In Discussion Class/Skill [Feedback Request] Skill Changes and Balancing

MMs will not agree with that, but I know your "SE" means BM here.
So let's talk about BM.
1. BM is more interesting than Drk in RG, I use Hurricane, Inferno, Arrow Rain, Dragon's Breath, Arrow Bomb(before nerf), and even Strafe. When I play Drk, I only use Crusher and Rush.
2. Archers can jump+move+shoot (same way as mage telecasting)
3. The reason BM only uses Hurricane during boss runs is that our multi target skills only outperform Hurricane when they hit more than 5 targets. If they could deal more damage than Hurricane when hitting 4 targets, it would greatly increase gameplay variety.

Archers are not just a "support class". we are also attackers.
You can also replace "SE" in your statement with anything else, such as:
I don't want to see a support class (Rage) becoming a super dominant damage dealer, as I said, it's a game of tradeoffs, and Rages suppose to be weaker, because they amplify everyone else in the party.
I don't want to see a support class (CR) becoming a super dominant damage dealer, as I said, it's a game of tradeoffs, and CRs suppose to be weaker, because they amplify everyone else in the party.
I don't want to see a support class (Smoke) becoming a super dominant damage dealer, as I said, it's a game of tradeoffs, and Smokers suppose to be weaker, because they protect everyone else in the party.
I don't want to see a support class (SI) becoming a super dominant damage dealer, as I said, it's a game of tradeoffs, and SIs suppose to be weaker, because they amplify everyone else in the party.
I don't want to see a support class (HB) becoming a super dominant damage dealer, as I said, it's a game of tradeoffs, and HBs suppose to be weaker, because they amplify everyone else's HP in the party. (Drks: WTF...)

The reason so many people think Archers are just "support class" is becuase our damage is weak af, and SE is the only thing we have left.
In my opinion:
As a single target class, BM should only be weaker than NL and Sair.
As a multi target class, MM should deal roughly the same damage as Warriors and other multi target classes.

 

Yes, there are more supportive classes with weaker damage by design, that offer party buffs, and stronger classes that don't offer those. For example, the bucc is supporting with extra fire rate, by design they were weaker, the corsair and NL are damage, they have the highest damage output in the game for single target of course, there are mobbers like the Heroes and the DK that have the multi target damage, and then you have the mages who don't boss, they are designed for map farming. You can argue with this design of the game, but it is what it is. What happens when a support class becomes "too strong" (obviously it's all a function of how rich you are in game) you see less damage players, you see less NLs you see less corsairs. As I said, each character has content that fits it more by design, making everything fit perfectly for everything would drop the different playstyles. For example, if next update DKs now on par with NLs in damage output. Why would anyone make NL? You have a multi-target warrior that can perform as well as NL, or making corsair having the same dmg as BM. We have the range class, one doesn't need to mount and dismount to maximize single target damage, the other one, has hurricane and and AOE skills (inferno, arrow bomb...). You do not want the game to collapse to 1 class, that's why in the past we called it "NL Story" because everyone played NL because it was just the best for everything.
Yes, I don't want to see a support class (any of what you mentioned except for smoke, smoke is a skill of the shadower who has high damage, arguably highest dps in the game if you throw some money) becoming too strong because it will make another bucc era in the game.
Smokescreen isn't a requirement to kill things faster, it just saves you potions, just like I wouldn't consider NL a support because it has haste.
It would sound weird but if you want to see variety, different party compositions for different type of contents, of course, there will be meta, but the meta won't be the same everywhere, you have to keep classes with their unique strength, and unique weaknesses. It's the weakness <=> strength that makes the game interesting and varied.

And I'll just once more go again to the buccs. They have SI, they have TL. Essentially having a buccaneer was the complete package, A tier damage, infinite echo, SI. Do you really want to see it again on archers?

 

I kinda agree with BM, but one thing to point out with MM (which is an important distinction that a lot of ppl overlook) is that our multi-target is not the same as the other multi-target classes - it's a bit more nuanced. Most melees can use their multi target reliably in all kinds of places that we can't: HT, Zak, Scarga, CWK, etc. This helps them make up for the fact that their single target is weaker because they can multiply their DPS in a lot of places that would otherwise be single target for everyone else (or in the case of Shad, they just get to be relatively good at both which is why it's the best class in the game right now).

