Update on Soul Arrow

I'm not reading 10 pages of bickering (so I'm sorry if these were already mentioned) but I will say a few things about this update:

On increased arrow capacity:
I think only lower level arrows should have higher capacity, and higher level arrows should attenuate down to their current capacity

On Soul Arrow cost:
I think lower level arrows should consume less arrows, say wooden arrows only consume 0, or 50, or 100, and higher level arrows attenuate to their current cost to cast SA (200)

On a possible bridge solution:
Will sound like a dev headache, but having SA not consume regular (training and basic arrows, the one most mobs drop and all npcs sell, the basic 0 att blue and brown ones) might be a universal solution, since the main reason SA works like the NL skill now is to balance out the great att buff from high level arrows, and make players more responsible for this advantage (which is also perfectly reinforced by the alt tab exploit fix)

 

GG me. Went to pap on my ironman BM without reading about the updated changes to soul arrow and ran out of arrows.

 

Try place the soul arrow and bow booster in combo skill setup since they have identical duration at max level. This actually helps in preventing accidental spamming

 

should never put soul arrow in a macro, similar to shadow stars, imo

 

from my short experience with soul arrow on my MM, i feel like the arrow saving benefits of it are not too big, to the point that in grinding, you are better off not even casting the damn thing.
buffing it to either last slightly longer, or consume slightly less soul arrows would make it ok for MM. BM were always the bigger arrow spenders, so this skill makes a lot of sense for them, but for MM? it barely saves you arrows unless you are holding down strafe for the entire duration (not realistic even in bossing).
as for OP's complaint that it hurts the casual players that will now need to go far for restocking... didn't you say you don't care about damage? so why not stock up at literally any potion shop for normal arrows? that's effectively the same as the old soul arrow in terms of effect, you'd just need to allocate more use space than you used to

 

The issue is they shouldnt have to carry any if they dont want to. The whole point of the skill was to remove the arrows from the inventory.

It doesnt matter how hard or easy it is to manage the inventory, at least for me. Its that the whole skill was changed because of BM and bossing concerns, and it affects far more than bossers and BMs

 

Is there a downside i should be aware of?
Pray tell me since I personally faced no issue doing so, might have missed something.

 

Don't have MM to test the speed. Reference I have is that strafe firing speed of crossbow with booster is near identical to bow with booster (both using dragon shiner series weapon, ignoring SI for self sufficiency).

Theoretical 720 ms per shot = 83.3 shots/min​

Using soul arrow duration at 3 minutes for practical purpose (whole icon should be greyed around this duration),

Strafe used up: 83.3 * 3 mins * 4 arrows = 1000 arrows
[This is the theoretical potential arrow usage when Strafe is spammed with no interruption]​

To estimate how much arrow is consumed during boss run or field hunting, it depends on skill uptime, just to give examples:

Boss hunting (damage knockback, chase down boss, etc...), estimate 75% uptime
1000 arrows * 0.75 = 750 arrows

Field hunting (depends on mob spawn and terrains, but considering chasing them down regularly), estimate 25% uptime
1000 arrows * 0.25 = 250 arrows​

For MM, my personal take would be:

• Heavy use of strafe still relatively worth to activate Soul Arrow
• But other skills which only consumes 1 arrow is better off not activating soul arrow unless one can ensure full spam with no interruption (which would nett about 250 arrows for 3 minutes)
  
• Efficiency of soul arrow for MM heavily influenced by xbow speed, SI buff, character interruption by damage and target's mobility

 

something like when your booster runs out before your soul arrow and you want to recast it, you will use both of them together, wasting arrows in the process.

thats for nl tho coz booster lasts 200sec but shadow stars lasts 120sec, idk about mm/bm


edit: nvm for bm booster and soul arrow lasts 200sec

 

Suggestion for whoever is still taking notes:

If nothing comes out of arguing against the latest change on SA, can we at least consider the following...

Increasing SA's effective time to match that of Focus or Sharp Eyes. At least they get to buff all at one go. Currently, SA runs out way before Focus/MW10 and SE expires.

Thank you for reading and considering this.

