[1.2.321] Skill Balancing - Edelstein & Leben

Yeah, I don't understand why people that think NLs are entitled to be top-tier DPSers.

If Nexon actually balances these classes right, there shouldn't be a "tier list" for DPS anyway.

I think ideally:
Ranged classes = damage +-5%, some changes depending on buffs available
Warrior classes = 85~90% of ranged and ability to hit 3 targets (Hero/DrK) or ability to use elements to do more (Pally), support skills to increase party's damage/survivability
Shadower/Bucc = 85~90% of ranged, good defensive/evasive ability + mobbing + support skills
Magic classes = 75~80% of ranged, good mob control, support skills / boss disables?

While this sounds nice and those damage ratios could work well, it feels like the game is catering towards Ranged classes. D:

Post edited to save you all the trouble of scrolling through my wall .

So busy all day...kept trying to read through the read, racking up comments to comment on, only to be pulled away every few pages. FINALLY I get to comment . Here we go!

 Comments to previous posts

Haha, badass bossing skill for I/Ls now. F/Ps are still shafted.

Uh, yeah. Gratz I/Ls, but I miss my DPS.

*sigh* I wish they didn't reduce the mob count for Chain Lightning, they can keep their 700% damage, I want to hit more than 3 mobs with it, I'm a mage not a warrior.

Guess I really will have to rely on big bang...

What? You want 700% damage AND higher mobbing? Jesus....

Starting the Official Please Give a Fuck about LOLFPs fund. Currently accepting donations to hire a cheap Korean lawyer to lobby Nexon for the sake of putting us on the map again.

Arans got a buff.

I'm so happy.

Ditto . No longer quitting Aran for Sair, and it helps pass the time while we raise funds for our LOLFP lawyer.

it seems that Mages have their -2 speed booster back

YAY!

If anything we need faster casting, as our skill delays are SO crappy to begin with. Hell, it would be nice if SI worked with us for a change, too. But I'd really like to see Evan's -3 booster on AMs .

Not when F/Ps get a better freezing skill than I/Ls 4th job, give CL a stun effect, and 4-6 mobs and I/L be happy, we will be on the only Magician class with stun, plus it makes sense since TS stuns.

You will train roughly as fast as us and boss ridiculously better. Stop whining. Again, please donate to the above fund.

Heh, I see mages from each side want what was originally advertised =D
F/Ps want their single target goodness and I/L want their mob controlling capabilities. I think in the same way.

Agreed. I don't even care if both F/P and I/L single target skills have the exact same damage and speed once hit and damage % calculations are worked out (because that's what we really call balance), so long as we actually have something worthwhile. Sheesh.

This is the first time, in all the years that I've been playing MapleStory, that I can really say All the jobs are balanced now.

LOL? Read LegendGospel's post I quoted below.

 Spoiler

People need to stop letting their greed and hatred drive their discussions for game balancing.

Nightlords are pretty pineappleing strong, and now they're able to train too, good for them!

Shadowers are also pretty pineappleing strong now. They finally got SHADOW Partner too, lol. Makes sense, I'm happy for them. There was a guy complaining about range just because he can't hit Zakum's top right arm. Yeah, that's quite annoying. Barrage can't hit it, but Demolition can. But Assassinate is still a hell of a killer. I guess something could be done. Not like it matters much unless you're soloing the arms. When I had no Demolition I just Barraged the arms I could hit. Why are Shadowers complaining about anything, really? Assassinate is awesome.

Love the Bucc love. Finally transformation does what it's supposed to do. It only took this long, lol. This is enough to make them a respected class.

LOLadins were fixed time ago, with a good party skill and good damage, now they are almost invincible, the true meatshields of this game. Sweet.

For me, these jobs are 95% set. Now... introducing you the new loljob...

LOLMAGICIANS!!

1) Ultimates reduced, sorry guys! You'll have to rely on your semi-decent mobbing skills, oops, except you Bishops!
2) F/P guys can't boss, sorry!
3) I/L guys got a better bossing skill, but it still SUCKS compared to melee jobs, sorry!
4) Bishops bossing? Doesn't matter that much, we heal and dispel and so =) but oh wait... good luck training!
5) Thieves complain about sharing a few branch side-skills? Well, all 3 magicians main training skill is Big Bang, lol. Byebye uniqueness.

