you're talking about Hero now. decent dmg? even more dmg in enrage? made rage worth using at all times? sounds like Hero.
Awful bait but I'll bite. Even after the buffs for hero and the nerfs for bucc, bucc still gets priority on slots over a hero because, as it turns out, an additional booster AND free cooldown resets are vastly more broken than 12 w.atk for the party and another 26 after they burn their orbs.
If I had to rank the classes *overall* before and after the update, off the top of my head, I think it would look something like this for me: Before: Shad = Bucc >>> NL = Sair >> Drk = Pally = MM > BM > Hero After: Shad >> Bucc > NL = Sair >> Hero >> Drk = Pally = MM > BM That's not just considering damage, it's everything - party utility, mob control, how easy to play, place in the meta, etc etc. That's obviously subjective because there's so many different factors and it matters how you weigh certain things. But my personal feeling is that Bucc is still towards the top, even if they dropped a bit. I'd be interested to see your rankings as well to see how it differs, because it seems we all value different things and have different biases (myself included!) that's why we all see the situation differently. I also want to say that I don't think the changes to ST were perfect. But I think we can use it as a new baseline and try to smooth over the issues. For example, I think some improvements to Bubble to help smooth over when iframes are missing while ST is on CD, and maybe being able to Snatch outside of ST would be good to make Bucc very comfortable to play again while still achieving what the changes intended to do. I think the gap between Shad and Bucc and everyone else was too big, and this helped shrink that gap (at least for Bucc, it did nothing for Shad but that's a different issue and maybe more could be done in Phase 2?).
I'm definitely not disagreeing with your ranking - it's no secret which party buffs and classes are more valued for content in general. The solution to shrinking the gap and communication about the changes were just lackluster. Adjust the other classes to be better than Buccaneer! That's fine! I welcome those changes and think that other classes should definitely be brought up so that these rankings are more even across the board. I just think that this particular change is a very inelegant solution for closing that gap. QuiteCool gave a nice breakdown of what combinations are available during the Super Transformation downtime and how they feel by comparison. My main gripe is specifically with Von Leon. Buccaneer had a pretty unique playstyle at the hardest boss in the game. It was extremely reactive and felt on theme as a brawling/fist-fighting class. When Von Leon shouts you have a small window to Demolition before the bird shoots out to safely dodge it and come out of the animation without getting hit by his next move. If you do it too early or too late you get punished for it. Similarly based on where your animation was for Barrage during some of his other animations you were forced to make a decision of utilizing Dragonstrike or Demolition. There was a bit of skill expression in this because if you greed Demolition too much you can definitely get punished and die for it. This is also not even factoring in the ability to animation cancel which adds another layer for skill expression. It truly felt like trading punches with the big cat boss. I realize that having this expression of skill was a luxury that Buccaneers got to enjoy while most other classes did not. I just wish other classes would receive tweaks so that they too had this luxury instead of it just being taken away from this class specifically. Barrage + Dragonstrike is a super safe and fast animation that will almost never be punished at Von Leon making it more braindead (in my opinion). Solo client Buccaneers got shafted and I will die on that hill. At least it's been acknowledged and we might get adjustments later. Until then catch me on the supreme thief classes as they are still fun to play 100% of the time and not just 75% of the time!
I think it's funny that multiple people agree with the ST nerfs, but then end up saying we need to make ST exclusive moves available while not transformed to fix their issues. All when 2 other mobbing (corkscrew or backspin blow) moves can be buffed in the 4th job or whatever. I've played the class to 200 in pre-BB GMS and in royals, and it's just a wack class that was incorrectly implemented. Tim doesn't want to overhaul the class, but it kind of needs it. If they fix the issues of mobbing, stance, etc. ST feels like it has no agency and effectively doesn't add much; if they don't, it'll just feel clunky. It's just that some of the philosophy of the class and things Tim said in his response to the Bucc outrage just contradict what is going on. Phase 2 might be able to fix those or not; we will see.
I kinda understand where the Bucc players are coming from While I didn't agree with the perma ST buff this change is very half baked and I think its unfair that they have to play through this, changes shouldn't be tested live unless there's going to be a follow up hot fix/buff patch immediately after. It kinda makes me wary about the upcoming "making mages less one dimensional" changes that have been planned for part 2 Its also kind of insulting the Shad shaped elephant in the room wasn't meaning fully addressed like at all. They even got buffed by taking away the one actual challenge left for the class aka working around Dark Sight, in the very same patch these Bucc changes went live in too.
