A crazy and probably unworkable Marksman change

Hello everyone,

I’ve been wondering about different party compositions for the last few weeks and this made me think about the difference between Bowmasters and Marksman. The most common/efficient single target damage party compostition is 1 Bowmaster 1 Bishop and 4 NL. Maybe if your ranged attackers are not properly washed you can throw a dk in there. The dk will need SI to maximise their dps whilst only the dk and Buccaneer would get any use of out the SI at the cost of 2 valuable party spots and so not giving the dk SI is probably more efficient to save at least 1 spot for another NL. Hell even better yet remove the dk and just use a hb mule to only split 5 way or less way with multiclient.

Of course you can make any pt composition you want. You could even run 6 archmages to fight a boss, however certain jobs just seem to be made to work together like the BM/NL combo. Marksman needs SI to reach their maximum dps and BM/NL don’t benefit from SI. Marksman seems to be made to run with other jobs that need SI as well, however even with SI Marksman still struggle to be as good as Bowmasters.

About 4-5 years ago Marksman got a huge buff that made them be able to sort of compete with Bowmasters endgame and I do think that their relative strenght is at a healthy point right now and so I don’t think just buffing Marksman without a more fundamental change would be a healthy change.
Still very few players play Marksman and I do think there is just not enough incentive to play Marksman compared to playing Bowmaster right now. I believe the heart of the problem for Marksman lies not necesarilly in their own Job, but in the meta of BM/NL just being better than any other party composition (in most bosses). A 1 Marksman, 3 NL, 1 Bishop and 1 Bucc party would certainly hold certain advantages over a 1 BM, 4 NL, 1 Bishop party, however those same advantages would still be there in a 1 BM, 3 NL, 1 Bucc, 1 Bishop party and so Marksman still does not have its own unique and strong spot in the meta like Bowmaster has.

My proposal would be the following change (knowing it would be very hard to impliment and its just an intresting idea that probably like the title says won’t work):

• First of all remove the 200k damage cap from maplelegends. I believe this has been done before from 99k to 200k and so I believe bringing the damage cap even higher would be possible maybe.

• Secondly change snipe to not always hit 200k but give it a 100% crit chance with a 700 or 800% damage multiplier at max lv so that a decently funded Marksman at lv 160 or higher would easily pass the now removed 200k damage threshold with snipe (these numbers are subject to change and someone good at math would need to balance this to find a healthy spot).

• Thirdly this change would buff Marksman damage a lot endgame and so a nerf is also needed. The nerf I would propose would be the following: Nerf only Marksman SE with a 5% less crit chance to 10% increased crit chance and 140% increased crit damage at max rank down from a 15% increased crit chance SE has now.

• Fourthly with these changes snipe becomes a bigger % of Marksman endgame dps than is the case right now making them less reliant on SI.

This last point might seem a positive change, however I don't think this is the case. I think pairing bucc and MM like how BM and NL are paired makes it possible to shift the endgame meta or make different party compositions more viable. So in order to keep Marksman reliant on SI I would remove snipe cooldown from 5 seconds at max rank to needing a certain amount of strafe attacks buildup per snipe similar to buccanneer energy costs. If every 5 strafes would give 1 snipe charge with 1 max charge (or 2?) then this would make snipe dps also reliant on SI. This needing to strafe to build up charges in order to snipe would also remove the threat of multiclienting 6 MM’s for insane dps that the snipe buff would give.

The 1 major setback to these changes or the 1 major reason that I can already forsee why people might not like this change would be the SE nerf on MM. But lets go through some different party compositions and see what would happen if these changes are possible and were implimented.


First the situation now:

Lets take 4 NL, 1 BM,1 Bishop party composition and lets say their single target dps is 100% at a certain boss.

Now lets take an alternative party composition of 2 pally, 1 Marksman, 1 Buccaneer, 1 Bishop and 1 dk and lets say their single target dps is the same as the NL/BM party at a certain boss. Both party’s are equally funded and do an equal 100% damage at this boss.

