Update General Patch Notes: Anniversary 2025 Extra

Active zerk also cleanses stuns, but yes the shadower changes are quite strong at first glance. Makes sed mules even better too

 

Is mapling even getting more fun after each patch? I feel like we have been stunlocked in the Journal to nerf phase for a while now (Pally excluded).

Sidenote: really surprised that we leave vikes unchanged

 

As a Shadower main I very much welcome this, but am I the only one who thinks Shadower has been overly buffed?

 

Bring back passive shifter to both NL's and Shads and no one in this cohort will be complaining.

 

These changes will most certainly inspire more active shadower gameplay. My biggest game-related issue with the first round of changes was how different the class felt, while not really playing any differently.

Nate dash has always been kind of an afterthought and making it a more defining feature of their play style is pretty neat. It seems these changes were mindful of low-hp & high-ping shads as well which is great to see.

The 'core identity' concerns may linger for many, they have been a major concern of mine over the past week, but I am willing to give the new shad a fair shake. On paper, it looks like a strong and interesting new direction for the class.

Personally, I think you cooked and I'm excited to try. I still have some bigger-picture issues with the communication and rollout of these balance patches but I'll save that for another day/post. Thank you for all the hard work you put into the game.

 

As much as I was complaining about the shad changes before, it does feel a bit like it. I mean even before the avoid nerfs we were never really “meta” damage wise though, we’ll have to go in and see how it looks, might need some tuning. For now all I know is we got stance in exchange for avoid and won’t be ping ponged as a melee class so I’m happy enough.

 

All of that could still be done by old shad too, no?

 

Shad had the lowest damage in the game before the first wave of changes; show us what you've got shad players

 

Out of all the bingo cards I may have mentally prepared, literal godmode was not on any of them

 

another update leaving hero players shaking n begging for something.

barrel canceling changes are sad to see. animation canceling made the combo-portion of bucc a lot of fun. The previous bucc changes had me excited, but now we’ll have to see. I understand it was imbalanced if you had bad ping.

the shad changes are interesting. the extra iframes are nice, but man shifter still feels so underwhelming. giving them stance doesn’t really feel like a thief thing, but I’ll wait and see how it feels for shad players.

 

I don't really care about endgame boss mechanics or invincibility..
I just want my passive shifter back

 

the issue is that avoidavility (and pre change shifter) is a nightmare to balance around and shifter had to be changed for NLs as well. NLs essentially having stance as well as a high dom ranged attacker was something that was considered too strong

shield mastery is a shad only skill, so shifting it over was more preferable

 

warriors could see the avoid formula to be slightly increased on DEX scaling and decreased on LUK scaling since most of the stats are aimed toward STR. A end game warrior attacker has DEX and LUK obtained from all stats equips. But it could also be seized as a multi attacker 1h+shield army powerhouse.
iirc rn Fara has around 80DEX and 55LUK. on v.1.29 i was sitting around 88avoid, and 35 avoid on v1.30.
alternatively i could see achilles giving an additional 4-5% chance increase for HP pots to not be consumed which is a buff against magic attacks pot cost and keep the 1.30 avoid nerf

 

I think it's simultaneously hilarious and super on-brand for shads to receive an absolutely diabolical buff in most regards and still miss the old situation. (I'm right there with them, this is not me making fun of shads)

On a more serious note, I think it's also indicative of how much these changes apparently take away from what is perceived by most shads as their identity.

 

i think my solution would be to nerf NL damage to not be so insane, rather than go for the avoid/shifter. it just still feels like a core part of functionality and identity is being ripped away, so i can't say i'm on board with that. i do understand why mastery was where the new "stance" could feasibly go, but i guess i'm just stuck on the fact that shad might now just feel like a warrior, which is not what shads expect when they make a shad. if i wanted to play a warrior-like class, i'd just make one. but i guess we'll have to see the practical application of the changes before we can make any judgments, i can't say much beyond my own predictions and feelings until then.

i respected the buccs who put in the effort to barrel cancel - i never got the hang of it so i can't speak on it but it seemed like effort being rewarded. o7

but ye heroes are starving and it hurts to watch

 

warrior fun, if you don't like warrior then idk reroll

maple does not need to be 100% balanced, just balanced enough that obnoxious players don't ban certain classes from content or have daily smegas not to make certain classes.

 

Completely agree. These changes addressed none of the major concerns that all of the bucc mains posted on previous balance post, and actually go against what the community's recommendations were.

If the only goal of these changes for bucc is to make it more fun as was stated, you are simply not doing that. Sure, everyone has a different idea of what "fun" is. But I almost guarantee that if a poll was put up to revert all bucc changes to pre-anni patch, it would overwhelmingly pass amongst the player base. And at that point I ask, why are you changing anything at all?

I will try out new bucc combos before I comment further. But then I will be making a poll asking if bucc mains would prefer pre-anni version. If it passes, I sincerely ask that all of these changes be reverted.

 

While I understand trying to move toward a more active gameplay, i'd still prefer seeing a nerfed passive shifter over the active one.

 

Let's hope the rerolls are free and don't need to wait for a maintenance with assistance from GM's.

 

This seems like a lot of knee-jerk changes in such a short amount of time, especially coming from the same team that is (or at least puts on the appearance of being) slow, methodical, and thought out with their balance changes.

I'm not personally invested in a lot of these changes, but adding a watered down stance just feels odd to me as a design choice. It is presumed that the shad changes came from the prevalence of multi attacking/farming, so don't these changes not solve that issue, while also being worse compared to just having old shifter? And I thought the sentiment around barrel cancelling for bucc gameplay was widely accepted as a positive method of skill expression?

One change I can weigh in on though is I'm glad I'm getting ~50 avoid back reducing battleship MP cost is nice with how often it can get spammed for animation cancelling or repositioning and how expensive other sair skills can be