Piercing Arrow is very unique. It requires slow moving targets with high HP that don't stun/seal to be in a very straight line with enough room in front of you and you won't be knocked off a platform while charging it, and is only worth using when there's 4-6 of them (and more is better). That means it's only really useful in:
RG
VL
LHC
solo mob farming like ToT or something

So while it's a very strong move when it hits its peak potential, it doesn't do that often, especially hitting all 6 targets. Even in RG/LHC, you're usually hitting only 4 targets.

Adding some form of stance to archers like what is mentioned in Phase 2 notes could potentially open up a couple new scenarios for MM to use this move in new places. But depends how it's done. Like a very weak stance wouldn't be enough, but if for example Focus gave a really decent stance temporarily (with a CD to balance it), it could enable 4p in HT or Zak for a limited time, which is kinda interesting to think about (and has the bonus side effect of letting us apply Blind to more parts).

 

If "DPS class" only includes NL and Sair, then we're pretty much on the same page, just different definitions of the term. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
But I don't think Smoke and Haste are comparable. Not getting hit means less damage loss. In HT, having Smoke can increase Archer damage by around 20%, and even increase Warrior damage by about 3%.

 

Yes, S Tier damage = Sair / NL
The rest are utility classes that synergize together, and with NL/Sair. You don't want a utility class to have S tier damage, you don't want the BM to have power creep (buff quivers, soul arrow, concentrate stacking....) that will make him both utility and DPS. In my opinion it was a big mistake getting the buccs from C Tier to A Tier damage, with all the utility it brings to the table.

 

Archers dont need stance, they need avoid, avoid is in fact better than stance. High avoid is stance, blind is a party stance, focus is stance. Incorporating stance, or pushing skills into a ranged class is just creeping toward the big bang ubiquity of all classes melting down and having different colored versions of the same skills. Archers dont need stance.

Have marksmanship or bow expert boost avoid, or boost the avoid levels in your focus, while greatly increasing mp cost to focus, as well as magic rocks cost. Or ave your bird levels passively boost avoid, or increase your focus avoid stats (while also increasing mp and costing a rock) Birds are a later or often less commonly prioritized skill, so this offers a good choice for the player and playstyle.
But the archers dont need push or stance at all, and if we're having that convo, push should be very conditional like my last post abt it here, or more avoid should also be conditionally tied into existing skills, and if tied back to focus, increasing the costs, and perhaps even a cooldown to focus

 

I thought Bubble had already been changed to 90% rather than 10% — am I misremembering?
I think limiting macros is a good idea, but since I've suggested expanding Barrage's hitbox, it should probably be subject to the same restrictions as Demo.

Not sure why Snatch's damage and mob count needed to be halved — was this based on testing that showed the damage was too high?

Snatch is a key skill for Bucc's fluidity in many multi-target situations, so making it always available is the simpler solution. Snatch (600%) can also function as a two-thirds output version of Dragon Strike (900%), and could potentially be macroed with Shockwave (900% but longer animation). I'd like to ask directly:

(1) Is it feasible to simply swap Snatch and Dragon Strike's Super Transformation requirements? This would also further widen the DPS gap between ST and non-ST states.
(2) After widening that ST vs. non-ST output gap, would it be worth slightly buffing ST-state skill damage? I think even with that, Bucc's total damage would still be lower than before.
(3) Should Shockwave serve as the lower-tier substitute for Dragon Strike in non-ST state (3rd Transformation)? Though I feel that after switching between ST and Bubble states, having to also get used to 3rd Transformation would significantly raise Bucc's overall difficulty.

Also, since I haven't seen a response about the hitbox issue, I'd also like to ask Tim directly for his thoughts on the hitbox of non-ST state primary damage skills — such as expanding Barrage/Blast so they can always reach HT's arms.
Since Tim has already indicated plans to modify Charge (Bubble), I won't offer further suggestions on that front — though I do hope the details can be shared earlier so more people can discuss them.

Also, archers are already consistently below Hero/DRK in the Krex DPS test (https://royals.ms/forum/threads/krex-class-dps-comparison.224575/).

Considering that many situations also involve Stance (for example, BM's Hurricane is severely affected by knockback), archer DPS in many types of content would be even lower — something that was already raised fairly early in this thread.

For this reason, I believe archers need further buffs — at minimum, they should not lose to Hero/DK in a pure single-target scenario:
● SE
On the topic of archer identity — since I don't want archers to become a purely damage-focused class, would it be worth making their most defining trait, SE, stackable up to 2? Only the two most recently applied SEs would be active (1 SE: 40%/15%; 2 SE: 50%/20%). Alternatively, simply buffing SE — though this may cause some side effects:

1. NL becomes too strong, but nerfing NL to keep its DPS the same could make NL too weak in RG.
2. DK could receive a side benefit at the same time.

