What is the worst class?

This would just cause groups to bring more shad sed mules or higher level sed mules.

 

I didn't think they'd actually bother to activate meso guard every 120 secs. It's not like they would die without it though right.

 

This would be a good measure tbh, but that might just set shadowers back even more considering now other classes would be preffered to be brought in as sed target, especially since they might be way more washed than a shad, and hence making them easier for the bishops to guard. So, while that is a good measure to remove sed muling, you're taking away the only niche shads have going on for them.

 

anything can be muled except for damage. solution should be no multiclient in selected bosses.

 

This worked really well last time it was implemented kekw

 

do you by any chance remember why they undid this change?

 

That's when you bring out a whole sed mule squad and have them form their own party and just smoke themselves on rope all day

Not often, especially if a higher level one. When I last tried muling my shad without MG, it died at most only once or twice per run.

True, if meso guard was changed to no longer affect 1/1's, a decently washed NL would be just about as good of a sed target, while also doing more useful damage. That being said, simply bringing in a second or third sed mule in a run with TL would probably be enough to get around it.

It became p2w as players with multiple computers could continue to multiclient without any difficulties. They could have simply made it against the ToS, I suppose, and the overwhelming majority of players wouldn't have risked it but having such a clause in the ToS for specifically bosses would seem rather strange and arbitrary.

 

interesting thought but pickpocket already runs the risk of increased dcs from the additional animations and such, which is why its rarely used (if ever) by shads in ht/pb/etc. additionally pickpocket would need a MAJOR buff for any team to prioritize bringing in a shad. mesos looted divided by a party of six cant be a significant amount at all, so will it be enough for teams to value that in a shad runner?
as others have said, the real disparity between shads+other cleaves and shads+other single target is their dmg, so buff nate or buff bstep or buff both (OR GIVE SHADS RUSH). otherwise why play a shad over any other class? smoke/sed utility is easily muled, and pickpocket would need quite a huge adjustment for it to be worth (which still runs the risk of increased dcs).

shad class in general is so versatile and brings in great utility from smoke alone. just sad to see this class become more of a mule class than a main class..

 

You also have to see the holistic approach to game balance. I still stand by the sentiment that shads and paladins are the best first non-mage class to start with in this server (with NT buffs, I think paladins win out now). Both are super independent, can thrive in the mid-late game with low to minimal washing, and are still somewhat relevant in the late game if you spend the time to fund them. Both also turn into fantastic mules down the road, which I think is weird people see as a bad thing and not a good thing. Sure, they fall off a bit in terms of dpm when compared to the top-end ranged attackers, but they have a pretty smooth journey from start to finish.

The hero class had similar strengths to paladin but have been getting phased out of relevancy with the slow content buffs for paladins and the bossing bugs/cleave nerfs that have yet to be fixed.

 

I agree that shads are very independent and unreliant on any buff unlike our thief counterparts :') but ill have to disagree about shad relevancy at late-game/end-game content.

For example, a 15x/16x dk can easily outdpm a well-geared 17x/18x shad at CWK, and a bucc is a better single target attacker for mage (if we're talking non-range classes), so why bring a shad? Many runners already bring in their smoke/sed mules to HT, and a dk would be a better cleave due to their HB utility alone, making shad cleave dmg as well as sed target priority moot at HT. At PB, a well-geared pro shad only produces ~3-4m dpm (and that's if they never die/produce solid dpm), whereas your archer and NL counterparts are breaking 4-5m+. Otherwise, I suppose they have the mesoexplode backup, but shad runners have reported very little difference in dpm for boomed runs vs. nonboomed runs. Presently, with newer PB teams that are <30 runners, a shad is never on your mind, whereas pallys and dks can have a spot.

To your point of why muling isnt so bad, I agree, muling isnt a bad thing. We probably all have our own bishop mules, but does that make bishops irrelevant? I suppose it's the issue of "why bring a shad runner when we can bring a hard-hitting sair with their own shad sed mule?"

So you have a good point that shads are a good noob class, but if a player plays a shad for 1 year+, are they still a noob? At that point, do we encourage those players to give up their shads/demote them as their designated sed mule while they make another char?

Rather than justifying shad disparities as part of "the holistic approach to game balance," why not give them better opportunities as a relevant class?

 

I definitely think that shadowers aren't in an amazing spot right now and bishops are already heading in that direction for pb (you really don't need that many bishops at pb and they're easily muleable) as well as drks. However, despite many players having bishop mules, bishops aren't irrelevant because they play a key role for horntail (dealing with wyverns/dp'ing/doing damage to the body) and they're not very easily muleable. Shadowers are though, which is why they're muled.