Even in this hypethetical situation the NL/BM party would be preferred by an efficient focus minded endgame player because of the ease of play of NL (multiclient reasons) and because at most other bosses the NL/BM party would probably out dps the warrior/bucc/MM party.


Now the situation after this change:

4NL ,1BM, 1 Bishop nothing changed still 100% dps in this hypothetical situation.

The 2 pally 1 Marksman, 1 Buccaneer, 1 Bishop and 1 dk party now has crit change decreased from all members, however Marksman damage is increased so as a full party its still at 100% damage. Nothing changed we only nerfed all other party members to buff Marksman damage and people would still pick the NL/BM combo as the only true endgame party composition for this hypothetical endgame boss in this specific situation.

Now lets remove the useless dk since we all washed like the good boys and girls we are and add a BM to the party for a 2 pally, 1 Marksman, 1 Buccaneer, 1 BM and 1 Bishop party composition.
Now every party member has the strong SE, Marksman only benefit slightly from strong SE since their snipe has 100% crit chance anyway and the party does 102.5% dps compared to the First NL party composition.

Marksman and Bowmaster would both have a more differentiated own identity with Marksman having more dps than Bowmaster in a very specific situation of having SI and BM has a stronger SE so BM is stronger when paired up with only NL’s. Marksman would also be far more reliant on SI than they already are making Marksman the NL of warrior party compositions, being reliant on SI and doing a lot of Single target damage. With this change You could even throw a MM and a bucc into the First party composition instead of 2 NL to make a 1 BM, 2 NL, 1 MM, 1 bucc, 1 bishop party and do around the same dps as the 4 NL, BM, Bishop party giving the NL party composition the extra advantages of a bucc like TL and boss movement control without losing as much dps because of increased Marksman dps.

Why make this post?

I understand that this is a gigantic change and so I don’t think this idea would work. There are way too many reasons why. Firstly its a giant change and because of this its not very ‘oldschool’. Secondly the change is so big it seems hard to balance.
Thirdly we are playing a private server with limited development time and this change seems a lot of work.

So if this change is not very likely to work and probably won’t be implemented why make this post? There are 2 reasons for this, firstly I had this idea and wanted to share it and secondly because there has been a lot of nerf NL posts and buff sair posts and nerf avoid posts on the forum lately and this post is connected to that conversation by trying to view that conversation in a different light.

I don’t believe nerfing NL harder is the solution to the NL/BM endgame meta, NL already has had nerfs and I don’t think the problem with NL supremacy lies in its own strengths.

I believe NL unbalance lies in its lack of weaknes of party composition. NL only needs a BM and together they go brrrrr whilst other party compositions need a lot more work (need SI and SE) to sometimes get close to their powerlevel. I also don’t think buffing every other Job to match NL powerlevel is a solution either since how would you do that whilst not breaking the class identity of all those other classes?

To me NL is not the problem but the NL/BM/bish party composition is. BM and NL both don’t benefit from SI and so maybe buffing SI further or giving some other job like MM/hero/dk some party buff that NL can’t benefit from similar to SI to raise every job that uses SI in one fell swoop making other party compositions more competetive is the answer?

For example what if hero had a second rage buff that gave another +20 w.attack but NL wouldn’t benefit from it? Now we have a nice buff to hero making bringing a Hero over another pally worth it and hero wants SI so its also a slight buff to bucc as well and a slight buff to bucc is a small buff to all classes that need SI and boom by buffing hero with a buff NL can't use every other class other than NL just got a buff (in 2 ways the direct buff of second rage and the extremely minor buff of stimuating more SI availability).

Lets make hero and Marksman great again. This hero buff idea also has problems just like the Marksman change but im just proposing we look at the meta by looking at party compositions. TLDR: don’t nerf NL, don’t buff every other job individually, just make non NL party compositions better. (or nerf hp washing that would also fix the NL focussed endgame meta)