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Lyff's Buccaneer balance and discussion thread.

Discussion in 'Accepted' started by Lyff, Jan 13, 2018.

  1. Lyff
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    Lyff Dark Stone Golem

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    Aug 3, 2017
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    11:23 AM
    Lyff
    Buccaneer
    179
    Muse
    Hi guys, I've been thinking about writing this thread for a while now and I've finally gotten round to writing it, so here goes!

    What you are about to read (and thank you for doing so!), is a set of balance changes that I have thought of during my time playing my Buccaneer. I'd like to point out that I don't expect anything to change after anyone has read this, but I'm going to try my best to get my points across.

    Buccaneers are an incredibly fun class to play. They have flashy skills, and hit high numbers. They're mobile and suited both for grinding and bossing! The point of this thread though, is to address certain points about them, in this server particularly.

    First of all, I'd like to point you towards the Pirate rankings. Which of the Buccaneers there are active? Which are purely SI/TL mules? Not many right? How about (active) end-game Buccaneers? Two. There are two. Including me.


    "But Buccaneers have iframes!!11"
    I'd like to address this first. It's always the first thing people reply with whenever Buccaneer changes are mentioned. Let me start off by explaining how they work, and the circumstances in which they are used.
    Invincibilty frames (iframes) are frames within an animation where your character cannot receive any damage. The main abilities than contain iframes are; Corkscrew Blow, Backspin Blow, Barrage and Demolition. So during your main DPS combination, you'll use Barrage into Dragon Strike and repeat. This means you'll get iframes while you're casting Barrage; the rest of the time, you're a sitting duck (That's roughly 40-50% iframe time during the combination). To perform a 100% iframe combination, however; you must use a rush skill (Corkscrew Blow or Backspin Blow), followed by a damaging skill (Barrage mostly, but you can use Dragon Strike) and repeat. When will you use this? Almost never. An example of when you'd use this would be to get from one side of Zakum to the other without being hit. You won't use this during grinding or bossing since it severely cuts your DPS.

    Down to business.
    I'm going list abilites, what's wrong with them and what I'd suggest to change them. As biased as I may be, I will do my best to keep as balanced as possible.

    Second Job:

    Knuckler Mastery: I don't have much of a problem with this. The only thing I can say is that at level 17X with Dragon Strike, I hit anything from 20k - 52k which makes DPS a little inconsistent. A small increase to this wouldn't hurt, but like I said, I don't really have a problem with it.

    Third Job:

    Here we gain... Practically nothing.

    Stun Mastery (See edits at bottom) is the most useful ability, there's nothing wrong with it in my opinion.

    Energy Blast is nice for farming when Energy Charge is up, but back to Sommersault Kick when it's down.

    Energy Drain is okay, but most people will be sticking to their auto HP.

    Transformation is only necessary since you need it maxed for Super Transformation at 4th job.

    Shockwave is hot garbage. It has a huge delay and you can only use it with Transformation up. It also only hits on flat surfaces, so good luck trying to use it for... anything. So as far as Transformation and Shockwave go, you won't be using them at all, other than showing people in FM you can mimic a Super-Saiyan.

    Energy Charge: This is the controversial one, so I'm going to do a fair bit of explaining before people start yelling "iframes" at me, if they haven't already. (At max level 40) Once this is triggered (you gain some energy per hit, per mob), you gain touch damage, similar to Power Guard but based off of your attack rather than a percentage of HP, 20 accuracy, 20 avoidability, 20 weapon attack and 50% chance of stance for 50 seconds. 40 points. That's 40 skill points you need to dump into this to get mediocre stats for 50 seconds. It's decent while grinding, the bonus attack helps you clear, you gain charge relatively quickly with Dragon Strike/Somersault Kick too. Stance chance doesn't change anything since you'll still be using Corkscrew blow. My grievance with this (still, and forever will be) is during bossing. Buccaneers are a melee DPS, just like Warriors. What do they get? Stance. With 90% chance and 100% up-time since it's a cast-able ability. I'm talking from experience here, since I'm in the 1% of Buccaneers that have been to Horntail. It is so difficult to get DPS off. Before I go off topic, let me refer back to Energy Charge. You gain energy per hit, per target. For example, say you're at Horntail, you gain a little bit of energy per Barrage and Dragon Strike (Barrage hits 6 times, but it still counts as one hit on a mob in gaining energy). Now, if you're attacking wings or arms (good luck reaching the arms by the way) at Horntail, and you manage to get a Barrage to connect, chances are you're going to get knocked down as soon as the cast is over, so up the rope you go. You'll probably get knocked down a few times trying to get your next Barrage to connect in the process, but eventually, you'll have gained enough energy to trigger Energy Charge. Look back at the stats you gain once it's triggered. None of those are worth anything if that 50% stance chance doesn't work in your favour (Also keep in mind Corkscrew Blow and Backspin Blow do NOT work here). So far, after numerous Horntail runs I have spent my time climbing rope after rope with Warriors mocking me each time I hit the floor. As a balance I would strongly recommend increasing the stance chance for Buccaneers. I'm not saying to straight up give Buccaneers 90% Stance chance (I tried before and understand there's no chance in hell). Let us at least test out a 70% stance chance PLEASE. (Apologies for the length of this one, I just want to be as clear and thorough as I can to people that haven't played Buccaneers [at this level] before).

