What is the worst class?

At the risk of further triggering heroes and shads in the chat, I'm going to feed a bit more into the BM vs. MM tangent and say that I think the gap between BMs and MMs in PB may be being overstated.

While I've been getting around 4.5m during body, my statue dpm is lucky to break 10m. For comparison, our BM mascot is getting about 4.3m during body and 11.5m for statue. Granted, my MM still has 12 more levels to go but I don't see that adding more than around 5% to dpm. Going by that, my projected body dpm at 200 would be 4.75m and projected statue dpm would be 10.5m. In other words, while my body dpm would be about 10% higher, my statue dpm would be about 10% lower.

Of course, body phase is weighted a bit higher and MMs have blind utility during statue phase so I'm not at all denying that MMs are superior in PB, and nor am I glossing over the fact that there is a steep learning curve for BMs during body whereas it is rather shallow for MMs. I mean only to say that while the gap between BM and MM in PB is often depicted as an insurmountable chasm of sorts, it is not so when looking at optimized play and factoring in statue phase. And I think it's perfectly fine for MMs to be better than BMs in PB and worse than BMs in HT.

Technically, heroes do about 5% more damage than DKs, but you don't bring heroes when you want dpm anyways.

It has been. There's just not much else to say on the matter than what already has been pointed out. We could buff DK damage by 5%, and I certainly think they deserve it, but does that change DK's position in the overarching image that you've depicted? You don't bring DKs (or heroes) for single target damage and that doesn't change with a small buff to damage or QoL.

You could buff them even more, but then does it make sense for them to do more damage than heroes when they have HB utility (which still saves a lot on pot money even if not necessary)? You could buff hero damage too but then you have heroes doing the same damage as paladins and that doesn't make sense either. And you could of course buff paladin damage too but then shadowers are completely left in the dust and you'd have to buff them too. In other words, you can't improve the situation of cleavers to any significant degree without uprooting the whole system and just reducing the gap between melee and range as a whole.

Ultimately, what needs to happen to make DKs (and all other cleavers) relevant again in the projected future where everyone is hyper washing their attackers and muling around HB is to tweak bosses to make them more cleave-friendly or add new ones that are, if that is even possible. Making changes to HT would be a start.

As for hero, without making significant changes to cleave and bosses in general, the only way I see to make them more desirable for boss runs is to either buff rage/nerf ciders, or make enrage a party buff, but changes in that direction may simply render them mules. That being said, I would certainly nonetheless appreciate a revamp of hero that makes it more interactive rather than simply "brandish goes brrrr".

As for shadower, they don't have much going for them besides smoke. They do the least single target damage and the least cleave damage of the cleavers, even in HT. And don't get me wrong, smoke can be great but is a skill you use once every 5 minutes enough to carry the class on its own? The only niche they have is being sed in HT, but even that may be made moot in the future as more people start to mule sedowers. Personally, I'd like to see changes in the utility direction, such as buffing pickpocket and having it work with nate to add some coin to everyone's pockets or perhaps tweaking smoke to have some sort of damage bonus while inside it, or even just buffing shad's cleave capability as it seems strange that as a cleave class shad cleave on 4 targets should still lose out to hero and DK cleave on 3 targets. Also #MakeSEWorkWithNate.

 

New question: Is there any reason why BMs shouldn't have 5 line strafe?

Edit: Also, Gyrk for balance team when.

 

You're comparing 2 very similar but different issues here. People flex their damage to show how well they can do even with the imperfections of their class(as in their complaints). Secondly, damage has alot to do with gears(duh), hence why big pp numbers, meaning that only the top end players of their respective classes get to get those big numbers.

The issues(again, as per their complaints) with the respective classes are still at play and hence my point.

 

It`s totally not. MM without SI is pretty bad. I really don`t understand why you insist on this.

