General

Funny story, I haven't been logged into basil all these days, so I'm just now reading all of the new messages xD Alright, back to reading <3 Thank you all for having such in depth conversations about the class. It really helps!

@xaznninja @tricks122 @belzier @chiefo I threw this together to make xaznninja's post most easy to read for the head of the mlc. It isn't the final product though, I can see we still have a lot to talk about, but we should set up a time that we can all have a live chat, or even voice chat if we're ok with that sometime. I want to make sure it's as close to perfect the next time I post to basil, reddit, or even the forums. Then bring it up in meetings, send it to nexon, and wait until they do it. /d/1NdNzgzHYy0TEvzkR2G7Lg0GCsNMBCJZuKBNyRW39JXU/edit?usp=sharing I'm not sure why basil won't let me send the link, but I'm sure you can figure out what's missing.

I actually had the chance to mention that we've all been working hard on fixing our class. So now all we need is a balance that we think can be done, won't make us too powerful, and isn't asking for too much. Seeing as how we aren't trying to be power houses, I think most of the things we're asking for will go through fine.

I saw you all talking about bind, and even though you all agreed it wouldn't fit with the class, but it got me thinking about really strong attacks that leave people breathless for a few seconds. Something like a hold down skill that delivers a strong punch that "binds" enemies for maybe 20 seconds, OR have it work like Zero's and bind every few seconds. Not saying I want it to happen, but it's what came to mind when you all talked about binds.

@chiefo I think we're trying to get rid of Pirate's revenge altogether, but if it can't be removed, you've got a pretty nice idea there. Keep it up =D

Having played today after the launch of the Reboot Patch, Nautilus doesn't feel that bad. I do however hate the spiral assault cool down, and even if you DO cancel an attack with it, you're stuck for maybe a second afterward.

As a long term bucc, I feel as though I should give my opinion on some things stated. To start, I would love to see backspin blow return. We were one of the only classes that had good control of mobs, besides warriors getting rush in 4th job. I also agree that stun mastery could be combined with Precision Strikes, although in the end game I feel like this skill is useless.

I Do like the mention of snatch making a comeback although some think it is useless. What if we added vertical mobility into this? Let snatch be directed in one of 8 directions. If it hits a monster it pulls it in like it used to. If it hits a platform it could launch is in its direction. Kind of like the kaiser skill but this could also be used to quickly go down platforms as well. Its range would also be much smaller.

As for the pirates revenge issue, what if a new toggle skill is added (Overcharge?) or make it a hyper/put it in stimulate. The effect would give us some sort of boost (Maybe breaking the soft speed cap or some other sort of utility). The 2nd effect would be like the old potion that came from the alchemist potions buccs would use to self activate revenge. Maybe have a constant hp drain every 40-60 seconds (500-2k?). This would make it so we get more consistent damage from pirates revenge, add some utility, but also make it situational trade off between damage and suitability.

@tricks122: The minute hand on the clock does go counter-clockwise on Time Leap. Speed is just one of the things to improve, though it really is an more important factors to consider. Not every skill should be fast, though octopunch should probably be a little quicker. With backspin and such, hopefully we'll find gameplay active enough for things not to seem so slow and monotonous.

@xaznninja Also, now that I think about it, if Dragon Strike and Pirate's Revenge both did not provide a damage buff, and instead the generic debuff gave something to improve damage on top of PDR reduction, I think that would be very fair.

@xAznNinja Dark Knights can take hits because they have consistent, reliable healing that scales well. Thieves were broken when it came to tankiness due to poor scaling decisions on Nexon's part; there CAN be a middle ground, the problem ended up being that Misses happened far too frequently and was more effective due to lower health pools on all classes in general. In any case... there's nothing wrong with a middle-ground; Nexon is just bad at balancing it, no surprise there.

Damage per second charts are not an end-all, but when other classes have both a higher average damage per second and more abilities that allow them to live, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that they'll probably be out-damaging a class that has less in both those areas. This isn't to say things aren't possible on a Buccaneer, but I guarantee you it's easier on a majority of other classes(Both in terms of funding and execution), to the point that Buccaneers are NOT worth making at all for a player that wants to progress. That's a problem.

Corkscrew Blow had laughable strength without being Charged, so it's not a good example given how our other skills work. Time Leap can be seen as moving back through time as well, depending on how you read it; I'm not even sure if the clock spins forward or backwards(I thought it was backwards, frankly). As for skill descriptions... let's be honest; half the classes would be ninja's if we based ourselves on them, they're moot for arguing the lore at this point...

Cutter and Jack from Corsair's Ahoy Mateys(Their 'job skill') gives them non-damaging benefits. Bowmasters obtain healing or more lines, Crossbowmen can get Physical Damage Ignore(Or Total Damage), Assassins can get free mobbing(From my understanding) and Paladins appear to get various non-damage buffs(Along with damage buffs) from rotating their Charges. So it's not out of the ordinary that classes SHOULD get more utility after they cap from their job skill; this isn't even looking at classes that are 'based' on their job skill, such as Dark Knights or Heroes(Who both get indirect utility from skills that use their signature skill).

