Summer Event Balance Changes and Bug Fixes

Why the reverted changes to MM again? Why? None from the balance team gonna answer this question?

Where's all the snipe changes recommended by previous forum posts i.e piercing through weapon cancel, piercing arrow QoL rework, adding more utility focused changes to the class?

MMs and Pallies mains don't deserve this lacklustre BS that the balance team is putting out. Disappointed max. Which balance team member can answer this post?

SMH

 

Why was there consultation, discussion & a poll done prior to this update about adding more monetary value to dry boss runs, but not these significant class changes? I appreciated the openness of the discussion about the ideas to make boss runs more profitable, it seems like a similar discussion before these other (& arguably more significant) changes would have also been a good idea, especially considering this summer event has been hyped up for months.

 

Just wanting to add my 2 cents about how some of these changes impact myself and others in a similar situation:

1. As a bishop main, the bucc I've invested into levelling will no longer be useful for providing SI as a buff. That's ok... all mages will be affected so leech rates won't be affected right? Nope, nerfing SI affects bishops proportionately worse since bishops gain +4 cast speed from SI as opposed to +2 for AMs with spell booster. That means skele leech will no longer be able to compete with AMs selling petris/5-6, who will be able to achieve a higher EPH at a better rate.
2. Ok, so our leech income has gone down but at least we can gain income from bossing right? Well kinda...Now that holy shield won't be useful in Horntail, our only purpose would be to serve as a holy symbol mule, or to heal during seduce. Angel ray buffs are nice, but the damage is still much lower than that of other mages/attackers. Echoing the sentiment of other bishops who have previously commented, the enjoyment I got out of HT was the challenge of predicting sed/dispels and using holy shield to keep the team safe. Would I be motivated to join 1hr+ HT runs as an HS mule? Probably not. Would high-level parties trying to maximise income from HT even want a bishop? Probably not.
3. At least the SI mule that I multi-purposed into a dexbucc can still be useful right? Nope, the 600+ AP I've pumped into dex is useless with the new avoid formula, and I don't have the 2mil+ NX in AP rests to turn it into a playable bucc.

To sum up, our primary source of income from selling skele leech will be nerfed, our secondary source of income from running HT will be nerfed and any SI mule/dexbucc will be made redundant, all in the name of being more GMS-like. I appreciate that this server makes it a point to preserve the nostalgic elements of GMS, but I can't help but feel like these changes have made a lot of the time and effort I've put into 'adapting to the meta' of this server become futile. I do see that sometimes changes have to be made to improve the meta over the long term at the cost of upsetting players in the short time, but I feel like this could have been done with some respect to the effort that players have made to adapt to this current meta (which takes weeks to months in time). Rather than making such significant changes so suddenly, and out of the blue, perhaps the team could have made a community poll first (as you've done with the bossing drops change) or at least provide some forewarning to the changes, or better yet reconsider the proposed changes.

 

Hey Blu, as a new pally player at level 153 that hasn't been to HT, i think you make a fair argument as i believe blast could easily make up for the lost dpm from HH eventually when you get better gears. However, i feel that your arguments only apply for stronger players who are well established in terms of their gears and washing. In this sense, unless your gears are of fantastic grade, HH will definitely help make up for it in terms of dpm. Also i had heard of how pallys are amazing at NT due to the elemental attacks, but NT does seem like a really late game boss and as someone had mentioned, it's harder to find parties as i believe it's not as popular as the other mainstream bosses, being HT, Zak, CWK etc. This means that our chances of bossing would dip considering we are weaker at mainstream bosses, mainly being HT and CWK. Why i still can't agree to this HH nerf is mainly because of CWK, as it is a constant cleave work as compared to HT where you could just blast heads etc. For pallys in CWK, HH makes up for quite a bit of our weakness as ACB doesn't do much(in both bossing and warrior room), and with this nerf, i believe our dpm will fall especially short, together with our chance of participating. I would love to hear your take on pallys in cwk as you seem really knowledgeable.

 

Wow you really hit all 3 points on the head. I'm big sad too man, feel you :[

 

I don't understand why you've touched mm boost like past. I think mm need more buffs.

 

In one year everyone will have shadmules lvl 141 as sed target with lvl 30 shifter, lvl 30 smoke, and lvl 5 will and we will be in the same predicament we are in right now. Staff will nerf shifter rate down to 30% like NLs or change the avoid formula. $remindme 365days

 

Might as well make it 151 so you can have a taunt mule while you're at it

 

Goddamit you're a genius lvl 151 taunt/sweeper mule at skeles with 0 damage and lvl 0 venom so leeching party gets maximum use out of taunt exp. How do I award you a medal for your services.

