[KMST] [1.2.279] Skill tables of all changed skills

[Sarah]

I don't get why some people don't get this. Archmages are meant to be excellent trainers. There will never be a cool down on our ultimates because training is our only purpose until Nexon starts creating more elaborate bosses (where [x] element needs to do [y] damage in order to defeat the boss) or whatever else. Our single target attacks are meant to serve as back-up damage as is true with most mages in most games. If you want DPS play another class, it's as simple as that. It IS absolutely unreasonable to expect anything more from mages or to expect them to lose the one set of skills that makes them important.

I have no doubt that mages were initially meant to be training partners for slower classes but guess what, the playerbase massively abused that by leeching. That doesn't mean that anyone who owns an archmage should now be punished by taking away the use of their best skills. It means more drastic changes in the experience formula need to be made and it means that everyone else loses out. It's not the fault of the class. Nothing needs to be changed as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not unhappy with a single target DPS boost but imo it's not something that's really necessary. When you play a mage you should be fully aware that you're at the bottom of the barrel for group activities. If group activities are something you enjoy, then make a character that is considered to be a necessity. These are the trade-offs you will always have to make. There are no exceptions.

The rebalance doesn't mean making classes that excel at one thing less powerful so others are equal, it means making classes that are being left behind more appealing.

[Russt]

I know, but this is ripped from the data. The data states that it attacks up to 6 mobs, though that variable is never used. I have to tell my scripts to ignore specific variables because they're not used and I forgot that one.

Does it bother anyone that Paladins essentially get a better than combo barrier move in second job with no massive combo requirement? 20% reduction of mob attack is a lot better than 20% reduction in damage.

Physical only.

[xgunedx]

It could of been delayed in my build the new venom is overkill on whatever i train on even chief guardians and chief oblivion guardians. The new venom makes almost all my moves guaranteed to poison the monster.

You realize that this is going to take at least 4-6 months to come to GMS right?

[Greg]

hahahaha what's up with the skill cost for Amp? Is it supposed to be like that?

[Sarah]

hahahaha what's up with the skill cost for Amp? Is it supposed to be like that?

Yep. It used to be 140% for 200% cost (2x) but it got raised. Yeah it's kind of a bummer but 40-50% more damage is an absolute must. This is why Blizzard and Meteor MP costs were dropped. Bishops don't have Amp so Genesis only ever costs them 3500 but for us it has been 7000 which now 5800 (2900 base) and levels the playing field a little more.

As a matter of fact, the amp cost at the beginning of a 4th job magician's life makes it nearly impossible to survive while using blizzard/meteor. You either can't take a hit or just flat out don't have the MP. So yeah, these changes are great to that affect.

[Russt]

Yep. It used to be 140% for 200% cost (2x) but it got raised. Yeah it's kind of a bummer but 40-50% more damage is an absolute must. This is why Blizzard and Meteor MP costs were dropped. Bishops don't have Amp so Genesis only ever costs them 3500 but for us it has been 7000 which now 5800 (2900 base) and levels the playing field a little more.

As a matter of fact, the amp cost at the beginning of a 4th job magician's life makes it nearly impossible to survive while using blizzard/meteor. You either can't take a hit or just flat out don't have the MP. So yeah, these changes are great to that affect.

He means the way it goes up and down and everywhere as you level it, which I mentioned on IRC.

Turns out it was like that previously; it's unchanged.

[Shidoshi]

The MP cost thing goes up when the boost goes up, and goes down as levels go without changing the boost to magic (so each level has some importance)

[Stereo]

Does it bother anyone that Paladins essentially get a better than combo barrier move in second job with no massive combo requirement? 20% reduction of mob attack is a lot better than 20% reduction in damage.

Combo Barrier: 240 second party buff
Threaten: 80 second monster buff, fails 50% of the time

There are plenty of reasons why targeting monsters is inferior to targeting players. Threaten reaches its most useful on a boss that only does physical attacks, and multiple full parties are attacking. Combo Barrier is equally useful anywhere you can get the combos.

[IllegallySane]

Combo Barrier: 240 second party buff
Threaten: 80 second monster buff, fails 50% of the time

There are plenty of reasons why targeting monsters is inferior to targeting players. Threaten reaches its most useful on a boss that only does physical attacks, and multiple full parties are attacking. Combo Barrier is equally useful anywhere you can get the combos.

Helps rushers a ton if the touch damage is ludicriously higher than magic attacks, and rushing is needed for the fight. An easy example is Scarlion. With a 7.5-7.7k touch attacks and only ~3-2k ranged attacks. It helps Arans and Buccaneers in rushing Scarlion without needing to be 14x-15x just so they can take a hit without dying.

[Heliocentric]

So, it looks like level 1 rapid fire finally outdamages burst fire, like it should have been to start with.

