Corsair Doomer Thread

all cope is lost

 

When I will be stronger in the Corsair of my journal here on the forum, I'll collaborate with this post o7

 

One thing I noticed was about the avoid, when I went to test cannon in dpm1 on the dummy there was almost no time, besides, high level corsair loses a lot of dpm in most scenarios if you don't use the summons while archer for example has a much simpler repositioning (even more so if you think about 2 pc/vm and hurricane), so, I don't see a point for the avoid formula to be so much lower?

 

Is this the point where we stop side-eyeing all of the new corsairs and instead start laughing at them for their bad class decision

I hope they have fun killing one(1) single dummy in Shaolin, it's what you were made for.

 

Outlaw should be outlawed for the way it killed my desire to play the game. Memes aside, and in all seriousness, my excitement for reaching third job ended upon opening my skill tab. To make matters worse, it was the first character I invested a lot of time into. Time that I wish I had back. I also realized that I wasn't looking forward to 4th job either, because the dismount technique felt too sweaty for a casual like myself. It was a rough realization

Reading through the original xruru thread, I really like the idea of focusing on and expanding upon the corsair summons. The current "glass cannon" identity feels rather negative/overly sweaty to me and providing a new summoner gameplay style could be quite refreshing!

 

The problem with dummy dpm-only considerations is that corsairs don't have 100% cannon uptime compared to other class dummy DPMs.
I'm sure most corsairs wouldn't want the boat uptime management feature to be removed as it feels almost core to its class playstyle/identity, but it does cause a rift between the sweaty and casual playerbase which is why we probably see so few corsairs make it out past the 160+ corsair graveyard.

I wonder if the direction to explore could be something along the lines where current boat management would instead offer alternative bonuses. Currently, all boat does is provide a bit of defense and access to certain core attacking skills. What if access to these skills was permanent, but the bonus of 'active' boat was instead something like +hp, +def, +atk, +crit?

This would create two different playstyles - new ceilings for current sweaty boat hp management players - without ruining the flow of corsair playstyle altogether.

This would make rapid fire kind of useless, but maybe it could be reworked to have other features like IED or aggro so it doesn't become obsolete.

 

I think the sair highlights the need to play into class strengths in design, and how a significant portion of things "worth" doing are dominated by a subset of classes.

There's always been very little separating the sair from the nl in terms of ability. The sair is better at things that dont fight back, and better at farming when the drop rates are cooperating. But the former is counter to any idea of high level content, and the latter is still niche as the mages are right there. So what can the sair do that its alternatives can't? The sair has a surprising amount of cleave, and they can attack from boat at close range, but that typically comes with so much damage/status that boats cannot survive. I feel like that pretty much leaves their ability to target a mob with the egg and not worry about ads. Which let's the sair.... single target an auf triplet when the goal is to cleave? Attack pink bean without being stopped by mini beans allowed to live for more than 2 seconds? There's possibilities for design to play into the strengths of the sair, but currently these nuances are so underutilized in the game that the class is viewed as only useful for dummy content, or "NL with extra steps". Im not convinced that sair needs a rework, but content worth mentioning certainly does not enable them.

 

Don’t worry the future is bright. New content to be released surely will not be another Sed-spam machine-gun nuke fest where Corsairs are fodder.

…Right?

 

I'm relatively new to the server but I don't think fixing Corsair is complicated! You can take a look at various 4th job skills and adjust them accordingly but I really do think it is as simple as making corsair the top DPS class.

I believe that Corsair should reign as top DPS as it is high effort and should be rewarded for the effort put in. NL would still be a popular option with the various benefits LUK as a main stat provides, some of the best passives in the game (alchemy), and high mobility it also extends to its entire team. Not sure if this is a controversial take or my lack of server specific knowledge makes me wrong here haha.

 

Add an internal cool down to battleship cannon

 

I'm all for making the game fun and rewarding for the player base. This server has gotten too nerf happy over the years. Some changes understandably so.

 

What if you just buff the out of boat damage a bit (Rapid Fire) to make the gap not so huge? Boat play still remains optimal, but sunken boat doesn't mean sunken sair.

 

I'm not good with numbers but with the new bucc thread, doesn't bucc look better in FF?

 

Honestly if they're willing to give stance to Shads (without them having to activate a buff too)

Maybe just say fk it and give it to Corsairs too at this rate lmao

 

Honestly as a future Corsair main, I'm just hoping for an avoid formula change. Even with a buff to avoid, unlike Old NL"s you cant mule corsairs, which eliminates those problems I HOPE. The class is already engaging with the dismount and managing of skills and boat HP and no defensive skills unlike our ranged counterparts. Increasing the avoid we get would simply not only make it more attractive to other players but also alleviate other issues with parties maybe? We benefit from SE/SI to be 100% optimal and of course damage isn't everything although that is what we sign up for and yet we can't even live up to that fantasy.

