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

I don’t have a big paragraph to write but I think for piercing arrow once it’s fully charged it should just release the arrow and no I’m not saying you should be able to just hold it down over and over again just when charged it releases #buffmm

 

absolutely hell no to this suggestion

 

... how is that significantly different from NL/shad/hero/DK/paladin? Pretty much all of those let you hold 1 button (besides the occasional rebuff which archers need too), and they all have better avoid/stance so you get knocked back less in the bosses that can knock you out of range

 

explain

 

in RG, you lose the ability to charge up piercing arrow while climbing the ropes, and absolutely nothing of value is gained in exchange.

#nerfmm

 

Also at times where you gotta move around, eg, charge and gotta jump backwards cuz mobs are running at you) and suddenly the arrow just fires when you're looking behind for the jump or being at the height of your jump for short mobs and it hits nothing.

 

DK and Hero are designed as "zerk" and "ball-cost" classes respectively — the GM just needs to strengthen each one's distinctive trait to enhance the specificity.

• DK → Multi-tier Berserk (30%/40%/50%/60%)
• Hero → Give the ball-cost skills (Coma/Panic) actual meaning, raising execution difficulty

This way, DK and Hero would each have different strengths/weaknesses depending on the dungeon/party composition.

BM and MM, on the other hand, have almost entirely copy-pasted skill sets, so the only real points of differentiation are these 3 skill pairs: Concentration/Piercing Arrow, Hamstring/Blind, and Snipe/Hurricane. Given BM/MM's current issues (low accuracy, low avoidability, low attack, only one major support skill — Sharp Eyes), two problems are hard to resolve:

1. Buffing raw damage would make them overlap with NL/Corsair's role, except they'd also come with Sharp Eyes built-in.
2. Buffing one side of BM/MM would just unbalance the other side.

In summary:

• The only real levers to separate BM/MM from other classes are SE/Hamstring/Blind.
• The only real lever to separate BM from MM is the single-target vs. multi-target utility of Concentration vs. Piercing Arrow.
• Buffing single-target boss capability inevitably runs into Snipe+Strafe vs. Hurricane — because of their different growth curves, you either end up with "MM too strong early" or "BM too strong late." (This has improved somewhat since VL/LHC were introduced, since MM — which excels at AoE — performs better than BM in that content, unlike the across-the-board BM dominance seen in OSMS.)

But there still isn't enough content where Hamstring/Blind can have major or decisive impact (Hamstring is very strong in CWK; Blind has some effect but still feels marginal — it's only occasionally noticeable in VL when it saves a teammate a Resurrection).

Therefore:

• I think the only suitable lever to distinguish Archers from other classes is still Sharp Eyes — or, alternatively, simply adding new content that needs Hamstring/Blind more.
• The lever to distinguish MM from BM is Concentration (boosting single-target output) / Piercing Arrow (enlarging the hitbox so it can be used in HT/Zakum — that alone might be enough).
• Any other damage buffs should be applied to BM/MM at an equal ratio.

Other, smaller side effects to consider:

• After buffing Concentration, CWK parties refusing to recruit MM could get even worse — maybe Archer Room or the pirate boss could get a slight rework so MM has an advantage somewhere there too.
• Can't think of anything else.

 

Also at times where the VL golem event happening, because of the delay caused by the forced-fire mechanic, MM gets hit by the one-hit-kill rock.

 

Ngl I didn’t even think about that well disregard what I said I don’t know what I’m talking about

 

I agree heavily with the need to buff MM/BM equally if either is to be buffed -- I love how they are really similar but just have different skills and playstyles. They don't need to fill different niches completely, but feel different and play different, which is okay. Both are supportive attackers, just expressing the attacker part a little differently. I'm still very firm in wanting our utility skills buffed and bug-fixed, alongside the aggro rework to be undone (so Puppet and knocking back enemies actually works...). I want to feel like a badass team member who DBs into Hamstring, Arrow Bomb... keeping the clutter out of the way so that the main DPSers can target the boss. And because of the utility being actually useful for us too, it'd make soloing easier bosses way more consistent, overall promoting a more difficult but rewarding, skillful playstyle no matter the content! Instead of mostly just rewarding people for making mules since our DPS and utility are both so bad.

 

That's not too hard, I think. iirc, mobs in the archer room are never more than 2 per platform so it would be great if we moved 4 to the same platform.

For the boss, make his dispel reach a shorter distance and that might work, except "Update 95.1: Mobs now display more natural behaviour, including freely moving towards players" so just like how strategies that should work no longer work, balance changes that should work also no longer work.

