Shadowers...

I agree (and am on your side in this), but gonna have to play the evil villain here so we can make discussion in the context of shadowers in bossing.

Let's talk their other traits that make them pre good in bossing. They got:
• iframes (where they are invincible for a brief period of time every time they use boomerang step)
• meso guard (where they take 50% damage IIRC)
• shadow shifter (where they can avoid approx 40% of attack before considering avoidability)
• Chakra (i guess lmao)
• smokescreen (where they don't take damage for a min straight every, presumably every 10 minutes.)

With these traits, shadowers are able to save a lllllllloooooooooooooootttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt of potion money as they barely get hit; and even if they do, it would be at half the damage. This is an amazing trait that other classes don't have. When it comes to mesos, most jobs will spend arguably few mil in potions every boss run (like HT, BGA, Neo Tokyo, Toad) and this does not include the apples & stews while shadowers instead will have more spending money from lower pot consumption. If my argument is wrong because shadower's don't even get selected in bossing as often, then that means they can make just as much money training (with mob and gacha drops). So therefore I'm entire not sure if I agree about shadowers being underfunded

Cleaving comparison between heros dk's and shadowers is a lil tough; like you said, the differences aren't substantial. Shadowers can cleave against 4 mobs, DK's 3, and hero's 2 (Edit: 3 not 2). Different advantages in each bossing situation. Hero's cleave best with HT wing and arm (edit: and head), DK's can cleave head wing and arm sometimes, and shadowers can cleave two heads wing and arm (If they jump). IMO a each job has different advantages and disadvantages when in comes to cleaving for bosses.

BUT MY OVERARCHING QUESTION is this: We all agree that shadowers have really bad 1v1 damage, are the perks of a shadower enough to outweigh the damage weaknesses they have? You tell me.

Spoiler: only 69% serious about this paragraph...

People like to talk a lot about damage. I get it; but damage isn't everything. I'm gonna make an analogy with big damage = big weiner. Yes having a big weiner is favourable, but it's not mandatory for guys to have. Guys can share many other good traits while they might have a small weiner. In this context, shadowers may be "small weinered" (lmao dkm please), but they have many iconic other things that make them attractive. Not everyone cares about those with big weiners, so there's hope for you too shadowers.

 

(Saying this completely from a Shadower's POV since I am one myself)

While I agree with what you said about the damage between 1v1, the more pressing question is are there more cons than pros to this job?

Now, besides our pathetic dpm as compared to other classes, we can't forgo the fact that Shadower is in fact a very flashy class with many other perks. Putting dpm aside, like what Eric mentioned previously, we can't ignore the fact that we have high avoidability, iframes, smokescreen and other mobbing skills. Shadower is one of the classes where we can easily switch around from one skill to another, as compared to other classes while they hold on to one skill button and mindlessly hit whatever they are hitting. True enough when it comes to major bosses, Shadowers don't get selected as often if the party is purely seeking out dpms only. However there are in fact quite a few parties that do not mind having a Shadower in their team due to smokescreen (which is rather OP I would say). Fortunately I myself found a decent squad that doesn't mind me and we work just fine. As far as I know, it seems like the only concern here regarding this class is.. dpm? I've heard many feedbacks regarding Shadowers and so far it seems like people are just unsatisfied with the damage output only. Sure, if our main attacking skills are slightly buff'd it'll be very very nice we can't have best of both worlds. If you want to be versatile, you have to forgo OP damage. If you want OP damage, go for classes which can give you one.

To be honest I don't exactly enjoy being one of the lowest dpm class and it's sad to see my damage like this despite how much I try to improve, but when I think about other perks that Shadowers have that other classes don't, it feels more balanced then. I've recently come to terms with this, and besides, could you think of any classes that die in the middle of Zak's body and walk out like a piece of cake after resurrection and survived? (Besides NLs) I did, more than once and it felt great.

 

Lemme correct this point... Hero can cleave 3 instead of 2.

 

Some things that don't really matter but, heroes hit 3 targets not two, and its not like shadowers use less potions matters much do to taking half damage since they lose mesos proportionate to how much damage they take so yea. Honestly if shadowers iframes and smoke and meso guard are too broken why don't they just get nerfed in that regard in exchange for more damage on assasinate. Shifter could be nerfed to 30 percent. Right now the way meso guard works is that for every 100 damage you take you lose 78 mesos (the most popular flat potion is barbarian elixirs which heal a 100:100 ratio and honsters heal 60 percent of your hp for 2800 mesos). A way that can be nerfed so shadowers use more mesos at bosses, without sacrificing their survivability could be to make meso guard take up 200 mesos for every 100 hp you lose! As soneone who has done literally every content in the game honrtail is just one boss and being honestly trash at every other boss (well honestly shadowers are decent at cwkpq) is a bit silly since they're supposed to be an attacker class. If boomerang step could only hit 3 targets, but did more damage I'd honestly also be fine with that. If staff doesn't want to touch the damage at all honestly some quality of life stuff like meso guard being longer duratoin or smoke being 30 seconds long but a 5 minute cooldown (instead of 1 minute and 10 minutes) to give it more utiltiy would be exciting. Pickpocket could have a higher cap, or make it work with meso up?, band of thieves could be buffed, chakra could made instant and used any time, double stab could be buffed. Ninja ambush could be made into an actual useful skill, venemous stab could work at bosses (its maxed at 190, and provides a lil bit of damage per second but it would need to be reworked to have a damage cap and I honestly don't know if this is possible).
In order of which buff would be the best for shadowers in my opinion
1. assasinate damage ratio, but a lower cap so the max charge assasiante isn't too broken
2. smoke duration rework to give it more uptime but less duration (it'd effectively be the same but give it more utility which is nice, since shadowers are supposed to have really nice utility!)
2.venemous stab
3. boomerang stab damage (I think it'd be the best buff but this skill is already really good IMO so buffing it is a lot)
4.ninja ambush???
5.Bot/Double stab (honestly double stab is such a trash skill in comparison to lucky 7 and theres literally 0 reason to get it over lucky 7)
Honestly I don't think shadowers are in such a trash state to require buffs, but when literally every other class has gotten a buff, yet shadowers (and nightlords but cmon those guys are broken, i say this as someone who has a 4th job NL) are left untouched, which kind of sucks. Buccaneers got buffs to 4 different skills that are important to 4th job bossing and another random buff to a 2nd job skill, yet it's not like they were in an absolute awful and unplayable state and is in addition to all these changes from last summer.