[Stereo]

Helps rushers a ton if the touch damage is ludicriously higher than magic attacks, and rushing is needed for the fight. An easy example is Scarlion. With a 7.5-7.7k touch attacks and only ~3-2k ranged attacks. It helps Arans and Buccaneers in rushing Scarlion without needing to be 14x-15x just so they can take a hit without dying.

I forgot to mention Threaten's other boss... problem. It covers up monster status effects, like Damage Reflect and Attack Up. It's only some of the time (it alternates between status and threaten every few seconds) but I've definitely seen people die from it on the giant Balrog when they thought DR had finished.



Really though, unless you brought a Page as Threaten mule, you already have a rusher >_>

[Bomber]

Combo Barrier: 240 second party buff
Threaten: 80 second monster buff, fails 50% of the time

There are plenty of reasons why targeting monsters is inferior to targeting players. Threaten reaches its most useful on a boss that only does physical attacks, and multiple full parties are attacking. Combo Barrier is equally useful anywhere you can get the combos.

I'm pretty sure the 50% is for blinding only.

[Dual]

I'm pretty sure the 50% is for blinding only.

It doesn't matter anyway, considering the Threaten is MEGA spammable, so you can easily get off a few rapidly, guaranteeing it'll work.

[Cheesecake]

I don't get why some people don't get this. Archmages are meant to be excellent trainers. There will never be a cool down on our ultimates because training is our only purpose until Nexon starts creating more elaborate bosses (where [x] element needs to do [y] damage in order to defeat the boss) or whatever else. Our single target attacks are meant to serve as back-up damage as is true with most mages in most games. If you want DPS play another class, it's as simple as that. It IS absolutely unreasonable to expect anything more from mages or to expect them to lose the one set of skills that makes them important.

I have no doubt that mages were initially meant to be training partners for slower classes but guess what, the playerbase massively abused that by leeching. That doesn't mean that anyone who owns an archmage should now be punished by taking away the use of their best skills. It means more drastic changes in the experience formula need to be made and it means that everyone else loses out. It's not the fault of the class. Nothing needs to be changed as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not unhappy with a single target DPS boost but imo it's not something that's really necessary. When you play a mage you should be fully aware that you're at the bottom of the barrel for group activities. If group activities are something you enjoy, then make a character that is considered to be a necessity. These are the trade-offs you will always have to make. There are no exceptions.

The rebalance doesn't mean making classes that excel at one thing less powerful so others are equal, it means making classes that are being left behind more appealing.

This arguement is getting a bit old.

Everyone can train and level. Noone is excluded from this aspect of the game. When it comes to bossing though, mages get tossed aside. What is the point of grinding all the way to 120 when all you get to do is grind faster, pay insane pot costs and still get shafted from boss runs. Isn't the entire appeal of an MMORPG to train and level your character in order to take down epic bosses with friends? Training and leveling, only to be able to train and level faster in the end is just...work :|. And dont give me that pomegranate about how if you make high leveled friends and join a good guild, joining boss runs becomes less difficult. It shouldn't be this hard for any mage to get into a decent run, and when i boss i want to be an asset, not a liability.
Besides, Nexon has never come out and said that mages are meant to only be fast trainers, and nowhere in grendels text does it say "alright before you make a mage, you should know that youll have no significant skill in your first job.And second job? both your mob and single target attacks are gonna suck compard to every other class. Think that you'll get stronger attacks in your third job? think again! And don't even consider yourself a likely candidate for a boss run. But hey, stick with it long enough and you get to level faster then the others with your ultimate! Then you can help the same poeple that are going to exclude you from boss runs, level just as fast as you would!!"
I know they fixed the leeching issue, but from a mages perspective all that has really done is gotten rid of the only notable thing we were useful for. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Nexon really meant for mages to be great trainers and terrible bossers,but think of this scenario:
Bob and Ted both started playing MS on the same day. Bob makes a hero and Ted makes an arch mage. After 200 hours of pure grind, Ted's archmage is now lvl 170 while Bob only got his Hero to 140. Both have invested the same amount of time and effort into the game, but Bob's hero is a lot more capable within the game, despite the level gap. Why is that so?
Yeah i get that it that a 140 hero =/ a 140 archmage in terms of DPS, but shouldn't it start to balance out at the higher levels?

Here's hoping for some better rebalancing :]

[Phoenix]

Great, I can still leave rush at 28 for max effect. I was worried the 20 extra range was only for max.

[FrozNlite]

This arguement is getting a bit old.

