[1.2.381] The Wind

No, it's not about flashiness. For all I care, I couldn't care less if main attack is throwing 3 stars or doing a backflip and throwing 3 stars. It's about thinking out of the box. All useful skills we have are reduced to Flash jump, Triple throw (Lucky seven before that), avenger, and drain. And our buffs to Shadow partner and haste (Ok, add booster and maple warrior, but everyone has those by default). That's it. And I'm talking about the whole skillbook here, all four jobs. The rest are either passives or useless stuff.

The only skill that changes the status of monsters (not a passive, Venom is just a damage adder. No gameplay required) is that very same skill you need 30 sp from 4th job. And it's pushing and stunning at a rate, without even almost damage, and an animation delay quite horrendous. The other is taunt, that doesn't change anything gameplay wise, and just makes you kill stuff slower.

That's all there is to our gameplay during all 4 jobs, basically. There is not a single skill that compliments another, like a bowman does when stunning and attacking, for example. Or a warrior rushing and controlling a boss at the corner, while keeping it there thanks to stance. Or a mage, using infinity to pick when's the best time to use the best skill he can think of at the peak of infinity (bit of a stretch here, but nontheless mages can work around with the rest of skills). We have nothing more than holding a key at bosses, and flash jumping at training.

Phoenix is great and all but I think you forget about where we train at the later game. By the time we get phoenix (because we NEED SE, NEED Hurricane, NEED Expert) we're over at lhc where stun doesn't work. As for pushing, since no one maxes Dragons Breath or your ninja thing, they do almost the same dmg, but yours pushes mobs away from front and back. You also get a PASSIVE DoT (we need to use inferno to get our DoT) that lasts LONGER and does almost TRIPLE the damage that ours does. If you don't think venom is valuable, i'm sorry, because it certainly adds significant damage at bosses with high hp. I see 50k+ constantly from NL's poison.

You guys can jump around and fj and attack whereas BM's need to literally stand still and can't pot unless we stop our dpm, while NL's can pot between TT's with relatively minor drop in dpm.

I guess what i'm getting at is that while NL's have a bunch of useless skills, the useful skills they have are ample enough to make them one of the best bossing classes in the game still. As such, i'm hesitant to endorse more skills. That said, i'm very comfortable with NL's getting skills that don't contribute to their dpm in any meaningful way. Spd cap raised to 180? Sure, you guys are supposed to be the fastest. Advanced FJ that boosts distance jumped by 25 or 50%? Cool. A passive skill that makes you kb mobs twice as far as normal? Ok. Advanced Shadow Partner that nullifies 15% of recieved damage, lasts twice as long, doesn't require a rock, and boosts hp by 30%? Seems somewhat reasonable. Concentrate-like skill? NO!