One thing I also find weird is that shadowers got a buff to assasinate in 2018 summer, or at least an attempted buff that eventually got reverted because it actually ended up nerfing assasinate, but now they are too good to buff?




Despite these changes being reverted there were no further buffs or changes to assassinate which is what the thing that makes me the most upset but it is what it is.

 

One of the reasons - besides what Siao and Eric expressed already - why Shadower wasn't changed much in last balance patch was because a lot of suggestions regarding Shadower were either impossible to implement or required more time to investigate.

Unfortunately, Shadowers are not the only classes we have to look at, plus we've constantly fixing bugs since the huge update. Not to mention the usual "staffs have other real life responsibilities".

While we consider these suggestions valuable, please be patient with us. I can promise that we are trying to progress, not degress.

 

Snowman has big weiner... so hes different compared other people (classes) , hes not one of us (small weiners) , we are the same.

 

Something that should be fixed for sure is why assassinate cant crit from SE. Seems kinda dumb that it cant crit when its the main dmg skill

 

IMO definitely no. As someone that doesn't care about damage (blood washed over 300 AP, still went bossing, and before I even got HH 20 or 30) AND brings any class to my boss after I have a NL and BM/MM. (I've also duo grinded with pretty much every class in the game as well)

Being self sufficient and sub par is not good enough in a private server setting where everyone else can do the same thing just as well or better.

The reason why I believe this is because all the "Pros" for shadower was when Maplestory's old "meta" was strictly grinding. While bossing was meant to get the "best in slot" gear instead of doing it for exp. So the "Cons" of a shadower isn't as glaring as it was before. The whole saving potions and being good at surviving was good BEFORE when everyone was forced to grind. Which makes everything you advocated for makes sense on why they are really good. (which is 100% true and not wrong)

BUT! This is a private server with an established "meta" where hp washing and bossing are as prominent as ever, meaning other classes's weaknesses that was previously in favor for shadower in the older "meta" are completely evened out, if not nullified. You can argue that all the "Pros" aren't a "Pro" for just shadowers.

Some examples:
- If any class has at least 10k+ hp because of how HP washing is such a big thing on a Pre-BB Server its pretty much compare able to a shadower's mesoguard and shifter. (you can even say you save money on potions to an extent and yes its not 100% like a shadower but its pretty much saving more mesos than someone that wasn't washed in the early days of maplestory)

- Grinding on any class is just as fast and safe as a shadower. Like HH > Rush, Rush/Monster Magnent > Cleave, Hold huricane, Ninja storm > TT etc.

- Smokescreen is a luxury. It is absolutely a fantastic party skill/buff but Hyper Body, Holy Symbol, Time Leap(speed infusion included ;D), Sharp Eyes are mandatory and more flexible all the while those classes can provide extra OOMPH to killing a boss. Less time being spent in a boss run means less fiesta situations where you actually need to use Smokescreen for a Resurrect or Mass Seduce issue. Meaning it CAN be a liability to have a shadower because of lack of DPS. (Theoretically)


I feel like a simple small damage buff or quality of skill changes to their abilities in general on Assassinate, Band of Thieves, Boomerang Step and more could have easily quelled some complaints. While you do work on a future BIG buff in the future to keep the people that play the class happy and hopeful. I understand that these things won't magically happen immediately because of multiple of reasons such as real life, technical issues, and maybe class niche but little incremental buffs will go a long way.

I'm just tired of shadowers being meme'd on and they deserve some sort of love :^(

 

I think if you make shadower venom work on bosses, this could help the shadowers out a lot in the 1v1 DPS department. I also do not think it would be a very hard change to make.

 

I wanna play a shadower now

 

I don't think anyone expects shadowers to be buffed to the point where they can compete with top dpm classes damage wise (that would be far too broken), but the gap between the single target dpm of shadower and the other attacker classes is comical.
NLs and archers can get 10m+ dpm endgame, heroes and pallies can get up to around ~8m(not including cleave damage), while shadowers struggle to break 5m dpm with even the best gear + high level. While I agree that shadowers do have a lot of legitimate advantages, I think this is probably a bit too much.

 

We are not forgetting what shads are lacking off, and definitely not ignoring what can be done to make shads appear more desirable and less like a memes. I agree we do have lack of buff and adjustment for shads during previous balancing so for the next skill balancing we will definitely look into everyone's suggestions

 

I trust that Legends staff will bring buffs to Shadower. Even if it seems like Shadowers are hopeless, I trust Legends staff to make good judgements around balance and buff Shadowers when the time comes.

 

I dont remember my dmg but it wasnt THAT bad, it's a fun class regardless and do really well in bosses that have cleave potential. My total DPM was higher than the best geared NLs in HT back in the day from cleaving. Shadowers also have the highest EPM out of all the non-mage classes whilst grinding, so its best to figure out the pros and cons of a class rather than focus on the "dpm vs 1 target meta" mindset.