Reinforcing the MM vs BM debate:
- MM are better at PB, but a skilled BM can achieve similar damage (statues + body), despite still not having blind and kb pb that helps maintain it looking to the right. So yeah MM>BM in PB.
- End game DPM from BM with comparable stats to MM is higher than MM with SI and perfect sniping. This difference seems to make up, theoretically, for the defense avoidance of snipe damage on bosses, but we are still talking about perfect sniping time. This a huge point to note about HT differences. The SI would also have to be on point every time. Therefore, i don`t think its practical possible that an end game MM achieve more or the same damage of a BM without wing damage (strafe + snipe only). The BMs independence of SI and the possibility of focusing mh from the right also make me say that BM>MM in HT by a good amount. Like Gurk pointed, taking a bucc is a huge dpm loss. Even if MM deals a higher damage during body dpm 45 with PA discounting wing damage, i`d still think the same as we are talking about reliance of SI and only a small part of the run where it`s possible to cleave.
- BMs are better at Nameless, CWKPQ and BGA because of hamstring, even considering MM with SI.
- BMs are better at everything if MM doesnt have SI, except pb body maybe.
- MM have a better early game, but it doesnt matter much if u are leeching anyways and halfway is 187.

 

Next time you go to HT, can you take several DPM 1 tests when right head is open and midhead is cancelled?

Also, I'd argue that taking a bucc to HT isn't a total loss, especially in 6 man situations in the current meta. I'm not sure how many teams are actually making use of this, but a bucc in your comp makes wing/arm damage completely relevant because you guys can fight through mass using double holy shields.

 

This is so ridiculous to see all those tears about tier 1 jobs like archers lmao

 

"You either quit a Hero, or play long enough to see yourself become the Night Lord."

 

I am convinced the moment one archer class gets buffed/nerfed, the other one is immediately going to get called shit. Ppl were unironically saying MM was one of the worst classes until PB was released and the pendulum swung the other way. I’m sure whenever neo tokyo part 2, or von leon, or whatever new endgame content is released the pendulum will swing back. They are both in perfectly fine spots, the only thing changing them would accomplish is feeding egos

 

just wanna speak up on this cuz shads are becoming more obsolete esp with everyone and their mom making a sed mule. many shad mains have brought up increasing nate hitbox range for quite some time now, and theres no word on if there will be adjustments to this. also, se/pickpocket not working on nate is another interesting restriction as well as no benefit from si (but daggs are fast speed anyway so understandable). gurk makes some good and interesting suggestions, but maybe to add another, increased nate attack speed could help with our shafted single target dpm?

 

did anyone say perma beginner yet i didn’t read the thread, but if not then that one

 

Yeah I agree with this, but the thing is shadowers would still become obsolete regardless in the future because shadowers would still be used as sed mules anyways. Increasing the attack speed of nate would only increase shadowers dpm by so much, but still would not be comparable to that of ranged classes, hence why people would still mule shadowers. Making SE work on nate would be an interesting change, however i don't see shadowers single target dpm increasing by much even with this change.

Shadowers just deal way too little damage if it is not 4 cleave. Shadowers are dealing like only 3/5 to 3/4 the dmg of most other classes, which is a huge damage difference, and i think just by increasing attack speed and allowing SE to work on nate would only help it shadowers damage by so much, but still not enough to close the gap to where shadowers are worth bringing into bosses such as HT or PB, which is why i think one of the best ways to improve a shadowers utility is to increase the uptime of smokescreen, and/or add some buff while inside the smoke like Gurk mentioned.

But don't get me wrong, since i see any buffs on shadowers as a win, however i just think that shadowers might just be a dead-end class and probably will become obsolete in the future/ everyone might just stop playing shadowers, as long as sed muling is a thing.

 

A QoL change that could be made to shads would be to remove the necessity of having to first cast dark sight before using nate. Nate could still be charged normally by first entering DS but would otherwise be able to be fired off on its own. This would be a huge boon to many players as the necessity of DS makes nate damage highly contingent on ping and turns away some people from playing the class. This would of course however also effectively buff nate damage as it lessens the overall delay of nate and makes it faster, so some adjustments would likely have to be made, either by lessening nate damage to compensate or by adding the delay from DS to nate itself, although letting nate be slightly faster could be one way to buff shads.

