Paladin Changes

This post is wholly irrelevant to my argument. You are essentially saying "Broken system justifies a further broken system." Of course there are no SE mules at this time (and I'm confident there will be eventually) because BM and MM both have competitive tier DPS. Lastly, Pink Bean is post BB; fairly confident that this will not be added as well.

 

I would like to see having just Paldins andBoomering Step for Shad's fixed to v83. It would make them actually more equal to other jobs.

 

Absolutely beautiful suggestion. I agree, GMS had class balancing issues and this seems like an EXTREMELY viable / fair way to bring paladins up from the dirt to a nice equal level.

This will also be a custom feature to Legends that I think would have a huge impact on the popularity of the server.

+1 from me.

 

@Aero We all know you just dont want to wash anymore.

 

People just want Blast and ACB to be easier to get. Plebs need to stay out of the purest class that is Paladin.

 

Well, I guess I better chime in, haha.

For those who don't know me, the only class I've ever played for long are Paladins. I reached 158 during GMS v.83, making me a top ten Paladin on Windia. Recently, before Noblestory closed, I reached 174 putting me right behind Kimberly at 4th overall, and now I'm back at it here on Legends. I don't claim to be an expert at anything, but if I know one thing it's this class.

I agree that the Paladin class, indeed even going back to Page, could have used a bit of extra love in some areas. But the biggest problem isn't that it's completely underpowered, because it isn't - the class is more nuanced than that. The biggest issue is that most players don't understand Paladins and White Knights.

First off, there is nothing wrong with how fast we train. In fact, White Knights and Paladins are among the easiest to level in the game, provided that you avoid the traditional spots that you're always invited to (like Wolf Spiders, for instance) and instead go to where you can take advantage of elemental weaknesses (in this case, Dual Ghost Pirates). Yes, this means you may have a hard time finding a party where you're most effective at training, unless you can find another White Knight or a mage to duo with. So be it - that's part of what you sign up for when you choose our class. But our training advantage over Heroes widens once we get to fourth job. Heroes do not have the mobbing abilities that Paladins have. Forget Heaven's Hammer for a second, although that's what everyone thinks of because it's our signature skill. Advanced Charge Blow is a stupidly good mobbing ability, and only takes ten skill points to max out. Along with max Holy Charge and one point of Rush, you are able to just obliterate skeletons, keeping up even with Bishops. That's right, the best training partner at skellies for a Bishop isn't another Bishop, it's a Paladin, and it's not even close.

Bossing is hit or miss. Because we are the weakest Warrior class at Zakum, and for many people this is the only place where they party with a Paladin, this seems to mislead a lot of people about the strength of the class in general. We generally don't take Heaven's Hammer until we're midway through the rest of our skills, and even then it's only good for the arms. Two of the arms have elemental weakness, the rest does not. Brandish simply outclasses Blast in every way - better damage, longer reach, multiple targets. Without an elemental weakness to exploit, Paladins do vastly inferior damage when compared to Heroes at Zakum. Same goes for Papulatus.

But there are plenty of other bosses which do have weaknesses, including Bigfoot, Headless Horseman, Pianus, Black Crow and even Anego as long as you can withstand her slaps. On these bosses we can pump out some insane damage. Plus, we have the durability that all warriors share.

So going back to the idea of changing Guardian. Part of me wants to say sure, do something with it (keeping in mind that Heroes have it available as well) because although the damage reduction and stun can be useful, WHY OH WHY did they put in knockback? Why would a warrior want a skill that knocks something out of your attack range? Wizet be trollin'.

That being said, although I truly enjoy hearing people's views on the classes and how they could be rebalanced, in the end I'm admittedly a die-hard old-schooler and wouldn't like to see any changes. As Kim mentioned already, I'm one of those people who came here in the first place because this feels most like the game I remember and loved. To me, the fact that there aren't many Paladins around and the way many people sell us short is part of its appeal. Threaten is near useless, we have no party skills, we get three versions of the same exact skill as a White Knight to dump ninety points into, and Paladins have T-Rex arm range when using Blast. So be it. When you sign on to the class, this is what you sign up for. Personally, I love it. The Paladin life is rewarding in many ways, but it can sometimes be a lonely and misunderstood one, as well.