I don't think a player who plays their shad for a year+ are a noob by any means. I do think it's a problem that objectively, shadower players should probably just relegate their shadower to a sed mule and play a ranged class once they have enough nx. This is basically what happened with my own drk, who's basically now just a hb mule for pb as well. I think the only real solution here though for shadowers (and other cleaves, like warriors) are just to make the end game content more cleave-based. Maybe looking at horntail cancel changes is a place to start.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think both shads and heroes can use some reworks, but the answer isn't as simple as "give us more damage" or "give us more utility." Shads are stuck in this weird in-between where they aren't that good at dealing damage and their utility isn't all that useful or needed either. Buffing them too much in either aspect would be an unnecessary overtuning of what is supposed to be an entry-level class, imo. I think current tier list is fine and shads don't really need a buff to their top damage line since they naturally output at such a high dpm efficiency, but there could be some lateral moves that buff shadowers in relevant content.

A big part of holistic balancing is that warriors, shadowers, and mages supposed to be really good at getting past the early grindy stages of this game, but in Legends, that hurdle is basically non-existent for ranged classes because of how strong, meso/time-effective, and abundant leech is. *(I will revisit this later)

I think buffing Pickpocket and Meso Explosion could be an interesting solution. Some have already been mentioned like buffing pickpocket (bags, assassinate dropping as well) so that shads can have a fortified farming niche (which they already rank pretty high in). However, if Meso Explosion was also rescaled so that smaller bags dealt a higher floor damage, it would make pickpocket somewhat relevant in end-game bossing. As it is now, Meso Explosion is only reserved as insurance for scuffed runs, which I don't think is really healthy since scuffed runs should be able to fail sometimes too. What if the top end damage of Meso Explosion was nerfed while the floor was increased greatly?

Similarly for Heroes, what if their Advanced Combo charge was rescaled to increase at a rate of 1-4 orbs? Would this give Heroes enough incentive to Panic every max charge for a chance-based/skill-based boost on their single target damage?

IMO, the best way to tackle these balance changes is to look back at 3rd job skills and to rework/add some late game relevance to them. It would not only buff the 3rd job experience which is probably the worst and most skipped part of this game, but it would also make for a more robust/dynamic server altogether.

*And once 3rd job starts looking more attractive, maybe we can refactor baseINT into damage calculations so that people can grind on their INT mules instead of relying on leechstory.

 

While it a good approach to do so, I don't think its the best way.

When comes to balancing, most people focus on late game content in relation to the classes and thats perfectly fine. However if we look at the classes without focusing on the content, its already very balanced imo. What needs to change is the content. Heroes have the #1 cleave damage, average single target dps and easy 30k HP. Yet we are considered the worst class because. we dont cleave anything significant other than cwkpq and scarga. Are those two irrelevant content? Yes. But the level and reward of the content does not justify enough to be considered as "part of balancing" (notice how everything revolves around HT and PB? NT is largely ignored until someone mentioned paladin)

Content either needs to change, or new ones needs to come up. If a new dual boss like scarga comes out, where u must summon both to start, and it drops mw20 at the same rate as horntail, i assure u heroes will be back into meta, or even considered as overpowered, without any sort of of modification to hero.

Im not familiar with shads. but the same applied for them - they just need a non-mulable role to be back into meta. I have no idea what that could be tho, due to my lack of shadower knowledge

 

I'm not sure why some people are particularly prone to lagging or dcing to pickpocket, but at least when I used to HT on shad I would regularly keep pickpocket on and everyone was happy for the free pot money. But in any case, pickpocket can always be revamped to lessen any such lag, such as halving the proc rate of PP (currently 60%) and increasing or removing the meso cap altogether on PP.

As for whether the mesos looted in a party would be significant, I remember running a 5-man CWK and using PP while on cleave and everyone walked away with over 500k in PP splits from one run. I reckon it would be a similar amount in HT. I would deem that to be a non-insignificant amount and it could be further increased from there. If PP worked with nate and the meso cap was removed, it'd likely net roughly the same amount.

My 200 shad is equivalent to a 15x hero/dk at CWK

 

Wow that would basically double HT splits :^)

 

brb deleting char

 

While I agree that shadower is bottom 3 (or 4 depending on how you view DK), the fact that people have shadower seduce mules doesn't remove the niche that a real shad main has to fill.

In maplelegends, we HAVE NO BOSS REWARP. This means that if someone disconnects for ANY reason, they are removed from the boss run. For this reason, redundancy in boss expeditions (especially long ones like horntail) is very desirable.

Even if I have a shadower seduce mule for my HT run, I would love to have a strong shadower main on the squad to serve as backup seduce incase the sed mule DCs.

It also serves as insurance against a bishop DC, because seduce is less likely to eat its way through a sed mule and a shadower main.

 

LF>redundacy squad

 

Shads just got reduced from pog HT cleaver to backup sed mule for redundancy

yikes in the yard

 

That's where you bring a second sed mule for redundancy