KMST Balance Patch

Fire arrow upgrade gives me hope for a 10-hit chain-lightning with a big damage increase.

Why are you all so down on other jobs getting upgrades? NO HEROES DON'T NEED IT!!!! Sorry, all jobs need some changes. Heroes are slow as pineapple second job, why should that not be changed?

Get off your high-horses and accept that other jobs besides yours aren't perfect and need to be amped up. Just because you don't have to deal with the issues other classes have doesn't mean they don't exist.

MMs are fine off as it is and are one of the more balanced classes. Sure, single-target damage on a 2.1bil hp snail might not be as good as a bowmaster counterpart, but there are situations such as SI, wep cancel spam, and being appleless that help marksmen compared to bowmasters in single-target damage. MMs are also much, much better at mobbing, training, and general killing stuff like in time temple.

Why are you all so down on other jobs getting upgrades? NO HEROES DON'T NEED IT!!!! Sorry, all jobs need some changes. Heroes are slow as pineapple second job, why should that not be changed?

Slow how? Fighters and pages are fine in 2nd job, yeah they get no new attacks, bar FA, but they seem fine to me...

Actually, no, scratch that, screw the goddam awful Slash Blast-FA, make it even semi useable, thats what fighter and page second jobs need most.

Slow how? Fighters and pages are fine in 2nd job, yeah they get no new attacks, bar FA, but they seem fine to me...

Actually, no, scratch that, screw the goddam awful Slash Blast-FA, make it even semi useable, thats what fighter and page second jobs need most.

Likewise for Arrow bomb + FA. FA should not work with mob skills, as well as making it active instead of passive.

Our 2nd job is god damn fine, we need buffing in 4th job.

Our 2nd job is god damn fine, we need buffing in 4th job.

GET. OVER. IT.

Jesus you're one whiny guy. They already said they're going to buff up PALADINS meaning 4th job. You don't need to say it every time someone doesn't go YEAH YEAH, PALADINS NEED TO BE BUFFED IN 4TH JOB in their post.

Claiming second job needs an upgrade doesn't dis-include 4th job from being upgraded. I have experience with second job pages, and they are AWFUL to train, so I used it as an example.

Seriously though, stop bringing it up. They're going to get upgraded, you don't need to say it over and over and over.

Seriously though, stop bringing it up. They're going to get upgraded, you don't need to say it over and over and over.

[COLOR="Green"];-;
Sorry.

I personally didn't find 2nd job to be that difficult at all. I guess we have differing levels of tolerance. o-o[/COLOR]

Actually, the buffs aren't much if you look at them. Flamethrower and ice splitter can already be used no matter how close the monster is. The damage for the two are pretty low (haven't used capsules yet), adding a bit extra damaged isn't too bad. They're still updating classes, they're probably going to give everyone a buff here and there, so relax.

So they buff sairs a bit outside of their boat and make their boat a bit stronger defensively, but I'm sure they'll add better buffs to everyone else as well. I know it has been said before, but balancing out classes isn't an easy job. Updating some classes and leaving the others untouched can be problematic in terms of balance, so they're probably adding a little extra something to everyone.

Yeah, they really are. Flamethrower and Ice Splitter are already nearly as strong as Torpedo if you have max Elemental Boost, and now it'll be pretty much the same. The boost to Rapid Fire is just ridiculous -- we didn't need that at all. Honestly, if we just got the no minimum range thing, I'd be happy as hell. We don't need the rest of this stuff because we're strong enough as it is.

More boat durability... also not necessary. Maybe they spent too long testing the low level Corsairs and their pathetic boats. Whatever, hopefully they don't increase it too much. And to the guy who said that the boat should have no cooldown... that's the worst idea in this whole thread.

I'm very anxious to see the updates to Archers and Warriors. Unfortunately, Marksmen are more flawed in our version than kMS because of our over-abundance of crazy-ass gear. Since everyone is weaker in kMS (and no damn apples), the static damage of Snipe gives them a much bigger boost than it does to us. Maybe they could make Snipe 250k. And fix the damn cooldowns! (Not just Snipe's)

Buccs need to have Demo be *at least* 1.5x faster and have Energy Charge charge with each hit, not each monster hit. And yes, a speed cap increase would be nice too.

