Update General Patch Notes: Anniversary 2025 Extra

Last weekend i made my second test in PB on new bucc, first after Barrel change.

After one week i had some time to think about it and adapt gameplay, what i did was embrace Orb spam and well... it worked! I was capable to reach closer to my statue dpm pre-anni changes but i definitely didnt felt playing Buccaneer more "dynamic and skill-based". My gameplay was basically charge Energy Charge skill in anyway faster enough so i could start spaming Orb again and keep doing it for long 4 minutes to finally have my ST back to get a stresfull, clunky and tough gameplay tryin to use Demo + whatever skill to complete it.
The delay on Demolition feels so bad that instead of usin another skill to keep the combo gameplay that was expected, u spend this time just repositionating ur character because u got knock-back or loosing DPM because casted Barrage/Orb with Accuracy debuff on ur head or even losin that time to pot ACP because of that.
I saw a terrible comment on this forum sayin "Triple demo macro is disgusting" but what? now the pro gameplay is Orb Spam!? What changed about it?
All chages just made Buccaneer lost its personality and QoL in exchange of a new clunky, longer and boring gameplay.

Playing Pink Bean body as Buccaneer is just about a nightmare now where we dont have full capability to control PB anymore. My last run the Body Stage was just terrible not just to the buccs but to the whole squad that was suffering from the bad pinn getting constant stunned from Genesis. Now buccs dont have any other way to bring PB back looking to the right side when it starts to walk to the left its just "random" now, pray for PB not troll and not go for the NLs, the change of Barrel just killed buccs personality of cancelling animations and made them lose a needed ability to its own gameplay. Using ST just feels like nothin since u cant spam Demolition, u need to involve it in a combo with a skill u prob cant use to not mess even more the pinn that barely exist, that means less iframes and more stuns/confuse/seds and deaths in general. After ~15 minutes of body, alot of debuffs and 2 deaths i just gave up of tryin to pinn and even performance, i just let another bucc take pinn and started the most ridiculous bucc gameplay i ever played in this game: FF > Charge > Orb Spam; Could barely reach 3m dpm with that shit but whatever.
Playing Buccaneer on this body felt to me it came against its own incentive principles from before, where before it encouraged people to learn even more bucc to get to the point of learn how to pinn PB, but now i just have the feelin to not try it at all and let someonelse to do it because of how bad it is to do.

Old Buccaneer already had a dynamic and skill-based gameplay out of ST and even on ST there was some situations u had to adapt gameplay and not just spam Demoliton. Its gameplay was already varied different from now that is just about the same, trying to combo 100% of the time or just embrace the technique of Orb Spam. Not like the changes brought a whole new way to play Buccaneer with combos where we have to get the most out of each skill, nah its just about the same combos we already had as i saw.

I see all the objectives were not achivied but feels more like a setback in the way to play it.


TLDR - This is my feedback on how bad I thought the changes to Bucc were, they porbably dont care about it but cant say i dint respond.

 

Similar views here after using it a bit more. Aggro can still be managed, but the role probably should just be delegated to a magnet warrior for more Orb spam uptime and not disturb its positioning. Statue as well seems to boil down to hold relevant macro until a state change makes you hold another revelant macro. Even without the macro you can just roll your face over attack buttons, swapping every couple seconds. So... why play this class over any other?

The damage numbers are fine for the dpm heads, but the gameplay all around is now so uninspired that it finally killed my 4.5 year bucc pb career and interest in the class altogether, and im tired of defending it. Good riddance.

 

Also, who the hell greenlit giving shads (already one of the best challenge HP classes) more challenge HP while the bucc is now expected to play even closer than the shad and still needs hb? Make it make sense.

 

Just simply shoehorn self-HB into bucc's kit somewhere to make up for shoehorning self-SI into DK.

 

i feel like two of the fundamental problem with the bucc change that makes it feel clunky, after having played it a while now, are 1)the different range on the attack combos and 2)delay in being able to move.

1) demo+barrage feel bad to use because barrage has such a short range compared to demo that I waste time repositioning, after which i might as well just use demo again instead of barrage. I also like using flash fist to charge bubble faster after barrage, but flash fist range is so abysmal i just relegate to barrage+DS instead. I think overall, the range on some of the short attacks should be increased.

