Class/Skill Rework Destroyed Park 2 to make solo AM leech more viable

First off, I'm not talking about just bossing. I mean all contents, just like every other class gets to do. Mages get pushed out of every single new content release or have it tailored to make it bad for them. Secondly, I never even mentioned removing their farming ability, your 6 mage Ulu farm is safe. I just want options.

Simply disregarding all these and not reworking this class just because "i only want to leech/farm with my archmage" just simply doesn't seem right. Everything about AMs has been disregarded for years now, and with their leeching/farming abilities reigned in quite a bit since update 65 forward, I don't see a good reason why they can't be buffed and allowed to participate in the other 80% of the game.

Completely false hyperbole lol, you can very, very easily get ~1k-1.5k HP from endgame gear, plus 500 HP from Spring of Youth (ya know, if Mages were allowed to do it, that is...) coupled with Magic Guard easily gets you into a lot of endgame bosses, and any further HP requirements would be covered by a reasonable amount of Reuel's (again, if they weren't gatekept out of this as well), which Mages would be amazing at and could clear faster than any other class with ease. Using Shiyui guide, a butt naked AM at 155 would have 1912 HP. With trivial effort one could get another 2k HP (1k gear, 500 Spring of Youth, 500 Reuel's), putting you at 3912 HP. You take only 20% damage to HP with Magic Guard, so you would already be more than fine to HT and Shao at appropriate levels with even some extra left over. I'm not sure where you're getting this wild 2 year figure.

Ya it also says HP Washing Optional but we both know that's bullshit, if less so in recent times. That advertisement hasn't meant much for a long, long time. We have multiple iterations of custom skill changes, post v83 contents, custom chairs/NX, custom systems, custom events, etc. We are far beyond nostalgia, and I'm tired of seeing that argument thrown around when its convenient. This is not at all the game we enjoyed 10-15 years ago, its a game based on a game we enjoyed 10-15 years ago. Royals =/= GMS.

I'm also confused how Mages and their ultimate farming/leeching ability have come to be this untouchable, crown jewel of nostalgia to some? Most people didn't even make it to 4th job pre-BB, like when you ask the average person about their Maplestory experience, you don't hear "Ahh yes, when I was 11 years old and spent 6 hours a day selling leech and farming on my 13x Bishop that I spent over a year getting to 4th job" like lolwut? People talk about KPQ, or LPQ smuggling, or Pig Beach, or dying to Balrogs on the ship to Orbis, or 12 man expeditions. Every bit of that is completely dead. We are orders of magnitude away from what a majority of people consider nostalgic. Its a poor excuse to stifle potential changes.

 

I’d like to farm/sell leech with my NL too! Jokes aside, no class should be able to do everything. Maybe you want to elaborate on that 80% of the game to bring in more spark to the discussion!

I can safely say that a bishop that tries to provide Genesis DPS while multiclienting in HT with less than 5k hp will suffer, reaally badly. This will be similar to Archmages itself as well. Auf has active dispel spam as its main mechanic, 9k magic damage & 16k jump touch dmg. Yes, 5k HP Bishops are crippled in there.
But after thinking about it again, players technically don't need to remake your archmages, since this class as so much MP, ontop of that, remove MAX MP Increase to decrease the MP deduction from -30 into -20, you can easily wash it to 20k HP and 4k MP, which i predict will be a norm if this changes is made. Is this really how we want this class to become?
To top that off, there will be additional complaints about how this class DPS is bad compared to NL, survivability is bad, and so forth.

This marketing is to hit and attract new players, there are super custom server out there with fully rebuilt skills & rebirth system as well, and we are not. There is no reason to risk this tweak when there is still an active entry of players picking up this marketing solution.

I believe nostalgia = when you advance to 4th job with your AM, you know what it's up, and you can immediately feel it, just like before.
Custom skill changes have never breached this boundary, and I strongly believe that the game design should be kept as it is.
A personal reason for me to enjoy this game so much & not to move on from my mages was also to fulfill the dream I didn't achieve back in the day.
Imagine u did it and yay I'm a lvl120 archmage, and suddenly "wtf ? I can't spam Blizzard and sell leech???"

