Buccaneer Class Feedback

Careful, someone might say "making suggestions higher than mine is asking for too much" lol.
In all seriousness though I personally don't like some of these imaginary numbers being thrown around without more consideration for the bigger picture. The fact is that since barrage+demolition is as low as a no zerk drk makes it necessary to consider that even a 20% or 22.5% increase in barrage doesn't even put it around the current shadower bstep-assassinate combo dps, which isn't very high itself. A 30% increase in barrage damage does put it into a similar range with that combo in theoretical math, but less likely the case when damage cap is involved.
As far as demolition goes, it's dps is lower than strafe only marksman and well below Corsairs rapid fire. A 20%, or 22.5% increase in that case puts them closer towards corsairs rapid fire, but the suggested 540% does put them well above that, and much closer to hero damage I believe on its own.

Now the question I want to ask is, is it enough? If we were to go with the supposed 22.5% increase in both skills previously it would would barely put buccaneers dps above what their original demolition dps is, but that doesn't seem to make much difference especially when paladin and shadower classes are also looking to get damage buffs. Of course the class has long been lacking in that overall damage department so at least some form of damage increase is necessary. What has bothered me is that just using these numbers neglect the real world scenario on how they are used. Like how theoretical those barrage numbers are based on damage cap, and how demolition is only available while transformed. What I don't like about Jackson's level is that his idea of buffing them to old source pure demolition numbers has him thinking its enough, but the fact is those numbers are still below strafe only marksman, which isn't exactly anyone's idea of "good enough". Considering real world scenarios, I think a slight increase in barrage percentage would be serviceable, but a higher change in demolition makes more sense considering buccaneer's style of play. Somewhere around a 25% increase in barrage damage and about a 30-40% increase in demolition makes the most sense. So in this case, i mostly agree with Hikari's numbers considering the utility of barrage and the limited circumstances of demolition.

I personally do prefer if energy charge buff stacking was implemented instead, but I can't speak for its difficulty in implementation if its considered. It's probably the best overall solution with the bigger picture involved, not only providing the endgame buff they need but also quality of life improvements to the lackluster skill set of marauders. Something largely neglected because of hp washing and leech on here. Which brings me to the real issue at hand, the population of buccaneers on the server. Surely damage buffs may have an effect on the situation but as far as the bigger picture is involved I see the importance in this.

 

With regards to dk and markmen, I think that Buccs should have a higher dps than a mm, and about the same/ higher dps as a dk. This is to make buccs more viable as a pick for bossing. DKs and mms are mostly picked for their buffs (especially se). Seeing as our party buff (si) doesnt really help the meta attacker (sins) we should be able to make this up with our damage output. Having a higher dps should make up for our "bad" party buff and allow for more buccs to be placed into parties.

 

1.shock wave should stun (why? cuz it is named shock wave!) & faster attack animation

2.any skill could stun gives boss a "stun debuff" which the boss can still attack and move but could be crit by bucc

3.SI works better on other class
worrior MM :fast>faster
NL BM Cor :faster > super fast
bucc :faster > super fast> ult fast

4.oak barrel:
hot key again to quick cancel this skill
or use attack skill to auto cancel (and additional damage like shadower's ninja ambush..maybe?)

 

I agree that demolition dps should become somewhat competitive with those classes because of its limited and single dps nature. But barrage+ds has its own features that are similar to Dark Knights and Heroes multi-hitting. Dragon strike in particular can hit up to 4 of zakum's arms and 4 horntail parts in ideal conditions so that is something to consider with its weaker single target damage. Plus with barrages speed and damage cap it doesn't do much for them.

Their party buffs aren't really "bad" but in many cases the servers meta works against them. The fact that they have time leap and speed infusion plays a big part in why they're put on the bottom of the damage scale, but the way things are make them much too situational. I can't remember many cases I brought my buccaneer into bosses to SI more than 2 members of the party, or time leap many skills besides my own and resurrection. But since things are the way they are and there doesn't seem to be much changes happening it makes sense to just make buccaneers stronger altogether.

 

I wasnt looking at one skill in particular, but more on the general side. I was hoping that we would be able to do more damage overall than the two other party buff classes.

SI is a great skill in general, and i personally love having it. But for this server's meta (sins) its not really needed and is overshadowed easily by se and possibly hb. As for time leap, its completely reliant on your party (having a bishop or echo) and its use (although significant) is like you said, too situational. The only time where i can see myself even using tl would be for those resurrection and echo, and our own buccaneer skills dont really need tl at all (super transform being the only skill i would ever tl). While i do think our skills are useful, i dont see them being significant enough to make us the lowest dps.

 

I'm a lvl15x buccaneer and from my experience these are the problems that annoy me enough to write about them:
My strongest attack is demolition but it's so slow that until I finish the 8 lines of dmg, NLs for example can do about 4 TTs.
Barrage is really not strong enough to be the "main" (because can't always use transformation) attack as it's really slow. Additionally to the barrage not being strong enough nor fast enough, we're forced to use Dragon Strike as a "filler" attack, which is also not high damage enough to be a main attack, and, also slow.

