2013-05-29, 08:48 PM
Hero:
Dark Knight:
There's an error in the Hyper Skills where Reincarnation - Reinforce says it raises Minimum Critical Damage, it should say "Damage". Their hyper skills were messed up to begin with, using wrong names, and effects and we had to manually fix them, and this escaped our view.
Spoiler
Combo:
Fitting the theme of Specialized Skills, Heroes received Combo Attack at 2nd job; however, it does not provide a damage bonus until 3rd job, and has an activation rate. This gives Heroes a secondary resource that is not guaranteed, and spenders in the form of Combo Force at 2nd job, Panic in 3rd, and Enrage and Incising at 4th.
Combo Force's primary advantage is its massive range. It has three times the horizontal range of Brandish, but costs one Combo Count to use; what I find however is that it is significantly weaker than the equivalent skills for Dark Knights, Spear Pulling and Piercing Through, which do 190%x2 and 201%x2 respectively, compared to Combo Force's 140%x2. Piercing Through is faster, in fact, and has bonus effects that improve its damage. As something that spends a somewhat limited resource, I feel Combo Force should be promoted as a high power utility, outlining the Hero's advantage of being dedicated DPS.
It does have the unique and useful utility of returning the Combo Count when it stuns a monster, but it isn't too significantly different compared to the Spearman counterparts; in fact, it has the same range and effect as Spear Pulling, only costing Combo, being slightly faster, and weaker. Page Order at the least is an AOE on either side, with lower damage, but it's only 125%x2, compared to Combo Force, and only hits 100% less range horizontally, but on both sides. In fact, the Charges are about similar DPS when you consider cycling compared to Brandish. Let's not forget about Elemental Weakness.
That being said, I feel Combo Force should receive a higher hit count, and higher speed. It should perhaps chain to Brandish, though it possibly already has a spam delay. It should feel more rewarding to spend your Combo, rather than only doing it because Combo Force has long range.
I'm thinking something along the lines of 130%x3 @ 720ms with a spam delay of 1500ms. It would be stronger for OHKO scenarios, pushing them an advantage over the similar Spearman skills, and the AOE Page skills, but it can't be continually spammed, and can be used as intended: a pulling attack for Brandish to finish on. Brandish perhaps could use a speed or damage boost as well, though 2nd job hardly needs more damage in general.
Panic remains relatively unchanged; the primary difference is that if you reuse it too quickly, it will cost one more Combo Count. This prevents it from being spammed for vastly superior DPS, but leaves the option open aside from being purely a utility debuff. High alpha attacks like these suffer greatly in utility when training though, as they miss and thus do nothing at all at the cost of a resource. It wouldn't hurt to have it split into two hits and higher total damage, since it's always been seen as a waste to lose Combo to use Panic.
Self Recovery is pretty sweet now, but every other change was rather bland. Shout is in an okay place. They should avoid making Crusaders an AOE spamming class. It's not a Magician, but again, Shout being one hit makes it miss rather often. Perhaps it still stuns when it misses, which would be really good for utility combined with Chance Attack though. I'm thinking a new effect on Chance Attack to give higher chance of getting Combo on status-ed monsters, but the actual utility of that seems rather forced, and they should just give back 100% Combo in 4th job from ACA or something.
Incising is the only real change added to 4th job, which is disappointing. It's terrible for DPS on its own since it costs 8 Combo, and purely a utility debuff. I would suggest something along the lines of:
1000%x2 @ 1050ms + 250%/2s for 20s
Since it's almost completely relegated to being a debuff, it shouldn't be so distinctly slow. It already has a rather prohibitive Combo cost, so to promote not wanting to spam it, focus more damage to come from the DoT. I commend them for finally using dotInterval != 1 though.
Providing Mastery from Advanced Combo Attack was a poor choice. This skill already provides so much for Heroes, it shouldn't be so good. Moving Mastery to Combat Mastery would not only fit the name, it would promote adding points to that earlier than bossing level, providing some form of choice (though we'd eventually math out the best option, there's still the utility). That being said, a benefit for Swords vs Axes would be cool.
Combo:
Fitting the theme of Specialized Skills, Heroes received Combo Attack at 2nd job; however, it does not provide a damage bonus until 3rd job, and has an activation rate. This gives Heroes a secondary resource that is not guaranteed, and spenders in the form of Combo Force at 2nd job, Panic in 3rd, and Enrage and Incising at 4th.
Combo Force's primary advantage is its massive range. It has three times the horizontal range of Brandish, but costs one Combo Count to use; what I find however is that it is significantly weaker than the equivalent skills for Dark Knights, Spear Pulling and Piercing Through, which do 190%x2 and 201%x2 respectively, compared to Combo Force's 140%x2. Piercing Through is faster, in fact, and has bonus effects that improve its damage. As something that spends a somewhat limited resource, I feel Combo Force should be promoted as a high power utility, outlining the Hero's advantage of being dedicated DPS.
