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

Can we please get a test dummy feature to test out this mess so that we can finally have evidence-based discussions rather than just throwing feelings and guesses around? If we don't have active or experienced game balancers who actually play and understand the game, we should at least let the players do the testing themselves. The controversies surrounding bucc 97%–98% dps and hero vs. drk could be easily tested if we had a dedicated tool for it.

 

Just throwing this out there, what if DK gave mobs slow debuff with crusher, and works on bosses too. could be a really nice tool at certain bosses. Maybe thats what can be their major benefit to parties

 

Tested out the new +24 vl quiver at cwk pirate boss,

had hero in party so +12wa for rage and bonus +12wa from quiver (originally 12wa now 24wa)
this +24wa bonus only made me down the pirate boss faster by 30-35seconds. (1 gelt+ 3.5minutes of concentrate) [Originally took 1 gelt+ full 4min concentrate] iirc sorry i dont boss often

so yeah maybe might want to work on archers' scaling because 24wa on bowmasters at 13k+ clean range is quite garbage. I mean the buff makes us better 100%, not denying that. Just saying the extent of the buff may not be as good as people think it is since 24wa on other classes is phenomenal but 24wa on archers is .. just so-so

and the buff is only 12 wa not 24wa which makes the buff really just pity buff.

Note that WA is way more beneficial to end game archers who have lots of Dex and WA on early-mid game BMs do not really do as much.

TLDR: 12wa good, saves archers 10-15seconds in most 20-30minute bosses, and 5-10seconds in most 5minute bosses.

arrow bomb nerfed, not good, makes grinding and mobbing for early-mid game archers harder.

Thanks for the effort GMs/Staff/Developers.

 

Totally agree with this.

Workaround like this makes sense for lower lvl bosses like Zak, whr u cn choose to swap targets with no consequence. But what abt situations like rushing arms in HT, whr every bit of DPS matters and target priority is important?

Or in VL, when golems spawn and Snatch is critical for positioning them properly? In those cases, it doesn’t feel as simple as just moving to a different target during ST downtime. Do anyone have any suggestions on how to overcome those situations?

 

Iff buccs need to stay 1 min out of suoper transform then let also sairs get a cooldown of 30-60 seconds when they leave the ship or it gets broken.

 

There’s some truth to that, but I don’t think Sair is completely unable to attack enemies even when in her normal form. In contrast, there are an enemy like V2 units that Bucc can’t deal any real damage unless they’re transformed.
I’m not talking about whether you can win or lose.
I’m talking about who would actually enjoy being forced to endure 60 meaningless seconds.
Nor is this solely about strength.
The problem is that, even though adjustments are supposedly made in the name of making the game more enjoyable, users feel as though the developers haven’t given any thought to managing player stress within the game.

And with Sair, you can control its form to a certain extent.
I think it’s great that this requires playing skill, and I believe that’s what makes it fun.
I understand that it’s frustrating when your ship gets destroyed, but I don’t think you’re completely left with nothing to do.
However, with the current Bucc, there’s no room for that kind of intervention.
At best, you can only wonder whether you should transform now while thinking about what might happen three minutes from now—and that’s uncertain.
There were times when I wanted to use Snatch to pull a boss closer, but I held back from transforming. I had no idea what I was even doing.
(If what you meant to say was that this is just a typical day for Sair, then fine.)
What I'm trying to say is that while there are certainly more things to think about, that hasn't made it any more fun.

So, I feel it’s a bit off to make a comparison with Sair and think you’ve hit the nail on the head.
There are many people, myself included, who don’t understand Sair, and I get that it’s difficult to control, but if you’re going to bring it up, I’d like you to make your point a little more convincing.
If the joke I made offended you, I apologize.

 

We're basically on the same page until the last part. I don't think the Hero buffs were too much. I just think Drks got the short end of the stick. They need to buffed more, preferably in a way that rewards their somewhat unique playstyle. But to allude to my previous post, having to balance a class who's identity revolves around maintaining low HP for maximal DPS in a game where survivability is all about your maximum HP along with auto-potion spam is just plain vapid in my opinion. In addition to this, playing Drk doesn't even feel like a berserker type class because all you do is just spam different potions to maintain a lower HP level... From a completely technical standpoint, it really isn't that unique unfortunately.

 

BM concentrate cooldown 120 seconds, does not stack with rage. painful. please fix

 

Over the past few days of discussion, everyone has been focused on different things. What I find harder to accept are changes that simply increase damage — there should be a skill/technique component mixed in. Of course, for a large portion of players, the simpler the attack rotation the better. But ultimately the decision comes down to the GM's vision for the server's future: leaning toward pure damage increases benefits multi-client players, while mixing in skill requirements encourages serious single-client play during bossing.

Take Bucc and Sair as examples — Sair requires considerable focus to maximize damage, Bucc sits somewhere in between. For multi-attack scenarios, some players in the extreme might even use Demo+Demo+Demo instead of B+Demo, while focused players use B+Demo as the core and mix in a small number of other skills.

With that in mind, after a few days of observation, here are some thoughts on this patch:

(War)

• Pally: CR as class identity — other thoughts can wait for the second phase.
• DRK: Zerk as class identity. Rather than adding 25% CR, giving DRK a party Stance buff seems like a better way to differentiate from Pally/Hero. Adding a 3rd (4th?) Zerk stage at 30%–40% seems to be the consensus among DRK players (0.1%–35% / 35.1%–50% / 50.1%–60%).
• Hero: Rage added as class identity, but the "consume orbs to gain something" identity still isn't very prominent (only Enrage costs 5s of time). Would again like to suggest: please give Coma/Panic's more damage/CD. The stun/blind effect could perhaps be changed to slow/blind with boss effectiveness — making Hero a class that can either use a straightforward rotation, or mix in Coma/Panic and even "orb-consuming Shout" for a more complex damage-maximizing playstyle. Something may need to be nerfed elsewhere in exchange — such as Enrage's WA buff.