2) shads have a fluid motion in their attacks, and i think its due to their ability to move right after their attack animation. Bucc on the other hand, have a fraction of a second delay after some of their attacks, during which they can't move or attack. For example, allowing them to move/combo another attack right after the character re-appears after demo will make the class feel a lot smoother to play. dmg lines might need to be adjusted to allow to quicker combos, however. Another problem might be chaining demo+barrage could simply provide almost 100% iframe uptime, but now that ST cd is a lot longer, maybe that isn't as big of a problem as before--or maybe there can be another solution to this problem.
The fluid feel of barrage+ barrel cancel + move/combo is dearly missed; it would be nice if we can simply bake-in some of that mobility into barrage, to make barrage feel fluid even for high ping players.

Also, I agree with others about hp challenge. I am a firm believer in hp challenges, and I think theyre great, especially for new players making shad/warriors. But I can never, ever, recommend any new player make hp challenge bucc. EVEN at 30k hp, bucc are much more vulnerable than warriors due to having ZERO damage mitigation skills, and most of the time their range is shorter than warriors as well. The only redeeming part being that corkscrew has more iframes than rush. For reference, I would be on the fence about recommending hp challenge if it gave bucc 23-24k hp. The current state of bucc for new players is abysmal, from terrible dmg with early-mid tier gear to terrible hp from hp challenges. For a healthy server, i believe support classes need to be slightly overtuned so that new players are inclined to play them. Currently, I believe bucc IS acceptable (in terms of balance, not enjoyability), but only for mid-end game players, not for early-mid players.

Sorry I think i kinda went on a slight tangent lmao.

 

We've had some time to digest these changes, and I wanted to share my perspective. Disclaimer: I don't have a Shadower, or Buccaneer so that perspective is from players that I know and trust.

The recent balance changes (Part 1, Part 2) have been controversial. And when I say "controversial", what I mean is "generally disliked". In any online game, balance changes are inevitable... it's just the nature of creating and sustaining a multi-player experience... but I wanted to touch on my thoughts in regards to why these changes have garnished so much feedback... most notable 26 pages, and then 15 pages of comments.

Let's start with the positive...

Bowmaster / Hero - I personally like the changes to the Hero's Enrage, and Bowmaster's Concentrate. Changing the weapon attack to a stacking +6 is a nice change. I like how this allows Bowmasters to benefit from Concentrate while on apple. It's also a minor buff to the Hero's Rage skill, as it became more valuable to Bowmasters, especially considering their limited inventory space for ciders.

HP Challenges - Increased Challenges HP for Shadowers makes sense, as they are class that has to be able to tank touch attacks.

Now, these are more disappointing...

Night Lord - The re-work of the avoid formula was unexpected. It felt very short-sighted that the formula was changed... then immediately reverted to a compromised version. It certainly gave the impression that these changes weren't as well thought out, or tested, as initially believed. Now, the change to Shadow Shifter was unfortunate. The new Active Shifter, quite simply... isn't good. The duration is short enough that it doesn't feel impactful... you just press the button whenever it's off cooldown. Maybe someday we'll find niche use cases for it, but at the current moment I'll sometimes simply forget to press it as it doesn't really make a noticeable difference. Also, the fact that Active Shifter doesn't work against attacks like Zakum pillars or Pink Bean SEDs make it even more worthless. You know... the things you actually really care about avoiding. Many players had been expecting Night Lord nerfs for a long time, as they are undeniably a very strong class in most bosses... but I also think it's worth remembering that Night Lords are pretty bad in everything else. Besides Night Ghosts, they don't really have any good meso-grinding maps the same way Shads have maps like Memory Lane 5. Unlike others, they also don't even really have any decent maps for grinding exp, the way that others have 7F. And on top of that, they're reliant on having access to the SE party buff, else they do bottom-tier damage. Outside of bossing, high-level Night Lords don't really have any viability. If I have 30 to 60 minutes of time between activities, I don't even bother booting up my Night Lord because there's really nothing viable I can do on that class outside of bossing. For a class that's bad at pretty much everything else, let them be good at their thing.

