Information Christmas 2020 Balance Changes [Explained]

Welcome to the final balance changes of 2020! Unlike a lot of our other changes this year, this season's changes are mostly small tweaks here and there. On to the changes!

Hero / Crusader

• Enrage can no longer be dispelled

For a skill with a long cooldown, it seemed counter-intuitive for it to be able to dispelled. As such, we've recoded it so that the skill can no longer be dispelled by bosses/monsters.

• Success rate of Advanced Combo Attack recharging two combos with one attack increased from 60% to 75%

A fairly minor quality of life buff to Heroes. When compared with their warrior counter part, the Dark Knight, in the long run heroes tend to suffer a little bit due to their recharge time with orb. In the short term, it isn't something that would be very noticeable, but over the course of let's say an entire boss run or two the faster recharge should serve as a slight improvement to their playability.

• Panic (both Sword and Axe) damage increased from 350% to 400%

Crusaders have a fairly dull 3rd job progression, as they are still very heavily reliant on first job skills. It's not terrible, but not great at the same time. We wanted to try making 3rd job skills have a bit more of an impact while you're in your 3rd job, and perhaps make it strong enough to be maybe used in niche situations in your 4th job too.

Spearman

• Iron Will increased from +20 weapon and magic defense to +40 weapon and magic defense

With harder-hitting bosses being introduced, we wanted to improve the support aspect of Dark Knights by just a little bit. While an extra 20 weapon/magic defense won't be game-changing, it should help negate a bit more damage for your party members in those tough situations.

Warriors

• Iron Body (all warriors) increased from +40 weapon defense to +60 weapon defense

Rather than focusing on the damage output of warrior classes, we wanted to bring an emphasis on the tankiness of the warrior class. With Iron Will being increased to +40 weapon defense, we thought it would be a good opportunity to bump up Iron Will (a self buff).

• Guardian (for Heroes & Paladin) block success rate increased from 15% to 20%

Following our goal on revamping the "tankiness" of warriors, we decided to increase the utility of shields / guardian. Guardian has often been an overlooked skill that is usually overshadowed by the strength of two handed weapons, especially when there is Speed Infusion. The changes to guardians should increase the survivability and tankiness of both Heroes and Paladins, which should somewhat increase their quality of life.

Bowmasters

• Concentrate can no longer be dispelled

Much like enrage, concentrate is a skill with a fairly long cooldown, which is why it received the same treatment and was recoded so that the skill can no longer be dispelled by bosses/monsters.

Pink Bean Changes

After observing numerous Pink Bean runs the past few months, we noticed a few major concerns with Pink Bean, primarily with the statue stages, that we wanted to address for this patch. The way the statues were behaving resulted in some undesired and unhealthy gameplay (such as making some classes close to irrelevant in certain stages). These are our initial round of changes, and we'll keep a close eye on things after these changes go live as well!

• Ariel's hitbox has been modified so that melee classes can hit Ariel from the top platform
• Ariel's aggro range modified
  • This will make Ariel cast spells a bit more frequently, which should add to the difficulty of Stage 5 of Pink Bean
• Munin (right bird) aggro range shifted right
  • There were instances where being on the FAR LEFT side (where Hugin is) would aggro Munin more consistently than being directly next to it on the LEFT
  • Munin should aggro closer to the right side (around Rex)
  • Munin should no longer aggro when crossing Solomon (left wiseman)
    • This should be enough space for melees to hit Hugin (left bird) if desired, without triggering Munin (right bird)
• Hugin (left bird) aggro range shifted left
  • Similarly, there were instances where being on the FAR RIGHT side (where Munin is) would aggro Hugin more consistently than being directly next to it on the LEFT
  • Hugin should aggro closer to the left side (around Solomon)
  • Hugin should no longer aggro when crossing Rex (right wiseman)
  • This should be enough space for melees to hit the Munin (right bird) if desired, without triggering Hugin (left bird)

Mob Changes

• Shaolin Temple monsters are now able to jump and are immune to freezing
  • After studying the techniques of those that came to kill their brothers, monsters of Shaolin Temple have now acquired the advanced skill of... jumping and immunity! This should make the map less dull and clustered, and more alive!
• Alishar (LPQ Boss) level has been decreased from level 54 to 45.
  • Due to the boss' high level, it made a lot of lower-level characters participating in LPQ have accuracy issues (hitting "misses" non-stop). We did a similar change to ligators in KPQ a while back, and it was about time for Alishar to get the same treatment!
• Kid Mannequin has been made auto aggro again
  • We've recently overhauled the auto aggro system to be authentic to the original game, and one of the changes with auto aggro is that it no longer attracts all the mobs through the whole map. As such, we've revisited Kid Mannequin by popular request and feel they are more balanced now to be auto aggro again. The other mannequin will be looked at in a near future.

Feature Changes
The following skills can no longer be added into a skill macro:

• Legendary Spirit
• Dragon Roar
• Meteor Shower
• Blizzard
• Genesis
• Dash

The reasoning behind these changes is due to the massive usage of them when it comes to multiclienting.

People would put 3 ultimates in a skill macro which makes multiclient leeching much easier, and almost effortless to do. While we are known to have the reputation of being LeechStory, this will make leeching with multiple clients a little bit more difficult to do for those on multiple machines.

Map Changes
The teleporters in deep Ludibrium, as well as a few maps in Leafre, has been implemented. We are still working on revisiting the mob count and possibly other changes.

Conclusion
Now, that's it for this patch's balance changes, and we look forward to hearing more feedback and discussions below. Special thanks towards all staff as usual for discussing all changes together.