(Archer)

• BM: Why is this a nerf ???
• MM: Waiting for the Piercing Arrow hitbox update.
  => My viewpoint: BM = slow + single-target SE , MM = blind + AoE SE . Would love to see more identity reinforcement — such as stackable Concentrate on BM & AoE buff on MM.

(Pirate)

• Bucc: 240s CD → 120s CD → 240s CD. However, in the age of BIG-Buffs, shouldn't there be some damage compensation? Personally I really like this kind of skill-based change.
• Sair: I enjoy using Bird Strike on the ship.

(Thief)
When fixing the avoidability formula, shouldn't the LUK ratio be reduced when the DEX ratio increases?

 

how much % actual level 1 transformation loses? if I'm around level 150 I will lose more then 50% due to the fact that I need 5 skills just to attack
it's not 50% at transformation level 1 it's way more! need to cycle between barrage demo, and barrage ds at those level while trying to have aoe skill too for lhc is impossible, bucc gonna do lhc only around level 160-170 and even then 120 seconds are gonna be almost no damage.
at this point just bring another hero and lose si, gonna be more dps

transformation - 20 needed
demo - 30 needed
barrage - 30 needed
dragon strike 30 needed
si - 11 needed

and this is without snatch, all those skills just to do normal zakum run,
oh wait maybe just level up? how are we supposed to do it when you can't do damage?

 

Why would you need any skills apart from SI or TL? you are just a TL/SI mule anyways...

 

Where I agree with the change:
Permanent ST did flatten Bucc gameplay to some extent. The idea of making Bucc more combo-oriented again is not all bad. Having to use Barrage, DS, Snatch, Corkscrew, positioning, and iframe decisions do sounds good

Where I think the argument falls short:
Tim stated that “you should still be about 97–98% as good as you were before in dealing damage with this change as you navigate your attacks differently during your Super Transformation cooldown.”
Single-target DPS alone cannot represent many other situations. The 97–98% claim probably works under ideal single-target conditions, where the off-ST combo is only slightly weaker and only used for 25% of the cycle. But in actual content, performance is not just about DPS. It also depends on reach, platforming, mob control, bubble management, iframe timing, repositioning, and whether your skills can actually hit the target and doing it reliably when it counts.

That is why the nerf feels heavier than the number suggests. A theoretical 2–3% DPS loss is so much worse in practice when you are climbing ladders, missing hits, losing Snatch control, or being forced to use weaker skills because the better option is on cooldown or does not reach.

So here’s my take:
While I think it is conceptually reasonable to restore ST as a timed power state, the implementation seems to rely too heavily on idealized single-target DPS. Personally, in the contents I have tried so far, including RG, NT bosses, Auf, krex and Zak, the class feels noticeably clunkier.
If Buccs are expected to spend 60 seconds off-transform every cycle, then off-transform gameplay needs to be good enough in actual bossing/mobbing situations, not just mathematically close.

Suggestion:

• Rework bubble so players have better control over it during ST downtime. Let players decide when to activate it after charging and maybe extend +10 more secs to compensate for ST cd. A lot of the awkwardness comes from being off-ST while bubble is down, which makes the class feel much worse than the theoretical DPS number suggests.
• If part of the concern is multi-client attacking, make ST skills unable to be placed in macros, similar to mage ults. This would directly target the multi-client issue without making active Bucc gameplay feel worse for players who are actually controlling the character.

 

The avoid formula change was only for sair, which had a custom avoid formula giving iirc 1/4th the avoid from dex that other classes got (including archers which also have dex mainstat)

 

AFAIK every reverted balance change made in Royals was a balance change that deviated too far from old school, like the Meso Guard 1/1 and Soul Arrow = Shadow Stars. I do not think people should be asking to revert a balance change that brings Royals gameplay closer to old school. That sounds stupid.

However, I also do not think buccs are fine to just be left like this. Some in-scope balance adjustments that can be considered for phase 2:

-significantly increase the power of lv1 demolition while keeping lv30 demolition the same.
-increase the power of lv1 energy orb so that barrage + lv1 energy orb is higher DPS than barrage + energy blast + energy blast increase the power of lv30 energy orb so that barrage + lv30 energy orb is only slightly less DPS than barrage + demolition
-change snatch to scale from 4-6 targets instead of 2-6 targets
-remove the magic rock requirement. that was only added so that we could pretend that perma ST was balanced

some less simple balance adjustments that can also be considered:
-allow snatch to be used outside of transformation or during 3rd job transformation, dealing half damage
-move the power stance effect to transformation state, so that even with ST down, you can retain stance by using the blue transformation. but i kinda don't like this because it means we'll have cosmetics overridden 100% of the time again

 

In general all the bucc skills should have their duration / skill damage% bumped up at the early levels to deal with the SP issues at the earlier levels. It's not a "give me perma ST or im useless until 170+" situation like people are painting it to be.

 

Please tell me, what am I supposed to do in ht when my st is on cd and only arms left? Spam ds?

 

I think this question comes down to what did Bucc used to do back then, in GMS and before royals added perma transform. The answer is probably just spamming dragon strike and later energy charge skills

 

imagine yourself recruiting for a boss run, a hero and a dk responds.
do you take the guy that lets your party do potentially hundred of billions of meso worth of extra damage to every player or take the guy that gives you 60% mp?.
i dont think ress will bring him back this time boys.