 

1) SI should not be +4 with gen as is. It is ridiculous that bishops can out dps arch mages who are supposed to be the dps class (AM pay significantly higher pot costs due to ele amp). Skele leech should not be able to complete with AM leech; bishop already get the benefit of being a do-it-all class. Bishop can not rule all classes at leeching with 1h skeles w/SI (where the income is insane being way better income than petris and even comparable to 5-6 when you factor in pot costs, mesos, and drop loots) and then reap the benefits of being great bossers as well; that in my eyes is unbalanced.

2) I think your overall argument here doesn't make sense. You start by saying your concern is your income from bossing, but bishops will always be useful in bossing for the holy symbol buff alone as you mentioned so your income itself from bossing is unaffected. Obviously, the "skill" required to play bishop in HT is nonexistent now without the holy shield timing having any actual impact so I agree with you there.

3) This was a ridiculously broken mechanic that should never have been in the game to begin with. If you invested time/money into it you got to reap the benefits until now, unless you just recently made it then I guess it sucks, but it needed to be done. It doesn't make sense for it to stay in the game just because people invested time in it.

Yeah it's easy to focus on just nerfs and forget to look at the holistic picture, but these nerfs are great from a balance perspective in terms of transforming bishops into a more balanced class. I completely disagree with making holy shield not work on seduce though; I hope they revert that because it seems a lot of bishops enjoy the skill of successfully timing holy shields to mitigate seduce effects.

 

Otro parche mas sin amor a los buccs excepto la evitabilidad en base a str que tengo curiosidad de probar, referente a las correcciones del SI evítese problemas y sea justo con todos los que llevaron a hacerse una mula SI y corrija el error de apilamiento con bosster y spell bosster, manteniendo aun un pequeño beneficio en los BS
respecto a los palys como mi tercer main veo que la calidad de mi dpm en ht se vera afectado, pero por que reducir dramáticamente el daño a 50k? una opción mejor desde mi punto de vista era solo restablecer el tiempo de re utilización a los 30 segundos o aumentarlo, así los main palys se verían mas motivados a dejar blast un momento y usar HH manteniendo los 199k por mob y con el tiempo aumentado solo se perjudicaría las HH mulas que no podrían spam HH tan seguido y seria mas fácil controlar el dpm de estos en función al al numero de veces que usen HH por minuto y hacer correcciones mas rápidas, ya mencionaron que los gráficos de fire ice ligthing en tercera persona aun no se arreglan (otro año mas sin hacer mas llamativa visualmente a esta clase) otro aspecto muy importante para mi es holy charge que es una habilidad olvidada 4to job pero era la esencia de un paly en la vieja escuela (2009), me parece ilógico que hayan potenciado todos los elementos del tercer trabajo menos holy charge, por que ayudaría a los main paly en ht si le dan un impulso mayor que fire charge y podria compensar la caída de HH en carreras como ht o cwkpq si se elimina la inmunidad al santo de Rellik, Margana y Hsalf para poder repartir damage tan eficientemente como dks o heros (este ultimo punto no estoy muy seguro pero son solo ideas)

 

I totally understand your point-of-view and it really sucks to play a bishop now in HT when all you have to do is literally babysit the sed mule.
Holy shield is redundant now considering it doesn't block seduce and everyone brings ACPs.

Bishops are not excluded out of horntail, they are actually still vital considering the changes to seduce which will lead to more foreseeable deaths - hence importance of resurrection. But yes you are just a heal, holysymbol and resurrection mule now and it really, really sucks.

But you also have to understand the the ''current meta'' that you have adapted to is an exploitation of mechanics that broke the game.
- Exploitation of the easily HP-washed HH Mules with 30k HP providing additional 3-4m DPM made HT too easy, and a lot of squads exploited this idea (and brought multiple HH mules) when you only need to level up to max HH.
- Exploitation of also easily HP-washed DEX buccaneers with high avoidability (999 Avoid are you freaking joking) made Buccaneers SI-TL-SED-mules which replaced a large number of sed-mule attackers and this allowed 4-5men Horntail runs. In a server that is striving to provide a nostalgic experience where horntail should be party-based with multiple runners, doesn't 4-5man horntail sound too game-breaking? One could argue that it just means you're sweatier than other people but this is exactly why Horntail is currently flooded with so many squads which are able to take it down with minimal amount of players - hence broken skillbook market.
- Exploitation of the above two + exploitation of availability to multi-client has made all of it possible

It is exactly why in this patch:
- Horntail is made harder and more difficult with changes to seduce and holyshield
- Exploitation of DEX Buccs are tackled
- Exploitation of HH Mules are tackled
- When the above two are tackled, multiclient is made available again so that they prevent complaints of ''pay2win'' with multiple laptops

I agree that over time the number of high-levelled players and end-game weapons will lead to the inevitable flooding of end-game bossing but it has occured too rapidly when this ''current meta'' that you speak of stems from exploitation of mechanics that broke the game.

