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

hi, i am that BM and i can assure you that shad and bm dps is very far apart.

shad can also multi target whilst bm cannot

 

Hello Saledor

5- 7 % apart ? Could be wrong. If it's like 5-7% apart, could be subjective, I still consider that not a huge gap. If others consider that very far apart, that's ok too.

 

This discussion is about changes to the game environment, so debating who is right or wrong is pointless. Even if the GMs were to immediately buff all of shad's skills by 10x, you couldn't really call it "wrong" — you could even call it "right" — but the result would simply be a game environment that loses its diversity.

Comparisons need the same baseline — so a 100B mage should be compared to a 100B attacker. The point you raised about "no 1T end-game gear for mages" is actually a very easy problem to solve: just add stronger mage end-game gear and new scrolls, giving viable but expensive options.

The confusion you have is still comparing a 1T attacker against a 100B mage. If a 100B mage reaches 70% of the weakest attacker's DPS, it would obviously be a much lower ratio compared to a 1T attacker.

Assuming a 1T attacker deals roughly 15% more damage than a 100B attacker, the question becomes: how do we design new gear so that a mage's damage growth from 100B to 1T is also around 15%?

Given that mage 10% scrolls provide less ATT growth than warrior/archer 10% WA scrolls, I'd argue that leaving them unchanged is already a handicap for mages.

Taking it further — for current mage end-game gear, one approach could be to first introduce +1 MA 60%/70% cape scrolls and +2 MA 10%/30% cape scrolls, encouraging players to CS on gear with MA/INT/LUK stats, including the Lv70 mage shoes. This is a completely viable path toward high-value end-game mage gear — but obviously, nobody is going to attempt a 5-CS challenge on mage shoes until the bossing mage update actually happens.

The takeaway is that there are already at least 4 gear slots worth doing CS challenges on (shoes / cape / eye / face accessory), but since it's not worth it, widespread CS gambling on mage gear simply doesn't exist.
After the bossing mage update, do you think the following geared-out slots would be worth spending 50–100B each on — 40+ TMA shoes (after 5 CS), 35+ TMA cape (after 1x 60% + 4x CS), and 35+ TMA eye?
The reason these high-value gear pieces don't exist right now is simply because "it's not worth producing them just for farming" — not because mage gear at that price point is impossible to make.

 

thats wrong. If the GMs were to make changes that are detrimental to the longevity of the game I would call them out for doing so and demand changes.

I have done that before and the GMs are usually able to tell when they have made a mistake, as can be seen by the many reverts they have made over the years i.e soul arrow update, drop rate bug, ban appeal handling.

GMs are humans too. They can have errors in judgment.


I beg to differ. I do not have any confusion on the points I made, you believe I am confused because you don’t agree with my position and that’s fine.

up to this point all you have done is suggest ways to enable powercreep (introduce new weapons and/or scrolls) which is what this server has been trying not to do.

I would like to reiterate my position that the current meta of mobbers being mobbers and attackers being attackers became what it is after 10+ years of feedback and experimentation, from countless hours of Staff and developers including people who care about the longevity of the server.

just because someone would like to see mages doing bossing does not make it a problem that needs to be fixed.

if i decide to write a post that bms can fund 1T in gear but still kill bosses 2x slower than a 200b funded shad, that is not a problem that needs to be fixed. That is class identity and that BMs are a support/attacker class who are not meant to deal top dps in boss runs.

I hope the GMs give something to mages, i really do. But until they are able to find a way to do so without spoiling the balance between attackers and mages, past experiences tell me that its going to be a shitshow and they are going to take something away from mages in order to justify this “boost”.
From past experiences, they will.

