I'm 150 F/P and no-one will take me to bosses because they only see A/Ms as leech slaves and dead weights in bossings . Even my guildies are reluctant to answer my plead. I find leeching boring and have never attempted to sell any, so i just grind endlessly in RoR where my tears are frozen (jokes). Anyway, i understand the difficulty to balance this class. Buffing their dmg too much to do bosses will make top DPS classes angry, and A/Ms will be the most OP classes in game. Giving them effects in skills to buff allies or to debuff bosses is too much work for staffs when compared to changing skill's damage parameter which is way more easier. So what do you think? Should they just remain as leech slaves, or be a leecher by day and bossing team buffer/debuffer by night? UPDATE: Thanks to the contributions of many people to this debate, the topic evolved. My new feedback thread will be edited in this post for convenient debate. Spoiler: Post #15 Spoiler: TL;DR A/Ms have the valid reason of inflation to be diverted away from the leech sysem, and the bossing environment is the answer to the problem. In order shift the leechers to do bossing, a Support role given to them must be clearly defined to avoid turning them into a broken class. Were the changes applied, not only the server but the overall gameplay of A/Ms would be beneficial. A/Ms need this change, but they need a valid reason for it - a reason that is to solve the existing problems in our server: the inflation. The inflation has always been a hidden tick-tock bomb set when the leech system was born. Ultimately, it was deemed as a real threat for being addressed in the update #65 in which the prices of all USE items rose dramatically as the counter measure. The leechers went uproar and the hotfix update #65.1 introduced reduced MP cost and an extended Infinity duration to ease the crowd. But as soon as the leech community adapts to more new leech environments - namely the recently explored Duku map, the inflation is bound to grow out of scale again. The core of the problem lies in the class: the Mages themselves. Because they are almost purely made for grinding, the players have no other choice but to bring them for leeching. And with the ever-growing number of leechers, the next point of booming inflation is not far from now. In order to truly reduce the rate of leeching, which in turns drags down the rate of inflation, making A/Ms viable in bossing is an effective approach. How can making A/Ms viable in bossing tackle the rate of leeching? Firstly, 1 A/M per bossing party means 1 less A/M in leecher force. With the on-going numerous bossing parties per day, the number of A/Ms doing leech would decrease if they were to participate in bossing. Secondly, the time taken to do boss runs is long, averagely half of the time one would spend on playing the game if they were to go for most of the bosses. The A/Ms would then have to spare some of their leech time for bosses and thus practice leech even less than they would have. Basically, we try to attract a number of A/M away from the leech system to do bosses instead, and as a result, the rate of leeching drops. These 2 consequences will be possible if the bossing is easy to access and rewarding for the A/Ms, and in fact it is: In terms of accessibility, they can join boss fights without much investment on HP wash. In terms of income, the A/Ms can earn bossing service meso such as Zakum Helmet service or Horntail Pendant service. In terms of gameplay, they receive a huge amount of EXP needed to level up efficiently and are able to reach higher level game content. However, if a class can do well in both important aspects of the game, people would concern: Would making A/Ms viable in bossing break the class? The answer lies in the role we give them in bossing party. Making A/Ma 1v1 boss is out of question, rather, what must be done is making them useful in 3 or more vs 1 scenario. The only role fitting to this description is a Support, whose role is to adjust the party's damage output and survivability, while they themselves cannot deal damage comparable to other attackers. But how would it be different from the Bishop and SE's role, who have already satisfied the mentioned criteria? Where do the A/Ms stand in a party? If we breakdown a standard party formation for boss, the simplest is: 4 Attackers, 1 Bishop and 1 SE. In my opinion, A/Ms can be an alternative to the 4th attacker while not actually an attacker themselves. This means their kits must be altered towards to increase the damage output of the other 3 attackers and the SE ( who is a pseudo-attacker ) so that the final party damage output is similar to that of the original. Clearly, by this mean, A/Ms should be no way near the broken status, as they must trade off the time for leeching to do bosses and cannot be a solo-er in boss fights. In conclusion, A/Ms have the valid reason of inflation to be diverted away from the leech sysem, and the bossing environment is the answer to the problem. In order shift the leechers to do bossing, a Support role given to them must be clearly defined to avoid turning them into a broken class. Were the changes applied, not only the server but the overall gameplay of A/Ms would be beneficial.
