Buccaneer nerf when?

First of all, I really appreciate the hard work put into the game by the staff members. They are not getting paid, they are all volunteers, and these people are one of the core reasons why ML has been going strong for so many years.

That being said, whenever I read balance change notes, I can't help but wonder why there are so few nerfs to what I think is the class with arguably the greatest number of advantages in the game: buccaneer.

Truth be told, my knowledge is not very deep regarding buccaneers, so I would be happy to learn if others provide alternative viewpoints to what I have. But here is why I think buccaneers are the most overpowered class in the game, and if there were to be more nerfs to certain classes in the future, buccaneers deserve them the most:

1. Time Leap (TL) - powerful party buff

Buccaneers have TL, where resetting cooldown of other skills unlock a wide variety of options for the party. Common examples include selling afk zhelm/htp service, providing extra res for late/endgame boss expeditions, and right bird-first strategy in pink bean.

2. Speed Infusion (SI) - powerful party buff

Buccaneers have SI, which increases attacking speed by another +2 rank. SI unlocks the full dpm potential for warriors, marksman, and corsairs. SI is also useful for box-hitting content like cwkpq and apq bonus stage.

3. Super Transformation (ST) - 2nd highest, maybe the highest? potion efficiency in the game

Buccaneers have ST, which provide iframes during use of demolition. This highly reduces the pot cost for buccaneers during boss runs. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this skill allows buccaneers to be the 2nd cheapest class to run bosses on, behind shadowers. Being able to super transform and then letting the skill cool off in cash shop also enables ST to be used back-to-back, or even thrice in a row with TL.

4. Boss pin - another highly coveted utility for many endgame bosses

Buccaneers have corkscrew blow (2nd job skill better than 4th job warrior skill, rush?) for pushing, and snatch for pulling. Buccaneer pin is also less affected by aggro, which makes it arguably superior to warrior pin, albeit rush can push more mobs. The pinning ability of buccaneers makes them highly coveted for many bosses such as pink bean and auf haven.

5. Amazing, amazing utility, yet dpm is also highy respectable

With all being said above, buccaneers, in my opinion, are a top-2 class in the game that provide the most party utility, alongside bishops. As a result of providing so much party utility, bishop dpm is less than ~40% (correct me if I'm wrong) of an average attacker for single target bosses. But what about buccaneers? My knowledge for this is not extensive but I found dpm comparisons for extremely well-geared nightlord, bowmaster and buccaneer (all same person) from youtube. (I understand it's likely not the best taste to upload numbers from a banned player, but thank you skarmory for leaving the videos available for analysis).

DPM30, pink bean statues with full apple:
Lv 196 nightlord: 11.997m (party utility: umm, haste?)

Lv 196 bowmaster: 9.994m (party utility: sharp eyes)

Lv 186 buccaneer: 10.626 m (party utility: TL, SI, pin)


As seen above, despite providing so much party utility, buccaneers deal incomparably more dpm than bishops, and are on par with bowmasters, who use more potions, ammo and are more vulnerable against DR.

6. Great for all content but one
With so many strengths, buccaneers are easily invited to basically all bossing content but one. Buccaneers are absolutely necessary for end game content like pink bean and auf haven, and their utility and respectable dpm make them easily invited to popular content such as NT, horntail, zakum, jc, etc. To my knowledge, the only content in which they are lackluster is cwkpq.

With all being said, my opinion is end-game buccaneers should do ~80% of their current dpm due to their rich utility kit, and ST should disappear upon entering cash shop. But I could be wrong and would be keen to know what others might think.

EDIT. Some weaknesses of buccaneers:

Buccaneers' weakness is their 3rd job and early 4th job power level are not strong.

If one were to say early game struggles justify their late/end-game strengths, I think it's a fair point. However, with leech being available and the current community being comprised of high proportion of late/end-game players, I feel buccs just seem a bit too strong.

 

Oof, that's even more powerful than I thought then

 

Buccaneers' weakness is their 3rd job and early 4th job power level are not strong.

If one were to say early game struggles justify their late/end-game strengths, I think it's a fair point. However, with leech being available and the current community being comprised of high proportion of late/end-game players, I feel buccs just seem a bit too strong.

 

True, I think buccaneers are a class that to scale well with current end game bosses, PB and auf. With the growing server age and the focus being more shifted towards end game content, it naturally elevated buccaneers to their current status. And right now, I think that status seems a bit too high for me, and I just wanted to see what others thought.

I would look forward to content shake-ups too in the future . Always exciting to check them out and how to revise strategies accordingly.

 

Kekw, more NLs honestly sound like a nerf to NLs since their already-high gear cost would spike even more.

But yeah, we wouldn't want to lose class variety and have everyone reroll into NLs, although I think NLs in our server are kind of already in a sad state.

 

Hmm, yeah I joined in 2022 so I don't know much about the history before. However, I think classes shouldn't be overpowered just because they suffered in the past and instead balance focus should stay on the present. But that's just my opinion and I trust balance team will consider things more holistically than I can.

The point about skill is a good one. I believe that the dpm example I posted is from a highly skilled former player, so I would be happy to learn about bucc dpm generally looks like from average players, and also in other bosses. I think buccaneers also benefit more from apple compared to other classes so their normal relative dpm is also likely lower than the example I posted.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think NL is a great class. I think they are the best class for PB and HT and great for many other popular bosses such as most of NT, and cwkpq.

However, in most content other than PB and HT, there is usually a class better than NLs:
PB main body (marksman pog)
Auf haven (NL is not great here...)
Other NT except dunas (eg. paladin - superior dpm, utility such as nameless pin)
Nameless, bga, cwkpq, krex (eg. bowmaster - hamstring, slightly better dpm if boss doesn't hit back; corsair - much higher dpm if boss doesn't hit back)
Zakum (shadower is better, maybe until very late game)
JC (NL is not great here...)

With all being said though, NL is still very viable class in most content in the game. However, with high gear & star cost and reliance on SE, I just feel the return on investment is not amazing.