 

hello ssmage, as much as I would like to say so, the truth is that its much worse than that.

the dps video I did was done under optimal conditions, i.e 80cgs+b, vl pot, echo and no repositioning.
In reality, BMs have to reposition a lot during boss fights and this eats up the dps that BMs can do.

under optimal conditions I would say BM does about 60% of the dps a NL would do single target wise (no statistics or evidence just my opinion)

so since BMs have bad avoidability, we lose a lot of time moving backward, turning around and attacking again. From just hearing it you may think it does not take much time or make any difference but in horntail where the mainbody takes 25-30minutes to down, a bowmaster would typically spend about 10-15minutes repositioning. In weaker parties where the mainbody can take an hour, a bowmaster could be spending 20-30 minutes repositioning.

shads have higher avoidability and because of the nature of their skill, they are able to hit multiple targets. If we consider the total dps of a shadower at HT to that of a BM, it could very well be in the range of 300-400% more dps (again, no statistics or tests done just my opinion)


So I guess the reason Sylafia pointed that out to you is because she wanted to know how much boost you were referring to. If you want mages to have 70% of the dps shads have in bossing, that could mean having more dps than a bowmaster.

 

You're emphasizing that you disagree with my view — that's fine, I respect it. I've tried to point out the flaws in your arguments/logic rather than reject your position. Like Russell's Teapot, it's hard to prove a view wrong, but you can point out its logical absurdities. Both I and another member have tried to highlight the issues in your logic, but you seem to treat challenges to your arguments as rejections of your position.

• Your position is clear and I respect it — but that doesn't mean it holds up to scrutiny in ur arguments.
• A server that introduces nothing new will eventually stagnate — the large number of players eagerly awaiting Pink Bean can feel that.
• You claim my suggestion to introduce new MA scrolls would cause stat inflation — that's only a small part of my proposal, and I think you've missed the point. New MA scrolls are meant to compensate for the fact that 1T mesos currently doesn't yield the same DPS increase for mages — directly responding to your claim that "there's no mage gear worth spending 1T on." The exact numbers can be determined through some testing. Jumping straight to "this will inevitably cause stat inflation" is a textbook slippery slope fallacy. Even setting aside new scrolls entirely, simply updating bossing mage would prompt players to start attempting 5 CS 40+ TMA shoes — gear that exists in a completely separate market from WA gear. So where exactly is this stat inflation coming from? As I've consistently said, there necessarily exists a range where mages can participate in element-weak bosses without causing stat inflation — perhaps 40–70% of the weakest attacker's DPS.
• This doesn't absolutely need to be solved — but it's nowhere near "a suggestion that will definitely break the game."
• You keep citing your experience yet can't provide a logical argument — that's your freedom of speech. But as I said from the start, I equally have the freedom to point out the absurdity in your claims.
• Your response about BM and NL struck me as absurd. Saying "it's just the nature of the class" implies no skill affecting gameplay ever needs adjustment (only bug need to be fixed). Scroll back and see how many players have requested minor buffs for BM/MM — some "class nature" things got implemented anyway (MM's Blind, Smoke 60s → 90s). Isn't that exactly what skill balancing means? By your logic, Smoke's duration never needed changing either.

 

This isn't a rigorous test, but it can serve as a reference.
krex test：「BM = 75~80% NL」
https://royals.ms/forum/threads/krex-class-dps-comparison.224575/

 

in my opinion, smokescreen never needed rebalancing. 60seconds was op, 90 seconds is absurd.
Thats why the meta now is shadowers and no one plays NL or BM anymore.


You see people recruit shad run, shad ht, shad this shad that. There’s a reason for that.

I dont understand what your analogy is trying to prove.

“By your logic, smokescreen never needed rebalancing” you say this as though it needed rebalancing. Are you aware of how absurd and op shadower meta is right now?


Make a shadower and tell people you want to join their shad ht run but have no smokescreen / did not max smokescreen.

10/10 i assure you they would not take you on the run. Thats like having a bowmaster without SE.


The rest of what you said is just proving my point, that if it fits the class identity, the GMs will balance it, and that they are prone to error and will make changes if it makes sense to. Attacking mages however does not seem to fit into their class identity. Battle mage came out post big bang. This server is pre big bang.

 

... meanwhile I'm actively attempting to CS shields (which already are like 40b+ items to make a regular perfect one of) and considering chaosing a glove in the future

iirc ~10b, higher if perf luk ofc. If mage mains existed I could easily see them hitting 20b+

Guess this has already been covered, but the data shows that yes it in fact is a pretty significant difference, krex eye DPS puts it at almost as big of a different as the difference between NL and shad, and for things like HT probably even bigger due to kb

What about heavily multi target bosses like a boss that's purely Zak arms? Or grinding maps with good drops that are designed to be hard to multi client in?