LF> Magician balancing.

A really simple way to fix magicians is: their main 4th job unique main skill hit hard on single targets, and hit on multiple mobs with reduced damage.
On single targets: Multihits for CL, big damage increase for Paralyze, slight damage increase for Angel Ray. I win the Internetz.

*applauds* COMPLETELY agree. Only thing more I would ask for would be increased cast speed with Evan booster or something, but otherwise that just about sums it up. The Demon/Summon combos are nice for ArchMages, and the general ability to play around with monster elements, but above all what you said is of the utmost importance. Got to have a reason to train, if you can train at all.

I don't really agree with that. 700% is pretty powerful, and if the new magic dmg formula gives mages similar ranges to non magic jobs then it's satisfactory isn't it?

It is powerful if 700% for Magicians = 700% for weapon attack classes, but what we're discussing is how 700% > 460% for LOLFPs, all of which is even weaker than Evan's new Earthquake at 740%. Some tweaking definitely needs to be done to magic-based classes.

Actually, Big Bang is only better if the monster you are attacking is neutral or strong to the element you'd be using, as far as I remember

Two words: Elemental Reset. Doesn't matter anymore for ArchMages, and the fact of the matter is Big Bang = 6 hit AoE with a lovely grand total of 1450% damage per mob. Chances are it will be the strongest in most cases, provided aspects of the skill I outlined in a General MapleStory thread (annoying air neutralization and the inability to teleport while charging) are fixed.

 Spoiler

I hope so.

However, if you ask any magician now, the status of CL, Paralyze and Angel Ray is pretty unsatisfactory. Raising Big Bang for everyone seems like a really cheap way to avoid balancing these skills.

CL lost its mob control (to gain more damage), Paralyze lost its single target top damage (to gain mob control), and Angel Ray seems unusable cause of range, unless it has some hidden quirk, it just sucks. Everything is just a mess now.

More so, Magicians can't compete against melee jobs on anything but perhaps training.
I think Magicians could be balanced more by fixing their unique abilities.

QFTing again, though I wholeheartedly enjoy, support, and look forward to the new Big Bang. It's finally no longer a member of the "Trifecta of Crap," and needs no further tweaking.

 Spoiler

Magician tweaking still needs a bit of work.

Ultimate are now just about useless, new Archmages would put 1 point on Ultimates for the flare, but after that it's much better to max everything else.

Ultimates need to be transformed, if they could get it to work like Combo Tempest on bosses, that'd be fixing all of the remaining issues of all 3 classes. For training possibly reduce the mob count, and the damage to around Earthquake levels, along with the range.

I already mentioned the uselessness of Cold Beam, and the absence of notable Freezing skills in the I/L Archmages 4th Job.

As much as I like Big Bang, I don't like all 3 classes being stuck to one skill for the best damage.

I agree that we need tweaking, though not where you say it needs to be done. Take it from an Evan that you can still rank in the upper-middle-class range of class rankings when it comes to training even with an ultimate cooldown. With Teleport Mastery expanding our mobility range by another 20 pixels a cast, along with the damage and AoE boosts to our skills, we will definitely be a fantastic mobbing/training class (provided the new magic accuracy formula doesn't kill us all). What we DO need is a reason to train, and as bossing is, essentially, the only high-leveled content out there, and 99% of bossing revolves around single target DPS, we have no reason to level our classes.

Wait... are you saying we should ask magicians about something they have no idea about? You do know they changed how magic works completely, right? The damage, accuracy, everything. Unless you're a part of KMST, I'm pretty sure most of these magicians understand very little about how it works now.

Brah, so long as my single target DPS is high enough to be considered for a boss run as a "damage-dealing asset during DEF ups," I could care less.

Now for general comments:

Most of what I was going to say was summed up by LegendGospel in his first post. Congratulations to the long-deserved buffs to the majority of classes. I'm glad to see people rejoicing that they can finally drop the "lol" in front of their class name. While this applies to 95% of the classes, Magicians, sadly, still need some tweaking. Most of us will tell you we enjoy what's been done and believe progress has been made, but we're still not quite there yet. Hopefully such changes occur, but with how Nexon seems to treat our classes, who knows.

