4th job Single Target DPS

With all due respect, I'd have to say that makes your comparison blatantly biased, particularly in favor of NLs. But that's what I've come to expect from a good part of the MS community. Balancing scrolling on equips is inherently an un"fair" comparison... it's not even close to fair, it's just easy. As for a BW Paladin or a sword Paladin with equal spending, if the BW Paladin is outdamaging the sword Paladin then maybe it *is* true that at that level of funding the BW would win (though I can guarantee you would not get that result - proper swords are too much faster). A person who comes into the game that chooses to play a certain job won't have the same level of scrolling on equips no matter what. Even with the shifts in prices due to boxes there have been some universal trends, and one of them is that for instance, if you start the game with a character, unfunded or funded is moot, you are not going to afford a +3 30%, +4 60% claw on a Night Lord yet only also afford a +3 30%, +4 60% sword on a Hero or Paladin with the same gameplay. Quite honestly your thread is a more accurate comparison of godly-funded thieves to poorly-funded everyone else.

Additionally, granting NLs one of their strongest stars and Shadowers a khanjar, but granting warriors only a normal speed 2h and a 1h with no attack shield, is automatically a joke. If I didn't know better I'd say you had an agenda to pursue, what with just how badly unbalanced this comparison is.

I'll counter that the way you want to do it is more biased than the way I've done it. NL equips are only expensive because they are such a popular class, not because their items are inherently expensive. What's the point of comparing classes based on funding? Who is that information useful to? I highly doubt anyone sits around figuring out which class they should make based on a certain amount of funding. Comparing classes based on equal scrolling is useful, because it displays inherent differences between classes and helps you to understand how strong each class is, based on the way they're designed. Heroes do more 1v1 damage than Shadowers on neutral monsters. End of story. This is the way the game is balanced. It doesn't matter if the results don't match up to what you may see in-game. They never will. There are too many variables to consider, people have extremely varying amounts of funding, have different levels of success scrolling their equips, Marksmen don't use Snipe exactly every x seconds, BMs get slowed down ever so much more slightly from pausing Hurricane than other classes, DrKs can't always Berserk at every boss, some bosses require some classes to constantly adjust themselves or move to avoid attacks while other classes stand and spam, and so on. What you think is "balancing" the classes is merely introducing yet another variable into the system, making the results even more diluted.

What's wrong with using Khanjars and Ilbis? I consider shields and ammo to be a second part of the weapon. The level 110 weapon set for Corsairs is a Dragonfire Revolver and Eternal bullets. The level 110 weapon set for NLs is a Dragon Sleve and Ilbis. Nothing wrong there. Balanced Furies would be like archers using attack arrows, but Ilbis is perfectly fine.

Crossheider - 14 att, 12 str

Dusk, I have a suggestion. Make an option that sets base stats according to level (or just fixed at 200) and lets you add equip stats to that. Though I suppose that could just be sandbox'd.

I'm not sure how this would work. Example?