It sucks, but it’s what the old source is like. I’d say it’d be better to see Paralyze and CL get an extra line of damage, and make mages more viable then change Zakum’s pattern. Or does it not strike you as a problem that 90% of Zakum smegas want an attacker (possibly with SE), but not a mage? If a party is too stubborn to use anything but pure DPS as a format to kill a boss then thats what they get imo. But I’d hope they’d try to balance skills that are obviously not balanced if they were to fix anything. No one can be that insane to think Nexon had it right lmao.
You could make mages do just as much damage as any attacker and it doesn't tackle the issue here. If Zakum only did Weapon cancels without Magic cancels then you would have a point.
Well, my thinking was more along the lines of “a mixed party can’t be fully stopped” but I see what you’re saying. By the same token though, with auto pot being available I’m sure some people fight Zak with minimal effort. Even no effort if they manage to make a decent botting macro.
Michael I have changed my vote after today's HT run (1st in my life). This weapon cancel mechanism definitely gotta change. I can't imagine having to spend 45min sitting in 1 average HT run doing nothing but staring at weapon cancel signs. Forget everything I said in the past this just can't be right.
Has it been looked into of the third job warrior skills Power Crash, Armor Crash, and Magic Crash being altered to having a % chance to dispel Weapon Cancel? Or possibly a 100% chance but with a cooldown.
Jeezzzzz HT throws SO many cancels. I never ran in old source, but was it really this bad as well? Zak is no bueno with cancels either. Ripperoni.
If a large skill change like this did happen, would an SP reset be applied to the characters effected?
I don't know if this is feasible, but perhaps another solution would be to replace weapon/magic cancel with ranged/melee cancel or even just split weapon cancel into ranged/melee cancel. I believe the entire point of cancels at bosses was to encourage diversification of parties, but mages are already eschewed despite the existence of weapon cancel. With ranged/melee cancels, parties would be encouraged to diversify between ranged/melee attackers instead.
Would that be a custom skill change or it used work like that back in GMS? If its custom, I'd also recommend making MP Eater (Second job magician skill) work on bosses to encourage diversification of parties. If not and its just bugged in Royals atm, forget about my proposition as I'll respect the no custom skill policy.
The change in question with these Crash skills was implemented into GMS shortly after the version we currently play on. To my knowledge, MP Eater works the way that it should on bosses and does drain mana, however bosses do have such a substantial amount of mana that it would take an equally substantial inefficient party to use Magicians to drain mana from a boss to the point that the boss would actually be affected. I recall in 2013 on our first Zakum runs here, we brought as many mages as we could in order to drain the boss' MP, since back then, everyone had a mage, but not everyone had an attacker, so the run was faster that way. In current times, it would not be feasible to bring a full party of mages just to slow down a boss unless the skill was significantly buffed. Buffing mages to be better and promoting party diversification is not the point of this discussion; may I ask that you please don't hijack my thread. I think the way that you play the game is admirable, but I also think the way that you throw out mage buffs in every thread regardless of relevance is not. As stated earlier... ... and that extends to any significance of Mages as well, including your current suggestion.
Well I didn't know about that; MP Eater wasn't originally suppose to work on bosses which is why I brought it in, but if it already does, then ok. And I do admit I often bring mages in what I talk about, but it isn't out of context as you may think. Muff said that if crash skills worked on bosses, that would help with what you are dissatisfied with the current way Zakum works. What I propose with having MP Eater work on bosses serves the same goal. Unless I'm wrong here, if a boss is drained out of MP, it won't be using any skills (Ex: Wep/Magic Cancel), which also is a solution to what you are dissatisfied with. I don't see why my proposition is irrelevant to this thread if his isn't. Also, I brought in diversification of parties because it was already mentioned in previous comments.
I suppose I skipped a step in my thought process and as such, came off harshly, so I apologize. Muff’s suggestion is a one off skill that directly counters the gripe for which I made this thread, whereas your suggestion requires a buff to a skill that makes the entire boss different; draining MP stops all parts of the Zakum fight, including the healthy parts such as stuns, seals and summon mobs. Furthermore it requires a change to the metagame to include suboptimal class inclusion, which by itself is not a bad thing, though it was admittedly not what I was aiming for in making this thread. I have always believed that the Zakum fight is already one of the more balanced fights in the game, as it vastly encourages mobbing attackers like Warriors and Mages for the arms portion in a way that other bosses do not. In that sense, I don’t truly support your suggestion due to too many unintended effects, and largely prefer Muff’s suggestion, so long as all three Warrior classes get the skill, else we will very quickly see Crash mules become as standard as SE/SI/HS mules, and I don’t think anyone wants that. Your history of asking for mage buffs in situations that would change the class to be something I disagree with admittedly made me jump to the conclusion that you once again were posting solely to get mage buffs by hijacking a reasonable discussion on a frustrating mechanic, for that I apologize.