Yes, this is the roots of our current game, and I dare say for 50% of the veterans of original Maplestory and veterans of MapleRoyals, spend most of their time on their mages. Spending 6hours a day selling Skele & Gallopera (ESW for MSEA players) leech is a amazing thing back then. This current design has been rooted so deeply into the core of royals, readjusting it would just be detrimental to the game. Either archmage becomes subpar single target DPS like Marksman/Hero without the ability to leech, or simply too overpowered that does decent dps like BMs and still farm.

No archmages players made it work till today, with skills such as crash buffs, I do see this class as a potential multiclienting attacker without much funding and without much control needed like the current BM.
Seriously guys, use a archmage as a secondary attacker with your NL and give up using that BM in HT, watching u guys bleed PEs, fall and stop attacking with your NL just to reposition the BM is just LOOL, you don't even need to reposition this thing and it does more dps.

I personally use my archmage as a staple on my zakum runs, and it works amazingly, and let us be honest here if players invested enough Mesos into the gearsets, this class is pretty decent HT. Please fix magic guard & infinity bug back to their original state where archmages can sed even more effectively than any warriors & shadowers.

This chart is alittle old, but. still a good reference.
Imagine players actively meteor/bliz those 15+ super tanky mobs in Von Leon. Oh boy.

With all these mentioned above, they currently still have the power to farm & leech.
If you are stating to nerf this class further, then that's something else, but as of now. I'm not convinced or too much of a fan of bringing in reworks to the red & blue crown jewel, but it's still up to staff amirite.

 

I won't sit here and name every single content that is gatekept from AMs, you can do that yourself, but essentially every single new content released in the past few years

-Anything bossing related
-Anything HP gain related
-Neo Tokyo mobs
-Many of Ellin mobs resist 1 or both ulti elements
-LHC mobs besides Blood Reindeer
etc.

So get 5k HP or don't multiclient? This is not an unsolvable ordeal lol, very achievable (in a world where Mages aren't gatekept from HP contents).

Both of those numbers are fine without dispel spam, perhaps that could be looked at if Mages were to boss.

....why? In reference to the 2 bosses above? Yes, dispel will be rough for a bossing Mage but I think a rework to MG or something would make more sense than having people wash to 20k lol? Or even just buffing Mages natural HP gains throughout leveling to compete? (You know, that other HP buff that they got skipped over for).

Top sweaty nerds complain that every class has bad DPS compared to NL, we're not tailoring the server around them.

Guy, where are you getting that there are all these new players coming in? Royals is one of the most inbred servers I've ever played on, and it isn't and hasn't been doing super hot for a while now. That other server is already sitting at ~50% of our population daily and its less than 10% as old. We are losing market share to people going to these other places that are doing the things we won't do. Shit, they are literally coming into our Feedback forum and adopting the ideas here for their own servers. Whatever "marketing" that is being attempted is not very good, but this is a different topic altogether.

Then imagine you try to do literally anything else and you can't because its designed to make you shitty at it or just not even able to attempt it at all.

Also, to reiterate, I am not even directly advocating for an ultimate nerf, that is just how you have taken it and assumed my argument to be. Leave their farming alone, its been nerfed enough and isn't nearly an issue. Get rid of leeching and let them be just not absolute shit at bosses. Don't even have to be top 5. Make them support or something, with debuffs and DoT etc.

 

-Anything bossing related
Its not a bad bosser, losing its ability to sed & not single target well doesn't make it bad.
Why am i looking at Auf & HT particularly, because its this 2 main bosses that matters.
Very soon enough we're looking at VL which honestly its probably gonna shine.

-Anything HP gain related
HP quests in my opinion is just a poor excuse to show that "HP Washing Optional" to the server to please the casuals.
With APR at 10mil and sinking even further, do you really want to do it?

-Neo Tokyo mobs
Maybe play together..?



-Many of Ellin mobs resist 1 or both ulti elements
- Ellin Mobs, mainly snails that drops earring 70% str,this here is a very big deal. (honestly is one of the map thats is in highest demand) is weak to ice, its a very very good map for I/L archmage.