They could be a supporting class to Paladins by giving Ice/Fire Demon the elemental weakness to the entire party. I don't know how Ice/Fire Demon mechanics work right now, or if they even work on bosses, but it's just an idea. It would be a buff to Paladins as well. Like you said, I don't think people are keen on having archmages as DPS for game design, because they're also good at training/leeching.
I play mages myself and don't really like the bossing idea. I think you can't be the best grinding class in the game and also be a viable bosser. However, I do believe Arch Mages need good grinding spots where they can earn money without leeching. If Bishops get low level leech and bossing, then AMs deserve high level leech and grinding.
I'm down to give Archmages more bossing capabilities if we let Marksman Frosprey hit 15 monsters and 1/3 of the map.
Fire / Ice Demon deals dmg to a maximum of 6 enemies in front of you and applies burn (same as poison) / frezze. Your idea of giving team elemental weakness is nice. Imo, A/Ms should be able to debuff boss like DoT in F/P's case or slowing boss's animation down in I/L's case. You're on point at A/M's grinding power trade-off. But remember, Bishop is their major competitor whose leech capabilities stretch out over the most levels of the game, while also useful in bossing with their utility. Bishop does not only low level leech but also high level one ( Skeles ), and the skele's EXP is on par with RoR 3's Qualm Guardian. This class's usefulness sees no end, while A/M's can only reach out to grinding at Oblivion 5 at best (and only I/L can do this). How would you propose the map that is considered to be a good money farm for A/Ms?
Yep, you're right. Believe me, I've seen and read every proposed change to adjust the gap between arch mages and bishops and yet I know its not going to happen. Bishops are a better class and I believe everyone should just make their peace with it: we don't beg for balance anymore, we beg for mercy. If Bishops can do everything an AM can (except ToT and say, Petris or Dukus) and more then there's no beating them. What I'd like to see instead is decent scroll drops from mobs at ToT (or somewhere else where mobs are weak to ice/fire), or perhaps a new, valuable etc item (similar to HP quest sets or silver mane) with a low drop rate; or uncommon high level gear / weapons. Maybe add a high level PQ with decent rewards where mages do great with teleport, paralyze or chain lightning and non-mages struggle to pq without them (like LPQ does with their 4th and 5th stages). I'm not saying this will be a super profitable method but its a nice change to the login, sell leech, logout routine many are forced into. But yeah, that's just my opinion.
Maybe release some boss that instead of being composed of 1 target it will be a lot of smaller ones (like zak but only the arms and not the body lol) The problem is that I don't remember GMS having a boss like that
@Raitosu You might be interested in reading these: https://royals.ms/forum/threads/buff-chain-lightning-paralyze.150852/ https://royals.ms/forum/threads/improving-arch-mages’s-1v1.107532/ (older thread)
You got ele AMP where you can sell better leech and 1shot earlier than bishop, 1hit to bishop is also very limited to undead type. I would recommend add cooldown to seal, and make it possible to seal up boss like weapon cancel. Meditation can be cover something else depends on IL or FP, E.g. any effect apply to damage bonus for fp And defense ability like damage resist and avoid for IL. A percent of Damage resist will help unwash player in certain bosses, also improve tank/seduce survive ability.
Yeah, I'm aware. The thing is, skeles are a very good counterpart to petris, dukus or tot leech so you don't really need a lot of variety - undead typing is good enough. I like your suggestion for seal in the bossing environment, although I disagree with mage-bossing itself.
