Make Bishop Mains 'alright' in Pink Bean

The goal of this thread is to present a challenge to the staff, that of making it acceptable to recruit a Bishop Main for Pink Bean over a Bishop Mule. This is a difficult task, but one that requires attention if every class is meant to deserve a rewarding endgame gameplay.

Making the problem evident

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Any level 150 Bishop Mule can provide as much utility as a Bishop Main, this devalues the class and the differences don’t make Bishop Mains any more desirable. Mini-beans are handled by the Arch-Mages and no one recruits a Bishop for their statues and Pink Bean damage as those are bad. The only thing Bishops do is provide apples for the run and being a resurrection and shield mule.

The only redeemable quality Bishop Mains had before the patch was being able to do serious damage to the mini-beans, now that has been replaced with the ability to do full damage to Pink Bean as if that meant much to the weakest single target in the game. It’s hard to understand why this was a trade, why was Bishops utility sacrificed for body DPS or why does the last patch-notes propose that Bishops would be broken if they were able to do both. It’s as if the balance decision was thought in a vacuum in which multiclienting doesn't exist when almost every squad was doing it and still does (even more now).

Bishop body damage is mediocre even with the holy resistance removal and it will never be considered as a distinctive quality as it is simply better to recruit a real damage dealer with a bishop mule.


Before suggestions, a small pause to develop something:

Challenging the idea of “should support be a damage dealer”

The following chart lists the best support classes with their best -non redundant- skills applied to Pink Bean. Which explains the lack of ‘Dispel’ due to the existence of All-Cure Potions and Holy Symbol due to most endgame players being 200 and that Pink Bean isn’t run for EXP.

I have also decided to rate the damage these classes do during Statues and Pink Bean phases in the following order: Top Tier > Good > Mediocre > Insignificant. DPM close to Night Lord is to be understood as Top Tier and as DPM varies between classes I’m using the categories to indicate significant DPM gaps.

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So why I’m doing this? I’m looking to challenge the idea that supports shouldn’t be able to do significant damage. Two of the best supports in this game, Buccaneer and Marksman, already do top tier damage. So there's no reason for being afraid of letting Bishops to be at least ‘alright’ in the final boss of the game. Yea just ‘alright’ because It would be madness to request for them to do as much damage as single target classes or also it wouldn’t be appropriate to overlook how Bishops succeed in leeching and farming, though It could be argued that these are mostly mules that keep mage balance hostage but that's another controversial topic.

Anyway, my point here is that supports can do top tier damage and I’d like for Bishops to be "ok, decent, alright" in pink bean if possible. Dark Knights deserve some love as well but they'll need their own thread with their own suggestions as I'm unaware of what could make their class feel more rewarding to play.

So, what to do SUGGESTIONS

Make Bishops able to genesis mini-beans again and I would suggest to allow Bishops to keep doing full damage on Pink Bean. Compared to a naked mule, this will make magic relevant in dealing with mini-beans, the proposed change keeps statues damage as insignificant and body damage as mediocre. I would say this is enough to keep the class ‘alright’. Bishops will keep getting muled but at least it’s state won’t be as embarrassing as it is now.

So how to move from 'alright' to 'good'. I incentivize looking for creative ways of making the supportive skills more challenging or looking for ways of making bishop mules less desirable. Active gameplay needs to be rewarded with survival, the current dispels are a joke and what is needed is perhaps a mechanic that rewards active gameplay by dodging attacks while dispel happens, real players would dodge while mules would be static and take the hit. Of course nothing would work perfectly but it would be greatly appreciated as it would improve the Bishop experience.


what NOT to do, DOOOOOOOONT

I must admit I had these ideas before when I was feeling upset about the state of Bishops but further thought they are useless

· DON’T: Restricting multiclient or making it a bannable offense

This doesn’t accomplish the goal of making Bishop gameplay rewarding in Pink Bean. Restrictions are lame and as a server we are deep into multiclienting. I’m not looking to make everyone obligated to play in certain ways, this just doesn’t feel right and it’s better if the ‘problem’ is addressed with actual gameplay and mechanics changes.

· DON’T: Increase the minimum level requirement

Let’s be real, due how this game is, almost every endgame player has at least one high level bishop (if not 200 already) from the times they leeched their attackers, sold leech or farmed. This kind of restriction would do absolutely nothing for Bishop Mains and I would say that it would even be worse.


Ending

Please consider accepting my suggestions, keep the thread in topic, leave your input. Agree, partially agree or disagree but try to say why. Thanks​