 

Just wanted to make a suggestion to update Paladins to v.86. It's still pre BB, but with some much needed buffs that helped Paladins stay on par with other warriors without becoming too overpowered. It changed the skill Threaten to ignore 20% def instead of 20 def, making them very useful in a party for bossing.

It also gave Paladins the ability to stack lightning charge with any other charge, giving them a much needed damage boost to stay on par with other warrior classes. They would still do less damage on neutral monsters, but the damage difference wasn't so significant that the class seemed at a huge disadvantage. It also allowed them to really shine on ele weak bosses.

In my time on GMS, Even with an ele weak boss like Big Foot, Paladins with a similar damage range could barely out damage a hero. After this change though, They gained a noticeable advantage on ele weak bosses, which I believe they should have.

I feel the v.83 buff to HH was a great start, but in my honest opinion the buffs from v.86 would put Paladins in a much better place overall. My only other concern would be increasing the damage cap to 199k. Paladins ran into a huge issue before that change on GMS capping their potential on single target bosses.

 

What OP is talking about is not a complete revamp of Paladins nor is he making this suggestion purely for the benefit of Paladins. Rather, he is making this suggestion because it benefits both parties (Paladins and the server). The introduction of revamped Guardian will:

1) Increase the usefulness of Paladins
-Useful =/= Strong. As mentioned above, Paladins are not weak; they can deal a good amount of damage. The problem here is that DrK and Heroes can hit just as much as Paladins can, if not more, while bringing more to the table (Rage, HB). After doing some research, this is the closest thing to a DPS ranking based on 2008 Maplestory: *This is an approximation, although, it is more or less correct.*

(Ship)[SI][SE] Corsair > (SE) NL > (SE) Bowmaster > (SE)(SI) Marksman* > [SE]1H Hero > (SI)(Zerk)[SE] DrK > (SI)[SE]2H Hero > [SE][SI] Buccaneer > [SI][SE] Corsair > (SI)(SE) Paladin** > (SE) Marksman > [SE] Shadower*** > [SI][SE] DrK > F/P Archmage > I/L Archmage > Bishop

*Once the damage cap is raised, and Snipe's cooldown reduced, a Marksman with SI will be higher DPS than a Bowmaster.
**On holy-neutral bosses. A Paladin with an elemental advantage would probably fit right next to 1h Heroes on the list.
***Assassinate spam, which isn't possible everywhere; most notably on Horntail's feet.

Notice that it states that a Paladin with elemental advantage will fit right next to a 1h Hero, which is followed by a DrK. It is only during these conditions, that a Paladin can barely compete with its branch classes. Now, one would say "Hey, that's not too bad!" and it isn't; Paladins can dish the ouch, under the right circumstances that is. The problem is that they don't offer anything. If a party of 5 had to choose between a Paladin and any other non-mage class, Paladins (assuming that it does not have god-tier gear, and even then, is questionable) would always lose out. Shadowers can boom, Marksman, Sair, NL, BM have higher DPM, Heroes have rage and higher DPM, DrK have HB, Bucc's have SI. Paladins though.. yes; they're left in the dust.

Some may argue that this is the life of the Paladin; lonely and misunderstood. That's true, because they're basically watered-down Heroes. Yes, the scarcity may be appealing to some people, but to the vast majority of the population, it is not. Because of the lack of party skill, they are a dead class. OP mentioned that there are more lv 10+ beginners than lv 30+ pages, white knights, and paladins. That statistic alone is problematic.

2) Render HP washing useless
-HP washing should not exist in the first place. Neckson knew about it, but did not bother to patch it because it brings in cash. A player should not spend hundreds of thousands of game cash to survive, at minimum, 1 hit from a boss. I can't think of any other game that has such ridiculous mechanics. I'm not sure about you guys, but I, for one, do not think HP washing is nostalgic in any sense, way, or form. I abhor the idea that spending my sparsely-earned NX on goods that NX is SUPPOSED to be spent on, rather than buying AP resets for this ridiculous mechanic will permanently cripple my characters ability to do end-game dungeons.

