Feedback Upcoming Marksman updates and plans

Seems interesting...
Hitting a snipe could give the MM more damage for the next few seconds which would benefit more active players.

What about the SI dependence? Currently, without SI, MM lose almost 15% damage which makes it one of the weakest classes.
(If I'm not mistaken, MM is the least played class a few years in a row..)

 

Im still unsure about the "bonus snipe damage above crit" thing. Presumably, you dont even see any boost until decently leveled/geared to not buff the low level/unwashed where mm already outperforms and is not the issue.

Actually, the only differences between "bonus damage above cap" and just a regular scaling that can break cap is preserving low level int MM damage and potentially ease of making a slower scaling formula. Im not convinced that we need to preserve the ability to do large "naked" damage (yes HH is stupid too) if it gives an actual reason to gear an mm and enables a better formula. A lower "base" damage might end up more beneficial from a design standpoint, to achieve the desired effect of enabling some form of scaling. The issue is that PB physical resist is a thing, and is specicially why MM is strong there early. Is buffing snipe and keeping its resistance ignoring mechanic going to stay? Can the power budget afford that while also trying to improve cleavage?

 

Speaking as a BM player:

I agree with this problem, but disagree with the proposed solution. What makes BM better than MM for pirate pin isn't SI independence, it's hamstring.
Maybe max Blind could also give maybe -20 speed? It's significantly less than hamstring's -60, so would still allow BM to excel, just give mm a little something.

It makes sense mechanically too because if you're suddenly blinded, you're probably going to be stumbling around a bit and not able to walk as fast/smoothly

 

I have virtually no skin in the game as I don't (yet) have a MM (though PA buffs make it sound more interesting), but just conceptually I don't like the idea of 1 class breaking the damage cap.

I'd much rather see other aspects of MM damage (read: strafe) be enhanced, either through flat damage% buffs or perhaps another line of damage.

Various ideas for buffing blind sound good as well.

 

Allowing for PA bonus to add damage on top of current Snipe would be interesting. Maybe something like enabling a Final Attack variant that acts like a pseudo-crit with no animation cost. This would satisfy both conditions where early 4th jobbers don't lose out on the benefits of Snipe, but gearing is also considered for the top end. Unless it is intended to be used only during specific content, considering PA use is already fairly situational, I think there needs to be more reasons to justify its roundabout use in other content.

I really like the idea of a temporary Bullseye for Snipe.

 

+1 the Bullseye as well, that way i could use it in both cleave and single DPS as MM. The playstyle for MM is to adapt on the situation if allowed. Which the scenario includes 2 type of attack combo.
- Strafe x6-7 > Snipe
- Piercing Arrow x3 > Snipe
For example the scenario i would put below as what i do as MM (as psuedo cleave + psuedo DPS):
1. In JC, During early boss phase, usually i would do strafe + snipe combo to target the boss, but as JC spawn more clones (2 or more), it calls to be cleaved with Piercing Arrow > Snipe
2. In HT Body phase, after the tail & leg phase using Strafe + Snipe, both side were able to hit about 4x of body parts (2 heads, either arms and wings). In Cleave Scenario, the MM could able to white Arms and possibly Wings if cleave enough. Of course the combo isn't the easiest thing to do as you have to jump and release the Piercing Arrow at the right time to hit all the 4 body parts. Also it allows MM to apply blind to 4 body parts so that's a nice little bonus (pstt.. you know you can tell you're hitting the heads if the blind is applied)
3. Zakum Arm phase, personally tried to cleave, but it won't hit 3 arms properly, so i would just do DPS each arm down instead, but with the new Piercing Arrow change, maybe it's possible to cleave? In theory it could hit 4 arms with the new Piercing Arrow change
4. Core, Cleaving is technically possible, but the benefit i would say is minimal due to the fact the Arrow hit the Core itself first before the mobs, which it won't have the complete benefit of increase damage from piercing arrow, so Strafe + Snipe combo would be the better choice.

So overall with the Bullseye in place, both Combo can be utilized from the scenario i provided above as a MM to adapt the situation to perform a little better than usual. if anything, i think MM could still take the role of "Jack of all trades, Master of None".

Addition Suggestions for Marksman:
1. Extend the Piercing Arrow Range?

I was thinking and i suggested before, what if extend the Piercing Arrow by few pixel (as of now i could hit 3 puppets on the 2nd below platform), it could open up to MM able to cleave more stronger by allowing them to hit more targets than usual, the numbers would remain the same since the damage for last target is considered pretty high.