● Dragon Breath
Please take the boss-pushing ability away from NL and give it back to archers — or at minimum, let both NL and archers push bosses. However, as a mob-pushing skill, it should have a slight delay, and function more like Rush/Screw Blow.

● BM/MM individual skills

1. BM: Stackable Concentrate
2. MM: Expand Piercing Arrow's hitbox — perhaps also adding a "can be fired at close range" property
3. Snipe + Strafe as MM's primary damage skills — possible buffs could include either "raising the damage cap to 250k–300k" or "changing Snipe to 7s CD / 2 lines"

 

1 Why are we trying to gain ST exclusive moves while not under ST?
2 Don't fuck this up brother the frame data on dragonstrike is too good to pass up. I dont wanna be spamming Snatch-Shockwave. The class should be smooth not even more clunky. Shockwave the way it is rn sucks donkey dihh compared to blast. You'd only use it if you don't have ST or Bubble up or transform cancel it.

 

( I mentioned in earlier comment that maybe we could give Hero 50-80% Achilles ? and higher Guardian rate ? With that, Hero will be the tankiest class in the game and probably be better at sed than Shad. Warrior is supposed to be tankiest class and probably better at sed than Shad, isn't it ? )

For DK, let HB be able to increase 30k hp to 48k hp.
I like the number 48k, that's because with 48k hp one can tank Core Blaze, one can tank Auf's touch dmg 3 times, Hero with 80% Achilles can actually tanks VL Rocks !
That will make gameplay more interesting imo, bc instead of just-a-matter-of-1-hit-dead-or-not of gameplay, now ppl can actually tank supposedly-1-hit dmg in some scenarios, some classes (Hero) can actually tank VL Rocks, that's a variety.

 

This is not technically possible. HP is stored as a signed 16 bit int, making the max possible value that can be held a bit over 31k, and changing that would be incredible difficult to the point of being impossible.

This is awful. These attacks hit hard because they're specifically not supposed to be tanked. In fact, HT tail and CB touch were significantly increased recently, likely to stop heavily washed shads from being able to tank them. Allowing heros to tank VL rocks like you're suggesting removes all challenge from the fight and makes it just another boring hold down attack boss fight for them. This would also encourage players to wash further so they can hit those high HP w/HB breakpoints and we should not be encouraging more washing than is already necessary with changes.

Hard hard hard disagree on your proposal, I would quit the game if that's the direction staff decided to take with it.

 

One thing I respect about Royals is that it doesn't change skills so much that it would cause confusion among players who knew how old school worked. Most of the buffs are going along with the original ideas that the OSMS devs had, with intuitive adjustments so that the ideas actually work. Like snipe having a low enough CD to be part of an actual rotation, assassinate losing the charge mechanic that was never going to work in the first place, total crash being converted into a party buff out of necessity to prevent people from creating multiple CR mules, things of that nature. There is (currently) no skill change that changes the very nature of the skill itself, and that takes admirable restraint.

There is still some confusion among new players like "wtf why are ilbis 160k to recharge" and "why don't i get exp from poisoning death teddies" and i think both of those examples are not good or healthy, but the server mostly does a good job of delivering a historically accurate old school experience.

I mention this because the current design philosophy probably means that we can't get away with changes like "swap dragon strike and snatch" or "make snipe/blast deal 2 lines" or "make soul arrow consume 200 arrows and work like shadow stars" or "make super transformation permanent and require a magic rock to cast".

the list of immediate changes I think we can make without much pushback:

-allow sniper's blizzard to crit
-make dragon's breath and ninja storm the same in terms of what they can push
-buff spell power of ice demon, fire demon, and angel ray by a lot
-make spell booster cast faster
-remove magic reflect from balrog and make it physical only
-revert the "bugfix" that made concentrate stackable with other sources of w.att

 

Ans 1:

• Perhaps that's not what you meant, but from just these few lines of response, I get the impression you think "which skills belong in ST state should be decided by the original game" — I don't see it that way. I think adjustments can and should be made based on our own vision of what ST is supposed to represent.
• My view is that ST is a state where you can use more powerful skills, so Snatch at 600% is actually more fitting for non-ST state than Dragon Strike at 900%.
• Snatch is a unique grab skill directly tied to Bucc's rotation fluidity — especially after 7 years of full-time ST, Snatch has practically become a non-ST skill in feel anyway. Or if there's another skill that can replace Snatch's role, I think having other skills "replace Snatch in non-ST state" is a good idea too. On the pure DPS side, the GM's direction seems to be that ST state should be very powerful while non-ST state is ordinary. I'm following that logic in my suggestions, with the goal of solving the fluidity problem and the over-nerfed total output problem given that ST now has a cooldown.