@Scorpio According to this, http://www.basilmarket.com/MapleStory-Guide-What-Came-When-in-GMS-283.html, Pink Bean came out with ToT during v72, although, Pink Bean was not defeated until after the introduction of potentials (v88).

 

a 20% dmg boost to their main bossing attack would put them on par with heroes.
no need to overcomplicate, this could be an easy fix.

 

I'm happy to discuss this, because you make points that I've heard repeated quite a bit over the years.

Twice you mention that Heroes are superior in part because they have a party skill, Rage. But let's review this for a moment, because we're mostly Maple veterans here - this isn't our first rodeo.
How many times have you heard, "We need to have a Hero so they can Rage the party!" versus...
"Dammit, Hero, will you STAHP raging, you're cancelling my apple/cider/heartstopper!"

So, let's not get too carried away with the notion that Heroes have this skill that parties want. It is a meso saver when training, and nothing more. It may still arguably be better than Threaten, but the point is largely moot when I can just quaff a NLC pot and bingo, we're even again. I would contend that our Magic Crash is potentially more useful than either ability when bossing - except that few people seem to know we have this skill and what it does, let alone expects us to have it - so we all choose to spend our points elsewhere. But that's for a different discussion.

Now I'd like to address your notion (shared by many, in my experience) about the reason why, using my original statement, Paladins are "lonely and misunderstood." You maintain this is because we are watered-down Heroes. I will agree with you in a way that you didn't originally intend - because it's precisely this perception problem that we are misunderstood. We're really talking about damage output, right? When talking WK/Pally damage output, it's inaccurate to speak in such generalities, because you have to qualify your statement by stating where you're talking about. I still blame Zakum (and to a much lesser extent, Horntail) for this. I contend that if they had just Made Zakum weak to an element - any element - we'd be having this conversation far less.

So let's talk actual numbers. Even a rookie level 80 White Knight who maxed out Fire Charge first (the most common scenario) has a 468% damage modifier against fire-weak creatures using Power Strike, 450% damage modifier using Slash Blast. That is more than competitive damage, but it limits our training spots, thus the "lonely" part. The most commonly used training maps don't really suit us until we get to skellies, and that's a pretty long wait. MP3 is okay, but half are weak to lightning, while the other half is weak to fire. Doh!

There's been quite a few ways to balance Paladins that have been suggested in this thread. Everything mentioned so far seems reasonable to at least put to a discussion. Hey, if this what the community at large wants, I'm not going to extensively argue against a buff that would help me, my fellow Paladins, and my party members out. But I will always contend that our problem lies more with the community's perception of our class more than the reality of it. I think our weaknesses are given a lot of weight, while our strengths are always mentioned but casually dismissed.

 

What She Said^^

 

I know it might be late to add this but you can pull combo barrier from an aran and remove the pole-arm limit, if there is one, and also the combo requirement if you want to give paladins a 20% damage reduction party skill. So its not a whole new skill just an edited one.

 

I would definitely like this thread to continue and hopefully make a change in paladin skills. Although I think paladins do have decent skills (especially when it comes to elemental damage), they are still far behind other warrior classes when it comes to shared party skills.

 

What he said^^, Also i would like to add that Heaven's hammer with 20 sec cooldown is OP af, and working to get to 4th job is well worth it!

 

Spoiler

#PallyLivesMatter

 

Agreee, even though I haven't started playing maple legends, yet the class I liked the most in gms was white knight.
Back then I didn't know anything about damage and just wanted a cool class and WK was obviously the coolest since it was in my opinion a mix between wizards and warriors (I was like 10 back then).

But now I know a little bit more about WK and I notice it's just a.... washed down version of the other warriors.
It doesn't have a great buff like HB, it doesn't have DPS like a hero and it doesn't have something like berserker which can up the dps when you fulfill certain criteria.
Even if you compare it to other unpopular classes like Marksman, it doesn't have a great buff like SE iether >< so what are the advantages of paladin?
What is the joy of pala right now compared to other warriors, the only thing I see is being unique since it's a rare class.

Please do something about it.

Regards,
Someone who wants to play pala?

 

never forget

 

post something of substance u kappaing troll ! I'm sure you got some knowledge to spit somewhere in that pedo bear brain of urs f3

 

Have paladins truly been forgotten?