Reasonable changes to Buccaneers

well there are some things that are imposible to code like the speed infusion, it was exposed before that hard to code buff to be stacked with other buffs thats why speed infusion was increased to +4, i dont really know if they now can do it but thats the reason it was buffed that way before as well i dont see it a real problem that bishops can have the +4 speed its just not a big deal as i can see, it may only affect the endgame bishops who cleave ht with gene + si, its not too op. the increase of eph with SI its like 2m at most if we talking about leech duties with it.

Increasing the range of barrage will look a bit unnatural? literally barrage its punch and kicks it will look very weird if you can punch the air then you reach a monster. but in another aspects its going to be useful on HT.

Mastery for dragon strike: good idea yes. but if its hard to code, maybe just increasing the knuckler mastery on second job will buff all the bucc attacks for good too f2

Althought nice post, its really nice to write and share your ideas in a positive way like this.

 

Do you have a si mule and bishop? As someone with both, I can tell you that it is very OP. SI gives bishop ~35% dps increase. Thats a bigger increase than going from gen10 to gen30.

I can also assure you that at maps like shoalin (optimal exp map), the eph increase with SI is not 2m. It's more like 8-10m. (For the leecher, for the bishop its considerably more). This is because as a bishop you can just keep using your ulimate again and again with little movement, abusing SI's speed increase to the max.

These two changes is all that bucc needs to become a viable, non garbage class in horntail. The class itself isn't actually that bad when you look at the numbers. They can put out a respectable amount of damage, the main problem is that lack of consistent stance and range makes it so that they can't actually hit important parts of horntail consistently.

 

How many hits takes for a average bishop to take down mobs on 5-6? i think its 4-5. so the epm increase using SI on shaolin its not like a think to worry about. at most you can see a total endgame bishop taking down at 3 hits on shaolin. i dont think its worth looking at it. lets suppose archmages still benefit from a stackeable SI of +2 speed with their speed booster, they will be the ones who look op now (lets look only this strat on leech field). I can now use a archmage and get the same results im getting as always and an archmage can 1 hit skele too (my lv 169 archmage can with noob items). and it will born more different controversies. the 35% DPM increase its only saw at ht or cleavable parts for endgame bishops. having a si or not you require a bucc mule. like you have a hs mule for an archmage. try to not look at endgame, look by the average level of the players. in fact i dont think its broken as some ppl draw.

 

As of right now, there are only a few instances/scenarios where you'd want to use lvl 21+ Shockwave, but Energy Blast is better dmg-wise and should be the main mobbing/cleaving skill used in 3rd job anyway. It still has a minor delay between attacks but it's relatively quick/powerful for a 3rd job skill, (rivals Dragon Crusher).

This change you're requesting is bad because its only purpose is to improve your QoL, and if Shockwave ever gets buffed this change will only hinder the class in 3rd job for no good reason. If for whatever reason you want to use Shockwave during downtime of ST then just right click Transform, there's other more noticeable nuisances with buccs that I'd rather pay attention to.

Specifically the top arms of Zakum and Horntail's arms. At Zakum there's ways to avoid having to deal with the top arms for too long once you've maxed ST/Demo (unless you're soloing or only going with other melee classes), but for Horntail this can definitely improve QoL, spamming Dragon Strike in certain instances feels incredibly mundane.

This will make Bigfoot far too easy and can see potential problems with this, and also using Demolition on nothing is the only way to dodge attacks during Vergamot when you're too far. Whiffing attacks with Demo is quite annoying but having such a slow but powerful skill has its benefits as well such as attacking through targets iframes more often.

Okay what else do we have here

Not needed, especially with recent buffs in mind. Buccaneers are in a good spot as of right now, there's other classes needs to be looked at first.

Maybe 4 targets, but anymore than that seems too good for 2nd job skills. Nothing wrong with using a bit of SSK in 4th job as it's the fastest way to charge energy anyway.

If possible to code, then yeah definitely consider this. You could even revert the amount of energy gained per hit buff if this 'charge per hit' change can be implemented.

I really hate how the way SI dispels booster, but it's also a low priority seeing how this is left unchanged for years.

Simply too powerful and brain-dead, there's little reason to use other skills to train if this change were to happen. Dragon Strike > Energy Blast is already a great training combo.

Also here's a fun fact, using only Energy Drain is stronger than Dragon Strike 1v1, use that instead when possible. You can also fit in 1 Energy Drain in between Dragon Strike's delay to slightly improve dmg output, every bit counts.

 

Charging energy per line really is the only change that I'd advocate for. When we arguably need it the most (bossing), it's the hardest to charge. Though I'd oddly consider partitioning ST uptime as a qol buff for a different reason. You cant use mp recovery while transformed, and a 30 second cd would you cast it twice. Helpful for the highly washed, but far from necessary.