I have a 41 tma pair. Another mage has a 40 tma pair.

The 40 tma pair sold for 40b and likely could have gone higher. I don't plan to sell mine unless I somehow get a better one (but there's so much else for me to do before I consider CSing shoes again)

Also, mage CS items do exist, no need to update mage scrolls. The main items mages would want to CS are:
- Face (gotta get good leaves from sleepy first tho, so also gacha restricted)
- Eye (this is why you go sleepy instead of showa, get some racc masks to 30% then CS too)
- Shoes (no other options)
- (minor) Shield (need +6 or better on CS, item is currently 1b clean and needs a passed 30% first. With mage mains... oof this will be expensive)
- (minor) Glove (need +7 or better on CS, again a sleepywood item, and CWK gives them at least)
- HTP (very viable actually, unlike MoNs without any slots)
- (very minor) Cape generally not worth because Xmas lump makes CSing crimsonheart very not worth. CSing Xmas tho... I kind of do have plans
- Rings (as everyone can)
- VL belt generally much less worth to cs than attackers, since you need a godly belt unlike attackers, and you need to hit +3 or +4 on CS. If you can join regular 12s and loot 6 belts it might be okay though?


I disagree with adding new scrolls. It's very disrespectful to the existing mage mains who have been working hard to perfect their gear. I do recognize that the high base int of mages is a problem, which maybe can be solved by changing the formula for certain skills to use (tma - X) instead of tma? (X is something like 500-1000 probably, maybe some weaker scaling if below X tma)

 

Since there's been talk about class identity, I would like to clarify something. This is also my answer to the question "why don't we give every class an 80% worse FJ or 80% worse SE or 80% worse full screen nuke".

"Flash Jump is a unique trait to NL that no other class gets. Giving other classes a weaker FJ would undermine the class identity of NL."
This statement is true.

"SE is a unique trait to BM and MM that no other class gets. Giving other classes a weaker SE would undermine the class identity of BM and MM."
This statement is also true.

"Extremely efficient mob farming is a unique trait to mages that no other class gets. Giving other classes a weaker fullscreen attack would undermine the class identity of mages."
This statement is also true. (Corsairs and paladins actually do have a weaker fullscreen attack, but they're definitely not 80% as good as genesis/meteor/blizzard)

"Being able to competently damage bosses at a minimum level is a unique trait to NL, shad, BM, MM, DK, hero, paladin, corsair, and bucc that no other class gets. Giving the other 3 classes the ability to somewhat competently damage bosses would undermine the class identity of NL, shad, BM, MM, DK, hero, paladin, corsair, and bucc."
Now that it's been phrased this way, you should be able to see this statement for what it really is. It doesn't hold up.

It would be as if Hero's Will were given to every class except pirates, and then someone started saying "no, pirates shouldn't be given hero's will, it would undermine the class identity of the original 4 classes, just play better with your active bishop and sed lol".

 

i see. I didnt realise that mage gears would be that high in price for clean gears.

 

Is there some lore behind this? Like why should hero’s will only be given to adventurer classes?

 

Technically it used to be called Pirate's Rage instead for pirates. Not sure if they used to not have it at all though

 

There actually was, sort of! Pirates did get Hero's Will but it was originally renamed to "Pirate's Rage" for some reason. bbb.hidden-street actually doesn't even show Hero's Will or Pirate's Rage in the skill description so actually idk if there existed a version where they didn't get HW. Pirates are the odd duck compared to the other 4 in several ways like having no gendered armor, no class-specific tops/bottoms, and a completely different 2nd job advancement, so I wouldn't even be surprised if they were just denied access to HW at first

but obviously, the existence of a lore reason to deny them HW doesn't mean that they deserve to be treated this way.

 

I'm well aware that shad is overpowered, and I also think 60s is sufficient — but you clearly missed my point. Re-reading my post, I noticed a section didn't get copied over (when pasting from the translator). What I originally meant to say was: "By your logic, all three changes — Smoke, Blind, and CR — should never have happened."