Your suggestions are very helpful for me to evaluate the circumstances for A/Ms' changes. And my point still stands: They do need a change, but they need a valid reason for it - a reason that is to solve the existing problems in our server: the inflation. The inflation has always been a hidden tick-tock bomb set when the leech system was born. Ultimately, it was deemed as a real threat for being addressed in the update #65 in which the prices of all USE items rose dramatically as the counter measure. The leechers went uproar and the hotfix update #65.1 introduced reduced MP cost and an extended Infinity duration to ease the crowd. But as soon as the leech community adapts to more new leech environments - namely the recently explored Duku map, the inflation is bound to grow out of scale again. The core of the problem lies in the class: the Mages themselves. Because they are almost purely made for grinding, the players have no other choice but to bring them for leeching. And with the ever-growing number of leechers, the next point of booming inflation is not far from now. In order to truly reduce the rate of leeching, which in turns drags down the rate of inflation, making A/Ms viable in bossing is an effective approach. How can making A/Ms viable in bossing tackle the rate of leeching? Firstly, 1 A/M per bossing party means 1 less A/M in leecher force. With the on-going numerous bossing parties per day, the number of A/Ms doing leech would decrease if they were to participate in bossing. Secondly, the time taken to do boss runs is long, averagely half of the time one would spend on playing the game if they were to go for most of the bosses. The A/Ms would then have to spare some of their leech time for bosses and thus practice leech even less than they would have. Basically, we try to attract a number of A/M away from the leech system to do bosses instead, and as a result, the rate of leeching drops. These 2 consequences will be possible if the bossing is easy to access and rewarding for the A/Ms, and in fact it is: In terms of accessibility, they can join boss fights without much investment on HP wash. In terms of income, the A/Ms can earn bossing service meso such as Zakum Helmet service or Horntail Pendant service. In terms of gameplay, they receive a huge amount of EXP needed to level up efficiently and are able to reach higher level game content. However, if a class can do well in both important aspects of the game, people would concern: Would making A/Ms viable in bossing break the class? The answer lies in the role we give them in bossing party. Making A/Ma 1v1 boss is out of question, rather, what must be done is making them useful in 3 or more vs 1 scenario. The only role fitting to this description is a Support, whose role is to adjust the party's damage output and survivability, while they themselves cannot deal damage comparable to other attackers. But how would it be different from the Bishop and SE's role, who have already satisfied the mentioned criteria? Where do the A/Ms stand in a party? If we breakdown a standard party formation for boss, the simplest is: 4 Attackers, 1 Bishop and 1 SE. In my opinion, A/Ms can be an alternative to the 4th attacker while not actually an attacker themselves. This means their kits must be altered towards to increase the damage output of the other 3 attackers and the SE ( who is a pseudo-attacker ) so that the final party damage output is similar to that of the original. Clearly, by this mean, A/Ms should be no way near the broken status, as they must trade off the time for leeching to do bosses and cannot be a solo-er in boss fights. In conclusion, A/Ms have the valid reason of inflation to be diverted away from the leech sysem, and the bossing environment is the answer to the problem. In order shift the leechers to do bossing, a Support role given to them must be clearly defined to avoid turning them into a broken class. Were the changes applied, not only the server but the overall gameplay of A/Ms would be beneficial.
not true it just means that the am can go boss when they get tired after leeching to earn more money from boss run splits while only using their pots since they dont use attack pots like stopper
The A/Ms must make a trade-off: For an average player, the time they can spend in game is limited. They have to decide on either spending most of their time for leechings, which often takes 2-3 hours, or joining in big-boss runs which are also time consuming ( at least 45 mins on Zakum for 1 run. 1h30 for total 2 runs ). Hence they must give up part of their time doing leeching for bossing. And about attack pots, I have an idea that if the A/Ms gave buffs in the party, the attacker could save their meso on these pots. But of course this needs careful consideration. What do you think about it?
bro what kind of zak runs have u been running that last 45min per run? pretty sure normal 5 atker runs will be 30min max
I want too eat the cake and have it too. Highly geared AM are already a viable DPS class in bosses like Zak and even HT. But if bossing is your main interest, Perhaps AM isn't the best pick for it in the current meta. As for my personal opinion, I think if the tendency to compare between BS and AM will stop many players would have an easier time enjoying their own class benefits and what they bring to the table.
