Buccaneer - ST and Energy Orb & more

Last time I asked this Nise said that 1 reason why it would be difficult to implement untransformed skills during ST is because the sprite animations don't exist.

I'm all for these changes though. I would prefer to have dragonstrike during ST rather than orb cuz the cleave potential of orb is honestly really bad (900 ms cast time, converging damage series). Orb on 6 mobs does 1772% damage total whereas energy blast on 4 mobs does 1680% and the skill cast time of the latter is like 500-600 ms. Orb, just like chain lightning, is such an out-of-place skill where the decreasing damage really doesn't find much use in the game's meta. It's great for 1-v-1 comboing but the only utility it might have for mobbing is like aggroing faraway mobs using the orb-bounce feature.

If implementing untransformed animations into ST is not possible, I would suggest this twofold change:

1. Allow snatch to be cast while jumping.
   
   
   Spoiler: reason

   A lot of snatch dpm is lost due to knockback. When you are uncharged, your lack of stance means you'll be a pinball and unable to cast snatch. In addition, the +20% jump bonus from ST means it takes longer for u to land on the ground (i think). Of course, this gets better once you get more avoid from stats and invest in avoid gear but even then you have to forgo you're dpm gear (e.g. MoN, atk overall) and you're max avoid prolly won't net you more than 50% dodge rate.
   
   
2. Increase the horizontal range of snatch.
   
   
   Spoiler: reason

   Snatch can do a lot of damage especially on mobs when you have SE. However, snatch was balanced around being able to hit 6-mobs whereas a lot of cleave skills in the game are balanced around 3-4 mobs. This means that if you are not hitting 5+ mobs, snatch is being under-utilized. I've made a suggestion thread a while ago for snatch's range to be matched with dragonstrike. It'll help a lot in places like 7F where a lot of the time mob spawns are out-of-range of snatch. I think one of the main counter arguments to my suggestion was that it would allow 3-cleave on HT heads. My counter to that is, how often are all three HT heads open/magic cancelled? With how often heads are cancelled nowadays and the knockback restrictions from point 1, increasing snatch range would only be a buff to grinding, not bossing.

 

Buffing the cast time of orb would be great but I feel most of the benefits would appear in the 1-v-1 barrage combo.

Since we are talking about mobbing, I briefly compiled a summary of bucc mob skills over 6 mobs so we have some numbers to back up this discussion. These are all dummy dps:

Disclaimer: Take these number with a grain a salt since these are idealistic. For example, in practice no one maxes Shockwave and it has weird terrain interactions which limits its use. Snatch has that knockback problem I mentioned before etc.

You can see that orb is really lack luster for doing any mob damage.

Spoiler: Edits

• Added in Dragonstrike + Orb combo
• Fixed? Snatch (w/ stun+SE) calculation. I'm not 100% sure about this one since I can't test this on straw dummies.

 

Each bounce halves the damage. So 1-instance atk (%) for 6 mobs is: 900% x (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32)

Same as chain lightning

 

If you buffer snatch and jump you can snatch while mid-air, but it's a hard thing to pull off repeatedly and being able to cast consistently in the air would just be QoL rather than something completely new.

I agree, the current state of Energy Orb is just a meme skill that has no real use. I understand classes have useless skills but it just doesn't fit the buccaneers class identity to have dead skills when nearly all of the skills (including first job skills) have situational uses.

 

It's pretty bad for mobbing but its not bad for 1v1 barrage combo. I did another calculation of bucc 1v1 barrage combos. Barrage + barrel + energy orb + drain should be ~9% stronger than Barrage + barrel + dragon strike on 1 target (highlighted green). I verified these two combos on straw targets and got ~10% so I think my math is okay. One thing I love about buccs is that, the more effort you put into your combos, the more your are rewarded in dpm.

Take the barrel numbers with some grain of salt since I never measured the cast time of barrel; I approximated it.

