Post-Patch Buccaneer Balance Thread

Hey guys!
I know it has been a couple of months since the patch has been introduced, but I wanted to play around with these changes for awhile first before giving my thoughts on it, instead of hastily jumping into conclusions about how these changes have impacted buccaneer's play style as a whole.

First and foremost, I'd like to thank our wonderful staffs in Legends community for listening and trying to implement changes based on frustrations felt by majority of buccaneers in the server. I understand it hasn't been an easy job to strike a good middle ground to not make changes that are too drastic, so I appreciate you guys for trying your best on making these classes more viable compared to THE meta classes on this version of maplestory.

Anyways, let's begin!

POST-CHANGES​

In general, I really like the changes that had been made from the previous patch- the iframe duration of ds/barrage combo and demolition became longer, making me slightly harder to get hit than before, energy charge rate is increased = more frequent stance duration, and most importantly, the stance has been increased from 50% to 75%, meaning the chance to get knocked back during the charge is less. However, I believe there are still more changes that can be done to further improve the quality of life for buccaneers. Let me deconstruct how these changes have impacted me one by one:


Post Delay Reduction- Generally, these changes have made me slightly harder to get hit from bosses such as zak and ht. It's a change that I was definitely able to notice (especially dragon strike/barrage combo), but it still felt like a subtle change where I was still getting hit relatively often. There were also a very slight improvement in damage (~5-7% increase in overall dpm) but again, it was very subtle. The only skill I was not able to test out too much was snatch because I am still in the process of maxing out, but I can see that as becoming a great mobbing skills especially when stacked with SE. Overall, I believe the change was positive and I am more than happy with these changes right now.


Stance/Energy Charge Rate- Personally, I was not thinking for charge rate to be increased, but that was one of most noticeable and positive changes that I really do not think I can go back to pre-patch after using it. One of reasons I liked it so much was because now I was able to get a stance much faster (I think about 30% faster than before). Speaking of.. STANCE!! The increase of stance from 50% to 75% was definitely a welcoming change for improving quality of life for buccaneers. Now don't get me wrong, I still get knocked back pretty frequently during bosses like HT, but it was definitely less, making me less stressful when I had to climb my way back to the platform.


SI Range Increase- I'm lovin it <3

SUGGESTIONS​

Now here are my suggestions that I'd like to see in the near future:

Increase the stance during energy charge from 75% to 90%: In my opinion, this is by far the most needed changes that can drastically improve the quality of life for buccaneers. And for people that thinks this would make the class too overpowered, let me explain why it really won't:

1. Stance is only activated when energy bar is fully charged- that means when energy charge is not activated, there is zero chance of having stance, which is still ~70% of state people will be on while energy bar is getting charged. So I do not see any reason for this to make the class overpowered other than just making the class less annoying to play during bossing like HT. (hopefully other buccs can agree with me for how annoying it is to constantly get knocked down and have to go back up the rope, only to get knocked down again over and over)
2. Our iFrame is still not long enough to avoid a lot of attacks- Just like shadowers, we have skills with iFrames to avoid getting hits from mobs. However, what makes our skills different than shadowers is that our duration of iFrame is much shorter, with addition of lacking skills like shadow shifter once we do get hit and lacking high natural avoidability.

So overall, I really do not believe increasing the stance will make the class overpowered, rather make less frustrating to play.

Increase the Energy Charge duration from 50 seconds to 60 seconds: I feel like the duration of charge is still a little too short in my opinion, so having a little buff on this buff as well would further help to maintain already the short duration of stance.

Increase the range of Barrage: As of current state right now, the damage gap between barrage/ds combo vs demolition is too big (I can deal ~50% more dpm with demo), and I believe increasing the range of barrage would be a first step in the right direction to remedy that. The reason I say this is because the natural damage of barrage is way too low compared to corresponding levels from other class, and the only way for me deal a sub-par dpm is to have demolition up and running, but that is a skill that I cannot make it stay up for 100% of time. Now, this doesn't mean I want the class to become powerful in lines with heros or dks, rather to just close the dpm gap because imo right now, buccs still probably deal the lowest dpm compared to other cleaves.

Increase the mastery for Dragon Strike: this once is a little minor, but I think being able to deal more consistent damage using ds would be a nice addition as well. I do not like the fact that I have to rely a lot on RNG to deal whether I will deal either 18k or 30k to the mob. As a result, making the damage more consistent would also help with further improving the quality of life as a buccaneer.

Feel free to leave any other feedbacks here if you think I missed anything, or have other opinions on how it should be balanced
Thanks!

EDIT: rephrased some sentences. Thanks! @julianlee93