Add a Cooldown on Shifter

I’d rather have NL buffed just like it was originally in GMS for that truly authentic pre-bb gameplay. I believe it will come after the rest of the missing chair functionality gets added

 

Yes but the entire point of thieves in general is high avoid, a 4th job is supposed to feel powerful in their respective classes.

Bowmen are not supposed to have high avoid, so a bit more than half the avoid sounds pretty good overall.

Do you expect everyone to have the same avoid? I'm confused why you would bring another class that typically doesn't really gain any avoid in their kit in the first place, other than an active 1st job skill that hardly gets touched, if at all.

 

The extra 30 or 40% respective dodge rate is a part of the 4th job feature. We could ask a flurry of questions in the same frame of logic for other classes where it feels unnecessary, but the point of the 4th job was to make everyone feel powerful, and, until 5th job was released a few years ago in the main game, was set to be the end build for your character. This was their final form. Hero, Paladin, Dark Knight, Bowmaster, Marksman, Bishop, Archmage(s), Shadower, Night Lord, Corsair, and Buccaneer. They're supposed to take things beyond what would feel powerful, and in the form of Night Lord and Shadower, something like massive avoid was supposed to help their pretty mediocre health pools.

Considering in regards to the other ranged classes, that Corsair gets a much higher base hp pool(5290 avg, ~5800 max) at 200 than Bowmen or Thieves(4718 avg, ~5058 max), I think that Bowmen should definitely have an HP pool that's more comparable to Corsairs, and maybe even higher. But in general I think that a better solution would be to upgrade Bowmen and Corsairs to have a higher base HP than Night Lords, than to nerf Shadow Shifter.

Upping base HP for two ranged classes to be better than the Night Lord would feel like a better payoff in my opinion. At that point you can see the differences, play a class with higher base HP and less mobility and avoid, or play the class with lower baseHP and higher avoid. It would feel a lot better than nerfing a core aspect of what it means to be a 4th job thief. Play a class that would cost less overall to HP wash, or play a class that costs more to HP wash.

 

Avoid gets in the way of actually balanced content. Just look at PB changes from Christmas patch, the meta was forced into NLs being the only viable class for PB, because they were the only ones capable of not getting flung across half the map with action delays included. Ultimately it got reverted because when you try to balance the game to make content harder, NLs are the ones punished the least compared to every other class.

Honestly, I'm not even sure if the suggestion goes far enough. Let's do some math as to what it accomplishes, though to be far I don't know which takes precedence: actual avoid or shifter avoid. To make it simpler, and to the benefit of the nerf, let's say shifter triggers before avoid.

On average you will likely proc a hit every 2 to 3 seconds in HT, given 1.5 second iframes and time taken to line up another hit, with more hits being dealt in the beginning and fewer near the end. For an average, we'll say you get hit every 2.5 seconds.

We'll also give the NL 675 avoid, which will equate to a 70% dodge rate vs. the 250 accuracy HT. Including shifter, this gives the NL a 79% dodge rate as they currently stand. In one hour, with attacks every 2.5 seconds(1440 attacks total, 21% hit rate), you can assume you'll get hit 302.4 times by HT.

Now we calculate the effect of the proposed shifter. With 2.5 seconds between each hit, he can roughly assume shifter will proc every 18 seconds after accounting for failures. So in that one hour(1440 attacks total, subtract shifter procs: 1440/18, for 1240 attacks at 30% hit rate) you can assume that you will be hit 372 times.

So, in total the nerf would reduce the overall dodge rate of this NL from 79% to 74.16%

Shad math would be much harder to do, but it would be more painful to cleave in HT, they'll probably lose a lot to being knocked down from BStep.

 

Are you new here?

 

Or make SS as active skill and double its success rate.

 

If this is just a PB fix, then maybe they could just add walls to the backs of ledges to reduce the bullshit of everyone having to reposition constantly.

If it's indicative of more than just PB, what if Archers got a form of power stance or knockback reduction to help mitigate repositioning? Or maybe their dummies could act as physical walls for them during a boss so that any knock backs just push them into their dummy targets.

 

When I look at balancing and try to have a discussion about it, I try not to make knee-jerk reactions in response to class imbalance and instead try and look at all angles.

You don't have to agree with me but you can at least engage on the same level. Always come into a discussion with the knowledge that you might be wrong and you can always come out the other end learning something new.

 

I never thought of the dodge rate/avoid as being the defining feature of the thieves, let alone their 4th job. Night lords get triple throw, and flash jump is a far more memorable/iconic aspect of nightlords (to me, anyways). Maybe someone should take a look at alchemist (do NLs really need extra long apples/extra pot efficiency?) Also, can we change shadow claw to be back to 2 minutes?

 

The best option would be to never bring back that Christmas agro, as it's broken for many other reasons as well.

Knockback is something people have already been trying to work around, with sticky keys/iframe/rope tech, or in the case of warriors Stance fixes the delay, but from the hit to when you are allowed to act again on a ranged character is roughly 1 second with the additional delay.(perhaps slightly longer, I haven't measured it in earnest) It would be a major problem in that old PB, where the boss only had 2 attacks(one KB attack and a 1/1 with skill lock) and 3 one-minute cooldown skills to choose from when casting from left corner.

The state of high level play among the other ranged classes revolves around bolstering their ability to avoid taking the wrong types of damage. The lengths people will go to micromanage their movements and hits is a testament to the power of avoid, but even with their best play it is remarkably difficult to overtake a Night Lord doing their bare minimum of effort. It's a system that doesn't reward folks for their effort and skill more than those without, and touching avoid in some way is likely one of the better ways to rectify that fact, while making more room for high level Night Lord plays to compete with highly skill intensive competitors.

 

I could see how that could bring down NL's to a more skillful level. I'm just wondering what this does for other classes who would have to still deal with the knockbacks, y'know? Like do we want everyone to be knocked back or would some classes benefit from some helpful additions?

Dragon Nest, a fast paced dungeon MMO, has an archer class, one of the moves they can learn basically makes the class turret up, gain superarmor(knock back immunity until a certain damage threshold hits) and gets some powerful shots in. The DPS at that point goes up significantly(especially if you're near point blank range), but it makes you more vulnerable because you are no longer a moving target.

I wonder if the dev team would consider something similar, maybe with some already existing skill? Use the skill and you become immovable during the duration. It could even proc a double shot effect where your next attack deals double lines to encourage and reward good timing.

 

Exactly this.

Look at other games like WoW for example that focused on nerfing ”overperforming” classes instead of focusing on bringing others up to par.
It usually ends up with a pissed off and unhappy playerbase.

Don’t nerf, buff instead.