 

Buccaneer is a DPS/support class that doesn't cleave and have positioning issues, even more in difficult map layouts like horntail; means that they will do their best almost everywhere (NT, Toad, etc) except in horntail body stage, where they do decent. If they are recruited for horntail, it's mostly because the synergies they provide, they won't only do decent damage but enable others to do more, a buccaneer greatness in this case isn't measured only by a dpm test, but also by how many team members SI will improve and how much value TL can get. It all comes to team composition. I'd say that taking away one SI target from a bossing party ~in this case bishop~ makes buccaneer also weaker, and while bishops remain an essential job to be recruited, buccaneer utility would be weaker making them less desirable in horntail runs.

As an additional point, I don't really know how the meta will change when pink bean comes, but anyone knows how classes like buccaneer or corsair will perform in our future endgame boss? As far as I know, the map-layout is favorable and It's a boss that it's mostly solo-target right? I can assume that they will shine there? For example DK's wont be able to zerk or cleaving classes like Shad or Hero won't really perform their best, maybe there's more examples. I'm just saying that in the future new content will make pirate class more justice and I can even see the "asking for buffs" roles getting reversed, for example cleaving classes asking for 1vs1 buffs so they can perform better in pink bean, etc

 

The map layout for PB is favorable, but with all the status spamming might be an issue for pirates. We won't really know until its in the game. But, essentially with the map layout (and low number of total targets attacking you), I think pirates might be able to perform decently if they are not getting hit / status'd every other second.

 

This post was mostly on point, except this misconception here

It only takes 3 targets for Dragon Strike combos/Snatch to out-DPS Demolition, to me that is worthy of what I consider a cleaving class.
Yes it's true that its cleave in general is weaker than all other melee classes unless there's 5-6 targets but I want to correct this belief; there are times when DS/Snatch should be used instead of Demolition.

I think people are speculating about how well certain classes do in PB too early when the vast majority of players especially Buccaneers aren't ready for that yet.
I'll add one interesting tidbit though, Barrage has unique properties that can potentially allow it to knockback PB.

 

Hiyo! Fellow bucc here~ I was originally planning on making a much longer reply, but it looks like Igni were able to reply first, which I pretty much agree with all of them.
*This is just my personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion as a staff
Maybe it's because I'm an oldie and have been playing since before all the buffs we had, but I believe buccaneers are at a pretty good spot at the moment. So far, we have gotten a very noticeable improvements on our dpm (flat out increase damage in barrage/ds/demo with reduced ST CD and animation time), followed by massive QOL improvements such as faster energy charge time, 90% stance (believe me, HT used to be much much more ugly when stance was 50% xd), and overall increased range for SI. Sure, our damage is still nowhere compared to more bossing-oriented classes like heroes, but I still think we are at a good spot in terms of game balance, particularly because we also have a special party buffs that are very welcomed in almost all circumstances. But if I were REALLY to think of improve upon buccaneers, I would probably focus more on mid and early level skills (particularly 3rd job) because I think some of skills are really lackluster. However, even that I believe there are other classes that needs some more loving compared to us.

As a developer, let me try my best to explain how feasible-ish it would be for following changes:

I believe it's doable, but I don't believe in extending to the point where you can hit zak arms or ht legs because then animation would look a bit off due to barrage being a skill that requires you to make a contact with the target to cast. Not really into seeing barrage being casted with some distance to a monster xd. If I were to REALLY fix that, I would have probably looked for another way with some other skills.

It's kind of doable-ish, but would require a lot of work-arounds and jump through multiple hoops to achieve this. But as Igni said, having this would essentially prevent demo from being used to dodge the attacks as now those are impossible.

It's technically doable, but that would require a lot of recoding in the back-end of the server as how two state buffs are working atm (boosters, monster riding, pirate dash, etc...) are kind of messy. While fixing this so that those buffs behavior act like GMS is my eventual goal, it is still far away from my to-do list atm as I feel like there are better things I can spend my time on. Fingers crossed tho.

 

This. Another QoL change I would advocate for this the ability to use Snatch/Demo/DS while mid-air in water.

 

Would just like to include my 2 cents into the mix. I'm don't have nearly the play time as Igni or Davi, but I do have two 150+ Buccs under my belt (one standard, and one with an experimental build).
I won't touch on the first 3 QoL changes too much as I think everything that's needed to be said has said (a little more Barrage reach would be nice though).

As far as crit tweaks, the only thing I would like to see at this point, is potentially for Buccs to be able to their full +160% damage from Stun Mastery instead of the given +60%. For whatever reason we get a further +100% when hitting a stunned mob while having SE for a total of +300% damage. +60% for 30 points is fairly lacklaster is all, especially consider how the crit mechanic works in Maplestory, and with how most skills a Bucc will use in their lifetime are fairly high base damage.

I'm sure most Buccs would also agree that that Energy Charge change would be a massive improvement. However, that would require a massive overhaul of how the system currently currently plays and at this stage I don't think it's a necessary change.

I won't comment on PB as there's not much to say. It's not out. Numbers may change. Who knows.

And finally, as Oradious said (and I did in a previous thread), small changes like allowing certain skills to be cast underwater or while jumping would be greatly appreciated without being game-changing by any means. I understand that something like Dragon Strike doesn't make too much sense due to its animation, or that Barrage would really add anything functionally, but I think Snatch (while a very niche change) would be well recieved.

