Information Christmas 2020 Balance Changes [Explained]

Here's my take on the current 2020 X-Mas Balance Changes Thread

https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/my-philosophy-on-x-mas-2020-balance-changes.36043/

 

There's this rumour that if you equip an ele wand 5 and get killed by the lava near zakum 13 times in a row your IL respawns as a FP arch mage.

 

rip IL

 

You can't afk one buttoning at GS2 as I/L as you can as Cleric. I/L uses hell a lot of potions and need to try to hit as many targets a possible every cast. Not only mana potions but also hp potions, quite the opposite of Clerics.
F/P does have the worst 2nd job indeed.

Edit1: Yeah I'm only doing comparisons between Magicians.

 

I agree FP is worst among mages, but can't agree among 'every classes'.
FPs 2nd job ~ early 3rd job life is similar with SIN who doesn't punch mobs and have teleport, much stable min-max dmg gap but no haste. that's my viewpoint.

Usually, FP can 2shot GS5 in 2nd job and 1shot from lv.70 thanks for elewand*amp1 boost.
(choosing explo lv.1 instead of amp1 is completely your choice. I choosed amp lv.1 for making my FP oneshot GS5 and really satisfied with that strat. amp lv.1 multiplies *1.11 on final damage, can cynergy with elewand 1 whch makes huge difference with 2nd job life.)

now think about other classes, especially archers and dits. -sigh-

 

Iron Will & Iron Body
still overwrite each other?
if yes than whats the point of buffing iron will if iron body is just a stronger version.
with that being said hex of the beholder still gives 20 wep and magic deff.
will that also get overwritten by those?
seems like DK is a mess of 3 skills doing the same thing

 

Preliminary findings after testing the EPH at 5-6 for 20 minutes.

I used to get 45m-55m eph in trio leeches, and around 70-75m eph solo on my level 162 crusader. Baseline EPH we will use is 73m for solo testing pre-nerf.

After running a few @epm 3 and @epm5 tests, my crusader received 58m, 57.8m, and 54.7m eph, 58m. Adjusted for the bonus 10% exp from the event, it converts to around ~51m eph. That's a 30% eph difference.

I'm sure the eph will continue to go up as I get used to the new changes, however, more APM does not always = more effort. The new changes makes it almost impossible to consistently sync the casts times of the mage ultimates, so I'm just spam casting on cooldown. I'm consistently clicking between screens for each cast.
Before the changes, to maximize EPH, you needed to sync the cast of each ultimate, rebuff at the correct time, and consistently reposition mages. Although you could lift your hands from the keyboard, you still needed to focus on the screen to make sure the mages didn't fall or deviate too much from their initial position (which is what kept me from watching TV while selling 5-6 leech).

With the new changes, 5-6 leech feels a lot more like 1h skele leech with sweeper. You have to consistently alt+tab and spam cast. From my old "rotation" to the current one, the current "rotation" feels a lot more "effortless", in that no thought goes into the rotation anymore. The APM seems to have increased by 3 times. The EPH seems to have dropped by around ~30%.

What does this mean going forward?
People who can't 3 hit gold monks are going to get much lower eph - I don't see how you can run both mages on the top platform now. Since Blizzard doesn't freeze mobs, Ifrit cannot consistently help kill the gold monks within the timeframe of 3 Blizzard casts. The threshold to sell 5-6 leech has increased a lot - from two 15x mages with 1150/1180 TMA to two 17x mages with 1330/1360 TMA.

As for mesos/hr at 5-6, with the current EPH, there's no reason to buy 5-6 leech anymore at a premium price. Because skeles have an EPH/Meso ratio of around 4-4.3/1 (24-27m exp for 6m mesos), why would anyone pay more than 8m for 5-6 leech? At the current rates of around 30-38m eph, sellers can expect to charge around 7.5-9m an hour (depending on the level of the buyers). After taking potion usage into account, I don't see why any mage would want to put in so much effort in order to make 18-24m/hr after taking pot cost into account when they could be making 17m/hr at ulu2 while being half asleep.

What can buyers expect?
Probably around 30/33m-40m eph at 5-6, and expect to pay around 10-11m/hr. Or just go buy petri leech.

