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.