So.... Bucc's biggest weakness is that it's susceptible to being nerfed? No wonder it's an overplayed S-tier class that needed a nerf. Edit: To clarify, I do think there needs to be some compensation, let Buccs who are unhappy have a free swap to Hero or something.
I didn’t say anything about data, I said I know personally people who did that, they could be lying to. You didn't address the other claims. Does the data mean that the players continue to be just as relevant?
So I have a real question for the affected. Do you dislike not having a 1 button rotation anymore, that your keyboard doesn't addapt to different rotations in and out of ST, or that you don't do as much damage as you did before? It makes a lot of sense to me to have a class that have it's basic rotation and then a moment of super power with a cooldown, that's how it works in every game. That said, some while ago someone made a post saying they should make Corsairs simpler, but luckily all my fellow Corsairs disagreed since that is what we like about the class, high risk/mechanics high reward. I'm a Corsair player and I really only play that class, so other people who don't play my class having a say on it is really dumb. The mf who made the post didn't even play Corsair.
People keep saying this, but bucc was never a 1 button spamming class even before the ST nerf, you could spam Demo, but it was never optimal. People mainly used it as a 2ndary attacker. However i basically only play Bucc and my keyboard layout looks the exact same as it used to, thinking this patch changed anything in that is a misconception. You don't use different combos, you use the same combos you already used at points because they were optimal or safer pre nerf, but now those same combos because you're forced into them. In single target you went from Barrage - Demo to Barrage - DS, which people already used. In multi targets situations you went from Snatch -DS to just spamming DS which is just lame. Effectively during single digit VL you have 0 reason to bring more than 1 bucc now while in the past you could get away with more. Even in double digit runs you're better off not bring more buccs, because if you have a warrior and a bucc in the same party the warrior does everything the bucc does but better. In other content it doesn't matter as much because the game itself doesn't necessitate direct action from the player like for example VL does with golems. Technically you could beat horntail with flash fist, so you will be able to do everything. However even during those moments at other bosses you're just spamming an inferior combo, which is what you were doing before the nerf too just a different combo. I don't mind they nerfed Super Transformation, but people saying that it now became so much more less spamming 1 button are wrong. Also they need to fix the issues buccs gained with the super transformation nerf.
If Super Transformation is considered to be similar to a ship, then it should also be possible to be managed in a similar way.
As someone said the GMs aren't listening to the community, keep in mind that the overwhelming amount of negative response doesnt necessarily mean that everyone hates the changes. People tend to be more outspoken about negative change then positive. There are probably more people who dislike the changes then not, but still I have heard plenty of positive reactions from bucc players around me as well. Personally I look mostly positive towards the changes, bucc is still a good class and in a way the hardest bucc nerf is the smoke nerf. Bucc prior to the changes was just incredibly boring to play, I have effectively retired my bucc with exception for the occasional VL run (but would prefer not too if we are set on buccs). I did my first bucc VL-run since the changes last weekend and for the first time in a long while I did somewhat enjoy it for the game play. Having to pay attention to ST cooldown, Bubble and switch between multiple different macro's made it less of a snooze fest. 2x Blast + DS seems fine to use with proper mob control, although i wouldnt mind a range increase on blast (it also is stronger then DS+Snatch when used on 3-4 mobs). Survivability is perfectly fine and contrary to what some people have said in this thread you dont randomly die every now and then, it's fully on you. I'm not yet interested to do any other content at the moment so my opinions are solely based on VL. But I do understand some of the complaints, it is a bit awkward that you can now get into situations where you will be single targeting with dragon strike (for zak you could plan around this though and the ht arm problem could be solved by moving platforms a little I guess). Also I do not like how low level buccs suffer with respect to skill distribution (Tim addressed that they are looking at this behind the scenes already). Damage wise people shouldn't complain too much, I did some calcs (yes I understand this is in perfect situations) and for every amount of mobs there always is a skill combo that makes it that your average damage is at least 95% of what your damage would be with full ST. When it comes to multiclienting, I'm sorry to say it, but I couldn't care less. I think it's nice to see a nerf to multiclienting and would love to see it nerfed further for other classes as well. (Also nerf mage farming) All in all I think the changes are a good start and am looking forward to what is next!
It’s disappointing to see this become part of the discussion, when others are providing great feedbacks based on data, mechanics, and personal experience on bucc itself. not even sure when you kept going with it when the admin already called you out.
