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Mercedes Balance Analysis - JoeTang - 2011-07-02
Hanabira.Kage Wrote:If you even bothered to run the skill data through Google Translate, you'd realise that the defense negation is a debuff to the target and not a true "party buff". Joe refers to it as a "bonus...for the entire party" because it is indeed that; it boosts the damage of the entire party, except not because it gives everybody a 100% chance to ignore defense by 20% for 15 seconds, but because the victim has its defense reduced by 20% for 15 seconds.
My actual point was I was tired. Legendary Spear doesn't state itself as a buff for the party, but since it is a debuff for a monster, it should affect other users attacking it like Threaten. Unicorn Spike states it works for party members in its own description to establish that it is unlike Advanced Homing's status effect.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - White - 2011-07-02
Hanabira.Kage Wrote:If you even bothered to run the skill data through Google Translate, you'd realise that the defense negation is a debuff to the target and not a true "party buff". Joe refers to it as a "bonus...for the entire party" because it is indeed that; it boosts the damage of the entire party, except not because it gives everybody a 100% chance to ignore defense by 20% for 15 seconds, but because the victim has its defense reduced by 20% for 15 seconds.
Why on earth would I run a skill translation through google when I have people like you to make snide obnoxious comments like the above instead? ^_^
Mercedes Balance Analysis - KhainiWest - 2011-07-02
I'm surprised no one mentioned how to balance this class, I mean really balance it, it's fair now, but I think it could be fair-er
My suggestion
Mercedes Balance Analysis - JoeTang - 2011-07-02
Acrobatic Jump and Charge Drive need rainbows added to them.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - IllegallySane - 2011-07-02
JoeTang Wrote:Acrobatic Jump and Charge Drive need rainbows added to them.
I laughed more than I should have. If only you can mod it so it appears like that on your screen. Wahaha.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - cleric1213 - 2011-07-02
If you choose to believe my information,
the second part of charge drive(the tossing part) has a delay of 300ms. Therefore, charge drive on its own has a delay of 600+300=900ms
Mercedes Balance Analysis - Kalovale - 2011-07-02
White Wrote:Why on earth would I run a skill translation through google when I have people like you to make snide obnoxious comments like the above instead? ^_^
Because it's something all decent human beings do, catering for themselves and not be a burden on others. Or at least try to, anyway.
I personally hope Mercedes gets nerfed further to an unappealing point where she won't be too heavily bandwagon'd. This balancing makes me feel like Nexon Korea actually know what the pineapple they're doing, though, which is a surprise.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - White - 2011-07-02
Kalovale Wrote:Because it's something all decent human beings do, catering for themselves and not be a burden on others. Or at least try to, anyway.
Lol, there aren't many decent human beings in your world then I suppose.
Kalovale Wrote:I personally hope Mercedes gets nerfed further to an unappealing point where she won't be too heavily bandwagon'd. This balancing makes me feel like Nexon Korea actually know what the pineapple they're doing, though, which is a surprise.
Yeah, I would like her nerfed as well. Gotta keep in mind, as shown in this thread, that BM's and MM's were really really buffed in Jump, and to not compare my current skills against these, as that isn't a fair comparison.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - JoeTang - 2011-07-02
A huge point to make is if they make her significantly and noticeably weaker than Bow Masters specifically, no one would want to play them. Take a look at everyone's reactions to Cannon Shooters. They have newer, flashier skills (though nowhere near as close to Mercedes) compared to Corsairs or Mechanics, but no one wants to play them because they have horrible single target DPS despite being very good physical mob DPS. I'll agree part of the reason is people don't believe there are too many differences, but when you actually look at the three jobs side by side, you'll see a lot of differences. I don't see people complaining Rangers are too similar to Snipers. 1st~3rd job there's no argument that Cannon Shooters are better, and perhaps they and the other Pirates will get buffed simultaneously in a 2012 update, but a lot of the people who aren't playing Cannon Shooters is because they're too similar to Corsairs, and at the same time are weaker single target.
The problem with designing their attacking skill is Hurricane is the precedence for speed. Mercedes is designed to be the fastest archer. They have higher attack speed, higher max speed, higher total speed, better mobility, and movement skills. If they got a skill slower than Hurricane, it makes no design sense. I feel a skill faster than Hurricane would hurt balance too much as well. I've thought about it a few times as well, and I can't really think of any type of replacement. The idea of Hurricane is its efficiency. Unlike Ultimate Strafe, it never wastes arrows. That's what makes it so good, despite being a single target skill. You can use it on multiple monsters and efficiently attack, unlike Ultimate Strafe.