Ans 2:

• In my proposed change package, "swapping Snatch and Dragon" and "Shockwave as the lower-tier substitute" are meant to be implemented together — not separately.
• On the frame data point, I completely agree with you.— so what about changing Shockwave's animation speed to 2x while reducing its damage from 900% to 400%? (I've played on servers where Shockwave's frame data was set very low, so it should be doable.)

Somewhat off-topic as a response, but just as a side note — 3rd job Blast's DPS in a 3–4 mob situation is actually fairly comparable to Dragon + Snatch combined. The only reason Dragon completely replaced Blast is because Blast's hitbox is too small.

 

I'm actually also very curious — what exactly is the so-called "original ideas/design philosophy" in concrete terms?

OSMS has many good designs, but also many poor designs, and among those there are certainly plenty of elements that half the playerbase loves and the other half doesn't.

For example:

• Full-time ST — was that an original design oversight, or was it always intended to be played that way?
• Reverting the damage cap back to the original 100k, or increasing it to 250k — which one "doesn't fit"?
• Does the 90s Smoke leading to a 4 Shad/2 Bucc meta also "fit" the original design?
• Does having CR/PR/AR as Pally/DK/Hero's respective boss skills each targeting a specific role also "fit"?
• Soul Arrow originally provided arrow WA in the original version, later changed so it doesn't — is that a change that fits the design philosophy?
• Many people were once strongly against adding anything new to OSMS (including LHC, VL, and RG) — is that rigidity what "original ideas" actually means?

Of course, within the server, what matters most is the GM's own design philosophy. All players can do is voice their own "original ideas" to the GM and try to have some small influence.

My own "original ideas" are: "every class has something unique and irreplaceable" and "the game mechanically encourages players to cooperate across different classes to tackle various challenges."

Back to the skill discussion:
(1) On 2-line Snipe — the "original" Snipe had a 5s cooldown, changed to 4s in 2019. My suggestion is 7s with increased damage. I don't think this contradicts the design philosophy in any meaningful way. From a damage perspective, a 2-line 200k cap is effectively equivalent to a 1-line 400k cap, so whether it's "revert to 5s and raise the cap to 1line 300k" or "revert to 7s and raise to 2-line 200k" or "keep 4s and raise it to 1line 250k," it's fundamentally just one of many ways to address MM's unreasonably low single-target DPS — I don't see any conflict with "original ideas."
(2) On swapping Dragon Strike and Snatch — I've always been curious: why would this swap violate the design philosophy? Is it intuition or a gut feeling? Is it the visual effects (Dragon does feel more like an ST-state skill, doesn't it)? Or is it simply "the original version designed it this way, therefore it's correct"?
(That said, if there were a non-ST skill to replace Snatch, the swap wouldn't be necessary — but right now there's no substitute for Snatch, which severely impacts Bucc's rotation fluidity.)
(Of course another factor of fluidity is Demo's high iFrame, but that's not the topic being discussed here.)

 

Hello, Sylafia

Hero is only able to tank VL Rocks when HB is up, hero can still get DP and when DK is in jail or dead there's no HB to buff.
In Auf, ppl would get DP a lot, making it hard to maintain HB.
We could set VL-Rocks after-effect when one gets hit by rocks and doesn't die, like a duration of stun, so one will lose dps by a lot if keeps getting hit by rocks.
We could introduce new boss's mechanisms to be able to kill hero, like super poison, super burning, dmg-amplification debuff, boss being able to hit many times in 1.5 secs. --- Maybe Black Mage can 1-shot hero ?
Maybe, we might add Enrage's penalty, like, during Enrage, hero gets 2 times more dmg or Achilles gets 2 times weaker, so will die to VL Rocks during Enrage's duration.

 

10 days after the new patch, I would say I enjoy the balance patch very much.
Thank you all for all your effort that try to make this game better.

I want to share my thoughts and suggestions/wishes for the ongoing balance works :

Bucc :
IMO bucc is still one of the best classes in royals after patch. The ST cd makes the class weaker but they are now more fun to play, we need to think about what is the best timing to cast ST and TL, which were the oringinal bucc's skills designed to be.

My suggestions that we can do to bucc furthermore :
(1) make echo not TL-albe
(2) remove barrage dmg cap
(3) maybe buff DS dmg a bit to compensate the lost of single/AOE dmg when ST is during cd.