Since that wasn't clear, let me explain in simpler terms:

• The changes to MM's Blind, Pally's CR, and Shad's SS all point to the same thing: game changes aren't inherently good or bad — you can be conservative or take risks. MM's and Pally's changes were clearly good; SS's was not. So claiming that a bossing mage change would inevitably break the game is an overreach.
• There necessarily exists a range that keeps the current environment intact while making bossing mage viable — you could start conservatively at 30% of Hero's DPS and gradually increase, or go bold and jump straight to 60%. This is something worth discussing, not something that inevitably leads to disaster.

Your last point has some clear issues:

1. It's been a long time since the last skill balance, and in the meantime the shad hype and shad/bucc memes have been constant — have you seen the GMs attempt to nerf shad? Or even put out a basic statement acknowledging shad's dominance?
2. Bossing mage appearing post-BB doesn't mean it can't be implemented pre-BB. Otherwise, why not just keep Ellin Forest at its original Lv45–55 range? Yet the current changes that deviate from the original are considered excellent.
3. In other words, the argument "bossing mage doesn't exist in the original + GMs have no plans to change it = it shouldn't be changed" doesn't hold up. As for what the GMs actually think — that's pure speculation until a GM posts something. We can't even be sure individual GMs share the same stance.

Everyone wants bossingMage here is trying to make a case to the GMs — just like CR and Blind, it can increase party diversity and gameplay variety without breaking the environment.

One more point: a 50B attacker qualifying for 12-man VL vs. a 50B mage only qualifying for 18-man VL — what exactly would be so catastrophic about that? If there exists an adjustment range (40–70%) with no real downsides, then this is simply players trying to convince the GMs to make bossing mage viable and add more fun to the game.

 

(I didn't expect anyone to actually seriously attempt the economically unviable 5 CS mage shoes) (But thinking about islanders, I just hadn't considered that playstyle)
I'd like to try to convince a respected top mage player that adding new scrolls is not necessarily a bad thing that disrespects existing players.
First, a counter-example — adding a 10% scroll with +100 INT +100 MA would obviously be disrespectful, and honestly even +4 INT +6 MA already feels quite out of line to me.

However, when the following two conditions are met, adding new scrolls would be a healthy form of mild stat inflation — similar to the VL belt scroll — that simply adds a bit of inflation to dmg:
(1) There is a sufficiently large supply and demand market for high TMA mage gear — well-crafted gear can be sold relatively quickly (within roughly a month), and players can wait for better MA gear to appear from others (potentially within a few months).
(2) After introducing such scrolls, use this scroll to reach the same TMA remain similar to before — meaning the scrolls themselves are difficult enough to obtain that the original method may still be comparably cost-efficient.

Taking the cape as an example — assuming bossing mage has already been implemented and mage gear demand has risen — one option for cape CS might be to start with a 10/10/10/10 CWK cape, apply one MA scroll first, then proceed with CS, with the goal of reaching 163 LUK without needing +20 AUF. (But it may be necessary to restrict the Xmas cape from being eligible for this.)

 

(2) would definitely be a good idea, although hard to balance. Essentially don't devalue existing gear, but extend the investment cap.

For reference, I don't even have a finished cape yet and don't plan to for quite a while. However, I've already been on the bad end of scroll changes once (with VL belt) and it feels pretty awful to suddenly have all your hard work wiped away in a patch with no compensation. Any changes would have to be pretty minor and slowly rolled out, I think. But also it's not really necessary to have mages also want to CS cgs, we have other slots (face/eye) that benefit much more from CSing than attackers, so the gear growth is still there, just shifted to other gear.

If any change to cape were to happen, probably should be in a new, higher level cape (tradable pls, there's so much untrades already...) that just has MA to start with. Or people could try CSing purple adventurer capes, they're 13 MA clean which means 56 tma potential, or give a more available fur lump alternative...



... also all this discussion is entirely irrelevant until the tma cap is removed, since it's severely capping how much one can invest in a mage.

 

Hi Procrastinya, I think there is no real reason for me or anyone to provide any further feedback if your stance is that this server does not need to stay pre-bigbang because there has been post big bang updates. That has been discussed several times in older posts and also why GMs made the decision to recalibrate the difficulty thereto.

