 ms, so adding a 10% increase in damage would be about 1 speed difference.

Changing the speed of knuckles to faster 1
I don't think that's even possible with the game design. Even if it is, you can see that it won't even be a 10% increase in damage for barrage+DS or demolition. A pretty small change that won't effect the buccaneer much.

2. Adding criticals to buccaneers (passive or skill wise)
Adding crits to buccs makes the class reliable on SE for any sort of DPS. This is like the NL effect where NLs feel "useless" in a boss run without SE because of their massive decrease in damage without SE. Passive crit or crits with a skill on a bucc will massively boost bucc damage since it stacks with SE. This may be good for their overall damage but then they are much more reliant on an archer class to provide SE for them. This just changes the feeling of the bucc instead of a supporting class, to a class that is needy of SE. Although it's not a terrible idea, it would change the way buccaneers play and feel since their damage will seem like it solely comes from their need for SE.

Suggestions
The best way to change the buccaneer class's damage without changing the fundamentals of the class is simply tweet the numbers of their main damaging abilities. I am also supporting barrage having an increased range (to be able to hits arms in HT).

Barrage + dragon strike damage increase
Barrage currently does 230% x 10 and dragon strike does 810%. That means that barrage is 2300% at 1830 ms delay + dragon strike 810% at 1080 ms delay (assuming dragon strike hits 1 mob). Totaling it up, that is 3110% damage at 2910 ms. I don't think dragon strike needs an increase in damage. It is still a strong mobbing ability and in training, it is very viable. That means that barrage should only be the skill that is changed since it is a 1v1 ability. To increase the overall damage by 20%, which I think is a nice change:
3110% * 1.2 = 3732%
Subtracting the difference between new and old, we get
3732 - 3110 = 622% total
Putting that percentage directly into barrage = 622% / 10 = 62.2% increase in each barrage hit. Since that is an odd number, round down to 60% instead.

Barrage going from 230% currently to 290% will give a final boost of DPS from barrage+ dragon strike combo of:
290% * 10 + 810% = 3710%
(3710 - 3110)/3110 = 19.3% DPS increase

Pretty fair I think.

Demolition
Let's first compare how much more DPS is demolition than barrage+DS. Barrage+DS = 3110% @ 2910 ms. Demolition is 400% * 8 @ 2340 ms = 3200% @ 2340ms. Quick maths: (2910-2340)/2910 = 19.6% faster skill. 3200% * 1.196 = 3827%. This means if demo was as slow as barrage, it would do 3827% or about 23% more DPS. With the cooldowns of supertransform (240 seconds and it lasts for 120 seconds), that means that 1/2 the time you will be barrage+DS and the other 1/2 of the time will be using demolition. To give an average increase of about 20% of OVERALL DPS of the bucc, that means that demolition's DPS would also have to be increase a little less than 20%. With that in mind, let's do the math:

20% damage increase:
3200% * 1.2 = 3840%
change of % damage divided by 8 hits of demo:
(3840 - 3200) / 8 = 80%

If we add 80% increase in demolition, it would give an overall increase in demolitions DPS by 20%, which i think is fair. Scaling wise, this may be harder since decimals are used, so instead we may need to change this total to 90%. This gives us a new DPS:

(400+90) * 8 = 3920%
(3920 - 3200) / 3200 = 22.5% DPS increase

The most viable way to increase demolition by ~20% is adding 90% damage to its skill. I think this is fair.

How to practically implement it with proper scaling:
Barrage
OLD
Level 1: 94% + 4% per level
Level 10-11 and 20-21: +14% for those specific levels
Level 30: 230%

NEW
Level 1: 94% + 6% per level
Level 10-11 and 20-21: + 16% for those specific levels
Leve 30: 290%

Demolition
OLD
Level 1: 90% + 10% per level
Level 10-11 and 20-21: +20% for those specific levels
Level 30: 400%

NEW
Level 1: 90% + 13% per level
Level 10-11 and 20-21: +23% for those specific levels
Level 30: 490%

TL; DR CONCLUSION
Increase barrage from 230% -> 290% and demolition from 400% -> 490% to increase buccaneer's overall DPS by an average of 20%. Increase barrage range to be able to hit HT arms.

I have a bit more to say but this was written kind of hastily. My core points of the two skills that should have it's damage increase to increase the buccaneer's overall DPS by ~20% is 90% of what I have to say. Thanks for reading (if you actually read) and hopefully my math is correct.

 

I have few thoughts:

1) additional w. att. buff from Energy Charge should stack with rage or potion,
2) Transformation at the moment is decreasing speed attack donc makes both skills quite useless,
3) DPS from Energy Drain is quite low (lower than Energy Blast which is AOE skill) therefore Marauders don't have any good 1vs1 skill. DMG from Energy Drain should be increased.
4) Stun Mastery is quite useless at the moment because stuning skills are not quite effective. In my opinion the best solution is to change this skill a little. First of all Stun Mastery should increase chance to stun enemies with different skills (such as Backspin Blow or Double Uppercut) because right now sometimes it takes even six times to stun an enemy. Secondly because noone really uses BB and DU (especially DU) after 4th job Stun Mastery should have increase chance to stun an enemy with every attack (like 20% or something). At the end We should remember that Stun Mastery is useless against bosses so there should be chance to perform a critical attack at bosses without them being stunned.

 

I am all for increasing the range of barrage since it's ridiculous buccs are unable to hit ht's arms without demolition. However, i am not in favor of a permanent demolition playstyle, so i prefer buffing both demo and barrage/dragonstrike damage numbers, so that the overall dps is increased, but the playstyle and cooldowns remain the same.

 

1 Raise HP additional 15 per lvl (Bucc have very low hp for meele)
2 100 % stance
3 energy charge att buff stack with potions, rage etc and faster load
4 Lower cd on demolition and transform ... at this moment transform is useless
5 Increase range of barrage and dmg and speed attack on barrage....
6 Dragon strike... up dmg and attack speed

 

Regarding the permanent demo playstyle, if you keep super transform's cd the same i don't think it will be a problem. Demo is mostly just for bossing anyways, and isn't really used anywhere outside of that (as far as i know). I recently got demolition on my bucc, and i think the cd on it is fine. I just wish that the last few frames could be removed (the ones where the character just stands for a second after finishing the attack) or turned into iframes.

As much as i would like a faster barrage, i also don't see it as necessary, and i agree that a damage buff would do fine. In fact the timing for barrage is actually really useful against some bosses like big foot, so i think it will be fine if cd's are left unchanged.

Regarding dragonstrike, i would REALLY like for it to have a lower cd. Having a lower cd on dragon strike would significantly improve a buccaneer's ability to grind. personally i think if dragon strike's cooldown is lowered, our playstyle would remain the same (seeing as how most people use ds for grinding anyways).

 

I would like to suggest the buccaneer class obtain the same hp buff as warriors if possible because during their 2nd job advancement they obtain the improve max HP skill similar to them.

And as suggested, either making energy charge benefits stack-able or increasing damage percentages on barrage and demolition will be enough to buff the class end-game. Speeding up attacks by reducing animation frames is pointless and reducing delays too much may change the core combat they are known for.

I'd also like to add that a reduction to the 3rd job normal transformation cool-down may help for the marauder class grinding. Their 3rd job skills are fairly dependent on charged states and cool-downs so it would make some difference.