The "Bishop Ult vs. AM Ult" thread

I'd be more satisfied with that than the weapons probably, but if it were a viable option, Magic would be to magicians what Luk, Str, and Dex are to star users, warriors, and bowmen. That is, you're rewarded for putting into a secondary stat because there isn't a 1:1 ratio of ability stat to attack stat. What I mean to say is that if such a thing were a likely thing to be implemented, our magic stat calculations wouldn't be so retarded in the first place.

This is more of a LUKless vs LUK dilemma. I've been thinking about this, and it really isn't hard to fix.
Make it so INT adds only 0.8 Magic.
Make it so MA from equips counts as double.
Only problem is that changing it now would screw over way too many people, jumble up the prices on all INT/MA items, and cause a lot of complaints.


But, that's off topic.

Concerning ultimates, spamming from one spot was never their intended use. That's why they cost thousands of MP in the first place.

But that doesn't mean anything in GMS anymore, so they need another kind of check. I'd say that giving them a cooldown time of 8 seconds at all levels would effectively destroy ultimate spamming, which I never believed in from the start.

Before you start complaining about how it'd be impossible for mages to level, all they need to do is strengthen their other skills. Give AR and Paralyze and CL 400+ base attack, and ID/FD 200. And to give the ultimates some use, halve their casting time and remove their MP cost, to make them the same for mages as Snipe is for high-level MMs.

Then the question wouldn't be "Bishop Ult vs AM Ult", would it?

But I don't see a large-scale overhaul of the mage class being practical at this point. It would alter the current AM/Bishop mindset beyond recognition. People already deep into 4th job would suddenly find themselves with an unusable set of skills. (Reset everyone's 4th job SP? ...Nah.) Besides, Nexon's making profit, why would they care?

I know. I'm well aware of the nature of that problem, and how the core of that has little to do with what we're talking about. The point was to illustrate that if Nexon cared enough/if it were a viable option, we wouldn't have so many problems already. If they've not fixed the craptastic deal with the magic stat having equally weighted components when realistically they could pretty much convert it to the same formula as other classes... Well, do you really expect them to completely overhaul the class? I would love for my CL, Demon, Ifrit combo to be strong enough to train with, independent of the ultimates. It would make my single target damage higher, so that bosses wouldn't be so "lolMage" minded, etc. But, unfortunately, I don't see that happening, and it's more complicated than simply tweaking the magic formula would be.

In the end, to me, it's pretty much settled in terms of the fact that Arch Mages are going to be forever less efficient than Bishops. Luk Magicians will be forever inferior to lukless Magicians (Unless they decide to make some level 150 wand/staff for luk that has like, 250 matk base), and (Arch) Mages, unless catered to, will forever be sub-par at bosses. Nexon has shown that they did not quite think of putting the Arch paths on a level with other classes, and now with those imbalances so woven into the fabric of the game, they can't change anything without a backlash that is too big for them to risk.

*Shrug* There's only so much to say. Almost all of the points, if not straight up all of them, regarding the two ultimates have been brought up. Unless they release level 140 training monsters that are weak to fire, holy, and ice, for the same exp, with the same spawn, there will never really be balance between the use of the ultimates, since the Elemental Weapons are gach only (If they even fix them).