Everyone can train and level. Noone is excluded from this aspect of the game. When it comes to bossing though, mages get tossed aside. What is the point of grinding all the way to 120 when all you get to do is grind faster, pay insane pot costs and still get shafted from boss runs. Isn't the entire appeal of an MMORPG to train and level your character in order to take down epic bosses with friends? Training and leveling, only to be able to train and level faster in the end is just...work :|. And dont give me that pomegranate about how if you make high leveled friends and join a good guild, joining boss runs becomes less difficult. It shouldn't be this hard for any mage to get into a decent run, and when i boss i want to be an asset, not a liability.
Besides, Nexon has never come out and said that mages are meant to only be fast trainers, and nowhere in grendels text does it say "alright before you make a mage, you should know that youll have no significant skill in your first job.And second job? both your mob and single target attacks are gonna suck compard to every other class. Think that you'll get stronger attacks in your third job? think again! And don't even consider yourself a likely candidate for a boss run. But hey, stick with it long enough and you get to level faster then the others with your ultimate! Then you can help the same poeple that are going to exclude you from boss runs, level just as fast as you would!!"
I know they fixed the leeching issue, but from a mages perspective all that has really done is gotten rid of the only notable thing we were useful for. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Nexon really meant for mages to be great trainers and terrible bossers,but think of this scenario:
Bob and Ted both started playing MS on the same day. Bob makes a hero and Ted makes an arch mage. After 200 hours of pure grind, Ted's archmage is now lvl 170 while Bob only got his Hero to 140. Both have invested the same amount of time and effort into the game, but Bob's hero is a lot more capable within the game, despite the level gap. Why is that so?
Yeah i get that it that a 140 hero =/ a 140 archmage in terms of DPS, but shouldn't it start to balance out at the higher levels?

Here's hoping for some better rebalancing :]

This.

While I agree with you, Sarah, that it would appear Nexon originally intended ArchMages to be a training/mobbing god class, they haven't, like Cheesecake said, come right out and said those were their intentions. If anything recent evidence points to the contrary: ArchMages have just received a single target DPS boost, the Evan class was clearly not designed around mobbing in your terms since their ultimate has a cooldown, and, as you keep saying, the magic damage formula will be changed, which can be logically assumed for the better, but most prominently seen in single target attacks because, let's face it, ultimates can already hit the damage cap easily. In other words, we've gone from what you said (and makes plenty of sense) of ArchMages initially meant to be a training class or a mobbing class that Nexon apparently crossed their fingers over and hoped they'd play out with some usefulness, but clearly times have changed, and that's something you can't ignore. Nexon said in their December interview that ArchMages and even the magic damage formula itself needed looking at, which obviously is the result of such changes to single target base attacks and the central evidence behind the thought that the formula will be changed. The fact that this is the case with ArchMages (they realize something's amiss) and that with their Legend Magician they designed a character that can contribute both single target DPS and party skills to boss runs can only prove they recognize the issues at hand and are (hopefully) working on creative and efficient ways to resolve them.

I'm not saying Nexon won't buff up our mobbing abilities to truly seal our fates as mobbing classes. In fact, I'd like that more than ever, as I personally believe ArchMages should be the god mobbing class of the game and that's that. However, the exception is that with such changes comes new content, exactly along the lines of what Sarah listed: a boss that actually requires high elemental mob damage to be successful, or to give better drops. If such content is not released, then I continue arguing for changes that would make ArchMages more viable on boss runs. The bottom line is that we should be useful in something other than training, and it takes either new content or skill overhauls to accomplish this.

[Bribery]

The magic damage formula definitely needs serious reworking and I hope they haven't given up on that idea. This is the reason why any offensive magician is doomed at higher levels in this game. Even Evans are horrible at bosses besides being a buff mule. Magical Resistance is the only reason to party them and that's only useful at Pink Bean and any stronger bosses we may get in the future. I don't think people will be looking for an Evan for HT or Zak runs. In terms of single target DPS, Blaze is not much stronger than Paralyze and on Pink Bean they're nearly equal due to Paralyze's elemental advantage.

[Devil]

The magic formula -only- needs to get updated if the Ultimates (also for AM's) get a cooldown...

Because otherwise you would get classes that train at 4x the exprate of other classes with about the same single target damage (in kMS, no Onyx Apples)...

Let's say... if single target mage damage gets boosted by 50% (!!!), then ultimates should get about a 60 second cooldown.

Although AM's would still suck in gMS because of Onyx Apples...

[JoeTang]

The magic formula -only- needs to get updated if the Ultimates (also for AM's) get a cooldown...

Because otherwise you would get classes that train at 4x the exprate of other classes with about the same single target damage (in kMS, no Onyx Apples)...

Let's say... if single target mage damage gets boosted by 50% (!!!), then ultimates should get about a 60 second cooldown.

Although AM's would still suck in gMS because of Onyx Apples...

They could just, you know, lower Ultimate's Basic Attack by 50%...

[Stereo]

This arguement is getting a bit old.

Everyone can train and level. Noone is excluded from this aspect of the game. When it comes to bossing though, mages get tossed aside.

The difference in Mages boss ability is not even as large as the difference in their training ability.

When mages talk about exp/hour, I see numbers roughly 2 to 3 times what I get (up to about 4x for 1hkoing Mages). On the other hand, when I see dps figures on bosses, I'm similarly ahead by about 2x as much damage.

If every other class can train for 3 times as long, you can spend 3 times as long on bosses. It won't kill you to take 45min to kill Papulatus.