    Fourth Job:

    Dragon Strike: No problems here. The casting speed has already been increased and I think it's fine as it is.

    Barrage: Same as above. Although, it would be nice to see a reduction in the delay between casts.

    Energy Orb: I haven't maxed it as of this post, but it sounds pretty decent to use once it's maxed.

    Demolition: IFRAMES!!!11 This is our main DPS ability. It hits 8 times at 400% damage. (Only during Super Transformation) That's roughly 18-22k per hit at level 17X. Sounds good right? The cast time is so slow. It takes somewhere between 3-4 seconds to cast, with a short period afterwards where you cannot do anything and are free to be hit. The only change I'd like to see on this is a faster cast time. Even without the numbers I'd make a pretty educated guess and say Buccaneers are one of, if not, the weakest DPS class.

    Snatch: Worthless.

    Speed Infusion (Please buffs it's range) + Time Leap: I've put these two together for one reason. Mules. These two abilities are what define Buccaneers. They're strong. But because of these abilities, we have such a lack in actual Buccaneer players. Without looking at the rankings, I'd say with ease 50% of Buccaneers are SI/TL mules. And due to that fact, I believe Buccaneers should be looked at. Consider buffing them, please.

    If you actually made it this far and actually read it, thank you.

    Regards, Lyff.

    (Any edits will be noted here).

    EDIT 1: I had a small discussion with another Buccaneer player, and he suggested that Stun Mastery should be changed so that the crit is passive (Like Bowmasters and Nightlords) I'm unsure how I feel about this, but it would be another way to balance Buccaneers rather than to change Knuckle Mastery.

    EDIT 2: I'd like to suggest a quality of life change too. The removal of notices during Tranformation saying "You cannot use this skill during Transformation" and for Dash too, chat is just spammed by "You cannot use this skill during X".

    EDIT 3: Just a slight suggestion, I don't know whether it's possible though. I'd like to see some testing on Barrage being able to be cast while jumping. This would allow for some more use during bossing.

    EDIT 4 (Post Horntail changes): So Buccaneers, in my opinion, got nerfed here. I spent even more time getting knocked to the floor, which means dealing even less damage. Even Super Transformation got dispelled by mid head which isn't supposed to happen. Also, deaths don't happen so much, so TL isn't getting used.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 24, 2018
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  2. Brie
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    Brie Mushmom

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    6:23 AM
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    Well detailed, Row! Looks like there will be a great discussion.

    Besides time boosts/range increased, adventurers (except bishops who got ele wand bug fixed and penalized) were all buffed in like v.83-85 (whenever evans came out, I think), so that might take away from the spirit of MapleLegends. I think BBB has all the boosts archived, so might be useful to cross-check that.
     
  3. Koyumi
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    Koyumi Red Snail

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    OP makes a good comparison between melee DPS characters (Warriors vs Buccs).

    Another melee DPS character (WITHOUT stance) I would consider to OP's comparison are Shadowers. Although I haven't played one on this server, I know (from observation) that they have good iframes from Boomerang Step. Not only do they have long frames of invincibility, they also have Shadow Shifter, which provides flat dodge chance in the event that they are hit in between BStep iframes. I believe they also have high avoidability, which can make HT "miss" in the event that iframes and shifter fail.