That being said, I'm personally glad to see, after four years of playing this game (and hell, since the birth of this game in the first place), the much-needed overhaul of the magic damage formula to mirror what the weapon attack damage formula does, the much-needed addition of Elemental Reset to ArchMages, and the much-needed transformation of the 4th Job "Trifecta of Crap" into worthwhile skills.

However, we're still missing a reason to train our classes. The main reason a person trains their class is to access higher leveled content. Currently, 99% of higher leveled content consists of bosses, 99% of which consist mainly of single target DPS battles. All of which Magicians, obviously, do NOT excel at. Now the debate can rage over Bishops being a support class (and while I support that, I feel that even supporting classes need a way to defend themselves and contribute when supporting is not needed [cue Fire Emblem examples of Holy/Anima magic stave weilders]), but the bottom line is that there's nothing for ArchMages to do BUT attack and deal damage. Nexon will tell you otherwise (omg use ur kewl elements to inflict statuses!!1), but if our "kewl statuses" don't even work on bosses, what can we do?

Therefore the changes we need are simple. Either:

1. Design higher leveled content that allows Magicians to showcase their talents for mobbing and inflicting various statuses that makes us useful at said content.

2. Tweak our skills to give us at least one viable single target DPS skill (by far the easiest, and "viable" here means "when DEF ups occur during boss runs you actually see the HP bar drop to a similar speed as it does during MDEF ups") for bossing.

3. Tweak the status inflict system to allow us to inflict various status effects on bosses that, somehow, make squad and expedition leaders want a couple ArchMages/etc. Magicians there.

Once that's done then I will finally say bravo Korea.

ANOTHER EDIT:

 Personal tidbits about this recent patch

I know this is essentially useless as it's Tespia, so whatever, but still:

1. If you're going to buff Explosion, Korea, please buff Fire Demon. You designed a game in which it's more useful to use a horizontally-attacking skill than a vertical one, in most cases, and I'd kind of like my 4th Job skills to, I don't know, not be made obsolete by those from previous jobs. kthnx.

2. Please give us word soon to see how the Demons and Summons work together, now that you've switched the summons and we have no clue if we can help them out by weakening a mob to their element with our demons (or if they even do that anymore in the first place).

3. lolComposition boosts. Useless skill is useless if it's so slow, so please decrease the delay if you're going to bother buffing it. Otherwise we'll continue siphoning points from the skill into Partial Resistance.

While this sounds nice and those damage ratios could work well, it feels like the game is catering towards Ranged classes. D:

We're the frailest classes, we don't do as well at bosses like HT where there are multiple body parts to hit, and we don't offer much to the party except damage output. I don't really see why ranged classes shouldn't be given that title. 1v1 damage isn't the only thing that matters. Heroes are often considered one of the best classes in GMS right now, even though their single target DPS is actually pretty miserable compared to the most powerful classes. Besides, the current set up in GMS has some classes outdamaging others by factors of 200% or more. The ratios I imagined would actually be a pretty welcome buff to the other classes.

My above post is already unbearably long, so I wanted to propose this idea to Magicians in a new post:

How about this unique fix to our single target DPS dilemma? You know how Shadowers and Night Lords both have Shadow Partner now? What if Nexon either (a) decreased summon attack delays to a degree where they're around the speeds of our single target skills, or (b) made them so they would attack with us like an Evan's dragon? Both would essentially "add on" that DPS to that of our single targets, and be of a different element that would therefore add variable damage depending on the boss. Besides buffing our single target skills to actually make them worthwhile on single targets, but allow them to not get too strong to maintain their mobbing potential, this would be any easy change to boost those skills at bosses into a worthwhile single target DPS range.

Regarding animation changes I don't think much would have to change (though it would be nice to have them behind Maplers so they're not as annoying at bosses), though I can understand the issue with the second option above in restricting a summon to only attack in one direction, with the caster. They are nice as free-standing aid, so I think delay decreases would be useful.

While this applies to 95% of the classes, Magicians, sadly, still need some tweaking. Most of us will tell you we enjoy what's been done and believe progress has been made, but we're still not quite there yet. Hopefully such changes occur, but with how Nexon seems to treat our classes, who knows.