I think the 1st job Archer crit should be 50% instead of 40%. Just sayin.

MMs are fine off as it is and are one of the more balanced classes. Sure, single-target damage on a 2.1bil hp snail might not be as good as a bowmaster counterpart, but there are situations such as SI, wep cancel spam, and being appleless that help marksmen compared to bowmasters in single-target damage. MMs are also much, much better at mobbing, training, and general killing stuff like in time temple.

My training partner is a sair, and we kill at about the same speed for training, yet he can do over 50% of my DPS on bosses. My deff of much better is a mage not a MM. We are good at training, but not thsyn good that it warants doing 68% of the DPS others do. And snipe is horrible with its variable cooldown.

Sometimes I wonder if you have ever played that MM of yours...

My training partner is a sair, and we kill at about the same speed for training, yet he can do over 50% of my DPS on bosses.

And assuming holy elemental weakness (Anego, and uh... that's it for bosses) they do 70% more than my single target skill. It's about 140% more on bosses like Zakum without weaknesses. Even Rapid Fire is stronger than Holy Blast, which is pretty effing pathetic.

And assuming holy elemental weakness (Anego, and uh... that's it for bosses) they do 70% more than my single target skill. It's about 140% more on bosses like Zakum without weaknesses. Even Rapid Fire is stronger than Holy Blast, which is pretty effing pathetic.

I'm thinking... +100% to +150% to Blast (650 to 700), and +20% more damage on each Charge.

Personally, if I wanted to make Paladins less useless without actually changing anything other than damage percents...
1) drop elements to +-25%, the 50% thing makes it more an inconvenience than a bonus.
2) compensate by boosting skill % so they do approximately the same damage on weak mobs (essentially 20-30% more, eg. 130% ice, 145% fire, 150% holy/lightning - that's another thing, maxed Holy should not be 15% higher IMO)
3) Bump up Blast to 700% or so. Yes, it'll be stronger than Brandish. It doesn't hit 3 targets, either.

While we're talking about Warriors, we should bump up Berserk to 250% instead of 200%. There's no reason DrKs shouldn't be as strong or stronger than your version of Pallies on Holy Neutral because of that ridiculous HP requirement.

EDIT: For your Pallies to work, though, the damage cap might have to be raised again. 250k enough? Maybe make it an even 300.

EDIT: For your Pallies to work, though, the damage cap might have to be raised again. 250k enough? Maybe make it an even 300.

Hitting 200k currently on a Paladin is nearly impossible unless you are insanely godly funded. I don't think an extra bunch of % is going to make that much of a difference except making those who are already hitting 200k. Someone find me that pic of that Paladin doing 199k with a Gelt and a bunch of other crap.

Look at Corsairs, and tell me their trade-offs. They can attack even mobbed now, they can freeze, set on fire (just like poison, but a job before), own at bosses, have their own fj like skill without pot lag, more hp, full screen mob skills, can choose a single target to attack at bosses to ignore the summons, and have an avenger like attack that hits way harder. All of that without the need of SE, for example.

Not impliying they are overpowered, just that I'd like to know what's balanced in that.

Corsairs don't get a lot more HP compared to other ranged jobs. It is still 2HKO.

Riding the Battleship changes your speed and jump just like a mount. As a result, scrolled shoes and haste don't work while riding the Battleship. This means you have to do a lot of mounting/dismounting so that traveling around a map doesn't take forever.

Recoil Shot only covers horizontal distance. Flash Jump has both horizontal and vertical range and it is also enhanced by Haste. If a monster has you trapped in the corner of a map, Flash Jump can get you to safety without getting hit. Recoil Shot can't do that. Recoil Shot doesn't propel someone halfway across a map unless it is used together with Wings off a high point like a rope or platform.

Air Strike has a long animation, hits only 6 targets, and has a cooldown. You also have to get off the Battleship in order to use it.

Homing Beacon/Bullseye cannot be used while on the Battleship.

I don't know why anyone would think these changes to Corsairs are such a big deal. Very little has changed how Corsairs are played. These changes are just to encourage players to use the other skills.

Read the thread; lots to quote (sorry!). Spoiler'd for too much wall-of-texting.

 Response to DeanNim

Just the beginning patch, mang

Anyway, fire mages finally get mobbing skillz

We already HAVE mobbing skills that replace even this Fire Arrow "upgrade." In other words, it's useless.

