[1.2.381] The Wind

White. Just so you stop all your nonsense and leave all this stupid discussion.

One of the following is good game design, the other is poor game design. Try to pick what is what.

Actually, both are good game design, as they all work and do mostly what they're supposed to. Keep in mind what i've said, NL's have less synergy than most other classes. I support more synergy for their class. Why do I need to keep repeating that?

Dark Flare. It's a skill that gets more useless as your party is stronger, or your avoid increases. It's also a stationary skill while you are supposed to be a mainly moveable class.

Dark Flare has everything to do with NL's and the class itself. The fact it's a party skill doesn't automatically exclude NL's from that aspect. However, despite it being a party skill, I've already proven in this post that it lacks synergy with other classes in addition to itself. While the purpose of the skill is to do damage, the amount of damage it produces is reduced by the fact that many classes have damage mitigation skills or high avoid (which reduces its ability to deal damage period). This is negative synergy.

Both of you are poorly mistaken. Dark Flare, when combined with certain other aspects of the game (such as high defense) make Dark Flare do less damage, but it still does damage. That's not negative synergy, that's less good synergy. Say I take 5k damage from an attack, Dark Flare will reflect that to do 65k. Say a warrior gets hit by the same skill and only takes 1 damage, 13 dealt. That's less good synergy. Say someone gives me 1 million mesos, that's good. Say someone gives me 100k mesos, that's less good, but that doesn't make it bad. To emphasis the effectiveness of Dark Flare, the run leader can fix up the parties to have lower defense classes together with the NL which takes, to quote you Alloy, "party administration at raids to have a new depth." -_-

Shadow Web. It's a skill used to keep monsters stopped until they get hit. Yet your only mobbing skill has a small enough range, so you need the monsters to always move to you so they get closer to each other.

A useless skill, I don't think anyone debates this. However, I did see an NL at rgs (before the big nerf) hitting 225k's w/ shadow web on the royal guard A's that had 11m hp. Not sure how but there you go.

Shadow stars. A skill that makes Shadow javelin not activate critical hits, or recharge stars, ever. Only makes the usage of stars slower, by design, it fits the class considering how the ammo works.

This is a good point. Shadow stars doesn't have synergy with Expert Star Handling, but it does have good synergy with the NL class itself. Hm.

Venom. A passive skill that, even adding additional damage, it will do less than the other thief branches, as the attack from the stars are not counted towards the formula.

Doesn't take the attack of stars, but it does take the influence of your 1.75 dmg multiplier as well as buffs and pots and whatever else. Sounds like synergy to me. Considering it's passive and thus always working for you, and giving you free damage, which isn't small damage either. I wish I had passive poison that did 140%. I don't get a DoT at all unless I want to deliberately sacrifice my dpm.

Meso up. A skill that is automatically useless if a monster doesn't drop mesos, and that only contributes to the aftermatch, only if the person dealing the final blow has the buff active.

And notice how it's a team buff. Nevertheless, it's a rather useless skill as the mesos that monsters drop isn't a source of income for anyone but rather the books and equipment that drops is the valuable thing. I'd be totally on board for Meso Up to be changed to increase drop-rate, even on bosses.

Taunt. Shared with shadowers. A skill that lets you get more exp and drops by sacrificing the time for an attack or two (not sure on the timing, may even take the time of 3, even), making it be more profitable to just kill faster, and move to a different target. The potential to help a teammate get more exp is mitigated by the fact you just loose exp yourself, and even contribute less to the party by killing slower. Additionally, completely useless on bosses.

It's an old skill that needs to be made more current. It should affect bosses. When it was made, there was no LHC, there was no pdr, those things came later and the skill (when original) is no longer the usefulness that it should be. That's not to say that it's a useless skill. It's up to the NL or Shad to determine whether they want to pay the price for the extra benefits. Droprate +40% and EXP +40% is actually a pretty big deal when you think about the uses. Say you're looking for WAB30, or dewlets (whenever that quest is fixed for more than warriors), getting 40% higher droprate is huge. Family buff is only 20%. I'd also be pretty surprised if Taunt doesn't stack with buffs and things like lucky winter or drop cards. It's not a bad skill. But if NL's want to kill as fast as possible and not bother with anything extra then Taunt doesn't fit into their playstyle, that's their choice.

Ninja ambush is a DoT skill that takes more time to cast than any other offensive skill, deals less damage overall than a single avenger attack, and way less range.

I'll tell you what I use DoT's for, and you can tell me what you use them for. I use DoT's exclusively at bosses that have w.cancel up. There's no reason for me to use them otherwise when I do more damage with hurricane. That being said, I don't see the reason of using DoT's for anything besides at bosses with w.cancel. Ninja Ambush fits the bill in that case. If you're looking for it to do damage when you could normally just be attacking with avenger or TT, then I'd say that's a misunderstanding of the true usefulness of the skill.

Puppet is stationary, tricks enemies and monsters so that you are safer, and attacks consistent damage depending of your range. Keeps the (now less) stationary nature of bowmen's attacks.