I'm very curious as to how(Or why) you've left out Mechanics for training and don't consider the superior mobility of those classes over Buccaneers, in particular those who have vertical mobility(Kaiser and to some degree Shade). It just goes to show how linear training is nowadays and how generic the maps are; I can guarantee you, Buccaneers don't mob well in a practical environment compared to many other classes. The only reason they do well is because of flat maps. Good mobbing generally doesn't seem to relay on purely horizontal range; having to clear at Gollux puts you at risk, while several other classes who tend to be poor at mobbing can clear freely due to the way their skills function(Or with even less risk than us).

Average isn't personal. It's something that can be measured in many cases; we aren't average damage, I'd say our utility is worse than below average and as I said before, above average mobbing isn't usually "Well, yeah, they're great on flat maps most of the time, but once you start looking at the big picture they suck."...

Good damage, good mobbing and good party buffs? A lot of classes rank as "very good" in one and average/below average in the two other categories. Hell, many classes rank "very good" in two of those departments, and even more classes have in the past; look at Bowmasters with Sharp Eyes(Particularly when Night Lords were the preferred damage dealers) if you want to go way back, and nowadays you can look at classes like Night Walker or Shade, who bring great damage and some good utility to the table(Whilst their mobbing, in practice, sucks; but as I said before, it's not a REAL advantage when training as a whole peters out at 210 for benefits, has reduced benefits past 200 and the way Buccaneers mob isn't ideal for many end-game bosses).

I can agree with the self-revive stuff, but it's a bridge that's been crossed too far ago; it began when Wheels got into the Cash Shop. I'd say "utility" in the case of re-positioning has to do more with "mobility"; utility tends to be more party engaged skills. Improving our Attack Speed won't do as much for 'fluid' game-play if we're still only using half of our skills; Thunder Breakers play more fluidly, in my opinion, and the damage cap is poorly constructed(It screws classes like Arans and Zeros, whilst favoring the fast Hit Per Second classes, which is just... there's a lot wrong with it). Improving our speed is okay, but without applying actual changes to our skills it's not going to feel 'fluid', in my opinion, especially with those new cool-downs.

@xaznninja Please read what I said again. I'll shortly reiterate the points that relate to your comment.

I asked about how our defensive things could be reorganized. See my above comment near the end. Reorganizing them lets points be put elsewhere and opens up room for a skill to come back.

All of our mobbing, bar tornado uppercut falling off platforms and our hyper's vertical range, is all horizontal. The one skill you mention: Double blast (not Buccaneer blast); it's good when it's up, but when it's down it's not super useful. That balances it, and it's REALLY slow to begin with. I don't even use it at end-bosses except Zak and HT where it hits multiple parts; I use my sharks (where others would use dragon strike) instead. This is all okay, and is part of the balance. I just don't see us as being 'overwhelming'. It's a point that is great sometimes, and poor in others.

I also see shades as hugely better mobbers, and they compensate for their lack of range with their backstep and warp-to-monsters entirely. Cannoneers don't match us in mobbing, they are hugely better in so many ways. We are in no way on the same level as Lumi, Assassins, NW, WA, Aran or the like in mobbing. Kaisers have much more utility, such as being able to ignore DR and weapon cancel, which increases both their survivability and damage output in comparison. They have decent range with their tornado skill as well, and an AoE on both sides of them. Dark Knights have a quick ultimate that makes clearing monsters easy in 1 hit, and faster mobbing skills for bosses. Hero's and Paladin's have a quick map attack too. I'm not asking for what these classes have, but only for you to admit where our major weak points are, and that we're actually not much better than those classes you listed other than perhaps DB at mobbing in a bossing situation, and DB + Warriors them in training situations (warriors are supposed to be pretty slow thematically anyway, so they're actually under-average grinders to begin with). We have a niche in that little extra range; the other classes have other niches in their own respective ways.

This relates back to how things aren't purely DPS. DPS charts ARE useful however in calculating how much damage you can deal per unit time when you make your maximum output possible. If we are lacking in both damage AND opportunities, we are clearly underwhelming. I don't think that we can get any better opportunity-wise than attacking through DR or a bind; I don't really want either of those though. I agree that speed will help here in both damage and opportunities. I still think that there's more to this than just attack speed though, such as some of the old skills we're talking about bringing back, and the new ones being considered to add in. Again, like you say, speed is a key component whether it be positioning speed, attack speed, buff speed, or charging speed. We need to talk about each one separately, then together to make sure it's not too much.

Kyo's suggestion of the warp-back skill is an improvement for such flaws such as vertical mobility that hider us heavily. Of course, there are other solutions, though I'm very supportive of his idea at the moment. You didn't comment on my after thoughts about combining certain skills so that there's room for bringing back the old ones, and also adding in one or two new ones. See my above comment about only the 20% stun chance from stun mastery being moved to Precision Strikes instead, making room for a skill. Also look at removing typhoon crush and putting a similar effect on the new skill to reorganize and make room for another old or new skill.

