Improving Swordsman (Knight and Crusader)

Started by Suspension, Jun 23, 2015, 04:25 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Suspension

Hello, I'm in the journey of creating a different type of server where every (or almost) build is useful and fun to use. For that matter I'm changing bonuses and the way some skills works, but nothing too strange, so it remains the same game. And only up to second classes (no trans) for the moment, as they seem to be easier to balance.

Currently what I thought for Crusader:
- Grand cross: Always deal 3 hits.
- Shield Boomerang: Improved base damage multiplier. Shield refinement adds more attack.
- Shield Charge: Improved base damage multiplier. Shield refinement adds more attack.

If anyone has any improvement for Crusader, please share :)

About Knight it's a problem for me, as I've never actually used this class. From my perspective they look fun to use and pretty well builded, with powerful and diverse skills for different environments. If anyone has any suggestions or can observe any flaw in Knight skills, it's welcome

Thank you all.
Quote from: exii on Jun 27, 2015, 06:07 AM
If you think casting quag is a good idea you or your guild heavily failed to create a viable guild rost.

Triper

Let's try this again from zero. Too much hate around here.

Yozakura

Like I previously said in one of the deleted comments, I think almost every build is useful, viable and fun, in their own right. Just don't expect them to perform well in applications they're not designed for.

On your thoughts on Crusader improvements:

» Grand Cross usable on Land Protector - this actually seems a little bit unreasonable. Being high mobility, high survivability and heavy duty front liners, 'saders make an ideal unit to charge into and destroy enemy formation. Given how powerful Grand Cross is, this could put the other melee classes out of commission, due to crusaders being easily more effective. A possible solution would be, while Grand Cross can be cast on Land Protector, the casting crusader is penalized with increased recoil damage, or maybe reduce it to one or two hits instead of three.

» Shield Boomerang and Shield Charge damage boosts and shield refine bonuses - As long as the damage doesn't enter Rapid Smiting territory, this should be reasonable. Shield Charge could use a buff, maybe make it a little bit stronger than Bash. Shield Boomerang, though, it's already useful for kiting as it is, and too much damage increase could ruin your game balance by giving one of the main tank classes a way to deal steady, powerful ranged DPS.

» Additionally, maybe you could enable Spear Quicken for one-handed spears, like in renewal. The AGI-spear 'sader build is the most overlooked build, due to the lack of designated offensive skills, forcing them to rely on ctrl + click attacking. You could also add the Holy Cross buff from renewal, which makes it deal double damage when used with two-handed spears.

As for knight, here are a couple of ideas.

» Make Two-hand Quicken usable on all two-handed weapons knights can equip (2h swords, spears and axes). Reason? It'll be so much fun to see. Axes for novelty purposes. Hey, it's fun seeing a knight around with an axe!

» To balance that one out, maybe make Counter Attack and Bowling Bash two-handed sword exclusive skills. Spear users already have a lot of skills in their arsenal.

And for the core class, swordsman:

» I think the Sword Mastery skill should work for two-handed swords, in addition to one-handers and daggers. Twohanders are already underrated as it is, despite their higher offensive power, since they take up the offhand spot that's often used for shields and 30% racial reductions. With this, the Two-handed Sword mastery skill will not serve as its core mastery, but instead additional damage on top of the basic sword mastery.

» Provoke could use an improvement, changing into a 'splash' debuff rather than single target. If given something like a 5x5 cast radius, instead of pulling a single monster with each use, it will lure in the target monster and any additional targets within range. To compensate though, adding a few seconds of cooldown would be nice.

That's about all I could think of for now.

"On that day, the bees received a grim reminder. They lived in fear of the hornets and were disgraced to live in these cages they called hives."

» 新劇の雀蜂 «

Suspension

Quote from: Yozakura on Jun 26, 2015, 03:12 PM
» Grand Cross usable on Land Protector - this actually seems a little bit unreasonable. Being high mobility, high survivability and heavy duty front liners, 'saders make an ideal unit to charge into and destroy enemy formation. Given how powerful Grand Cross is, this could put the other melee classes out of commission, due to crusaders being easily more effective. A possible solution would be, while Grand Cross can be cast on Land Protector, the casting crusader is penalized with increased recoil damage, or maybe reduce it to one or two hits instead of three.
Crusader's defense already drops to 1/3 by default, and GC hits are reduced by number of enemies in the same cell. Also, other jobs will have enhanced habilities too (in fact, Alchemist will have acid terror modified to be a low-level acid demonstration). I think it balances it.