Warriors :
Heroes are in a very good position right now, dmg is acceptable and rage seems to be a little too good in a big party but not op. I think they are well-balanced.
DKs dmg still better than heroes, which is good. But rage makes heroes much more desired for teams, I am looking foward to that they have another team buff in the future.
Paladins, unfortunately, they didn't get many changes in this patch. Pally is still a bit too weak to the contents that don't need CR, please we don't want to just be a CR mule.

My suggestions that we can do to warriors furthermore :
(1) Maybe rage to 10attack and enrage to 30attack.
(2) Make paladins's charge undispellable.
(3) Remove pally dmg cap please.
(4) Power stance 90% too low, maybe buff to around 92%. (then ~96% for shielded)
(5) Give DK another team buff in the future.

Shads :
I don't have a shad yet, but honestly I think shad need single target dmg nerf to make other classes viable and worth to invest.
Current patch shad still the only class that worth to heavily invest imo.

Archers :
I think we can buff their damage a bit more, there are many ways to do it.

The arrow attack buffs is a good idea, but the design is kind of weird. Teamwork arrows are now the only choice for low-funded and royal quiver the only choice for funded, no one will craft the new NT arrows nor use other arrows. I think you should make them 1-attack difference tier by tier.

Sair :
I love the sair update overally, especially non-mp cost ship mounting makes high-ping players much more comfortable to play.
Thank you so much and I'm so excited to have the ship-breaking skill in the future.

 

Hello @Tim and fellow royallers

I have spent the last few days testing out bosses for the purposes of showing why Bowmasters/Archers are the least picked class to be main-ed.

Maybe it would be nice to settle a debate that I have seen in earlier comments first, which is whether Bowmasters/Archers are considered an attacker class or a support class.

By definition, and I am sure most if not everyone here knows this as MMORPG players, support/utility class means non-healer, non-tank character that helps their group succeed by boosting allies, weakening enemies or controlling the battlefield.

Apart from providing SE, could anyone really say that BMs are able to weaken enemies or control the battlefield? Our pushing skill doesn't even work on bosses. Our hamstring isn't relevant in most content because Horntail and Zakum are literally stationary. It does make VL slower but no one is picking a BM over a MM/DRK/Hero/Shad/Bucc/NL/BS because they can help to "slow" VL.

This brings me to my next point: If Archers are considered support/utility class, why are we required to do the heavy lifting/have the hardest job in most content?

Example 1: CWK. Why is our room the only DPS test? What are the GMs exactly testing? We are a support/utility class remember? Shouldn't the damage test be on attackers?

Example 1.1: If Archers are a support/utility class and have to do the heavy lifting for the other "attackers", I am sure the GMs would at least make some QOL or compensation for the archers right? Wrong. The Archer room has no crimson heart drops from the mobs whilst the Warrior room's mobs have a chance of dropping them.

Example 1.2: Why is the meta such that Archers have to face against the toughest boss (Gawyllacs) in CWK? It has 20% more hp than the Mage boss (Margana) which is normally killed by NL/Sairs, can dispel and uses the Shark skill that pushes you back. To counter this, Archers have to summon a puppet below at the right spot or risk having to resummon it. Sounds easy but if the average archer requires 17-20 minutes to kill this boss, its akin to resummoning puppet 20-30 times.
Caveat: Red Nirg has slightly more hp than the Pirate but bottom attackers multi attack it anyway, they don't feel any change in QOL.

Comparing just between single target attackers' job/roles at CWK, i.e. Archers vs NL/Sairs at CWK, its not difficult to see why people would supermegaphone "SE at CWK is a myth".

Example 2: If Archers are a support/utility class, why is playing an Archer more expensive than playing a NL/Sair?

HP wash: Archers have to hp wash at the same cost of NLs (same amount of aprs required/same amt of hp per apr washed) but NL's alchemist saves them hundreds of millions/billions the longer they play.

In one horntail run where onyx appling is mandatory, main body takes approximately 30-40mins for most parties. This means Archers would use 3-4 apples whilst NLs use 2-3 apples. We will ignore the cost of potions because the cost is negligible for one run but they do add up over the years and in any event, would only prove my point. Assuming one player does 2 horntails a day, that's saving 14m/day (current price of apples is 7m) i.e. 5.11b a year. This is assuming no other content except 2 x HT is done a day. If you do more content like zak/krex/shao/VL/Neo Tokyo, you get my point.