 

Hello everyone, again, after doing tests and setting parameters to get used to it really happened, I already saw how to play with my arrows in my inventory and after all I was satisfied and even so I have plenty of space, because I already assigned the legitimate spaces for said arrows, I'm happy, hello2, and thank you MapleRoyals

I can even say, that even my rank is happy, because if I cultivated these articles for a long time, worked and studied, there were only 3 hours left to play daily, so it took me more than two years to become strong

 

Yo, I can deal with the Soul Arrow bullshit but tbh it was implemented poorly (No supportive upgrades such as increasing max arrow capacity per slot to account for the shorter duration of the skill). Staff and Edge Lords alike pretending BM are the same as NL's by nerfing the move to 3min20 sec is such and every non-BM (namely Edge Lords) we have to deal with it because it's for our own good it's a bad joke. Ofc Edge Lords never complain cuz they all have their flashy FJ to move around anywhere at lightspeed. Even if you don't believe this, for the average player that genuinely plays for fun, the one that doesn't care about washing or damage output, DPS or whatever it takes to take down a boss in speedrun mode, some don't really care and just want to shoot the freaking arrows without having no arrows at all. That was the selling point of investing SP into that skill in the first place. You didn't even consider the consequences of this and this was pretty much the only reason backlash was made almost instantly in the form of this very thread. The skill lost it's identity and now functions like a literal copy&paste of Edge Lord's Shadow Stars. So if justification for this unneeded change is "QoL", then we can go by the same logic and erase one of the other "less useful" (Please erase Hamstring from existence thankyou) Bowmaster skills and replace with idk Flash Jump or Shadow Partner, what would be the difference? They're still QoL improvements at the expenses of copy-pasting the skillset of a class and the other class losing it's identity forever because of the min-maxing meta.

The reason I'm "quitting" this server is not because of the bunch of changes to bowmaster, some buffs are fine and I agree with them, but they did it a bit... late? While still overlooking other things that triggers my OCD such as a 2nd job skill outdamaging and even outperforming 3rd and 4th job ones.
There are many reasons why I quitted Royals but I don't want to go off-topic as that is not relevant to the discussion. Yet I'm here ocassionally logging in and roaming the forums to see if there's an update that will bring me back. But for the time being, the answer is no. Nothing in this server no longer amuses me.

For me the most important issue and everyone seems to overlook, do I need to remind you that BM loses DPS every single time they get hit by an attack, they get hit quite a lot and they have to reposition themselves more than Edge Lords who have high avoid and SS. Warriors have Power Stance, Shadower has iframes on Bstep+Assasinate plus SS+Infinite Avoid wtf lol, worst case scenario Marksman fires the arrow slower when they get hit but the arrows still land on the target and they still deal damage. Just as BM that's all I'm asking for, I don't care if you buff hamstring (for that we have our comrades Bucc and every other Warrior who will Rush the mob if it ever gets out of the pinzone) or whatever secondary skills such as 2nd job Final Attack, I want a functional skill that doesn't lose DPS when hit and I'm pretty sure every BM will agree with my stance. Hurricane is the endgame DPS move for the Bowmaster and chances you'll end up using it are more than 100%, where as Final Attack... there are many specific builds such as Full SA, Full PKB and Max Focus that even on 4th job they are still relevant where as Final Attack... is only useful for 2nd job instead.

The #top1 issue here is fixing hurricane, and tbh I'm dissapointed the current dev team is unable to do something about it, be it because game limitations, or be it because of human limitations of the dev team itself. I see in another server Mages with Power Stance and loads of crazy custom content, I didn't even know those were possible until I saw it myself, and as a programmer I ask myself is really that hard to fix a core issue in a single skill that dev team preferred to look at secondary skills because those are easier to fix? You guys don't have a sense of self-superation and just say no because the game code limits you or whatever is the reason the move cannot be "fixed" without triggering secondary effects such as abusing of Hurricane while jumping? I agree no Bowmaster should ever be able to jump while hurricaning, that's not what I'm asking, but I believe they should be able to at least keep DPS after an attack forced them to go airborne. It's no custom content what I'm asking for, but a huge QoL that will grant the class more stability on their DPS as they already spent enough time repositioning each hit over the course of the whole boss run.

 

from your reference, strafe with the highest speed is 600 ms per 4 shots = 150 ms per shot
hurricane is 120 ms per shot.

Do consider that MM also pushes in a snipe in the rotation every few shots which uses only one arrow. and they also have to deal with repositioning as they get pushed around a lot in big boss fights. this will probably push it around closer to 600 arrows (give or take considering the boss). it would require testing from someone who has a non ironman MM tho cause i dont have a maxed snipe to test with.
BM with a faster shooting speed, no reliance on SI, and no snipe skill to push into the rotation, will on avarage spend more arrows than a BM.

As for MM grinding, you tend to use Piercing arrow, which is a single shot you charge up. it would never use 200 arrows by the time the soul arrow buff runs out, even if you throw in strafes to finish off single mobs.

 

It seems like Bowmasters here are generally happy with Soul Arrows are now able to reflect damage of their slot arrows, giving them a more dynamic and varied play-style. They would rather keep the 200 arrows consumption penalty than losing the additional buffs that certain arrows can now give.