Shadower - Talk about balance whiplash. The first patch was a huge hit to Shad viability with reduced avoid, shifter changes, then immediately the second patch gave them Warrior-like Stance, nerfed smokescreen, increased damage, longer immunity on skills, AND increased dpm from SE? Once again, gave the impression these changes weren't as well thought out or tested as we would have hoped. They tweaked the class to be less like a thief, and more like some strange version of a warrior.

Class Identity - In my opinion, what rubs people the wrong way is that the above Night Lord and Shadower changes is they change the identity of the class. They now feel different to play. The Night Lord was known for being a class that was about avoid-ability, and excelled at keeping damage uptime when others were getting hit with knockback. They always felt smooth, with Flash Jump, and Shifter letting them move around the map and dodge attacks. Likewise with Shadower, whom also had Smokecreen as a welcome party buff. Now Night Lords are getting bounced around a little more, Shadow Shifter is a relatively meaningless skill, and the Shadower Smokecreen is a shadow of it's former self. These changes changed the feel of playing the classes. The Night Lord now feels just one step closer to how an Archer feels, and a Shadower feels like some weird version of a warrior. As such, they both lost a little bit of their class identity and what made them unique. While these changes didn't do much to shake-up the per-content tier lists... the changes rubbed people the wrong way as it changed the identity f these classes, and how they feel to play.

Buccaneer - Ok, now the most disliked. I don't have a bucc, so I'll only touch on my perspective. We had two weekly Pink Bean runs, both now cancelled going forward, as a result of these changes. One with ResetPB, and the other with BurningPB. The bottleneck of these runs has always been Buccs. There just aren't as many high-level Buccs, and the strategies for quite a few end-game content relies on them. These changes made Buccs a lot more "clunky" to play, and less enjoyable for the players that put the time into making level 180+ buccs. As a result, quite a few of our buccs have withdrawn from both Pink Bean runs, leading us to cancel both going forward for the foreseeable future. And that hurts. A lot of work has been put into forming these groups, and these runs, only to have that work unraveled because balance changes made it such that players of that class no longer want to play that class. I'm not sure what exactly these changes were meant to accomplish, and it's unclear if the desired objectives were accomplished.

Paladins - They got a buff? Or a nerf? I'm not sure what to make of these changes, and I'm not sure what the team was hoping to achieve.

Unexpected - These changes were also unexpected. Many players were expecting and looking forward to the next series of DK changes, and possible Hero changes to re-introduce their viability in the end-game. Both class changes that would be welcome and impactful to for those players. What we got instead? Surprise changes to Night Lords, Shadowers, and Buccaneers? I really wish the staff had handled these in a way similar to the DK changes. The Balance Team had done a great job with the The State of Dark Knights and Moving Forward thread, where they were transparent about their intentions, and asked for community feedback. Even if the team is going to do what they want to do in the end, it was a great example of creating transparency and building trust with the player base.

 

for what it's worth, it also feels less enjoyable at 160+ too. If I wanted to fight bosses within kissing distance at all times, I'd just play my paladin, which I originally quit playing in favor of buccaneer.

 

What skill are you talking about?

 

Energy Orb, and demolition, like

as Ralph says, even without the context of PB, you can still stand far back and demospam, but that huge delay where you could input a barrage or whatever encourages you to be far closer to do so. I guess if you want to be technical, the range never changed on demolition, but the best effective range did.

 

Exactly why I dislike the thief changes. They could literally give triple throw and assassinate x3 the damage and give NL stance too, but it doesn't change the fact that the feel is so meh and it feels like they've lost the plot on the thief classes.
I've said it before, but giving a thief stance feels like a global MapleStory-tier change (literally, because Shadowers and basically every other class have some form of stance now in gms lmao) where it IS a strong buff, but it comes at the cost of class identity and leads to homogenous feel between classes. It's very similar to when they gave every class access to some form of Flash Jump, where it's an obvious buff, but removes nuance in the class design, and leads the class who originally had it exclusively to feel less special. Of course, only one class actually got access to stance here, but it still leads to the same principle of Shadower now blending more with the Warrior classes, which leads to frustrations from both sides.
The passive Shadow Shifter, imo, is just so integral to the feel of the class. Sure, it's arguably worse than stance, and it's not the most interactive mechanic, but I feel it's one of the driving factors as to why NLs and Shads are fans of their classes. Being able to dodge a lot of hits just feels great and makes you feel like, well... a thief class.
I'm genuinely hoping for a complete revert on the shifter/thief changes (and bucc changes).