    I have seen OP's Bucc in action in HT, and compared to other melee DPS characters running in HT, I think Buccs spend a disproportionate amount of time climbing back into position to resume attacking.

    In this way, I think the quality of life of Buccaneers is poor (in HT). Considering HT is a great source of EXP and financial gain late/end game this problem could be alleviated by an increase in stance chance.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2018
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  4. Rasenganjedi
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    Rasenganjedi Slimy

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    12:23 PM
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    I'm gonna take the same skills you have in your post and give my opinions about your opinion about the skill (what a mouthful)

    Knuckle Mastery: I agree it's a bit incosistent but since that's also for other classes (atleast i think from what i've played) I don't mind it too much

    Stun Mastery: Same opinion on it.

    Energy Blast: Same opinion on it.

    Energy Drain: I think Energy Drain is pretty good, it's your best single target attack until 4th job, even then sometimes it's pretty useful since it gives a pretty fast knockback, It was handy for me when I started my bucc since I didn't have too much mesos for pots, making it pretty efficient to have with mp skill we have, a bit of a ramble but whatever.

    Transformation: Useless since you only can use Energy skills or Shockwave, I know that the developers here have tried to implement it so that we could use all skills, but it seemed that wasn't possible in this version, or atleast of what we know of.

    Shockwave: Same opinion on it.

    Energy Charge: I agree, I don't get why we have to put 40 skill points in it, if the same effect could have been with 30 skill points, I'm guessing since we didn't have too many other skills they just put 40 instead of 30 since we don't really get that many skills for 3rd job since we can max all 3rd job skills if we wanted to from lvl 70-120. Bossing is a mixed opinion, since I have been to Horntail and other bosses, most bosses I don't have a big problem with 50% stance, since we I-frames (I know you don't like it but they do really help at those bosses) Zakum, can be annoying but it's not too big of a deal for me. Horntail is just, well great for like one part and terrible for the other part, Pre Heads is nothing annoying, you can get knocked back and there is a lag zone for skills and pots, but it's still pretty good to deal with, with I frames atleast. Legs and Tail is well not terrible for legs, Tail you only can do Demo unless you wanna die. Now we get to the terrible part, the Arms and Wings, they suck, you can hit the wings fine but the arms you're screwed unless Horntail attacks with it's arms then you can Barrage it, If your party doesn't want you to use dragon strike, you might aswell sit on the rope until Demo comes up, since you're gonna get knocked down over and over and over again, Right head is the same, and the last 2 heads are good, you can get knocked back but with corkscrew blow you can get up the small platforms without jumping (and dying). Horntail is indeed kinda a nightmare for buccs since we are practically useless for half of the fight. I still don't know how to feel about stance chance change, since it's not an issue for the most part, atleast for me. I don't disagree on the change, since I know how it is, but I still don't know exactly of how it should be solved. (long one :p)

    Dragon Strike: Same opinion on it.

    Barrage: Same opinion on it.

    Energy orb: only skill I don't know anything about.

    Demolition: Kinda agree on it, but i'm not entirely sure, since you say the character can be still hit and that's true, but if you hold the button for the most part it's kinda hard to get hit unless you're very unlucky (like me). I do wish it was a bit faster though.

    Snatch: Not entirely worthless, but since you can't use anything else in Super transformation except Demo and Shockwave, yeah kinda worthless.

    Speed Infusion and Time Leap: The range already has been increased by somewhat, before that it was even smaller and you needed to be like next to a character to get it, range for me is fine. I don't think because of those 2 abilities we have not that many active buccaneers, it's a part of it, but other classes have the same problems with mules and yet they still have active players, it's the other problems that contribute with it, like 1st and 3rd job being kinda sucky to play, having to max many skills before you can be useful (takes like until 163 to get all the basic skills you need) etc.

    Rambling mostly, and I think some people and maybe OP will disagree on this, but whatever i just wanted to give my opinion.
    I can't do grammar very well.
     
  5. Poi
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    Poi Orange Mushroom

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  6. OP
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    Lyff
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    Lyff Dark Stone Golem

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    Thanks for this one. Considering Buccaneers sit somewhere between Warriors and Shadowers, mechanically, I did miss this one out!
     
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  7. Vera
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    Vera Dark Stone Golem

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    I completely agree with everything. Ive played bucc for a bit now and have realized the same difficulties as most of us who don't choose to make a bucc just for si/tl purposes.