My thoughts?
For the people who thought 50m eph for 10.5m was too expensive, LUL.
I might take a break from selling leech and work on my crusader/hero. It doesn't really make sense to put in so much effort to make around 24m/hr at 5-6 right now when you could make more at skeles as a Bishop (JK rip taunt muling at skeles)

I'll post more data as I continue EPH testing.

 

Made an I/L 2 months ago and grinded it soooo much recently, what a massive waste of time. Finally a good reason to quit, good change guys.

 

A little jumping isn't gonna stop me from camping em

 

Iron Will is a party buff, benefiting all non-warriors. Regarding Hex of the Beholder, it'll probably be overwritten. I'm not a DrK, so IDK.

 

Exactly! That changes harmed so much more lower level mages than the actual targets. Now it is like, you archmage didn't got high level enough? You're out, go make a bishop.

Yeah back to BishopLegends.

 

More like those levels of leech never should have been attainable at such a low barrier for entry... everyone knew shaolin was broken but it was normalized, hence the recent balance changes.

 

From what I heard, Taunt in skele is dead because it now reduces % damage instead of defense, which means taunt stops bishop from being able to OHKO them.

 

The reason why NLs are expensive is because everyone and their grandmothers are playing it.
Also, MMs and sairs are just as bad, if not worse (for sairs), of a grind, especially if washing.
At least NLs have Avenger, sairs get no good mob moves until 4th job's torpedo. Blank Shot, Flamethrower, and Ice Splitter are all just meant for status effects and are much slower and weaker. And Grenade and Invisible Shot are just... No.
At least NLs have utility, sairs have zero utility moves. Nada, zilch, null.

The rest of your points are reasonable.

 

Mans knows his stuff, and this is coming from someone who trained to 120 on a gunner.

 

Oh no! You have to spend mesos to train?
-stares at CBS who meso bomb and need a partner to lure-

-Me who bombed around 50M to get to 78-125-

I don't think you understand the EPH/ Meso value and you should understand how insane that is since you come from a background of a lot of MMOS apparently

 

Yeah, and so is being a Chief Bandit that meso bombs with a Cleric partner. However, given that an FP can essentially get from 3rd to 4th job within 2 days with intensive mist training, the meso cost from *pots* is extremely negligible. Mist training is simply busted.

Also, I've made a lot of friends at GS as an IL so I don't know what this nonsense about "actually needing to socialize" is.

For real. Imagine leveling 80-120 in less than a week and saying, "it's so slow and expensive, I need to do this to keep up with IL mages who've been at GS2 since level 55" omegalul.

 

You say "at least NLs have avenger" like it's a good mobbing skill... if it was we wouldn't get meme eph grinding and are forced to level by bossing.
Arrow eruption is essentially a melee range mobbing skill that you can hit multi platforms or even semi afk train with. Torpedo does great single line damage, helping kb. Plus sairs can freeze and burn for mob control.
We have the same useless, oversized star that doesn't bend all the way through 4th job. Avenger's damage is so low that past a certain point it's really just used to gather mobs.

I agree that hp washing is cancer all across the board, so maybe I should have worded that better. With the current meta and boss hp requirements, most people either are forced
to have huge base int and leech their way to bossing level, remain playable and wash out much later, or rely on HB on every run. My point is even 4th job we are stuck with just avenger, yet everybody still wants to nerf our single target damage. MMs may fall behind, but sairs have arguably the highest dpm end game.

 

There's some things that I don't really understand.

For example, if you're trying to discourage leeching, why are you also discouraging people/making it harder for people to actually grind and train at 7f? What I mean by that is that you are removing the safe spot to put hs mules in 5-6F when we grind in 7f, and also there is no ACTUAL safe spot in 7f itself to put hs mules. Yes there's a "sort of" safe spot in the middle of 7f but thats provided the players dont cross the midway point of map and mules still get hit occasionally. Warriors dont have the luxury of going to fm to get buffs that easily, and leaving map risks losing map ownership, so I really don't see whats the goal of the staff here. I genuinely am confused and would love to hear you guys out