Another issue is that attack potions don't stack with Energy Charge, which makes using some attack potions very useless and a waste, unfair because we don't get extra damage on our natural damage, we're not a powerful job so nerfing us is really unnecessary.

Basically being slow and having lower damage than other jobs at your level are the main issues.

In my opinion, the game-play of being slow wouldn't bother people that much if we were actually just stronger, since it'd be actually worth the "dead-time" in-between skills. Also that wouldn't change our game-play and it would solve the issue of both damage and being too slow.

Thanks for reading and I can't wait for the buff update. <3

 

P.S remove the movement when using Barrage PLEASE
Makes us fall, die, get hit and/or having to re-adjust our locations every single time

 

While the movement sometimes does get in the way (like u said adjusting location and stuff) i don't really see it needing to be removed. Sometimes it does help me (slowly pushing enemy). Overall i think the movement shud stay.

 

It's actually pretty good in CWKPQ, it pushes you to the left side when fighting the bottom bosses so you can avoid getting stunned

 

You can just stand at the most left from the beginning, like the warriors. No need to constantly move.

To push monsters/bosses we have 2 skills to do that, just like the warriors can pin bosses/monsters we can too. We don't need to keep changing our position every single attack. When you hunt BF for example, you can't just stand there and attack (unlike warriors), you need to keep adjusting yourself so you don't get too close to the BF and have it hit you. Staying in the same spot AFTER you positioned yourself would be best. No need to constantly move around or move backwards.

 

I agree that the movement is annoying at times, but i dont really see it as NECESSARY to remove.

 

When I did BF on my bucc I just stood on him and attacked, there is no need to adjust any position when you can tank his hits. Also in the bosses in CWKPQ you sometimes need to walk back to get buffed or to help the ranged attackers with pushing the bosses so you won't stay at 1 place all the time

 

Hmm I actually have another idea how to make bucc stronger but I'm not sure if it will the current client cause it will modify animation speed
Looking at the bucc skills the issue with them is actually not the damage (which is fairly high) but the attack speed which is extremely slow and feels like you're in some sort of slow motion. Almost all buccaneer skills have either a slow animation or a delay after you use them (or both).

First we have the main combo of barrage+dragon strike. The skill description of barrage says:
Attacks a monster nearby 6 times in quick succession.
The real speed to cast it however is 1.83 seconds (with si and booster) which is more like attacking in a slow succession lol. I'd say cut the attack time to around 1.2-1.3 seconds while also cutting the delay after it by at half or so.
Dragon strike is also very slow with a speed of 1.08 seconds, I'd suggest making it as fast as Spear Crusher (0.81 seconds with SI) or maybe even brandish to make it more on par with the warrior classes. In addition get rid of it's delay entirely, the delay makes no sense and only slows you down in grinding and mobbing.
Note that barrage will still have some cooldown so the gameplay in bosses will be the same with the barrage+ds combo, just ds could be spammable against mobs.

As for demolition, in the description it also says it attacks with a blinding speed yet it's one of the slowest skills in the game with a cast time of 2.38 seconds (which is almost as slow as the mage ultimate skills like genesis). Also after you attack there is a frame where your character stands and does nothing, not only does it look a bit weird and waste your time but it's also making you vulnerable since you got no iframes during this frame. I'd suggest getting rid of that frame entirely (or shortening it significantly) and cutting down the casting speed of demolition to be around 1.6-1.7 seconds seconds.

These changes will increase the overall DPS of buccaneers significantly (by something like 40% ) and make it on par with classes like BM/MM in 1vs1 (although you'd still be weaker than warriors against multiple targets due to dragon strike being a lot weaker than brandish/crusher).
I think it would be fair that bucc should have a DPS similar to archers cause while you have SI/TL and more hp the SE buff of archers is a lot better than SI or TL and it makes them more popular in parties.

 

Too bad you wont get to play after the buff :shrug:

 

You’re clever!

Too bad I quit before I got banned.

 

Thanks for putting numbers on cast times of our skills. I totally agree that our skills seem to move in slow motion without si/ booster. When pap debuffs us, its extremely noticeable, especially for barrage.

I think dragon strike's cast time could be left alone, as its range is far and damage is pretty high as well, though like most people, i believe the delay after the skill should be removed, making it a spammable move that we could grind with.

As for demolition, the main gripe for me is that second of standing and doing nothing after the skill. The skill's cast time is pretty long for a "blinding speed attack," so i do think it would greatly help if the cast was shortened.

 

What do you guys think about demolition with no cd, but using consumables?

 

Don’t know what you mean by consumables (guessing rocks?) but that sounds like a totally different gameplay than we all signed up for when we opened a buccaneer. We all love the class and that’s why we made it, we're simply weak. Higher dmg can solve all problems.

 

Summoning Rock? Sure, no problem I guess.
Special consumables crafted specifically for this, or obtainable in some new way? Interesting... But probably not welcomed by many?

 

Sounds a lot like bringing back permanent demolition.