2011-07-05, 07:33 PM
With the most recent patch, it appears Mercedes do 4179.3%/s with Sharp Eyes on a 75% Defense monster, 3592.5%/s without Sharp Eyes, and 5829.2%/s base damage without Legendary Spear or Sharp Eyes. Clearly overpowered at this point. Still stands to determine whether Spirit Infusion and Ancient Spirit stack additively or multiplicatively, but it's not a large difference, only ~150%/s.
My personal opinion is Defense Break should be lowered back to 25% rate, and Ancient Spirit's damage increase should just be removed at this point in favour of some other effect that does not make them physically stronger, or a party effect. This change would literally make them balanced in a 75% defense bossing situation, doing within 100%/s of a Bow Master, but their overall base damage is extremely high comparatively and they do a lot more damage on lower defense monsters. It doesn't make sense why they have a higher defense ignore rate on average than Marksmen and Bow Masters, even without the fact they do more base damage. Threaten gives a bigger boost for Archers than Mercedes, but Mercedes still gains a huge improvement from it, and they stay roughly the same %/s ahead.
My personal opinion is Defense Break should be lowered back to 25% rate, and Ancient Spirit's damage increase should just be removed at this point in favour of some other effect that does not make them physically stronger, or a party effect. This change would literally make them balanced in a 75% defense bossing situation, doing within 100%/s of a Bow Master, but their overall base damage is extremely high comparatively and they do a lot more damage on lower defense monsters. It doesn't make sense why they have a higher defense ignore rate on average than Marksmen and Bow Masters, even without the fact they do more base damage. Threaten gives a bigger boost for Archers than Mercedes, but Mercedes still gains a huge improvement from it, and they stay roughly the same %/s ahead.