Like miney mentioned last year "

• Social credit requirements: just about no host looks to recruit Corsairs for bossing past mid-game bossing. People may need to know you for you to get into content, compared to many other classes that can be publicly recruited.
• Similarly: no active staff plays Corsair, which means no staff can provide current-meta perspective nor has strong personal incentive to bring up the class' issues to the table.
• Content that benefit from having a Corsair sees no strongly distinguishable benefit over hiring anyone else. For example: hiring NL/Shadowers to Pink Bean, BMs to any pinnable boss, or Buccaneer for most bosses provide notable impact for the duration of the fight and its outcome. Corsairs provide no perceivable benefit to the team, outside of a faster clear time in some non time-sensitive bosses. But if clear time is a focal point, why play 1 Corsair when 2 NLs do trick? "

ALL IN ALL JUST BUFF OUR AVOID MAN WE DONT NEED STANCE JUST REWORK THE FORMULA IT FIXES OUR FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES NOT BANDAID SOLUTIONS IM BEGGING YOU IM ON MY KNEES. :']

 

Give sairs shifter

 

Both archers get the party buff of Sharp Eyes. I've always found it a little odd that of the Pirates, Buccaneers get Time Leap AND Speed Infusion, while Corsairs don't get any party buffs. .

 

My personal takeaway from the original discussion thread and the avoid meta rework thread that either ovv or clam started after the fact is that corsairs biggest issue, besides not having a meaningful niche, is survivability. Every other class in the game has some form of damage mitigation/lure to help keep them alive. The closest thing Sair gets is using bullseye to tank adds rather than boss hits but nobody else can ever benefit from that. To avoid having this thread devolve into a “sair is perfectly fine as is. I can play this game with my feet” post, let’s look at the biggest issues Corsair tends to have.

• The DPS they provide isn’t high enough nor unique enough to set them apart from a strong Nightlord or Bowmaster.
  
• They have the lowest avoidability in the game.
  
• They require large amounts of hp washing to truly play optimally due to challenges not providing enough and wanting to zerk during content with hp/mana drain.
• The defense provided by boat is negligible.
• There is no survivability built into the corsairs tool kit apart from tanking adds while using bullseye or the positioning tools of wings and recoil shot, but hit boxes in most bosses are not telegraphed/distinguished enough to truly take advantage of these.
• Third job has improved since the original discussion thread, but outlaw is still (likely) the worst class to grind. Needing to level two separate subpar mobbing skills simultaneously causes them to come online much later than other classes.
  
• Once reaching 4th job, the class is still not truly online until around level 140-150.
  
• Hp for battleship is very low at low levels which can lead to a lot of subpar rapid fire damage during most boss fights.
  
• Once a Sair hits 4th job jump attacking is no longer allowed without using sticky keys as bot doesn’t allow firing if airborne.
  
• Boat doesn’t have an internal cooldown to reset HP. Logging out is the only way to regain full boat hp between bossing runs.

My personal favorite solutions to the survivability problem would be to:

1. Shift boat hp scaling up to keep the same end game hp (honestly maybe even increase it) while making it more forgiving at lower levels.
   
2. Add some sort of stance/damage mitigation/damage reduction while mounted on battle ship. This would allow an easier time for sairs to maintain positioning during fights and give them a fail safe if they need to eat a seduction and will is down.
3. Rework the avoid formula to match every other class.
4. Defense rework to make the defensive stats built into boat feel more meaningful.
   
5. This point will be controversial, but I think an interesting way to give corsairs a niche over NL or BM could be to increase their HP gain. It would be challenging/impossible to apply to existing characters, but if they naturally gained a meaningful amount of HP over thieves and archers from leveling and AP it could make them a viable alternative to the more popular dps classes while also addressing their biggest flaw.
   
6. Also bring back hypnotize.
7. I’d also like to see Gaviota turned into a regular summon if it is going to maintain the same penalties other summons have.
   
   Another interesting option could be to add some sort of stacking damage reduction on each summon the Sair has active.
8. Edit: other pieces from the original post I forgot to mention, but could add more depth to the corsairs tool kit: Gurk’s suggestion of adding elemental resistance to elemental mastery in 4th job could increase survivability.
   
9. Adding iframes to a skill like summon octopus or air strike could increase survivability while allowing the Sair player to maintain skill expression by animation canceling to maintain dps.

Things may have changed since the last discussion thread, but corsairs low population (and no staff representation) makes it controversial to change. The players still maining Sair love things the way they are, for better or worse. But if the larger population of DKs, Shads, and Buccs can weather a rework I’m sure the 8 active sairs can too.