However, I am willing to add on to your points because I think it does not express the point you are trying to make (could be translation issues).

On your last point, a 50b attacker vs a 50b mage.

if anything, the 50b attacker would not qualify for a 12man but rather a 18 man and a 50b mage would more than qualify for a 12man if your changes were to be made (reversal of your points)

because a 50b attacker would not be as useful in mobbing and let’s face it, 50b is not enough to get 40cgs. Whilst a mage with 50b could have a very high tma because of how inexpensive mage gears are (nothing to do with demand and supply its just the nature of how mage gears are scrolled right now at that 50b cap tier)

why would a VL host choose an attacker that can barely do any mobbing or damage when they can pick a S tier mobber and idk 70? % dps of an attacker. Mind you that this 70% dps you all are speaking of may actually be more than 100% of a 50b attacker considering how easy it is to fund a mage than an attacker.

in reality, a 50b mage could have such a high tma their dps would be more than what a 50b attacker would have, just based off gear progression.

So we are left with the choice of having a mage that has better mobbing and does more dps than an attacker or an attacker. Seems pretty obvious what the answer is.

I am not going against your points for the sake of it. I am just pointing out what I predict would happen. If anything, I welcome hasty decisions by the GMs because I would be making billions in the free market from the uncertainty of balance patches.

This is an opinion based off my own predictions, not an argument.

Read your last point on the 50b comparison again and see if it makes sense.

 

Hello Saledor

Oh, I didn't expect 80cgs+, I didn't know you have that level of cgs yet, that's borrowed ?, ...OK, Let's discuss further...

But, even you have sth like 80cgs, I think you alr have sth like 70cgs ? Even without that (edited) your range is around 12.5k, that's much higher than " 12:42 | BM by tazan | 328,084 DPS | [9529 ~ 11663] ", a BM participater in Krex DPS comparison.

Comparing your record of 12:00 min with " 11:38 | Shad by MengQian | 358,166 DPS | [8223 ~ 14557] ", I don't think MengQian and you have much different level of gears, we get that you do DPS around 96.94% of MengQian. That's around 3.15% more DPS for MengQian.

But that comes with many factors.
1. You probably got a boost of borrowed cgs with got you like 10atk. (+)
2. MengQian DPS gets cap loss effect. (+)
3. You got kb by Krex sometime, which would decrease you DPS? , this effects to BM more than to Shad ? (-)

From that 3 factors, we can say that BM dps should be considered less than that, So Shad should do more than 3.15% more dps than BM, maybe 5-7% ?

I understand this point, and I already knew it. Something like that's a moving factor which is hard to control, I used Krex DPS as a reference to compare raw DPS in (somewhat) optimal condition.

To that issue, it's the BM issue that I think probably need to be fixed or buffed, so BM is supposed to do better than what they do in practice, for balancing purpose.

This is looking absurd to me, sure Shad can do more DPS than BM both ST and MT, especially multitarget. But, if shad can do like 300-400% DPS of BM in horntail, If there is a party of 4 Shad, and a party of 4 BM, both parties running HT, if Shad pt uses 1 hour to kill HT that mean BM pt uses 3-4 hour to kill HT ?, I don't think so...

 

Hello procrastinya

I think BM can do more than that, maybe 80-85% of NL, maybe somewhat closer to 85%

Comparing uglee and tazan, I think uglee was significantly stronger than tazan.
10:17 | NL by uglee | 405,186 DPS | [6450 ~ 11369]
12:42 | BM by tazan | 328,084 DPS | [9529 ~ 11663]
Even though uglee was significantly stronger than tazan, tazan can do around 80.97% of uglee DPS.
So BM is probably around 80-85% of NL, maybe somewhat closer to 85%.

I don't take kb effect into consideration. Something like that's a moving factor which is hard to control, I used Krex DPS as a reference to compare raw DPS in (somewhat) optimal condition.

To that issue, it's the BM issue that I think probably need to be fixed or buffed, so BM is supposed to do better than what they do in practice, for balancing purpose.