 

If snipe gained a bullseye effect, it may well be possible for mm to attack on the bottom row of core and either puppet out of guard reach or just freeze with frostprey. The guards would rack up large pierce damage for the main body, and snipe would also ignore the spawns and hit the main boss. I dont own an mm though so I cant play with this idea myself.

 

Was also wondering if giving extra 'Range of attack' to Crossbow mastery by +1/1-2 SP instead of (or alongside) +1 accuracy/1 SP would help with pinning Heron in CWKPQ. They're literally snipers but have the same functional range as a bowman which is weird to me.

 

Just wanted to correct my own misinformation, but I was wrong about pierce dpm on 1st target being lower than eruption. I thought I recalled doing the same test before and coming to the opposite conclusion but I guess I was mistaken.

pierce dpm 3 on 1 target:


3x eruption dpm1s on 1 target:




So being able to use pierce up close on auf triplets or something like cwk cleave would indeed still be better than spamming eruption even with a cleave heavy comp by close to 20% in theory. Granted, it's still just a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things when other cleavers will be doing almost 3.5x the effective pierce contribution (versus the 4x of eruption) so I'm unsure how much the newly assumed focus on cleave identity will move the needle without also buffing overall pierce output.

And so I'd like to pose a question. Assuming a shift in the cleave direction is really where we'd like to be going, how much of a damage buff to pierce would be acceptable within the MM power budget, especially if we want to simultaneously touch up snipe scaling? Decreasing the scaling with increasing targets and increasing the base damage is something that could also be done if we want to emphasize 3-target cleave situations (which if we're honest are the only ones that really matter) without perhaps getting too out of hand, though it does certainly put a dampener on the excitement for numbers on the high end of things for the rare 4+ targets, for better or worse.

 

If the increased damage on later targets of pierce is an issue, just cancel it out with an iron arrow.

Big brain plays

 

As a disclaimer, I don't actually know that the scaling would necessarily even need to be lessened if base damage were increased significantly - say, by 40%. It would sort of depend on what kind of cleave output the community would deem acceptable for a ranged class.

If we use my pierce dpm above as a reference point, current dpm numbers across increasing targets would look something like this:

3.5 -> 4.2 -> 5.04 -> 6.048 -> 7.258 -> 8.709

If we were to increase base damage by like 40% and decrease scaling with targets from 20% to 10%, then it'd look something like this:

5 -> 5.5 => 6.05 => 6.655 => 7.321 => 8.053

And if we were to increase base damage by the same amount but preserve the current scaling, it would look like this:

5 => 6 => 7.2 => 8.64 => 10.368 => 12.442

So only on the last target would the dpm rival or slightly exceed equivalent warrior if we were to preserve target scaling.

Increasing base damage by 40% would change the effective contribution of pierce in a cleave heavy context from being overshadowed by about 3.5x by warriors to something in the ballpark of 2.3x, which feels considerably more meaningful. However, this would also result in MMs doing almost identical cleave dpm to shads. Is that something we would be okay with, or is it a move too far?

Kind of using arbitrary numbers above but just wanted to paint a picture.

 

Just a bit of background so my perspective might greatly differ from others here. I am an MM that does (30-man and then 24-man PB), did occasional Aufs (6-man unless you count 5-man when people DC). I am a washed MM that started content from around level 129 with relatively low HP as I just washed out INT (capable of washing to 30k, but I have about 25k now). I tried almost every boss but Toad on my MM.

A lot of people like the Bullseye ability. To me, it will be a great QoL, but I will be a bit saddened as those moments of either having great control or a good pin will be gone. Let me explain with two examples: jc and Core Blaze. In jc, duo jc, MM has tools to handle the clones themselves using both frostprey and dragon Breath. With good control, you can double PA 4 target and then snipe the main jc. For Core Blaze, my duo partner is a Pally. Pally’s stun is so good there (even though my partner could just Blast and see me Dragon Breath and suffer).

PA being able to shoot from any range would be great! I would want to try and do BGA with it!

The proposed damage increase after 4 cleave targets might seem underwhelming, but I think if they lowered it to 3 targets it might be too strong for Auf. I think it is purposefully set at 4 so that MM will not be too strong in certain content and I think that is fine. I would like to propose a potential middle ground: maybe a lower buff for 3 targets than the counterpart for 4 targets and more. Not sure if this is feasible. But at least this would be great for rav/zak/jc/pb

I also like Gurk’s suggestion of increasing PA base damage but reducing the scaling. Not sure how this impacts future content, but I see lower-level MMs having an easier time leveraging this new damage boost for snipe after PA with the initial BT proposed, in content like Rav. Keeping the JC clones’ HP closer to each other also means having more window for PA to hit 4 targets.

Another aspect I’d like to bring up, unfortunately I do not have a solution - is the diminishing return of bringing multiple SEs, other than being more resilient to DCs. Could there be any synergy between BM and MM? Maybe hamstring + blind to give something special? Just a random, not well-thought-out idea : increase all non-crit damage on that target by 5%?

 

Say no more: https://forum.maplelegends.com/inde...eath-skill-improvements-4th-job-archer.41664/

Also, if I may: https://forum.maplelegends.com/index.php?threads/power-knock-back-skill-description.41665/

 

what do you think about granting MMs the option to jump + strafe in a similar fashion to NLs? i've been playing my MM more and more recently, and i have to say that it could be such a nice, yet efficient qol. having the ability to avoid difficult situations and reposition, think about jump strafe during zak if a pillar drops, or during HT when you need to jump during the leg/tail phase to avoid getting knocked back / stunned, and such. adding more utility and giving the class a way to move quickly and efficiently while not losing as much DPM could be such a nice improvement and add more active gameplay.

 

I think the thing about buffing cleave is that it has such limited usage, especially in content where MM cleave could be useful, and it doesn't ACTUALLY do much to make MM stand out from their BM counterpart. (Which I don't have a problem with, but i think that's the direction we're trying to go for so i wanted to share my thoughts. I still do like the changes we're discussing)

BGA was is technically a cleave content, but BM was already far superior there due to hamstring. In fact, the only thing MM did in BGA previously was steal aggro and make the bosses move away from the corner, and they could not use PA in there at all due to mobs flying around. So even after buffs MM and BM will be in the similar category of "acceptable" in BGA, depending on the scale of the buff. (again, NOT saying this is a bad thing)

Auf is another situation where MM could potentially benefit from PA buff, but lets face it MM won't be replacing any actual cleave (not that they should) and BM provides much more functional buff of hamstring, even on clones, so that clones don't move away from the corner. (but then again, what BM likes dealing with DR in auf xd)

PB is another one and i think PB will actually be pretty nice because killing minis can be problematic often and combined with new PA/snipe interaction it'll be very nice. (won't get into apple scaling here) thumbs up.

Even if we buff PA to 3 targets, its not like MM will actually be able to replace warriors in CWK or AUF unless we buff it to the sky.

I just found it ironic that even tho we're trying to differentiate between MM and BM, the cleave buff only puts them on similar footing as BM in a lot of content where MM is getting buffed on. l guess the reason for this boils down to the fact that cleave content have moving bosses, and moving bosses benefit a lot from hamstring.

And also there is a problem of there being so few cleave content to begin with, where MM could be useful.

But again, I like the changes, and I agree with a lot of comments in this thread!

 

ok

 

I agree, more and more stance-mechanics are given away. As an archer you could imagine you need space to fire your arrows, you are also very squishy, so having stance that is supposed to be a tank mechanic on mm just seems off and forced. Instead of stance maybe the piercing arrow could fire in close combat instead of mm pouncing nearest target. I think it is important to keep the old school feeling + the identity of an mm and not give all classes stance like in current gms.

fx. should a MM be able to tank HT knockback with stance? With 100%, when not even warriors can do that?

why the fuck does shadowers still have stance??? xd

 

169 MM here

I echo with most of the comments that pierce and snipe should not have any dependency since they are used in very different scenarios. Pierce is currently very under used in bossing, the only use case that actually has some value is probably JC. Sure you can argue that timing zak summons and clearing them and stuff like that but it is more of a fun thing to do.

My thoughts of improving piercing arrow would be to increase the distance and the hit box of the skill so that it can pierce 4 zak arms and all 3 HT heads, making it worthwhile to horizontally "cleave" HT head if all 3 are not on weapon cancel, making it a different kind of "cleave" as compared to hero/dks at the same time. Also, if 100% stance is granted during charge, I would definitely use the stance during charge to do HT jump quest when i get knocked off the platform, not sure if that is the intended use case, perhaps we need to consider letting Pierce arrow auto release when fully charged so the stance will not be abused here.

On a different topic, if hamstring gives utility against moving bosses, i think it would be good idea if blind can give some utility against stationary bosses like reduce boss buff effectiveness by X% if boss is stationary or something like that. the current state of blind just feels too unimpactful as a 4th job skill

 

that and CB were the first things that came to mind for me when saw the 100% stance its just 100% save click that seems to be to much IMO,mini shifter that can pressed when ever u just need it