Quote from: Yozakura on Jun 26, 2015, 03:12 PM
» Shield Boomerang and Shield Charge damage boosts and shield refine bonuses - As long as the damage doesn't enter Rapid Smiting territory, this should be reasonable. Shield Charge could use a buff, maybe make it a little bit stronger than Bash. Shield Boomerang, though, it's already useful for kiting as it is, and too much damage increase could ruin your game balance by giving one of the main tank classes a way to deal steady, powerful ranged DPS.
I was thinking on having Bash damage as a cap (I mean, never do more damage than well geared and builded Bash). Being Bash advantages: higher hit, stun chance, lower motion delay (so better DPS in the end).

Quote from: Yozakura on Jun 26, 2015, 03:12 PM
» Additionally, maybe you could enable Spear Quicken for one-handed spears, like in renewal. The AGI-spear 'sader build is the most overlooked build, due to the lack of designated offensive skills, forcing them to rely on ctrl + click attacking. You could also add the Holy Cross buff from renewal, which makes it deal double damage when used with two-handed spears.
Interesting, I'll take note of that.

Quote from: Yozakura on Jun 26, 2015, 03:12 PM
As for knight, here are a couple of ideas.

» Make Two-hand Quicken usable on all two-handed weapons knights can equip (2h swords, spears and axes). Reason? It'll be so much fun to see. Axes for novelty purposes. Hey, it's fun seeing a knight around with an axe!

» To balance that one out, maybe make Counter Attack and Bowling Bash two-handed sword exclusive skills. Spear users already have a lot of skills in their arsenal.
This sounds like a hella lot of work and a lot of testing before implementing. It's interesting tho, so if the class is actually pretty balanced and diverse I would leave it untouched and maybe consider this again in the future, as an update.

Quote from: Yozakura on Jun 26, 2015, 03:12 PM
And for the core class, swordsman:

» I think the Sword Mastery skill should work for two-handed swords, in addition to one-handers and daggers. Twohanders are already underrated as it is, despite their higher offensive power, since they take up the offhand spot that's often used for shields and 30% racial reductions. With this, the Two-handed Sword mastery skill will not serve as its core mastery, but instead additional damage on top of the basic sword mastery.

» Provoke could use an improvement, changing into a 'splash' debuff rather than single target. If given something like a 5x5 cast radius, instead of pulling a single monster with each use, it will lure in the target monster and any additional targets within range. To compensate though, adding a few seconds of cooldown would be nice.

That's about all I could think of for now.
The Sword Mastery modification has some logic on it, but the Provoke mod... I think it would be highly explotable (as exploitable as mind break is now).

Thanks!
Quote from: exii on Jun 27, 2015, 06:07 AM
If you think casting quag is a good idea you or your guild heavily failed to create a viable guild rost.

Yozakura

Oh yeah, in PVP scenarios. Completely forgot about that. I was thinking more of the PVM aspect of drawing aggro.

"On that day, the bees received a grim reminder. They lived in fear of the hornets and were disgraced to live in these cages they called hives."

» 新劇の雀蜂 «

Suspension

Original post edited. GC would deal 3 hits always, removed usability over land protector (didn't make too much sense).

I have some doubts about Bowling Bash, should I leave it as is, 2x500% damage or would it be too much? I have played on pre-trans servers and even with that 1000% modifier they weren't a murder machine, but still the greatest attackers except for Asura Monks.
Quote from: exii on Jun 27, 2015, 06:07 AM
If you think casting quag is a good idea you or your guild heavily failed to create a viable guild rost.

tokoroko

For a Knight, fix Auto-Counter to be able to counter skills as well as regular attacks incoming from the front.

Its a shame I cant counter a Monks Triple Attack or a sonic blow attack.

Additionally, on monsters it should either strike 2 times or give a debuff of some sort to the monster, like DEF - 20% or something (at counter lvl 10)

Suspension

I don't see anything bad about autocounter. Why should it be buffed? I don't want Knights to be built around a single, overpowered skill.
Quote from: exii on Jun 27, 2015, 06:07 AM
If you think casting quag is a good idea you or your guild heavily failed to create a viable guild rost.