-LHC mobs besides Blood Reindeer
LHC is a solution for normal attackers that requires to be leeched and significantly out of content. Honestly it is painful af to grind, and archmages, do not have that problem, or.. just play with another archmage and dish the highest dps at LHC..?

Basically, yes as you said, its very achievable If mages were to boss, just wash it, and your suggestion is to rework archmages to be able to participate in bossing content?
I'm sure a player can get 3-4bil mesos, right..? But it makes it weird, to have a 4:1 Ratio of HP & MP.

Rework MG? Its really fine as it is, just like meso guard. the moment is adjusted, it crumbles and took months to revert them.
Washing mages to 20k makes way more sense tbh.

If you do play your archmage and suddenly reworked into a being just a super inferior attacker class without its unique abilities, you'd complain as well.

Theres a reason why it remains #1, even dream with a super customized content is sinking even below mapletimely, which only targets chinese community as its unique selling point. We aint losing "market share", its stable, and yes this is offtopic so lets not stray from this.

The thing is, literally anything else is working fine, its just that its not being utilized well & the knowledge is not out there
inb4 players finds out and go "oh too OP! Nerf!!" again.
Elemental amplification, EleWands, damage buffs from fire/ice demon and elemental weaknesses. To top it of, amount of MP cost readjusted from Bliz/Meteor is already OP..
By reworking Archmage which currently is already is played as an attacker by our niche top playerbase, even though not top 5, and now give them a supportive skill set. and able to farm/debuff & dot meanwhille keeping the ability to sell leech and farm.
Rework magic guard and HP gain so it doesn’t need to wash as the cherry ontop.

 

HP gain related? Your AM can easily go into HT without any hp washing whatsoever and for auf haven, you wanted party play right? Bring your friendly DK for hb. NT mobs have been custom adjusted to have weaknesses as well as resistances to certain elements making I/Ls better than F/Ps at specific points of the questline. Ellin mobs are truly tanky and some regular attackers can't even 1 hit them, so why should AM and Bishops? AMs can thrive in LHC given the correct element. Bearwolves are neutral with Crocky being fire weak but ice resist and blood reindeers being ice weak with no resistances. Again, AMs can't be good at all content right? But they excel in hitting these mobs extremely hard while having alot of aoe damage.

Should we rework how dispels work so we don't have to learn boss animations as well? We don't need to take out all the elements of skill in this game even if it is 20yrs old. We're not tailoring the server to make AMs good at everything. And yes, you can bring them into HT, each part has weaknesses too and you don't need 5k hp if you know the animations and pay attention! So would you really want to multiclient and mule one if you can't 100% pay attention and be able to recast magic guard immediately? I highly doubt so. You can have a F/P or I/L or Bishop main. There is no rule to having to multiclient in boss runs. At this point if you want to make them a support class, what of bishops then? As a mage you have many paths you can branch out and do according to what you feel like fits you. ie: Job adv into I/L or F/P or Bishop. Top sweaty nerds aren't complaining on forums about their class being weak and instead adapting to balances changes. That's what makes a good player.

FYI: F/Ps have DoT and there's a reason why it doesn't apply to bosses. Nerfing the skill just for the sake of it being able to proc on bosses will kill the grinding aspect at 3rd job when you ultimately unlock the ability to apply AoE DoTs everywhere.

 

There are many more bosses than HT and Auf. Its not bad, so we should be seeing plenty of IL and FP in those runs ya? Are you dreaming?

What? I'm not even sure what you're trying to say here?

Ope, call it off guys, 2 18x AMs can team up to 2 hit NT. Case closed.

Or just like, go there with any other singular class. If anything you are proving my point here.

What about FP? IL def gets the slightly shorter end of the stick but FP gets almost completely boned in most instances.

Not exactly sure what you're saying here either, but AMs are garbage past Reindeer, and even only IL is good there.

You don't HAVE to wash all your MP to HP. You would just be soft to dispel, which means you might have to pay attention and not multi client.

Reworking MG was just a passing thought, I don't think there is anything wrong with it.

We're almost a decade deep man, I don't believe that Mages are secretly good and just nobody has discovered it yet. They are literally at the very, very bottom, except in extremely niche cases like Zak arms and beginning of HT. Their farming abilities have already been nerfed many times so I don't see why they couldn't be made to be adequate at other things.