Spoiler: Method

If you combo just dragonstrike + barrel, you will notice barrel animation finishes roughly around the same time as dragonstrike. Take the cast time of barrel ~= dragonstrike = 1080 ms. In a barrel cancel combo the key presses necessary are:

1. Barrage+barrel
2. Melee (to break barrel)
3. Finishing chain (dragonstrike/orb/drain etc.)

The first keystroke is at time = 0. After the first part finishes at t ~ 1080 ms, we need to press melee. Apparently the average keystroke reaction time is ~100 ms so add 125 ms (I adjusted it to 125 ms so that my calculated numbers match up to my measured straw target dpm). The third part requires another keystroke so add another 125 ms. Then add the known skill cast times of the chain. The sum is third column in the above figure.

Btw the orb+drain combo sucks for multi-part bosses since dragonstrike will be better cleave. Orb+drain is only good for single body bosses like NT bosses, main body zak, krex etc.

 

Orb has always been a good skill, it's just hard to justify getting it before pretty much everything else due to its niche. I dont think there is too much that can be done to fix that without overstepping its bounds in an unnecessary buff, but the skill definitely deserves a slot on the Buccaneer keyboard once we can afford the sp for it

 

I know since beta there was no way to remove restrictions on transformation but I didn't know it was due to lack of sprites if that so later versions have all the sprites working (later versions like 0.83) unless there is more stuff making you unable to implement it then there is a possibility we get something like that in the future, altho yeah I think there is more cos you can't even trade while transformed (you can accept trades from other ppl but you cant trade anyone).

If you ask me to improve Bucc I would like so many things like:

-Reduce the master level of Snatch and/or Energy Orb to 20 so you get em max a bit faster and you have some leftover SP so max some skills like Hero's Will, also I don't thin Buccs will go: oh no I spend so much money on Orb30 or Snatch30 is unfair.

- 50% stance all the time +40% stance while fully charged (I would even ask for a permanent 90% stance but ppl may think is too op even tho 90% makes you fall all the time)

-Make stun mastery half the duration of stuns when maxed


And some more changes along other changes for other jobs but I'm lazy right now.

 

I'm really sorry for asking off-topic (and noobish, on you guys) question but I really needed info about this and felt you guys have enough understanding about bucc class, so I'm asking. hope you don't mind.

Disclaimer : I haven't train actual bucc at all. All experiences and questions below are in viewsight of Hero/DK cleave who can freely multiclient-run SI mule in cwkpq, who played with bucc few times. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

So currently, I run cwkpq quite a lot and meet buccs sometimes. The first time I duo cleave'ed with bucc, I thought it'll be handy because I don't need to run my SI mule client thanks for him, but result was terrible. Mainly his attack combo was barrage+DS / Demo spam and beside very few DS he used, he was literally 1vs1 attacker, therefore, I noticed there are 3 problems.

#1. nobody knows which boss will be aimed on his 1vs1 barrage/demo. cwkpq boss spawn order is completely random. one boss will be meltdown, but other 2s are, actually solo hero/DK.

#2. from #1, actual net speed of cleave is very similar with my solo anw, and it eventually reduces my cleave DPM potential too quickly. means, I get bucc for cleave partner but lose quite a lot of my DPM much earlier, which is bad for clearing actually if total DPM is very narrow. Usually when I solo cleave, it took 55 mins. in same condition, duo'ed with that bucc, it took more than 45 mins, which makes me doubtful for duo cleaving with bucc using 1vs1 combo.

#3. SI boosts myself a lot but I have SI mule which I can use freely so there's no benefit to duo cleave w/ bucc beside I can reduce 1 client, which is tiny.

Nowadays, I'm running cwkpq with a team of friends. composition is Hero(me) + bucc + NL + NL + MM + (extra cleave recruiting)
since both NL can't pin, I let bucc+NL+NL team deal with mage so bucc can force pin mage while NLs do DPM, but once NLs become pinnable for mage, I'm planning to move bucc into cleave and shrink team into 5men, so we don't need to recruit extra cleave anymore. but I can't sure which would be better - just focus on barrage+DS/demo even in cleave, or try to do even damage on 3 bosses together. (for this case, I tried to experiment ideal combo together with bucc friend. maybe DS+somersault when not charged, DS+blast when charged I guess? Not high lvl can expect maxed snatch. he's maxing ST and demo now...early 15x.)