 

I WISH I could record some side-to-side comparison of how archer content is with and without this change, I'd LOVE to see just how much it affects amount of repositionings, failed mob control and such.

 

It's because you can bring it with you, and you do not need to reposition to reset the timer that makes you stop attacking if you only hold 1 button. So in krex when you stand on the left side platform's edge you dodge by default all attacks. You can push the button with your leg and not reposition at all while attacking with any other character the other side, and for its right eye you can stand to its left (there's a small bump that won't let you get pushed by his attack). Your far reach allows you to do the same thing in Zakum's bodies and you can take out his lower hands.

You are right that getting knocked out of range requires you to reposition, but in something like Nib / magic beast requires you to push one button to get closer because you don't have to jump. In HT it would be a bit harder because you would have to stop attacking with your other character, but still slightly less comfortable is still not impossible, and the reason I can do it with the BM is because of SE the massive damage comes from my NL but the addition of the BM damage + its buff allow me to do the neo tokyo content solo fairly easily in good times.

 

can confirm bucc is insanely op vs capt. latanica and mano /j

zerk should be more rewarding, so i agree with that part.

i dont like the.. lets call it 'pus** buff' for those who zerk at 50-60% by choice.

It's a nice QoL if you accidentally overheal, but your goal should always to get back to 14k-14.9k hp, and not stay at 50.1%-60%. regular zerk = more damage than pus** zerk.

also - 49.9% and below still didn't get anything.

transferring beholder's 15att to dragon's blood and nerfing it to 12att while also needing to recast it every 160 seconds..

yeah, i dont know about that.

feels like dk got a "see? we remember you exist!" buff and not a substantial one like hero's did, if u can even call it a buff, cause while beholder watt was temporary, you casted beholder once every 20 minutes instead of once per 2.7~ mins, and now you have lower att.

to be fair, i rarely play my DrK nowadays, mostly as a CWK / VL / Dailies mule atp, but still - this change is only useful for solo content, where you get a nice little 12 att boost, but for VL? CWK? LHC? insert more places that are likely to accidentally have a drk? it doesn't help any party member, it helps the DrK a little bit more. that's about it. if hero's can buff 5 people and give them free 12att, drk's should either have a good damage buff to counter it, or a party utility that's actually useful, and no, hb isn't useful for 95% of the 15x+ players.

imo we should raise the zerk damage % at 40-49.9% to, idk, lets say 220%, then 30%-39.9% to 240% (cause what psycho will choose to zerk on that? might as well reward him).

 

Alternative SE rework to my earlier comment

In my earlier comment, I said that we might buff SE dmg buff on non-archer/nl classes , ex from 6% to 8%, to make it more noticeable to dmg increase, by increasing crit rate to make it more (visually) noticeable.
That might be like from [40% dmg increase with 15% crit chance] to [40% dmg increase with 20% crit chance].

But still, just 20% crit chance might still seem not frequent enough. To make SE more noticeable and interesting, we might adjust from [40% dmg increase with 20% crit chance] to sth like [ 25-30 % dmg increase with 30% crit chance]. From that, we get 30% crit chance on non-archer/nl classes!.

 

SE is not 40%, it's 140%, added on to skill %, which makes it vary in effectiveness per class. For example, it's around 5% for sairs but over 10% for DKs

Except mages which work like you're thinking

 

Keeping things simple:

Bucc - Buff super transformation skills 10-20% to offset the cooldown.
Drk - give hard mode zerk
BM/MM - Buff/make them scale better or give them stance
Pally - Remove damage cap
NL - Leave the same (leave them crap at solo content to appease everyone else)
Sair - Remove recoil shot cooldown
Shad - Bstep mobs 2 or 3 to slightly nerf them + band of thieves mobs 4 instead of 6 to make warriors more needed.
Hero - Leave the same. (Rage at 140seconds makes them not rage mules)
Mages - Buff single DPS 10%

 

so.. another buff to other classes and another shadow nerf to Archers?

 

Hello, Sylafia

It feels strange to me that you argued me like this. I knew it alr that it varies in effectiveness per class, so I used the phrase "ex from 6% to 8%" that implied not every class is at 6%, although it could be interpreted differently due to my limited English capacity.

It can just be adjusted case by case (class by class), that's still simple, isn't it?

Also, "SE is not 40%, it's 140%, added on to skill %" that you said, I don't think I did wrong on this...

 

Hello, Saledor

I alr posted many Archer buffs too. And yes it's another buff to other classes but it's a small buff like 6% to 8%, so SE would be more wanted.
Nowadays, ppl usually say "Oh, we don't have SI yet" but often don't quite care about not having SE in their pt. So, this would help solve that problem.