If they made a skill faster than Hurricane, it would have to have significantly lower damage, and Advanced Final Attack would need to be removed. In the end people would claim it's still Hurricane, except faster so it's overpowered. If they made a skill slower like Ultimate Strafe, people would say it's just Ultimate Strafe. If they made a buffed version of Strike Dualshot, people would say they're just copying skills from earlier jobs. Design wise, I like Ring of Ishtar is the best of any choices I've listed so far. They could have alternately made a faster and stronger version of Strike Dualshot, but I feel the mobbing ability of Strike Dualshot itself is already very good, a stronger version doesn't seem warranted, nor balanced. It wouldn't have very good single target DPS, because if it did, it would have overpowered mob DPS. If they ended up having low single target DPS, they don't have too great mob capacity to make up for it since they can only hit 4 monsters efficiently. I forgot to exclude it, but the extra damage for tossing a monster with Charge Drive can't apply to bosses, and the fact that you need to be in melee range to use High Kick Demolition means it's useless at bosses, only useful in training (at non-party zone maps seeing as how you actually need the toss to work in order for High Kick Demolition to do damage since the hitbox otherwise misses unless the boss is really tall)
Also, keep in mind that Legendary Spear makes a difference compared to a Bow Master who literally only spams Hurricane. It's not a big difference, but it exists.
My personal opinion is that Ancient Spirit should either be changed a bit. The damage being lowered with the critical rate being increased a small amount, or being made into a party skill where a decreased effect is given to everyone else would make the class more interesting and desirable in a party, as Legendary Spear for the party can only be useful on higher defense monsters.
Two more things to keep in mind. First is if Threaten is used, Bow Masters and Marksmen get a significantly larger bonus from it, like how you can see Legendary Spear adds so much to their damage. Mercedes have 30% of their shots ignore all defense. This averages out to 30% ITD, like if Marksmanship were 30% instead of 25%, but it also has the downside of making other defense lowering skills not affect 30% of their attacks. Comparatively, defense lowering skills affect all of a Bow Master and Marksman's hits. It's like how Critical Hit Rate gear won't affect how much damage Snipe does since it Criticals 100% of the time.
Second, we don't actually know the multiplier for Dual Bowguns. It's assumed it's similar to Bows and Crossbows, but it could be higher or lower. Judging by the results, it makes logical sense to be lower since they have ~20 more weapon attack from buffs than other Archers, and higher base DPS, and it makes sense with their design philosophy. They're fast, but you can't actually expect one handed Bowguns to be as strong as a Crossbow.
To make a point to this difference, we have here the 75% PDR damage
Bow Master: 3200.9%/s
Marksman: 2836.2%/s
When scaled for the multiplier difference, Marksmen rise to 2945.3%/s closing the gap by more than 100%/s, and imagine if the Marksman had SI/AYA or a Fast(5) Crossbow.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - Alilatias - 2011-07-02
JoeTang Wrote:The problem with designing their attacking skill is Hurricane is the precedence for speed. Mercedes is designed to be the fastest archer. They have higher attack speed, higher max speed, higher total speed, better mobility, and movement skills. If they got a skill slower than Hurricane, it makes no design sense. I feel a skill faster than Hurricane would hurt balance too much as well. I've thought about it a few times as well, and I can't really think of any type of replacement. The idea of Hurricane is its efficiency. Unlike Ultimate Strafe, it never wastes arrows. That's what makes it so good, despite being a single target skill. You can use it on multiple monsters and efficiently attack, unlike Ultimate Strafe.
If they made a skill faster than Hurricane, it would have to have significantly lower damage, and Advanced Final Attack would need to be removed. In the end people would claim it's still Hurricane, except faster so it's overpowered. If they made a skill slower like Ultimate Strafe, people would say it's just Ultimate Strafe. If they made a buffed version of Strike Dualshot, people would say they're just copying skills from earlier jobs. Design wise, I like Ring of Ishtar is the best of any choices I've listed so far.
I do disagree with this part, though. I've been thinking about possible replacements for Ring of Ishtar so as to get rid of the whole 'Hurricane ripoff' stigma, and it made me think of the Mechanic's seige skill, where you launch repeated attacks so long as you keep tapping the basic attack button. Maybe they could have given Mercedes a similar skill, difference being that she can use it while walking and in mid-air (but possibly limiting it to like 6 attacks per second, 12 attacks if she is to use both bowguns, althoug the latter may mean that AFA should probably be taken out). If it needs further balancing in terms of how it functions, the arrows probably shouldn't curve since she can move while using it anyways.
I think such a skill would fit in with her playing style much better (and be far easier to balance) than Ishtar, now that Ishtar pins you to the spot upon use.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - nyg8 - 2011-07-03
should also take into account that when mercedes uses her snipe she has to recast the ring of ishtar skill which costs time.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - JoeTang - 2011-07-03
nyg8 Wrote:should also take into account that when mercedes uses her snipe she has to recast the ring of ishtar skill which costs time.