"NLs have to pay for cost of recharging stars". True. Archers also have to pay for the cost of recharging arrows.
Cost of recharging RTK from 0 to max :540k
Cost of recharging VL Quiver from 0 to max: 600k
How long does 1 set of RTK last: 1200 stars with 200 stars per shadow star = 12minutes
How long does 1 set of VL Quiver last: 6000 arrows at 8.33 arrows/sec = 12minutes

Why is it more expensive for a BM to use ammunition than a NL? Sure NLs have to recast Shadow Stars if they get dispelled but BMs had to do the exact same thing if I did not speak up about how shit the change was in 2021-2022.

If you want to min max an Archer you would have to scroll perfect gears yourself because Archers are so rare that people are afraid to scroll their gears in the fear of not being able to sell them. This means that in order to get your perfect gears, you have to pay a premium and/or pay more to scroll it yourself. Example: Buying a perf garina/pioneer on the forums would cost you 30-40b whilst a perfect red mantle would cost you 50b if anyone is even willing to scroll and sell it.

I am sure we don't have to talk about a Perf Dragon Purple Sleeve vs Perfect Arclancer because a perfect DPS (13/60) may cost 100+b but a perfect Arclancer (8/110) cannot even be priced (I might pay more than what a 20/95 dps costs for a finished perfect arclancer). You can obtain NL/Sair bis weapon through kerning gacha or HT but you can only obtain Archer's BIS weapon through rng crafting.

If this game wants to classify Archers as a support/utility class then please make sure that the jobs/roles assigned to Archers fit the category. If this game wants to classify Archers as an "Attacker" then stop with the "undertable/shadow" nerfs to our class that you conveniently hide behind a "buff" that is negligible.

I just wanted to get the above out of the way before moving on to explaining why Archers suck.

Doing content: Why there are so little Archer mains. Apart from the people who play it for the genuine love of Archers, no one in their right mind would sign up for a MMORPG that focuses on meta dps and decide to play Archers.

In optimal conditions (i.e. krex 2nd eye), Archers have the lowest dps ranking.
We were only ahead of Hero (A tank, multi-target class) by a small margin but with the new update, we have codified that Archers are at the bottom of the bottom (excluding mages). Our dps is even worse because we have little to no avoidability (repositioning constantly).

I did a Horntail Run yesterday (10 July 2026) and recorded myself doing Head C in Horntail. At 505 avoidability (Auf-ed and perfect avoid Overall), I had to reposition myself 55 times just for Head C and 15 times for HT's right arm. For early-mid game parties where their dps is not optimal, this would be even worse. I would estimate an average party's archer to reposition themselves at least 70-90 times for Head C and 20-25 times for HT's right arm. (Gentle reminder that this was after the 12wa buff to VL's quiver), would have been worse without the small negligible buff.

Yes, that means despite already being at the bottom of the dps chart, we do even LESSER damage in reality.

Some trivial facts: NLs with around 45-48 CGS+B with SE kills Ephenia in the same amount of time as a perfect geared, 80 CGS+B Bowmaster (statistics from buddy list) The comparison is between a 60-70b NL and a 900b-1T BM. Sure, you can say that its because NLs are given a buff from other classes. I would argue that at least they have that option. What class is able to give BMs that kind of buff? SI is useless for BMs. Rage is negligible.

Identity loss: Since its clear from the above that Archers deal less dmg than meta attackers, I am sure the GMs would have made sure Archers fit the category of Support/Utility either by making sure Archers can do something else apart from doing damage. False. GMs took the time to buff NLs instead by allowing them to push mobs and bosses previously and in the most recent update, given NLs an extra 20% skill damage in Avenger. Whilst Archers, the Support/Utility class that is supposed to be doing the pushing of mobs, has Dragon's breath that not only does not work on bosses, but is also bugged and causes the yo-yo effect after pushing mobs (Shao Clones).

Has any GM tried doing Targa on an Archer? My guess is no since I wouldn't even do Targa if people paid me mesos to. I understand that balance means some classes would excel in some areas and be terrible in other areas. Why does it feel like Archers are terrible in every area? We can't even use our main skill Hurricane (bottom of the dps chart) at Dunas v1 or Auf Clones because we might die to damage reflect.

I can predict people commenting: "you should be watching out for the DR effect" but I can see the same people using the argument that BM is a brainfog, hold button class that does not require any skill. So which is it? Are we an attacker or support class and are we a hold button class or do we actually have to pay attention to not die?