Also ngl it's quite impressive how they managed to kick the ladder down even harder at PB with these bucc changes. PB is already miserable to start up a run for, and now they made it even harder somehow.

 

Personal HB during transform / super transform CONFIRMED?!

 

No point in keeping changes that the user base is unhappy because they will either put up with it and continue to be frustrated or leave/take a break until changes happen. Need a different solution to balance out fair gameplay and keeping the game fun at the end of the day. Too much focus on changing things that was never much of an issue to begin with.

 

give everyone 30k hp at a low cost, then power creep all future and existing bosses with 30k hp in mind. then give all warriors Achilles of 50-70% to ensure they remain as tanker (and bucc of a nerfed version)

 

They dont care about fun or people being unhappy with the changes, they chose to make gameplay as much of a chore as possible (unless you play shad)

 

Let's revert smokescreen but it no longer affects shadowers

 

"Active Gameplay but Passive Devs?"
I find it genuinely ironic that the current direction is pushing us toward "more active gameplay" — while the staff themselves are completely inactive in the forums where players are pouring their feedback, concerns, and frustration out in large, unified numbers.

You want players to interact more, be less AFK, and engage with the game moment-to-moment — but you won't even engage in a forum thread where 20+, 30+ people are agreeing, liking, and echoing the same exact message:
"Please revert these changes."

That’s not just passive, it’s borderline disrespectful to a loyal community that has always cared deeply about this server. If this really is a “Classic” server, then why are modern gameplay philosophies being injected into it without any real communication, warning, or player input?

We’re not asking to break the game. We’re asking for:

• Reversion of changes that clearly go against the spirit of classic gameplay
  
  
• Open dialogue
  
  
• Acknowledgment
  

Instead, we get silence.

If you believe in active gameplay, then lead by example — be active here. Talk to us. Explain your decisions. Acknowledge that a huge chunk of the community is upset, and not a single dev has commented despite weeks of ongoing feedback.

This isn’t just about one patch or one skill. It’s about trust. And right now, that trust is eroding fast. Just look at the 18 Disagrees on this balance post that is 66.67 % of the 27 great votes given thats INSANE

 

18 disagrees and 31 friendly likes, and somehow twisting those numbers to say 66% negative is INSANE. Some real bullshit corporate number lying to make your point seem better than it is. Doing actual number comparison, it's 37% negative reacts and 63% positive reacts.

 

If only I could funny emote you sigh...

 

"We didn't ask for this — and now we're asked to wait and adapt?"
Thanks for the transparency and the detailed post. I respect the time and care put into it — truly.

That said, as a player who has mained one of the affected classes (and who has spoken to many others), I have to express how frustrating this all still feels.

You're openly admitting:

• That the Shifter change launched without the Stance counterpart in place
  
  
• That the classes weren’t seen as problematic by the community
  
  
• That no feedback thread or poll was created beforehand
  
  
• And that these are mostly experimental pushes for "interesting evolution" or backend testing
  

This leads to a hard truth:

We didn’t ask for this — and now we’re asked to adapt, be patient, and hope that the rest of the fixes come later?

Players who log in to play Thief or Bucc likely didn’t want their core gameplay identity altered mid-event — especially not in ways that make the class feel clunky, weaker, or alien. And while you say these aren’t permanent changes, they still feel like redefinitions being tested on live servers, not thoughtful refinements made in dialogue with the community.

I understand the technical limitations. I understand the desire to evolve. But this patch — while ambitious — feels like it hit two classes hard and unexpectedly, during an event, with no pre-communication, and now the burden of waiting for "next patch" is on us.

Please consider opening more feedback threads before implementing sweeping class identity changes. Communication, polling, and discussion could have prevented a lot of backlash and confusion.

We still love the server. We want to trust the vision. But we also want to feel like partners in that vision — not test subjects.

 

go ahead. Im sorry i pointed out your puny attempts at lying with numbers. Ironically some of your points would have been better without attempts at twisting numbers because you had plenty other valid things to point out