Crap, that's a lot of work, but yeah. Hurricane and I would presume Ring of Ishtar have delays of 300ms when switching to other skills. I'll look into this.
Alright, I've run a calculation that accounts for both Legendary Spear and Multi-Sniping's cool downs, as well as Ring of Ishtar's 300ms delay when switching skills. I've also corrected the gross overestimation on the 0% PDR monster from ~5900%/s to ~5000%/s
The result is: 2831.0%/s without Sharp Eyes, and 3293.5%/s with Sharp Eyes, assuming optimal Cool down Scenarios. Part of the issue with this, as experienced with Marksmen is Multi-Sniping will not cool down at exactly 10 seconds. Legendary Spear is calculated to be used as close to but never overreaching 15 seconds so its defense reduction can be applied to itself. It still may stand that Legendary Spear's defense reduction may not last 15 whole seconds on bosses, and be reduced to some lower duration, like Hero's Blind from Panic.
In the case of no Multi-Sniping, 3206.2%/s with Sharp Eyes. I'm also amending the other Archer %/s to account for the order of operations with Legendary Spear. I apparently made an extreme overestimation with Fastest (2) Marksman fitting in one more hit without adding the time it took for that hit. I am terrible sorry for this.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - Hanabira.Kage - 2011-07-03
White Wrote:Why on earth would I run a skill translation through google when I have people like you to make snide obnoxious comments like the above instead? ^_^
I tried to clear things up for you so you would understand Joe's point, but it seems that you're bent on trolling.
I'm sure that, to everyone else here, you're the one making snide and obnoxious comments.
I've said my piece.
I'm sure that, to everyone else here, you're the one making snide and obnoxious comments.
I've said my piece.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - GoreParadise - 2011-07-03
Can cash shop items mask over Bowguns?
Mercedes Balance Analysis - HighOnMushrooms - 2011-07-03
GoreParadise Wrote:Can cash shop items mask over Bowguns?
Nope, not yet at least. Hand cannons can't be covered either.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - JoeTang - 2011-07-05
With the most recent patch, it appears Mercedes do 4179.3%/s with Sharp Eyes on a 75% Defense monster, 3592.5%/s without Sharp Eyes, and 5829.2%/s base damage without Legendary Spear or Sharp Eyes. Clearly overpowered at this point. Still stands to determine whether Spirit Infusion and Ancient Spirit stack additively or multiplicatively, but it's not a large difference, only ~150%/s.
My personal opinion is Defense Break should be lowered back to 25% rate, and Ancient Spirit's damage increase should just be removed at this point in favour of some other effect that does not make them physically stronger, or a party effect. This change would literally make them balanced in a 75% defense bossing situation, doing within 100%/s of a Bow Master, but their overall base damage is extremely high comparatively and they do a lot more damage on lower defense monsters. It doesn't make sense why they have a higher defense ignore rate on average than Marksmen and Bow Masters, even without the fact they do more base damage. Threaten gives a bigger boost for Archers than Mercedes, but Mercedes still gains a huge improvement from it, and they stay roughly the same %/s ahead.
Mercedes Balance Analysis - JoeTang - 2011-07-21
I'll be trying to update this soon to reflect exactly the live KMS version.
Charge Drive is 600ms + 480ms (1080ms) for the tossing portion. Goes to 1020ms at Fast (5) (i.e. Boosterless)
Mercedes Balance Analysis - SwordStaker - 2011-07-21
JoeTang Wrote:I'll be trying to update this soon to reflect exactly the live KMS version.Can't wait to see your results and how it turned out.
Charge Drive is 600ms + 480ms (1080ms) for the tossing portion. Goes to 1020ms at Fast (5) (i.e. Boosterless)
Mercedes Balance Analysis - Nepi - 2011-07-22
As a lover of odd builds/experimental classes, I'm mostly interested in whether Unicorn Spike has a weapon-restriction or not. It's the only attacking skill on Mercedes that doesn't involve any Bowgun sprites, so it could possibly work with any weapon.
UA pure-Str gunslingers are amazing with Shark Wave, these would be even more fun with all the speed buffs. P: You would be a beginner with massive speed that could shoot unicorns~<3
Mercedes Balance Analysis - JoeTang - 2011-07-24
Updated.
Soul Infusion is pretty broken.
Personally tested the Leap Tornado and Gust Drive delays. Gust Drive appears to be very bad still. It also has really bad delays that are probably affected by lag amongst other things. I couldn't get it to go faster than 900ms when I used Strike Dualshot after it, even though it went 780ms unboostered when I used Charge Drive. Probably going to be a long time before I can check Rolling Moonsault combinations if at all though.
Strike Dualshot 630ms unboostered. 630 * 13 / 16 = 511.875ms MapleStory Rounding -> 540ms fffffffffffffffffffffffffff