Yet, the bad class balance was apparently not good enough. The GMs decided to also nerf BM's arrow bomb on the pretext that it is a bug. Sure, fair enough. I accept the reason that it could have been too strong a skill for 2nd job. But if the GMs use such an excuse of a 2nd job skill being too strong for 2nd job, they have to accept that BM's 3rd and 4th job skills Arrow rain and Inferno are too weak for 3rd and 4th job skills and should have made the necessary buffs to them in the same update. They did not.

Recent Buff(?)/Nerf to Archers:
Recently, the GMs may have noticed that Archers suck. No one wants to play it. No one wants to main it. 90-95% of Archers (in my opinion) are mules created to multi-client and buff their own mains or farm stoppers. They have generously gave us a buff to our quiver arrows (12wa).

Did the GMs test it out to see if it makes any difference? I do not believe so. I could be wrong but after testing it out for myself, taking a few days to think about it, I am still unable to process why a GM would test it out, find out that its useless and decide to say "yeap its good enough let's go for it"

My usual CWK pirate boss takes me approximately 14 minutes (1 gelt + 4mins of concentrate). After the patch, I tested it again but this time, I had a hero in my party i.e. the total wa increase for me was +24wa (+12wa quiver buff and +12wa rage). The difference in timing was approximately 20-30 seconds faster. I finished it with 1 gelt and 3.5 minutes of my concentrate (note that the last 4 minutes had no +12wa buff from rage because it does not stack with concentrate).

TLDR: the 12wa is actually worse than approximately 15-20seconds of dps in a 10-15minute boss, on a min-maxed fully geared BM with 13k range. For archers that are not as geared (99% of the archer population), the 12wa does even less for them since WA becomes more valuable the higher your main stat is.
Coupled with the arrow bomb nerfs, I would say the overall change to Bowmasters is a bad nerf, especially to mid-game archers who use Arrow Bomb for LHC/Content. My question would then be, why are you nerfing the least played (main-ed), least enjoyable, least return in investment class?

Funding a NL with 100b would feel great.
Funding a Sair with 100b would feel decent.
Funding an Archer with 1T would still make you feel like your class is garbage.

BM skills:
Has any of the GMs seen the aoe range of arrow rain? Can we realistically ask ourselves honestly if it should be named arrow rain or a more appropriate name such as arrow sprinkle/drizzle.

Outside of RG map 1, Inferno is useless. Even in RG map 1 I would still prefer to use hurricane so technically Inferno is useless everywhere.
What is the point of skills like focus, thrust, power knockback?

I refuse to believe other classes can spend sp on skills that give 60% bonus hp or an additional 12wa buff that is stackable with attack potions but this class makes you spend 20 sp for 30 speed (Thrust).

Why do Archers have 999 accuracy (more than 1000 with focus) but not have 100% crit rate? Even if you do give Archers 100% crit rate, it would still feel barely on par with the other classes. But we do not have 100% crit rate despite being a class that should lore-wise.

Proposed changes
1) Make Archers have 100% critical rate
2) Fix the things that need fixing, not the ones that don't (Dragon Breath vs Arrow Bomb)
3) Balance the class so it can do the role it is intended to do. If we are meant to be an attacker, make it so. If we are meant to be support, make it so other classes don't do our job better than us.
4) Make puppet last for 5 minutes not 1 minute.
5) Damage? (I mean effective damage and not theoretical). Giving us wa mean nothing if we have no scaling. Giving us buffs mean nothing if we can't utilise it.
6) Stop nerfing Archers (directly and indirectly).There's a reason why no one plays it seriously
7) Lower Pirate Boss' hp in CWK to 70% that of Margana (Currently 120%). For the most annoying boss in CWK content that meta dictates the weakest class to tackle, its only right to make it the easiest to kill.
8) Lower the mobs hp in Archer's room (CWK) to 40-50% of what it currently is. This damage check is redundant, irrelevant and for a lack of a better word, stupid design. This has to be coupled with making Pirate boss way easier to kill with an Archer than any other class to prevent parties from leaving SE out completely and just bringing a mule.
9) And please just make concentrate have no cooldown (currently 120seconds cooldown) and stackable with att potions. Its really so pathetic for a 4th job skill to require 30 sp but have a CD and is shittier than a gizer.

If Buccs are protesting because they feel useless for 1 out of every 3 minutes, imagine how bowmasters would feel being useless every second of their lives. The reason no one is protesting is because no one plays BM.

My apologies if this turned out to be a rant rather than providing constructive feedback. I was expecting more to be done for Archers since the feedback thread was created and that GMs told us they were listening. From Tim's recent message, it seems that Tim and other Staff/GMs are taking phase 2 seriously so I will await the changes/new implementations. Hope I did not take up more than 30 minutes of your time as promised.