When 4th job was released, I was disapointed seeing that archmages were clones of each other:
Fire Demon/Ice Demon/Summons being the same concept, ultimates doing the exact same
damage except blizzard could freeze, not to mention the loldamage of paralyze/chain lightning
compared to the other classes.

It was as if the creativity wasn't there in the designs.

I hope that nexon can change that along with the 1v1 dpm problems when the patch is done.

The big bang update and paralyze change suggests that they're on the right track. (:

(b) made them so they would attack with us like an Evan's dragon? Both would essentially "add on" that DPS to that of our single targets, and be of a different element that would therefore add variable damage depending on the boss.

So they would attack whenever we attack? Such as ifrit hitting the target at the same speed of paralyze?

I feel bad for Marksmen. What's up with Strafe being 50% weaker than Hurricane when it's already 2/3rds as fast?

Magic Critical's probability doubled at all levels so what does that mean exactly does that mean 15% at level 15 goes to 30% at level 15

What? You want 700% damage AND higher mobbing? Jesus....

Starting the Official Please Give a Fuck about LOLFPs fund. Currently accepting donations to hire a cheap Korean lawyer to lobby Nexon for the sake of putting us on the map again.

Just to clear up this misunderstanding, "they can keep their 700% damage" means he would trade off the 700% damage for better mobbing. Not keeping 700% damage AND hitting more targets.

I feel bad for Marksmen. What's up with Strafe being 50% weaker than Hurricane when it's already 2/3rds as fast?

I also cry a tear of pity for them, but at least they sort of care about Pierce, but not really. It has terrible scaling. They should have gotten Vengeance instead of Bow Masters, which I hope does not work with Hurricane as it fundamentally makes Hurricane 300% per arrow, unless it activates like old FA, in which case it makes Hurricane worthless.

I feel bad for Marksmen. What's up with Strafe being 50% weaker than Hurricane when it's already 2/3rds as fast?

Why does that matter when snipe does more damage in a set time interval than any other class will be able to do? o.o

Magic Critical's probability doubled at all levels so what does that mean exactly does that mean 15% at level 15 goes to 30% at level 15

Well it was 30 to begin, so I think they realized evan was crap without Criticals, going on vacation so I hope I come back to a beastly Archmage bossing buff, and a beefy I/L boost.

I agree that we need tweaking, though not where you say it needs to be done. Take it from an Evan that you can still rank in the upper-middle-class range of class rankings when it comes to training even with an ultimate cooldown. With Teleport Mastery expanding our mobility range by another 20 pixels a cast, along with the damage and AoE boosts to our skills, we will definitely be a fantastic mobbing/training class (provided the new magic accuracy formula doesn't kill us all). What we DO need is a reason to train, and as bossing is, essentially, the only high-leveled content out there, and 99% of bossing revolves around single target DPS, we have no reason to level our classes.

Not really sure what you're trying to say here, I'm fine with a Ultimate Cooldown, but I'm thinking the same thing you are, I want to do more than just be a good trainer, the current Ultimates are useless, so why not remake them into something useful, preferably a bossing skill.

I also agree that our many status infliction Slow, Poison, Freeze, Seal, etc should have some use outside of training.

I also cry a tear of pity for them, but at least they sort of care about Pierce, but not really. It has terrible scaling. They should have gotten Vengeance instead of Bow Masters, which I hope does not work with Hurricane as it fundamentally makes Hurricane 300% per arrow, unless it activates like old FA, in which case it makes Hurricane worthless.

i guess NLS are the new LOLclass perhaps...sairs might become the next LOLclass.

Why does that matter when snipe does more damage in a set time interval than any other class will be able to do? o.o

Agree with that,
And on top of it, Strafe with Bow booster which boosts the attacking speed up will allow xbm/ marksmen to achieve similar dmg count as BowMaster's Hurricane (which Bow booster has no effect on what so ever)

i guess NLS are the new LOLclass perhaps...sairs might become the next LOLclass.

What does that make Bow Masters since they're weaker than Night Lords still?