It does have the unique and useful utility of returning the Combo Count when it stuns a monster, but it isn't too significantly different compared to the Spearman counterparts; in fact, it has the same range and effect as Spear Pulling, only costing Combo, being slightly faster, and weaker. Page Order at the least is an AOE on either side, with lower damage, but it's only 125%x2, compared to Combo Force, and only hits 100% less range horizontally, but on both sides. In fact, the Charges are about similar DPS when you consider cycling compared to Brandish. Let's not forget about Elemental Weakness.
That being said, I feel Combo Force should receive a higher hit count, and higher speed. It should perhaps chain to Brandish, though it possibly already has a spam delay. It should feel more rewarding to spend your Combo, rather than only doing it because Combo Force has long range.
I'm thinking something along the lines of 130%x3 @ 720ms with a spam delay of 1500ms. It would be stronger for OHKO scenarios, pushing them an advantage over the similar Spearman skills, and the AOE Page skills, but it can't be continually spammed, and can be used as intended: a pulling attack for Brandish to finish on. Brandish perhaps could use a speed or damage boost as well, though 2nd job hardly needs more damage in general.
Panic remains relatively unchanged; the primary difference is that if you reuse it too quickly, it will cost one more Combo Count. This prevents it from being spammed for vastly superior DPS, but leaves the option open aside from being purely a utility debuff. High alpha attacks like these suffer greatly in utility when training though, as they miss and thus do nothing at all at the cost of a resource. It wouldn't hurt to have it split into two hits and higher total damage, since it's always been seen as a waste to lose Combo to use Panic.
Self Recovery is pretty sweet now, but every other change was rather bland. Shout is in an okay place. They should avoid making Crusaders an AOE spamming class. It's not a Magician, but again, Shout being one hit makes it miss rather often. Perhaps it still stuns when it misses, which would be really good for utility combined with Chance Attack though. I'm thinking a new effect on Chance Attack to give higher chance of getting Combo on status-ed monsters, but the actual utility of that seems rather forced, and they should just give back 100% Combo in 4th job from ACA or something.
Incising is the only real change added to 4th job, which is disappointing. It's terrible for DPS on its own since it costs 8 Combo, and purely a utility debuff. I would suggest something along the lines of:
1000%x2 @ 1050ms + 250%/2s for 20s
Since it's almost completely relegated to being a debuff, it shouldn't be so distinctly slow. It already has a rather prohibitive Combo cost, so to promote not wanting to spam it, focus more damage to come from the DoT. I commend them for finally using dotInterval != 1 though.
Providing Mastery from Advanced Combo Attack was a poor choice. This skill already provides so much for Heroes, it shouldn't be so good. Moving Mastery to Combat Mastery would not only fit the name, it would promote adding points to that earlier than bossing level, providing some form of choice (though we'd eventually math out the best option, there's still the utility). That being said, a benefit for Swords vs Axes would be cool.
Dark Knight:
There's an error in the Hyper Skills where Reincarnation - Reinforce says it raises Minimum Critical Damage, it should say "Damage". Their hyper skills were messed up to begin with, using wrong names, and effects and we had to manually fix them, and this escaped our view.
Spoiler
Dark Knight's Specialized Skill is Beholder. I believe the intention of having a 20%/24s heal is for the player to take advantage of the high heal amount at a set interval, knowing when to abstain from potions and letting the summon do the healing, leading to somewhat more tactical play. Depending on the area though, this can be rather useless if you have to keep your HP relatively high. It comes out at a 3.3%HP/4s. I think it would be better if it healed larger amounts at a slightly higher interval, or just lower the current interval. 5%/4s wouldn't be too bad either, as some classes already have this.
As stated in the Hero section, Piercing Through and Spear Pulling are really good. Long range, high damage, perfect for that mindless 2nd job grind OHKOing things.
Piercing Through has a unique effect of doing two different things depending on the range of the target. I think this is a cool concept. Combined with the pull from Spear Pulling, you can force the higher critical, or just spam to KB and force the total damage bonus. It seems a bit strange that Piercing Through is faster than Fighters or Pages though, and if it has a spam delay, then this effect is pretty trashy, as you'll always have to use Spear Pulling in between to remain effective, nullifying any potential to use the Total Damage effect. Hopefully, this is not the case.
LamanchaGoat Spear is an okay addition. The original Buster/Fury were very dated and bad compared to newer skills. This gives a really strong hits/s and thus less wasted time missing when training on higher level monsters. Adding a finishing hit gives it a nice bit of flavour.
I honestly have no idea how Cross Over Chain is supposed to work. The 100% and Total Damage in the same line scares me a lot. I might make a Dark Knight just to figure this out, since 3rd job is rather easy.
The Beholder skills in general are rather bland. I like the idea of turning on Dominant after you've gotten the (good) buffs, and getting a bit more damage out of things, but at the same time, 210% (to 15? how?) is a bit low in terms of damage. Maybe if it had better range, and a reliable attack rate. I think a passive boost to everything from Beholder's Revenge is an order though; higher healing rate, higher damage (maybe an extra hit?), better buffs, to make Revenge a worthwhile skill.
Gungnir's Decent sounds like a really sweet skill, though the cooldown and special requirements still seem to prohibitive. It has some great damage, but with the long cooldowns of Beholder and Reincarnation, it's too inaccessible. 30s/120s is a bit of a ratio, so perhaps somewhere between 60s and 90s is an order, and then adjust the damage accordingly.