If I missed out anything or made any inaccurate information/statistics please let me know so I can amend accordingly.

Sincerely, a FM hoe that min-maxed his bowmaster so he can tell others it's not worth it.

 

I'm just keeping in mind what Tim said his philosophy of the class is. I understand Dragonstrike is a powerful move, however look at the whole thing. In the name of utility; Snatch is clearly the much more powerful move (which is why you're arguing to get it) it solves a big part of the issues that the class has in mobbing that you're willing to trade Dragonstrike for it.
Demo and Snatch are upgraded version of their non-ST moves in Barrage and DS, they solve issues the class had before transforming.
That's the entire point of the philosophy he wants the class to be. Which makes the class inherently somewhat clunky in some situations, unless there's an adequate solution for those issues.

There's 2 issues with wanting shockwave buffed like that.
1 Tim has said that he also doesn't want people to use the other Transformation move as a means to fill the 1 minute until ST becomes live again.
2 At that point you'd just do Shockwave into Shockwave. Returning the class to spamming 1 button.

 

hi im a NL and i like the changes

 

Every non-useless skill should fulfill the same role that it used to fulfill in old school, as long as the original concept was not completely rotten. If players remember bucc as a class that used barrage and dragon strike when untransformed, we should not make this combo unavailable outside of transform. If snipe was remembered as a move that killed enemies on one hit, we can't suddenly change it into a move that kills enemies in two hits (visually).

 

I think this kind of problem-finding / solution-finding discussion is really valuable.

• To be precise, it's not quite that I'm willing to trade DS for Snatch — it's more that DS has a direct weaker substitute in Shockwave, while Snatch has absolutely no substitute. So my suggestion is: "pre-transformation: Snatch + Shockwave; post-transformation: Snatch + DS." Without the swap, in non-ST & non-Bubble state you'd be stuck with an awkward combo like 1st job skill + DS (before the Snatch/DS swap, the ideal would be Blast + DS) — and 1st job skills have an extremely small hitbox, making it almost equivalent to just pressing DS alone. (Now that I think about it, this actually reduces the mechanical complexity of non-ST state rather than increasing it.)
• Also, Snatch isn't simply an upgraded version of DS — they serve different roles. DS is pure AoE, while Snatch is magnet + AoE. And from a damage standpoint, Snatch at only 66% of DS's damage can hardly be called an upgrade. This is part of why I think the swap is reasonable.
• If the goal is to push Blast + DS rather than Snatch + Shockwave as the non-ST AoE combo, you'd run into the problem of Blast's small hitbox. From my recent experience playing Bucc in non-ST state, I've mainly been using Blast as the primary AoE output, while in Charge I use Barrage + DS to fill the Bubble gauge as quickly as possible rather than focusing on AoE. Also, compared to Blast + DS, using Blast alone barely reduces output (and in fact, given the occasional strange delay when DS and Blast are used together, pure Blast DPS might even be higher). From this angle, switching to Snatch + Shockwave might actually increase the mechanical complexity of non-ST state more effectively.
• That said, the swap would also widen the ST/non-ST output gap — so if Snatch and DS are swapped, a slight buff to ST-state skills would be needed to compensate.
• For Bucc skill adjustments overall — if the GM chooses to differentiate ST/non-ST, there are genuinely a lot of variables to consider, and there's even the risk that two individually good small changes could produce a bad result in combination. In that case, my recommendation is to evaluate: "mechanical complexity," "what 3rd job skill serves as a substitute when 4th job SP is insufficient early on," "whether ST/non-ST state DPS gap is meaningfully large," and "whether total DPS is truly reduced by only ~2–3% across all situations as the GM claimed (because right now it looks like at least 15% is lost in complex content) — if not, ST-state skills should be buffed accordingly."
• I wouldn't claim my suggestions are the best — but I generally feel most suggestions are focused on individual skills or individual scenarios, rather than thinking through the entire Bucc rotation as a whole.
• On the Shockwave change, I agree with your point. I think a similar approach to Barrage/Snatch could work — that is, "after using Shockwave once, there's a window where other skills can be used, but Shockwave itself cannot be used again" — in other words, shortening the animation and then forcing a gap afterward similar to how Barrage/Snatch already work.
• As for the macro restriction, that's up to the GM — I'm fine either way with Demo/Barrage/Shockwave being kept in or excluded from macros. The changes in this patch have already made the number of viable macro combinations exceed 5.