I've touched on reliance on HB being a shitty mechanic in like 3 or 4 other threads, but TLDR gatekeeping content with HB is a shitty mechanic. The HP gain related stuff is in a theoretical world where they are adequate at bossing at actually need that HP.

Again, not saying AMs should be amazing at everything, just adequate. They are locked to the 2 lowest lvl mobs in LHC, and even then only IL is good at 1 of them.

What? When did I say or imply any of that? I main a Corsair and have an alt DK, I'm all for making the game require some skill. Mages having to read animations to avoid dispel would be great, but Joon seemed to think that dispel alone ruins a Mages viability because now you can't multiclient with it.

Nobody is tailoring anything, I'm just saying give them a chance. I'm aware of HTs elemental weaknesses, where are all the AMs at HT runs then?

Support =/= HS. Paladins are a support DPS, they provide Crash and (eventually) Threaten. Bowman are a support DPS, they provide SE and debuff (Blind). AMs can do things that Bishops can't to retain their identity.

FPs can have DoT on more skills than Poison Mist.

Oh? They're not? Time to adapt, I guess.

Anyway, I've said what I've had to say about this and don't have any more time for it. Always a pleasure to debate @Jooon. Mods can lock this up whenever others have made their last responses. I think a new thread would be a better idea and more constructive.

 

i agree HB should atleast be reworked to be unable to dispel to future proof DKs in future PB (kekw) or VL parties but also its a good QoL. I for one have seen numerous archmages and even have personally brought some in my HT and Zak runs. I have even seen them inside auf haven runs as a legitimate alternative to a bishop. Some I/Ls even solo shao. They aren’t as nonexistent in bossing parties and expeditions as you think. In terms of LHC most ppl grind at Reindeers or Bearwolves anyway for the best exp and drops, which both AMs do thrive at.

If someone on the Dev team can manage to give the ability specifically allow poison breath to apply poison to bosses and not poison mist, then why not go for it. The only issue with poison is it is way too overpowered for single target use. Specifically nerfing poison on one skill but not the other seems like the more healthy approach here IF devs really want to implement it to please certain people.

The first two threads linked to were created on the basis that the server strives for nostalgia>all but, like you said its basically a custom server. So we can agree to disagree. My comment on the post was not to discourage changes but to bring to light the waning focus on certain aspects (autoban) that should have been done a long time ago rather than do work on something that would give hackers more equity in the market than they already do.

All in all, do AMs need changes? Not even close. They are the best at a very powerful aspect of the game and push for nostalgia for some players and even allows those who never played and only witnessed such a class be able to do what they were able to do now.

 

You don't see them? Well, take a closer look! Meta is changing, bit by bit.

But wait, those are naked ulu archmages! wow that dmg.
My NL cry without SE mule, and yes that's the current best class in-game, period.

And not multiclient.. sorry, but we're approaching 2022, and multiclient is the current meta the server is driving forward with & players will have to do their best to multiclient.
Which results in, R>1 Attacker to HT, oh unwashed & no mules? sorry.
This might just be an old mindset that is hard to change, but I do see washing as mandatory for any class including archmages & bishops especially for anyone who wants to main it.

We're almost a decade deep, but how many players ventured to wash archmages & gotten perfect gears on it? I've played with these gearsets & opportunities. It works.
I was having quite alot fun with it in HT & @CreamGoddess actively maximize it to carry in daily auf runs. lol.
So Joon, why are you not minimaxing it? Sorry to be the guy to echo this, just like every single other class out there, NL is just far superior.

Indeed we have provided quite a good amount of feedback to be discussed by the staff team, be it the main topic of DP2 reworks, or Archmage reworks. Always fun looking into my favourite class, and lets see what comes out from updates in the future. It's a pleasure!

 

Archmages are fine as they are they just need a single client worth map so to me personally this feedback is still relevant.

This gave me some hope back then. I mean DP2 could work as a leeching map and I would welcome that but ToT is so unused as of now.

Ikik pink bean will change things but let’s be real it’s probably gonna take a while which I don’t even mind tbh. Shouldn’t hinder us from taking a look at ToT as you mentioned Kenny.