 

i suggest make bucc super op stronger than nl during transformation kind of like super saiyan. Power level over 9000. For the duration bucc gains +100wa and shadow partner during super saiyan mode.

 

Will be nice to get answer on the jump skill part.
Is it possible or is it too hard coded?

 

Cada cierto tiempo me doy una vuelta y leo las publicaciones nuevas o actualizadas de mis compañeros buccs y siempre me pregunto, por que no termino mi maldita guía? como el top 1 en latinoamerica y como jugador de la vieja escuela de esta hermosa clase siento que ya debería haber publicado alguna, se que hay muchas razones por las cuales los bucaneros tienen bajo daño pero la esencia de estos piratas esta más en ser creativos y usar todas nuestras habilidades de la mejor forma posible, armando y combinando macros, cambiándolos de acuerdo a las necesidades que cada boss nos exija, no es broma si les digo que incluso al llegar a lv 200 tuve que reorganizar mi teclado para poder acomodar echo y mp recovery para tener mejor control de los coldowns, en mi opinión no es tanto el dpm si no el control que el jugador tenga sobre esta clase y los macros que use de acuerdo a lo que este haciendo como : bossing o train, por ejemplo cuando juego mi paladín aveces me aburro apretando blast 2 horas en ht a diferencia de mi bucc que debía estar pendiente de muchas cosas, yo propuse alguna ves el punto 1 y hasta ahora me mantengo firme que ese es el impulso que necesitamos sin perder nuestra escencia que es iframes y combos, por que si le aceleras la carga de energia mandaras a la basura todos mi timers que manejo en diferentes boss

 

I need a translator for the above.

 

via google translate w/ slight changes you lazy bums ---

Every once in a while I take a walk and read the new or updated posts of my fellow buccs and I always wonder, why didn't I finish my damn guide? As the #1 Latin Player and an old school player of this beautiful class I feel that I should have already published one. I know that there are many reasons why buccs have low damage but the essence of this pirate is more in being creative and using all our skills in the best possible way, putting together and combining macros, changing them according to the needs that each boss demands. I'm not kidding when I say that even when I reached lv 200 I had to rearrange my keyboard to be able to accommodate echo and mp recovery to have better control of the cds. So in my opinion, it's not so much the dpm but the control that the player has over this class and the macros that he uses according to what he is doing like: bossing or training. For example, when I play my pally sometimes I get bored when I'm just pressing 'blast(?)' for 2 hours in ht unlike my bucc where I had to be aware of many things. I once proposed point 1 and so far I am adamant that this is the boost we need without losing our essence which is iframes and combos, but for that if you speed up transformation, you will throw away all my timers that I manage in different bosses. (lol? what .. mb google translate got)

 

From what i made out of this google translated post, I have to say "the control that the player has over this class" is exactly the point here. Too bad all people ever look at is DPM, DPM, DPM.

 

Pretty much this. Not sure why we're reviving this old thread in particular, but might be a good time to see some more up-to-date thoughts; mine at least have changed a bit. We're a fairly unexplored class in my honest opinion, mostly due to being a supportive dpm that just didnt mesh with old meta strategies. People are way too quick to look purely at self damage numbers (especially theoretical numbers) and cast judgement, when the build space hasnt even been fully explored. Its one of the few classes in this game whose output isnt as simple as a gear check. Proper skill builds and usage are important factors as well. Literally all of our skills from 1st-4th (save one in 3rd job we dont talk about) are useful and worth getting, but anything that isnt barrage, dragon strike, or demolition has been branded as a garbage skill for the longest time. In a typical HT run for example, I'll use all of my attacks at least a bit, minus energy blast and sometimes kick. I think this puts us in a very well-off position in terms of skill usage, and a well-intentioned buff can easily remove layers of versatility and make skills and gear useless.

Even the buffs I'd most want would tip the scales pretty heavy: a change to the energy orb damage reduction (not sure if its a bug, but its currently 1/2 damage reduction per additional hit, rather than 1/3 damage reduction other sources list it at and even 1/3 is a larger reduction than chain lightning) and a fix to allow it and chain lightning to actually cleave parts in HT other than the tail. If those changes went through, I feel like transforming wouldnt even be a viable option for HT anymore. If we gained more charge for various attacks, it could also potentially invalidate other combos that are intended to charge faster (things like jump snatch reposition on multiple targets, barr+uppercut or even barr+2*flash fist) and make options like htp for avoid inferior to mon in all content, rather than the current usage of both pendants right now.

Ultimately everyone has a different idea on how much help we need to be balanced and where to place it, but we're in a pretty good spot with how our skills interact with each other. While I do believe buccs have been building wrong ever since we got demolition buff (I'll post my build paths at some point, but the idea is to skip either ds or barr depending on what kind of content you do more, and max the other at 160 to complete core or 170 to pick up max TL at 160), there are limits to what can be done to make the class shine in the ways it is supposed to. I'm not sure how raising the weapon multiplier would mess with 1st-3rd job power balance, but that'd be the only change I'd feel comfortable seeing (though the snatch or even demolition in the air suggestion above could make the class more accessible to people, as jump casting those is a fundamental tech that I dont see many utilizing at all).