Agree with that,
And on top of it, Strafe with Bow booster which boosts the attacking speed up will allow xbm/ marksmen to achieve similar dmg count as BowMaster's Hurricane (which Bow booster has no effect on what so ever)

With Crossbow Booster, Hurricane is only a measly six times faster than Strafe. No big difference or anything, shooting arrows 2/3rds as fast

Not really sure what you're trying to say here, I'm fine with a Ultimate Cooldown, but I'm thinking the same thing you are, I want to do more than just be a good trainer, the current Ultimates are useless, so why not remake them into something useful, preferably a bossing skill.

In what way?

I also agree that our many status infliction Slow, Poison, Freeze, Seal, etc should have some use outside of training.

Seal...maybe, but I can't see it happening for freeze/poison.
*remembers the bigfoot poison epidemic*

What does that make Bow Masters since they're weaker than Night Lords still?

300% hurricane with 60% crit is better then 260% TT.

2400% dmg per second hurricane vs 1747% dmg per second TT

What does that make Bow Masters since they're weaker than Night Lords still?

I'm pretty doubtful on that claim, did you actually see the data changes on BowMAsters?
Fyi, BM now has 60% Bow Mastery (Bow Expert), with +30 WA (as compared to what it had b4 @ 1.2.318 a mere +11WA)
On top of it, BM has half the time buff from Concentrate +25 WA, if u're carrying cider with you, you're almost full-timer with +20 WA
In additional of Hurricane's 200% per arrow? If and I said IF the BM's formula shall stay the same. Solo NLs are almost a goner. Arrow Rain can do a 400% with 10 mobs. On MapleSEA map, EoSW, u'll be doing 1Hit KO. And that's not even including the S.E 15% chances and additional 30% cric dmg gain from SE. Totaling cric probability is up to 60% ?? (not sure on tis)

With Crossbow Booster, Hurricane is only a measly six times faster than Strafe. No big difference or anything, shooting arrows 2/3rds as fast

How about comparing Xbow's snipe dmg den? There's no value dmg from BM that's even near that single blow dmg dealing.

300% hurricane with 60% crit is better then 260% TT.

2400% dmg per second hurricane vs 1747% dmg per second TT

Vengeance? I sure hope it works with Hurricane, because not only will Bow Masters have the strongest single target available, they'll also have the strongest mob skill at the same time, while 100% stunning and knocking pomegranate back so they can never be touched. Maybe then everyone else will realise all other jobs are completely obsolete.

I'm pretty doubtful on that claim, did you actually see the data changes on BowMAsters?
Fyi, BM now has 60% Bow Mastery (Bow Expert), with +30 WA (as compared to what it had b4 @ 1.2.318 a mere +11WA)
On top of it, BM has half the time buff from Concentrate +25 WA, if u're carrying cider with you, you're almost full-timer with +20 WA
In additional of Hurricane's 200% per arrow? If and I said IF the BM's formula shall stay the same. Solo NLs are almost a goner. Arrow Rain can do a 400% with 10 mobs. On MapleSEA map, EoSW, u'll be doing 1Hit KO. And that's not even including the S.E 15% chances and additional 30% cric dmg gain from SE. Totaling cric probability is up to 60% ?? (not sure on tis)


How about comparing Xbow's snipe dmg den? There's no value dmg from BM that's even near that single blow dmg dealing.

Snipe does, optimally, 100k/s. Since Marksmen do approximately half the DPS of Bow Masters, and Bow Masters are stronger than their GMS versions which already do over 200k/s, 100k/s means they can sort of catch up but not really at all.

Snipe does, optimally, 100k/s. Since Marksmen do approximately half the DPS of Bow Masters, and Bow Masters are stronger than their GMS versions which already do over 200k/s, 100k/s means they can sort of catch up but not really at all.

You have your point, but on the other hand, don't you think that's only becuz of the dmg cap, in which with this KMST patch, it's been increased to 999K (1mil - if i'm not wrong?). So in short, I mean, don't we expect to see snipe/ Xbm to be dealing more than 100K/s, rather than playing catch up with BMs.

You have your point, but on the other hand, don't you think that's only becuz of the dmg cap, in which with this KMST patch, it's been increased to 999K (1mil - if i'm not wrong?). So in short, I mean, don't we expect to see snipe/ Xbm to be dealing more than 100K/s, rather than playing catch up with BMs.

The most updated Snipe damage is 500k, with the 1m damage cap. So yeah, 100k/s optimally.