2011-07-02, 04:35 PM
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.
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.