Pre-Jump puppet is almost completely useless for me. I'm either with a group killing a boss or training at LHC, where puppet's aggro is broken and useless, or i'm soloing a boss that hits map attacks and thus puppet is useless for me. The only time puppet helps me currently is at dojo and grandpa. Post-Jump, assuming puppet actually works like it's supposed to and pulls agg even when other players hit the monster, it still won't be useful for drawing aggo as bosses either hit map wide attacks or the regular monsters die too quickly. The actual only real benefit I can see to E.Puppet is that it takes 20% of my damage, which isn't even it's initial or primary use, but a side benefit.

Arrow bomb stuns monsters on a small area, dealing damage, and will keep them stunned even after attacking them. It has the same range as shadow web, only you can cast it from far.

AB and Shadow Web are two completely different skills, comparing them and then stating that one is better is flawed because of that. AB is a mobbing skill to kill enemies, Shadow Web is a mobbing skill to trap enemies. AB causes a status effect: stun. Shadow Web "binds" which I don't even know how long that lasts or what, but it's different or else it'd be stated as the same.

Spirit link is a skill that, with a summon out, will make the summon attack while you get benefits from it. The previous summon's stunning abilities can be replaced by other skills, even if not as effective.

Comparing version 3 Archers against version 2 NL's is flat out stupid in the first place. Secondly, Spirit Link is amazing, there's no contesting that.

Advanced final attack is a skill that, depending on what kind of attack you are using, you can deal more or less extra hits, making a combo with Hurricane be perfect.

Consider it our passive venom. It's better, yes, but it's also a new skill, v3 vs v2.

Sharp eyes is a skill that lets you and your whole party deal additional damage depending on their critical rates to maximize that advantage, taking party administration at raids to have a new depth.

Yeah, it's a party buff, everyone get's the same benefit. Like haste. I don't really see your point in it. As for 'party administration', that's just laughable. A new depth? Really? If you're serious, I can only assume you're new to party bossing.

Concentration is a skill that adds a buff to weapon attack, while adding an extra saving to the mp used per skill, lowering pot use whatever the kind of potion is, even % based recovery ones.

Yes, and it's greatly appreciated because we can't pot while attacking, we need to stop and pot thereby greatly reducing our dpm. NL's don't have that problem.

Inferno is a DoT skill that gets an advanced version on 4th job, that lasts a long time and works for enough time to use other attacks while it lasts, working better on stationary bosses, to have an easy target to keep the fire at.

The last half of your sentence demonstrates that you really don't know the skill all that well. Inferno is a waste of time as it stands postBB. Hurricane does more damage on groups of what, 1-4? Something like that. And mobs of 4+ are uncommon at best. Post-Jump, U.Inferno (v3 keep in mind) isn't even a skill i'll be investing in as hurricane will still be the better option for training 90% of the time and up. As for the DoT, it'll be useful at bosses that are currently w.canceling, as that's the only practical use of DoT atm.

By the way, advantages Night Lords have that I left out are drain, haste and flash jump. Do those sound familiar to you?

Yep, can't wait to get them.

As for game design, both have it. You and Dizzy assume that because one class has better synergy, that your class then has bad synergy. The truth of the matter is that your class merely has less good synergy. Less good =/= bad.

The fact [Dark Flare] works only within a set area until planted elsewhere means it functions best at stationary and pinned bosses. This I won't argue with. However, not all bosses are stationary, not all bosses will be pinned either through either lack of ability to do so or other disturbances.

If a group is unable to pin a nonstationary boss, the problems for that group are far greater than less than optimal damage return from Dark Flare. When I go on boss runs, and it's often, the boss is always pinned. Need a grand total of 1 warrior to do that, or just fulfill the KB requirement to pin, which is doable easily on all bosses excluding PB, which you need warriors for crash anyway or you'll never kill it in time with it's damage reflect rates. If you're looking for the small exception for when Dark Flare isn't as useful, then please keep in mind that those times are the small exception, not the norm.

So you don't want NL's to become stronger, but you want them to have more synergy, which in your opinion, is for them to become stronger? Sorry, but that's what I'm reading here.

Twisting my words.

I'm instead reading that Dizzy is frustrated with lots of useless skills and (catch word coming) more 'synergy', which I can only assume to mean more skills that work together and more damage buffing skills or skills that do more damage straight up.

My interpretation of you wanting more synergy is also an increase of damage, which is certainly not ignored by the times you've stated that NL's have low damage.
I've said I support an increase of synergy in the actual meaning of the word, where more things are working together to achieve an affect greater than their own individually. Like how Concentrate's secondary effect of reducing mp consumption means BM's don't need to pot mp as often and can save pot money.

So that's not NL's being strong. That's NL's depending on items and on others to be strong that's normally outside their scope of normal damage capabilities. Okay.

That is NL's being strong. Apples are obtainable on an NL and they can use that themselves. If they are 200, they can echo for themselves. They can get SE gloves for themselves. They all have MW30 for themselves. They all have some %boss on their weapons. These are all doable by themselves, without the necessary help of their party.