Despite that, I still think there should be more tweaks done to it, especially regarding the duration of Soul Arrow. It should either be reverted back to original 600 seconds/10 minutes or at least a much less drastic cut in duration like to 5 to 8 minutes range than the current 120 seconds/ 2 minute range, which is the same duration as a Night Lord's Shadow Star skill. I get the sense this was done, so that archer can be more on "par" with Night Lords.

Low avoidability
Is a common understanding that Night Lords has a much higher level of avoidability and have Shadow Shifter skill to significantly reduce knock-back and readjustments to their attacking positions. I believe anyone who plays a range character for Zakum and Horntail can testify how annoying it is getting knock back down from your tiny platform and while climbing the ropes. But archers do not have such a luxury, and they face a much higher rate of knock-backs and spending more of their time not engaged in battle.

Higher cognitive management
In additional, archer have a lot more things to managed during an expedition. In order to maximise their damage output and contribution to the party, they have to provide Sharp Eyes to their party members which can be hassle especially during Zakum/CWKPQ where everyone is spread out, summoning Phoneix/Frostprey, Sniping for Marksman and provide mob control to the party. A shorten Soul Arrow duration, means archers now have another thing on their plate to actively manage during a battle.

Training Flexibility
Unlike other range classes, archer are excellent in mob grinding due to their large skillsets (Arrow Rain, Iron Arrow, Blizzard, Dragon's Breath) and now a buffed Puppet skill, this indicates that the staff plans for archers to have more freedom and utility of their skills. However, grinding is much different that you have to move about, climbing, luring, positioning and attacking. This interruptions consume the skill time and it means the efficient of shortened Soul Arrow is greatly reduced. For Bowmasters, using Soul Arrow while grinding might be still be worthwhile due to high rate of arrow consumption for Hurricane, but for a Marksman this feels more a like a step backwards.

In conclusion, while I understand to some members of the community this update to Soul Arrow seems like a no-brainer we should accept it as it is because the math says so. But the math also says Mushroom Shrine is safer to gacha than hoping for a perfect Dragon Purple Sleeve in Kerning City, selling leech earns you more mesos than farming for ETCs or dummy scrolling doesn't actually work. Not everyone is into the math or mini-max aspect of the game, the math cannot rationalised or invalidate the feelings that to some archer that they gaining a one big gain ("unlimited" attack arrows) and ignore two other losses they have gained in this update, which losing the unique ability and freedom of not to carry arrows and drastically shorten Soul Arrow duration. Hence, I proposed if this change is to be kept as it is, the duration should be increased either back to the original of 600 seconds or similar instead of the current 120 seconds, which is far too short.

 

As someone not happy with the change, if they reverted it to 10 minutes it would greatly help me in accepting it. It would mean a single stack of shitty arrows would last an incredible amount of time, if not be entirely self replenishable with the amount that drop making the skill essentially the same.

This would be acceptable to me. The arrows can be made more expensive to compensate for this change. We changed star recharging, we can change arrow prices too.

 

+1
i have read through all comments here, this solution was raised couple of times and wasnt getting enough attention.
first i must say that i dont main bm/mm, but as far as i understand, this option can make eveyone happy, in the cost of removing the need of maintaining SA while bossing.

although i dont think the current state of SA is too hard to adopt to (i main nl and i dont main bm so its just an outsider impression), i agree that there are some assumptions that the maplestory community knows about the game and it doesnt feel right to change them. assumptions such as warriors have high hp and are close range, NLs must have minimal distance from mob to be ablel to throw stars, and yes, archers can shoot arrows without ammunition.

overall im happy with the current state of SA, but i think it can be better with the above suggenstion.

 

so what was the problem agian ???

so people is furious about the new change of Soul Arrow because they hav to carry arrows now ?
my question is what do u have that is so important that clog up all the 90+space of your inventory ?
i have a main bm that is 200lvl and i do carry butt tons of arrow when going into HT pre 73.3 patch for that extra 4wa= extra dmg
after having like almost 1 1/2 pages of arrow b4 going in HT + all the weird shit like appol and stopper and town scroll(including victoria,showa and mushroom shrine scroll) i still hav slot for some other weird use item
i find this update funny because of people cant take the changes....

after the change
i flet its better for my inventory not having to carry as much arrow as i used to because of this ''buff''
this overall for me is a gud change for bm
just that the occational buying arrows from vendors

I also agree on the 5000 cap on arrows instead of 2000

 

omg matt, that hurricane looks really cool! I dont really think that would be an issue since most high level bm wouldnt go hhg to do that anyway. Maybe just for fun occasionally.

also is no one commenting how his pap took 35s to dispel him?!!

 

I played my BM without reading the patch notes. Thank God I realized I "did not have enough arrows to use the skill" while spamming soul arrows at the town (as a habit), before heading to LHC...