Another way to make shads more appealing would also be to buff bstep. Something I kind of miss about shad was using nate bstep for single target damage. Before the last nate buff, nate bstep did comparable damage to nate spam but was superior in practice because of the iframes granted by bstep. I felt like it kept things a bit more fresh compared to many other classes that use just a single attack skill for single target situations and it seemed to lend more credence to the idea of shads being a "jack of all trades". It also let us make use of pickpocket outside of just grinding. But now, shads just feel like budget heroes with smoke tacked on. Outside of HT, their kit has devolved to the nate equivalent of "brandish goes brrr".

Buffing bstep damage from 500% to 580% (the point at which nate bstep would be only slightly weaker than nate spam) would bring that back while also buffing shad cleave. It would also allow shads to benefit slightly from SE in single target situations as well as let them make use of pickpocket at all bosses as opposed to just HT and CWK, at least during the few times they're invited. Speaking of CWK, it would also lessen the enormous gulf between shads and warriors for 3-target cleave.

It would additionally allow shads to further lean into their class identity of being a "shadower" as it increases their effective avoidability. End game thieves already avoid at least 70% of all attacks just via their natural avoid, which means shifter only comes into play at most 30% of the time. For shads, this means their effective avoid is roughly 82% (0.7 + [0.3 * 0.4 (shifter rate)]), and for NLs, roughly 79% (0.7 + [0.3 * 0.3 (shifter rate)]). While shifter for shads is 10% higher than that of NL's, the effective difference ends up amounting to only ~3%. With bstep joining the fray, however, their effective avoid would be over 90%, i.e. they would have to reposition even less than warriors. I enjoy the idea of shads further advancing their lead over NLs with respect to avoidability and really making it their hallmark.

Of course, any slight buffs to their cleave or single target capabilities is unlikely to make a significant impact on the position of the class in the meta, which is why I would ultimately prefer shad buffs to move in the utility direction, probably something to do with pickpocket (everyone likes money, right?) as any buffs to smoke would likely just further increase the appeal of muling shads.

 

I would have liked to have entertained the idea of further increasing uptime of smoke, but unfortunately it would almost certainly just end up further encouraging the use of smoke mules. With current smoke, 6 shads is already 30 seconds away from perma smoke and with /partyaccept being made useable on a macro in a future patch, increasing smoke uptime more would probably just lead to something degenerate . 5-man sair HT squads with each member bringing in a sed mule for perma smoke would probably become a thing. That being said, the idea of a party of 6 shads just smothering themselves in smoke permanently for something like toad is a fun one.

 

Hmm, I've never considered that, but i don't see many people doing 5-man sair runs with 6 shads other than the one posted on the forums awhile back. But even so, that run would be quite tedious, seeing as the smokes have to be timed nicely and there has to be no room for error or deaths since no bishops, this makes the run that much more stressful, but idk.

All in all, i guess the true way to buff shads is to buff their damage, since buffing anything else will just make shads a much more OP mule than they already are.

 

Well, it'd be 4 attackers, ideally sairs but any range would be swell, plus a bishop. The party leader would simply have the party invite command copied for easy pasting every minute and each shad mule would have the party accept command on a skill macro for effortless accepting. There's no real issue if there's a second gap or so in between smokes. Granted, moving the mules up to the top plat for each smoke would be cumbersome and would be the real bottleneck. But the general idea could be applied with relative ease at any other boss, such as PB.

Though I suppose this could already be carried out with smoke as it is currently as soon as we can accept party invites using a macro, or even without it really; it would just require an additional shad. I'm honestly surprised muling shads for smoke has yet to really take off.

I guess I just felt like having 6 shad attackers in one party with perma smoke would probably not be healthy, though it would be funny. More all shad HT runs?

 

Can't wait for staff to cripple shadower smokescreen due to excessive muling.

 

That's because NLs are already invincible and don't need the hassle of smoke

 

Why is Gurk not on balance team

 

I hear a certain other private server made shad sed mules obsolete by making 1/1s actually hit 1/1 and not 50% with meso guard :eyes: