Feedback Upcoming Marksman updates and plans

The fact that MM can’t have high jump in order to maintain highest dpm possible jump attacking to reposition is really annoying. Many times i couldn’t use event rings or shoes with jump. Please, include this issue on this reword

 

My original character back in gms almost 17 years ago was a marksman. Its the only class I play, due to the nostalgia. Needless to say, it means a lot to me.

Personally I don't feel any visual change to Snipe is necessary. Snipe being a very subtle animation leading to an instant KO or huge damage just made sense to me. If I had to choose one of the suggestions, the first is probably what I'd go with. The second reminds me of a Wild Hunter animation and... well, I've got nothing nice to say about that!

Despite having thousands of hours as a marksman, I did very little bossing or endgame content, so I can't weigh in much on the balancing of Snipe and PA. The suggestions of PA increasing the damage cap and Snipe getting some scaling sound fine to me though!

 

Ahh, makes sense. This sounds pretty solid, especially if the description could be updated to match the actual effect.

Blind seems to lean into the avoid-based gameplay flagged as problematic for balancing. In the grand scheme of things a reverse shifter on classes with low avoid probably isn't a huge deal. Maybe the lack of understanding is what causes folks to appreciate it less. (That, and I imagine most players have only encountered it a handful of times.)

Shot in the dark idea (haha get it??), but what if blind caused a small decrease in enemy damage? The idea being a blinded mob can only land glancing blows rather than the standard damage, very similar to achilles. It would give Marksman a similar level of excitement as DK when there are squishy attackers in the party. This sort of thing would allow Blind to have a noticeable impact for all classes, not just low-avoid ones. (Could also combine this with the existing reverse-shifter effect.)

 

As a 18x marksman main, I prefer a change that isn't going to affect the identity of the class when bossing.

Like others who have previously mentioned, I would already be satisfied with buffing strafe damage (just an idea that could compensate for the relatively bad attack scaling at endgame); a slight quality of life change like making it easier/consistent to jump strafe or increasing class avoid would also be suffice for me.

 

vanilla identity is that MM is straight up a bad class. think about bosses up until HT and in your mind, roll back all the balance changes

 

Really excited to see MM is getting some love! It's a shame that the current MM is usually referred to be 'basically like BM but worse'
I don't think MM is in a very bad place, but it is lacking a reason to chose it over BM. So I think MM just need a little something to make them feel unique and give players more of a reason to pick them.

I agree with others the first snipe animation is much better in the context of a classic server.

I don't love the suggested PA change, it sounds frustrating to depend on cleaving in order to do your big snipe. And I don't think it fits with the class identity of 'sniper'. It also starts to overlap too much with the melee cleavers (dk, hero, shad)

This is how I would change MM to stand out from BM and not just be a downgrade:

1. Add a passive effect on Crossbow Mastery to increase the range of all crossbow skills by 15% or so. Allowing the MM to figuratively and literally stand out as the longest range attacker in the game from as early as 2nd job. This fulfills the sniper fantasy and makes sense because crossbows shoot farther than bows IRL.

2. Piercing Arrow applies the Bullseye effect on the highest HP target it passes through (or just to bosses if that’s easier to implement) Allowing the MM to cast Snipe through trash mobs to hit the boss. After all, what is the point of a snipe if not to target the specific thing you want to kill?

3. Remove minimum cast distance on PA and allow cast while jumping, but make the hit box such the mobs close to you don't get hit by the damage. This means the MM still needs to stand at range of whatever they want to deal big cleave damage to, but still allows them to cast PA and snipe the boss even if trash mobs are crowding them.
This encourages MM to play at distance.
The MM would still have to use arrow eruption if they want to hit mobs directly on top of them, ensuring MM doesn’t become a ‘melee cleave’ class.

4. Apply a higher damage cap for Snipe and maybe a bit more scaling with Dex/gear. Damage cap sucks for the classes iconic ability. Let it continue to scale as the MM gets stronger. Big number cool .

5. Increase the range of MM pet so that it will still attack things at your new max range, to avoid punishing players damage while playing at max range.

I think these changes would be easily enough to give players a reason to choose MM over BM. What do you guys think?

 

Sair can already 'melee cleave' btw

... and archers with rain/eruption

 

I’m not saying there should be no skills ever that allow mobbing in melee range. There is a reason why currently archer and sair are not considered ‘melee cleave’ even though they have those skills right?

I just mean that melee cleave should not be a core part of the sniper’s strengths as a class in the way it is being described in the proposed changes to PA.
I've updated my original comment to be more specific.

 

Overall seeing some of these changes make me excited to be a MM.

There are some things I want to point out though. When I think of MM I think of slow but methodical and strong one shot (snipe). So being a cleave doesn’t really sound like something a MM should be doing and probably best left to the warriors. I do like the idea of trying to scale strafe much better (of course requiring SI to balance) to meet DPM goals. Currently BM have one of the best skills hurricane for DPM wise and scales way better. Feels like if you put more time and mesos into your character you should be rewarded

Edit: also want to add I like the idea of meeting certain requirements to increase the damage cap of snipe. Just not creative enough to suggest otherwise lol personally don’t love the “hit 4 targets” for snipe damage because then it becomes situational in only handful of bosses

 

Hi, I am tired of being a neglected MM. MM are players too and I will stand and fight for my rights. I have been on this server for a lot of years and let me tell you, my char has seen it all. He’s probably died more than all your chars combined but that’s not the point. I also may be goofy looking but there’s one major thing MM need and it’s self si. Thank you for your time. Can’t wait to see it implemented next patch.

got input from someone else for this, but i agree with the self SI part

The always need to mule your bucc to get yourself SI is annoying when doing something. Also theres boss runs without buccs and playing MM without SI is a terrible feeling, just like how NLs are without SE and SI-depending cleave without SI. Non-MM hosts would still take marksman just for their SE. When trying to make my weekly PB rosters I always try to give every MM a bucc in their party. Some weeks its really hard to shuffle people/chars around as theres a lot of things to keep in mind. For example: limited HB slots, NLs for sure needing SE, some buccs needing HB, while theres also bowmasters that need hb (taking a hb-bucc SI slot from a nonhb-MM at times)

 

I'm beginning to think every weapon should just be Speed 2 by default, and then we can artificially give the non-designated-mule bucc players something to do by increasing the KB of all bosses past the damage cap and let them all wander around so bucc can pin them and feel useful before the end game. #letzakumrun

 

If everyone else is getting free si, I want free se

 

Free rage for everyone? Oh wait

 

Here's a suggestion on the self-SI thing. Buff Night Raven's Eye and Dawn Raven's Eye to speed 4, and raise level requirement on Dawn Raven's Eye to 100 (since it has higher attack than Night Raven). This effectively gives MM a pretty decent self-SI weapon option without being BIS to retain value of Bucc's SI. MM could then carry 2 weapons and choose which to equip based on whether or not Bucc is present

 

As a 182 MM I felt like commenting on this. Big fan of your ideas. I see a few minor problems in some of it though. I put my thoughts down below.

 

Regarding blind, I wonder if it affecting mob status effect accuracy, duration, or perhaps even magnitude (in the case of 1/1 attacks) would provide a useful enough benefit. I'm imagining something like 25% reduced time affected by seduce/stun/etc, increased dispel avoid chance, and 1/1 attacks becoming 25%/25%.

 

+1
This would be amazing!