Reincarnation seems rather flawed. Unless Dark Impale counts as 5 hits, it shouldn't be possible to revive yourself at a single target boss until it's around level 12. The long cooldown leads it to be more of a gimmick, but having such a powerful skill (autores) being easily accessible would be terrible. If it had a low cooldown, Dark Knights would just facetank every boss and not care about dying because they just come back every minute or two.
I would recommend allowing a way to force the Dark Knight into activating the effect without dying, i.e. using it off a hotkey to become invulnerable for some time, but at the risk that if they don't perform well enough, they'll still die? or survive with some penalty, like lowered max HP, damage, crit or something. Combine this with perhaps another effect, such as every kill reduces the cooldown by a certain amount (say 1s?), and vs bosses, every time an "Instant Death" tries to proc, reduce the CD by a different amount (10s perhaps). This gives Beholder's Revenge and Dark Impale's effects some use at bosses, rather than an instant "Oh hey this is pomegranate".
Along with this, keep its original auto-res as a passive effect with its original long cooldown so you can't have free Wheels. It would provide a tactical aspect to play, where you can risk-reward vs bosses that are extremely mobile and you can't guarantee "X hits" on them to escape penalty, as well as a strong reliable buff that doesn't have a 10 minute cooldown.
Again, the Advanced Weapon Mastery could use some flavour for Spears and Polearms, though I want to avoid mixing it with the Instant Death effect outlined about. Change the Minimum Critical to Maximum Critical.
Dark Knight's Specialized Skill is Beholder. I believe the intention of having a 20%/24s heal is for the player to take advantage of the high heal amount at a set interval, knowing when to abstain from potions and letting the summon do the healing, leading to somewhat more tactical play. Depending on the area though, this can be rather useless if you have to keep your HP relatively high. It comes out at a 3.3%HP/4s. I think it would be better if it healed larger amounts at a slightly higher interval, or just lower the current interval. 5%/4s wouldn't be too bad either, as some classes already have this.
As stated in the Hero section, Piercing Through and Spear Pulling are really good. Long range, high damage, perfect for that mindless 2nd job grind OHKOing things.
Piercing Through has a unique effect of doing two different things depending on the range of the target. I think this is a cool concept. Combined with the pull from Spear Pulling, you can force the higher critical, or just spam to KB and force the total damage bonus. It seems a bit strange that Piercing Through is faster than Fighters or Pages though, and if it has a spam delay, then this effect is pretty trashy, as you'll always have to use Spear Pulling in between to remain effective, nullifying any potential to use the Total Damage effect. Hopefully, this is not the case.
Lamancha
I honestly have no idea how Cross Over Chain is supposed to work. The 100% and Total Damage in the same line scares me a lot. I might make a Dark Knight just to figure this out, since 3rd job is rather easy.
The Beholder skills in general are rather bland. I like the idea of turning on Dominant after you've gotten the (good) buffs, and getting a bit more damage out of things, but at the same time, 210% (to 15? how?) is a bit low in terms of damage. Maybe if it had better range, and a reliable attack rate. I think a passive boost to everything from Beholder's Revenge is an order though; higher healing rate, higher damage (maybe an extra hit?), better buffs, to make Revenge a worthwhile skill.
Gungnir's Decent sounds like a really sweet skill, though the cooldown and special requirements still seem to prohibitive. It has some great damage, but with the long cooldowns of Beholder and Reincarnation, it's too inaccessible. 30s/120s is a bit of a ratio, so perhaps somewhere between 60s and 90s is an order, and then adjust the damage accordingly.
Reincarnation seems rather flawed. Unless Dark Impale counts as 5 hits, it shouldn't be possible to revive yourself at a single target boss until it's around level 12. The long cooldown leads it to be more of a gimmick, but having such a powerful skill (autores) being easily accessible would be terrible. If it had a low cooldown, Dark Knights would just facetank every boss and not care about dying because they just come back every minute or two.
I would recommend allowing a way to force the Dark Knight into activating the effect without dying, i.e. using it off a hotkey to become invulnerable for some time, but at the risk that if they don't perform well enough, they'll still die? or survive with some penalty, like lowered max HP, damage, crit or something. Combine this with perhaps another effect, such as every kill reduces the cooldown by a certain amount (say 1s?), and vs bosses, every time an "Instant Death" tries to proc, reduce the CD by a different amount (10s perhaps). This gives Beholder's Revenge and Dark Impale's effects some use at bosses, rather than an instant "Oh hey this is pomegranate".
Along with this, keep its original auto-res as a passive effect with its original long cooldown so you can't have free Wheels. It would provide a tactical aspect to play, where you can risk-reward vs bosses that are extremely mobile and you can't guarantee "X hits" on them to escape penalty, as well as a strong reliable buff that doesn't have a 10 minute cooldown.
Again, the Advanced Weapon Mastery could use some flavour for Spears and Polearms, though I want to avoid mixing it with the Instant Death effect outlined about. Change the Minimum Critical to Maximum Critical.