So in short, once NLs can pin mage, I'm going to ask my bucc friend to duo cleave with me, doing even dmg on all 3 cleave bosses to avoid reducing overall cleave potential. any idea or tips for this tactics? I don't want to kick him and recruit another cleave who can actually make overall cleave faster.

I humbly ask knowhows about bucc in cwkpq cleave for you pro guys.

(no need to mention about i-frame of barrage/demo and pot $. please, don't.)

 

No need to apologize. I think asking these questions is a good thing since optimal bucc play is still unknown, and unlike NLs, situational and complex. These kind of questions help us discover new things.

From my experience, if you have 1 party total, start your bucc on mage boss. After mage boss dies, move the bucc to cleave. If you have a 2-party setup, bucc could start at cleave preferrably with two more cleavers. The reason for this is, shuffling people between different parties can reduce the amount of exp they earn (anecdotal evidence). If the bucc doesn't care about reduced exp, start them at range party then move to cleave party after mage dies. Bucc is really bad at pirate boss since only dragonstrike can outrange dispel. Aside: Wonder if it's possible to ask for a demolition range buff :eyes: or reduce Pirate boss dispel range?

The combo I do at cleave side is Dragonstrike+Sommersault Kick when uncharged, Dragonstrike+Blast when charged. Snatch is pretty bad in cwk cleaveside. Even though the theoretical dpm is high, you lose so much damage when you are knocked back during snatch (since you cannot cast during mid-air). Charge uptime is good which makes snatch meh but I found dragonstrike+blast much better. The only time I do single target at cleave side is when I notice the HP of the bosses are uneven.

Pot usage on cleave side is actually a valid concern. Warrior boss will do about 6-6.5k dmg on buccs cuz no dmg reduction. Using only dragonstrike+kick/blast combo means they'll prolly use a good amount of pots unless with hb.

Edit: Ran some numbers. Under idealistic scenarios, the 3-cleave DPS (%/sec) of the following combos are:

• Dragonstrike + Kick = 1754
• Dragonstrike + Blast = 2236
• Snatch = 2222

For reference, bucc demolition single-target is 1831. My dragonstrike+blast combo is often out-dpsed by an arch mage of similar level spamming maxed big bang.

 

Yes. because of exp distribution, I put bucc as out of pty (which is only bucc + mule bish to HS) and other 5s into main pty with 1 mule slot (swapping SI mule/HS), and when it's about to kill, HS both and invite bucc into main pty so can get 6men exp as 6men attacker for every 5 bosses. I do know this throwaway exp comes from bucc's mage hitting but it was tiny % (like 15%ish?) so we all agreed to deal with. Still thanks for mentioning it.

Won't be problem anymore once NLs can pin mage so bucc comes to cleave, and shrink pty into 5men, not recruiting extra cleave to help me.

also, again thanks for detailed info! I really wished to play together instead of being shitty class cherrypicker, needed clue for tactics optimizing us so we can do well. your reply gave me hint for it. I really apprciate it!

Thanksfully, he was insane washingholic so we had no worry for pot usage/safety for survival. phew.

 

Since you brought up Bucc skill points distribution here, I'd like to add that something could be done to justify spending more SP in Speed Infusion after reaching same duration as booster.

Perhaps making SI +3 speed at lvl20 so we don't have to booster+SI as a QoL change or give us a passive attack speed cap increment so we'd hit 1 speed as compared to the 2 speed cap.

 

Making SI +3 speed would make sky ski / rev spear / timeless spear meaningless but penaltied for watk compared with other spears under condition of SI D:
adding +1 speed for passive skill makes bucc can reach max speed from 2nd job days instead of 4th job as designed, means, you don't need to raise SI earlier, can change training path of bucc. (and not to be trolled, hosts will start to ask bucc has SI or not, instead of just thinking they should've raised it @ 12x)

balance is, very sensitive sometimes ._. man just use boosters with SI. warriors are doing it also, MM is doing it also, sair is doing it also. Sadly I can't see any reason only bucc should be exception of this under name of QoL.

I miss my days ignoring my sword booster either......

 

QoL doesn't mean what you think it means.