    Great and informational thread!
     
    • Friendly Friendly x 1
  8. OP
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    Lyff
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    Lyff Dark Stone Golem

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    I must say, I'm surprised with the positive response! If I'm honest, I was expecting to get my butt handed to me! Thank you all!
     
    • Like Like x 2
  9. OP
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    Lyff
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    Lyff Dark Stone Golem

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    Edited with a quality of life suggestion. Shown at bottom of original post~
     
  10. SushiBoy
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    SushiBoy Mano

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    As a person who wants to main Bucc, I completely agree with this post and hope it gets the attention it deserves!
     
  11. BowJob
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    BowJob Horny Mushroom

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    Nice constructive suggestions :)
    Only two end game active buccaneers...
    Clearly shows something needs to be done.
    Would be nice seeing more high end buccs instead of seeing 12x buccs littered around fm
     
  12. OP
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    Lyff
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    Lyff Dark Stone Golem

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    Another small edit!
     
  13. OP
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    Lyff
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    Lyff Dark Stone Golem

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    New edit for HT changes.
     
  14. Igni
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    Igni Timer

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    Super transform should never get dispelled :( I hope you reported this as a bug.

    Also I plan to post some objectives facts about buccs, but unsure whether to do it here or start a new thread.
     
  15. Sucre
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    Sucre Zakum

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    IFRAMES!!!!1!1!!1!!1!11
     
  16. Lufy
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    Lufy Red Snail

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    Im not a very experienced bucc yet and dont have any experience with Horntail but i have with all other bosses. At the time i noticed that I had to climb the ropes much more often than the others by which i lossing a lot of dmg.

    Stun mastery: Generally its fine but it pains that is comlepetely not useable on bosses. Making it work same on mobs and bosses maybe will be too op but for exaple give it a half % activity for bosses sounds ballanced.

    Transformation: useless

    SI: I will probably do another post about it but i noticed that it have a bug connected with turning off while the spell should work yet. I grinding much with my friend who is a dragon knight and often during this grinding SI is turning off before time without reason (only for him) (i talking about normal mobs like skele/petri not bosses). Maybe you can tell me why?

    Thanks for your attention.
     
  17. OP
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    Lyff
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    Lyff Dark Stone Golem

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    Make sure your friend doesn't cast his booster at all. If he does, make sure he cancels it with right-click and you guys should be fine.
     
  18. Lufy
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    Lufy Red Snail

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    LyffLyff We tested it. He was not using booster or anythink, just the spells to attack. We will do a bigger research with videos maybe and then we will make a proper post about it.
     
  19. OP
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    Lyff
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    Lyff Dark Stone Golem

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    There's something you're missing then. Try getting your friend to equip another weapon then re-equipping his original one. I've tried this before with a partner and it seemed to fix it.
     
  20. Rupert
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    Rupert Slime

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    Before i'll start i just want to say that im sorry for the bad english in this comment, im not a native english speaker but i'll try to do my best.

    I had a bucc for a long time on gms pre-bb and im currently building one here at legends.
    I have a few things in mind that i think that should be changed.

    2nd job

    Corkscrew Blow - great skill. Maybe if you could increase it to 4 mobs could be better. At list something to think about.

    Backspin blow - useless
    Double uppercut - useless

    I will explain why this skills are useless in the next paragraph

    3rd job

    Stun mastery - unlike you, i think that this skill is useless. How many times did you stunned the monsters and then attacked them? I usually use corkscrew blow to gather the mobs together, like most buccs do i belive. As you said, you dont even use backspin blow in a combo. You basicly barely using it.
    Not to mention double uppercut.
    The only time i was actually using that skill, was in ludi pq, 3rd stage, dark room monster. Thats it.
    So in my opinion, you can remove this skills.
    What can you do with him instead?
    You can solve the buccs biggest problem - stance.
    You can make it a passive skill, that gives you like 20-30% stance.
    So when buccs will use gain the stance bonus from charge, they could have a decent stance chances.

    Energy charge - just reducing it to 30 sp as you said.

    Shockwave - at least make it available to use without transformation.

    4th job

    Barrage - exactly what you said. reducing a little its delay between casts.

    Demolition - exactly what you said! High casting time, making buccs probably the weakest dps job!

    Again, im sorry for my english, but i think that i made it readable.
    I know that probably nothing will change, but trying wont hurt.
     

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