The systematic discrimination against the Poison element in MapleLegends

The modern bossing magician that has sprouted from the ruins of degenerate leechers has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. With the slight rise in interest/popularity for the bossing magician due to threads like this, this and being able to overpower the skeptics like this, it is no wonder we see more bossing magicians come into play in this online microcosm.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bossing magician, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — FP and IL.

A total of 7 "elements" exist within the game, mainly Fire, Ice, Poison, Lightning, Holy, Heal & Neutral. As we all know, FPs possess the Fire & Poison element, with the summon having the Ice element, whereas ILs possess the Ice & Lightning element, with the summon having the Fire element. Of course, there are other classes with elemental attributes, such as the Bishop (holy), Corsair, as well as the Paladin with its myriad of elemental charges.

Some of you might have noticed in the Discord, that there have been a slew of ILs posting screenshots of their shenanigans in Neo Tokyo. This makes one think, where is the opposing camp, the FP?

Well, unfortunately, the bulk of Neo Tokyo Part 1, as well as Part 2, are heavily skewed in the favour of the IL, with most of the bosses having the 'Poison immune' attribute. In this section, I have listed out the 5 main elements (excluding heal/neutral), and detailed 'significant' bosses as well as the elements they are strong/weak/immune against:

Spoiler: Bosses v elements

Those highlighted in red = unreleased content, info based on lib

Fire:

Strong: Ariel, Hugin, Pink Bean, Verga 1st body, Nibergen (all 3 bodies), Targa (all 3 bodies), Krexel (Left), Krexel (Right), Margana, Samurai
Weak: Munin, Core Blaze, The Boss, Verga 2nd body, Scar (all 3 bodies), Bodyguard A, Rellik, Bigfoot
Immune:

Poison:
Strong: Krexel (Right)
Weak: Toad 1st body, Auf Haven 2nd body, Auf Haven 1st body
Immune: Toad 2nd body, Core Blaze, Dunas (NT Part 1), Dunas (NT Part 2), Dunas Unit, Dunas Type D, Verga (all 3 bodies), Nibergen (all 3 bodies), Royal Guard, Royal Guard Type S, Bodyguard A, Targa (all 3 bodies), Samurai

Ice:

Strong: Ariel, Munin, Pink Bean, Nameless, Verga 2nd body, Scar (all 3 bodies), Krexel (Right), Margana
Weak: Auf Haven 2nd body, Hugin, Auf Haven 1st body, Verga 1st body, Nibergen (all 3 bodies), Bodyguard B, Targa (all 3 bodies), Krexel (Left), Hsalf, Samurai
Immune:

Lightning:

Strong: Ariel, Verga 2nd body, Scar (all 3 bodies), Krexel (Right), Margana
Weak: Core Blaze, Dunas Unit, Dunas Type D, Nameless, Verga 1st body, Nibergen (all 3 bodies), Anego, Samurai, Black Crow
Immune:

Holy:

Strong: Pink Bean, Krexel (Right), Holy
Weak: Anego, Samurai
Immune: Auf Haven 2nd body, Ariel, Core Blaze, Dunas Unit, Dunas Type D, Auf Haven 1st body, Royal Guard, Royal Guard Type S, Margana, Hsalf, Rellik

One thing you might have realised, is that there are NO significant bosses that are immune to Ice/Lightning/Fire element, whereas 19 bosses are immune to poison (including NT part 2). As it stands, only the FP possess the poison element, whereas Paladins have the Lightning element alongside the IL. One might argue, that some of these bosses are also weak to Fire, allowing FPs to be semi-useful in these situations. While that might be true, you will still deal more damage with Paralyze on a mob weak to Fire compared to when you use meteor/fire demon. Therefore, this argument is moot.

Additionally, there are also a significant number of bosses that are immune to holy, completely negating a Bishop to its knees and reducing it to mule status (unless you are 18x and have points in Big Bang, which even then, you'll be dealing a measly 2m dummy dpm).

Here are some of the suggestions that I have to rework the current mess that elemental attributes are, which doesn't apply only to the FP:

1. Elemental Disadvantage shouldn't be immune

While the good ol' adage argument of "not every class is supposed to be good at everything" may hold some water, we have to note that in terms of single target, the 3 mages are clearly at the bottom of the DPM chart. Therefore, removing elemental immunity would still make a mage inferior to your general attacker class (except maybe in the case of Nibergen), but would open up NT as another area of gameplay for FP players to explore, which currently no one seems to do due to the extreme poison immunity.

Implementing this change not only affects FP mages in NT, but also allows Bishops to be at least semi-useful damage-wise in the aforementioned bosses that are currently holy immune. This change also allows the Paladins to not be completely shafted at Pink Bean, where they are one of the bottom-tier and least desired classes.

2. Rework elemental statuses across significant bosses if 1. isn't viable

While 1. might not sit well with some, an alternative proposal would be to rework the current elemental statuses for the aforementioned bosses. As previously stated, when NT part 2 comes out, a whopping 19 bosses would be immune to poison, whereas there would be none for the lightning element. For weaknesses, the number would be 11 for lightning vs 3 for poison post-NT part 2. This seems to be heavily skewed in favour of the IL, leaving no room for the FP outside of zak/HT/PB.

Instead of completely removing elemental immunity, perhaps it could be reshuffled out in some way to make it seem more even. It does not have to be a flat out normal/weak against poison, even a strong against poison would make it better than using Big Bang/Fire Demon/Meteor in these cases.

Apologists
Some might argue and counteract that mages are already gods at leeching, and they should stick with that and we should not open up another avenue for them to make mesos. However, the suggestions are mainly catered towards one area: Neo Tokyo. Everyone who has done Neo Tokyo knows how poor it is in terms of meso making. The changes are not going to increase the meso-making ability of a mage or its prowess in zak/PB/HT.

If anything, this also allows the FP player to shy away from the general LeechStory life that your average mage player subscribes to when playing their mage.

I'd also like if any mage player (casual or not) can describe your current 'bossing' adventures in the game so far.