It's true that your efforts to wash and create those mules to adapt to the ''current meta'' is now futile, but this meta should not have been exploited or existed in the first place.

 

I'm not blu, but I've been in your spot as a 15x paladin that bossed daily with blu.

1) In cwkpq, when me and blu started out we were both relatively weak cleavers, but even at 15x with mediocre gears, we were both able to duo cleave if we used stew. When I cleaved as a paladin in cwkpq, I wouldn't even bother to use heavens hammer and I still output relatively decent damage. The only time i bothered to HH was when the warrior boss summoned monsters.

Basically, even with mediocre gears, a 15x paladin should be able to output somewhere ~7-8m dpm just spamming acb on fire charge. I also highly recommend that you have ~207 or so accuracy so that you can 100% hit the thief boss.

For your reference these are the attack gears I had at the time:
12 attack glove
5 attack 8 str blackfist cape (gained from cwkpqing)
126 attack claymore

Meh scrolled armors (like 60% str / dex scrolled) along with a clean HTP.

Granted, you will need speed infusion to reach these numbers , but its a buff you should have anyways (sooo many people have SI mules).


In my experience training up my paladin, I never once felt like I was dead weight at cwkpq. If you build your class properly (that means using a 2h sword while having SI) you should be more than able to carry your own weight in cwkpq.

 

Should we nerf shad avoid as well? They using less than 10 pot in avg per run, shad mule will become new meta.

 

akashsky ah yes those were the days

johnlll big yes to everything akash said above. I guess it should be mentioned that if you are near the minimum levels to get exp from CWKPQ, like 125-140 ish, it's very difficult to pull your own weight and not get carried that early unless you're running with a larger team (over 6 man), not just because you're lower level but also because you won't have a lot of your essential skills maxed. Not that there's anything wrong with running with bigger groups at all. Yeah your early level bossing damage will be lower than it was prior to the HH nerf, but don't worry about it much. Just keep leveling and progressing and eventually that HH damage becomes quite insignificant.

IHateApple yo screw u

 

Please tell how many bishops you know that can white half the parts because I know maybe 3

 

There should be way more than 3, but it's not important anyway.

 

Thanks for your reply! I agree with you that the HH and dexbucc meta provides unreasonable advantages that should be fixed. My point was more so that I feel like there is a lack of communication/appreciation for players' efforts to be making such significant changes overnight without prior community consultation/forewarning. In this case, towards players like myself who have recently invested the time and effort to make such mules and have our efforts gone to waste very quickly, despite this being avoidable by simply communicating that the change was imminent or in consideration.

 

I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment that HH mules/Dex buccs are broken, in fact as a prolific user of both of these mules I would ultimately agree, but it does get kind of annoying to see the finger being pointed by people who have never attempted any form of multiclienting in HT. While both of these mules are very powerful, it does take a certain degree of commitment to build such mules and a certain degree of skill to properly control them in HT. A common talking point is "lol dex bucc have 999 avoid wtf?", but let it be known that the effective dodge chance of a dex bucc is about equal to end endgame NL, you still have to reposition it very often and react to 1/1's during sed sometimes. If these mules were truly so broken, why do only a handful of HT runners make use of them? Why did it take more than 6 months after HH mules initial discovery for there to be more than 1 on the entire server? You can of course make the argument that the introduction of HH mule/dex bucc raises the skill ceiling too high, but these mules should be treated as cutting edge tools used by experienced players rather than a broken mechanic that allows everyone to run HT faster.

The second point I wanted to address is the comment about 4-5 man runs and the skillbook market. Pre-corona there was already multiple sweaty 5-6 man squads running daily, and the book prices were fairly stable in the ~January - March period. The reason the price dropped is because of an massive influx of typical 6-12 man squads, which caused the book market to be flooded. I don't think its necessarily fair to associate book prices with handful of 4-5 man squads (I am only aware of 1-2 of these). Th fundemental issue is simply that there are too many people running HT. You may consider 4-5 man runs to be game breaking, but in reality a team of 4 endgame player should very easily be able to clear HT with no mules, atk pots, and plenty of time to spare. There are an incredible amount of inefficiencies in almost every HT run, including the high level teams as well, once you strip those inefficiencies away it becomes almost absurd that you would need 6 whole people to clear HT.