 Response to Shidoshi

I just hope they don't overpower fire arrow. 2nd job F/P already trains really fast, guess they don't know how IMBA poison brace is.

Going back to the topic.

I found it funny that they are buffing F/P mages 2nd and 3rd job when that's when they shine the most. Poison Brace gets exp like hell in second job and you have a very strong single-target skill making for a strong 2nd job.

In 3rd job, poison mist is almost imbalanced in ways of training. Thus explosion is weak a mob skill.

In terms of fixing, I'd rather they made partial resistance work correctly. Some apparently fire based attacks are not reduced by it.

These posts.

Fire Arrow doesn't need to be changed; if anything boost the power of Fire Demon to 250-300, lower Elquines attack speed to 1 second, and put a 10-20 second cooldown on ultimates.

And this is the best place to respond to the following quotes:

 Response to Takebacker

@ Mages: Wow 10% increase. Fire arrow thing was so needed. Can't say explosion was buffed enough. A speed enhancement would do more than 10 measly base attack. >_>

As you saw with my math, a 10% increase is nothing. A base attack increase is more powerful with the magic damage formula than that pitiful multiplier.

Explosion is rendered completely obsolete by Fire Demon in 4th job, and even if it was as fast it's not like there are a ton of useful places for vertical fire damage...and oh wait, that's right, Meteor Shower IS our best vertical fire damage skill. In short, increasing Explosions attack speed and base attack power does nothing because it's just not a good skill in general when compared to Fire Demon.

More on Fire Arrow change below.

The fire arrow upgrade is only for 2nd/3rd job. You should know training a F/P in 2nd job with no mobbing skills is a pain in the ass. And by that i mean getting to 50+ so you can poison high level mobs and train faster than any other 2nd job class is hard as hell. Pretty obvious that fire arrow is already useless by 4th job.

It's already stated that this is only the beginning.

Have you ever played a 2nd Job F/P? I was playing mine back during winter 2006/2007. When hackers took over every map we could train in. Yet we still trained decently well compared to Assassins of the time considering we both had strong, fast single-target skills.

What's 2nd Job nowadays? A joke. You can leech a character from 1-90 in a day. If you actually train, there are now 2x cards (with 3x cards on the horizon), 2x events like no other, and as many 2x family buffs as you can buy. On top of that, the potential training maps have quadrupled, as have the number of accessible PQs. So don't give me this "it's a pain in the ass to train a 2nd job character with no mobbing skills" because buddy, I've been there when it WAS actually hard. Today you can claw your way to 70 at training maps and PQs and get there faster than I did.

Final comment on this issue: Poison Breath is an AMAZING 2nd job precursor to the godly solo training skill that is Poison Mist; people just don't recognize how phenomenal it is and flip out when they realize they have to pay a lot of wtfhax training. It's may not be a mob skill, but then it again it let's 5x F/Ps train at Death Teddies. How many 2nd jobbers do you see there?

tl;dr: Fire Arrow mob upgrade is utterly useless in today's MapleStory. Boost the last 99.97% of the game, not the first .03%.

 Response to Bribery

I don't see what's wrong with Alloy's suggestions. They're nothing game-breaking, just fixing minor annoyances with the class (unlike the guy who suggested 5-hit Brandish lololol). Yes, other classes have higher priority for updates, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't fix minor issues with balanced classes too. Heck, I thought Sairs were fine already and they got quite a boost with this update.

Regarding the issues with other classes, this man said it all better than I could have. I agree with everything in this post.

 Response to Kirov

The 4 hitting fire arrow is really surprising. I take it will probably work like iron arrow? It’s an interesting way to change an old skill rather than just the usual reducing cool time and buffing power etc. I wonder what other skills they will change like this.

Again, yeah, maybe it's interesting, but it's also useless and unbalancing to 2nd job I/Ls.

 Response to Tikey

I'll embrace this 10% increase to my damage. o-o

Yeah, 3k extra damage for single targets is GREAT.



With cheap elemental wands and tons of other methods of gaining power (plus fast leveling with stacking 2x), it's easy to 100% ohko Skeles on an ArchMage. My final training levels of the game, 195-200ish, I was hitting 125-128k max hits with Meteor Shower at Skeles. 125k? That's 40k damage more than what's required to kill them. In other words, we already have enough damage on the ultimate training end; a 10% Amp upgrade doesn't do as much as a base attack increase for single targets.

 Response to Goals

The mage amp bonus is nice too. I might be able to 1 hit most things in TT when we get that patch.

You're also the strongest magician in GMS. Yay (this is sincere) for your ability to 100% ohko Oblivion 5 with this upgrade, but overall it doesn't help our chances at being useful anywhere else in the game.

 Response to Bribery

Wow then those are some awesome upgrades. I didn't think they were that significant at first. xD

I can't wait to see what else is coming up. I wonder if they're going to end up changing the magic damage formula, and I'm excited to see what Paladins get (hopefully they didn't forget about them ).

Also, 2nd job I/Ls need to be updated considering that Fire Arrow is now way stronger than Cold Beam and Thunderbolt.

I'm really glad other classes got upgrades, many of which seem to be good. Overall, Nexon seems to have been somewhat on the right track with this patch, though clearly there's much more to do. If the magic damage formula gets a complete advantageous overhaul, then all of this is totally understandable...though of course, Elemental Reset for ArchMages is also an almost necessary must-have (Lv. 200 LOLFP single-target damage on Targa is a take-your-pick between 1s with Paralyze or 12ks with Fire Demon. No Lv. 200 should have their damage reduced so much).

And yes, I completely agree with your final comment regarding the new imbalance between 2nd job Mages.

EDIT: For your Pallies to work, though, the damage cap might have to be raised again. 250k enough? Maybe make it an even 300.

It's really not an issue for a class that doesn't use criticals. Relatively speaking Paladin damage is pretty stable, so max is not all that much above average, and even with 150% holy + 125% elemental advantage + 700% blast, you'd need a base range around 15200 for that to be a problem. It'll be possible to very well equipped Paladins, probably, but not in general.

For example, if I were to level to 17x, and buy/scroll a perfect +9 10/30/50% Reverse weapon (at 4 levels of PoTs per white scroll at 13x, I can probably actually manage this if I put all my mesos into it), I could just about hit that range with Onyx Apples.

One change I'd like to see is Gaviota.
That skill is just plain useless because you summon it and recast it after every attack. I'd like to see it be more useful as a hawk/eagle type summon.

Also, I'm not surprised they're buffing up Gunslingers. In kMS, gunslingers aren't regarded as "overpowered" or even strong for that matter.
The classes that most KMS players complain about are Arch Mages, Paladins, Bandits, and Gunslingers/Crossbowmen.
In that order of most to least whining.

They could do what they did to fire mages for paladins. Make blast have a small close-range AoE that hits 4 monsters. HUR DUR I don't know, I haven't played a paladin in like a year I stopped caring.

Wow. I filed two complains to Nexon America about 20-30 minutes ago and I come into seeing there's a balancing patch in kMS so soon?

The Brawler/Infighter fixes shown so far are making me giddy for what else they will add. Improving Energy Charge's stance effect is great because 50% is mediocre in comparison with the warrior stances, and improving Barrage's range is always a nice thing. If they give a passive crit (increasing that crit damage if enemy is stunned), and fix Transform's annoying SSK and Drain delay problems, I'd love kMS forever.

Read the thread; lots to quote (sorry!). Spoiler'd for too much wall-of-texting.

 Response to DeanNim

We already HAVE mobbing skills that replace even this Fire Arrow "upgrade." In other words, it's useless.

 Response to Shidoshi

These posts.

Fire Arrow doesn't need to be changed; if anything boost the power of Fire Demon to 250-300, lower Elquines attack speed to 1 second, and put a 10-20 second cooldown on ultimates.

You do realise there are people who aren't level 200 right? YOU may have mobbing skills but no second job Fire Mage does, and that's where Fire Arrow is obtained. How can that be useless?

Same goes for explosion. I know most people max mist over explosion but for anyone that goes explosion first, they're no longer going to be screwed with a cruddy skill.

edit: read more of your post and you're coming at it from the BUY YOUR WAY THROUGH, YOUR SKILLS ARE USELESS standpoint which is silly. People who actually put the time in to train deserve to be able to train quickly and efficiently, and the new fire arrow allows that.