I've only suggested PDR reduction on the party skill, nothing else. You suggested damage. I don't want damage on it. With this debuff for the party, we will have ONE OTHER party buff in SI, and TL for those niche party situations when a pally's / bishop's revive, or another classes non-hyper bind needs resetting. That's three technically, but only two that are useful. I don't believe that's overwhelming, and it fits. If you get punched in the head, your reaction time will slow down, therefore your ability to reduce damage from any incoming attack from any source will be hard until your dizziness wears off. If this debuff skill was in 3rd or 4th job this would make it more useful given that monsters start getting harder then.

I didn't recommend a bind; I said it's unlikely for us to get one.

I give on a cap increase. Your argument there makes sense; though I'd prefer it if each class had their own caps so that balancing would be easier. That won't happen though.

I think it's better at this point to just have Kyo go through each skill with us, one by one, and figure out what should happen with each and every of them. Debating the 'theme' of our class is nice and all, but we're not getting anywhere really. Is there a possibility of us meeting up sometime online and going through them one-by one? After they're reorganized, we can talk about what skills will bring back. After that, we can consider what tools we should add in.

Let's work together on this more! Also @4kyosuke4 if we do end up chatting in real-time, please make it open to any Buccaneers.

@tricks122 @belzier
Dark Knights can’t really take any hits, rather they �"die” and then revive again after they land a X amount of hits in a short time period. I consider that to be a 2nd life skill like Heaven’s Door which has a cooldown after you actually die. Whereas Paladins and Mihiles can tank hits almost indefinitely. Thieves and their current Dark Sight/previous avoidability is a great example of why it is overpowered to have some sort of middle ground in regards to �"tankiness”. Dark Sight is pretty much like godmode currently at end game bosses, it can completely negate half of every boss and their attacks which is definitely not intended for %HP attacks/status effects. The way avoidability worked previously was similar since having enough avoidability could allow you avoid literally EVERYTHING. This is why Dark Sight is being nerfed to the ground the same way avoidability was in the past. As for our previous skills, outside of HP Boost, that was the only "tanky" skill we had. There was also Bullet Time/Energy Charge that gave us avoidability like Thieves so I wouldn’t take that information seriously. Like you said, big changes to the way we survive in general would be needed to make some sort of middle ground viable.

I’m not sure if everyone is aware of it. I see way too many people rely on DPS charts as the end all for discussions. While comparing unfunded vs funded doesn’t make sense for the most part, there still needs to be trade offs. If you have 99999 lines of damage you shouldn’t be dealing an immense amount of damage unfunded since they would have a lot of potential in the late game and vice versa. I didn’t completely write off the fact that we needed buffs. I just think people underestimate Buccaneers far too much. Only Kaisers have more lines than us without Shadow Partner; theoretically that is far from being below average.

After debating about this topic a lot, speed is definitely arguable depending on how you view things. For me personally, I still see us as being quick and agile. Whether it be real life examples, in game examples, and etc they all point to being fast for me.
- Time Leap without looking at the name it allows us to not wait for cooldowns, which is quick
- Corkscrew Blow could be used instantly without charging up as well
- Flash Fist, Double Uppercut, Backspin Blow, Barrage, Demolition were all described to be fast in their skill descriptions even though they were �"slow” when casted
- If you think about it, Hurricane was the only really fast skill back then, even Thieves had relatively low casting speeds on their skills

Why does Energy Charge need to benefit us even after hitting the damage cap? All the other Adventure Specialized Skills become useless at the damage cap too. There is a good reason why the damage cap is in place, it is to imply some kind of end/limit. A skill shouldn’t be designed to fit how well it does after the intended limit, if we truly need more damage, then adding more lines to Octopunch serves the same purpose. Imagine if you could cap without Maple Warrior, that skill would essentially become useless for every class like how you described. It doesn’t mean the skill should be buffed to compromise the lack of end game potential, rather if you think about the little things, you wouldn’t need to cast that buff anymore. Besides, like in the past, if the damage cap is raised again then the buffs Energy Charge provides become viable again.

I’ll use the classes I previously listed as examples: Dual Blades, Cannoneers, Shades, Heroes, Paladins, Dark Knights, and Kaisers. Out of all those classes, only Cannoneers match us in terms of mobbing while training. It doesn’t matter if the map is flat or has a lot of platforms, we still win in this department. In terms of mob control during bosses, we still win. Buccaneer Blast is the longest horizontal ranged skill in the game, we can clear Gollux mobs on top of the teleporter regardless of their position. Even at Lotus it is extremely useful to control the mobs regardless of which side of the map you’re on due to the insane range. Not to mention how easy it is to cap on Buccaneer Blast compared to other classes and their mobbing skills. I realize Buccaneer Blast is unreliable when it is not fully charge, which is the exact reason why I labeled us as average in terms of mobbing. Not as good as Luminous, but far greater than the classes I listed earlier. Thus we need those trade offs in place. It can be argued that training is useless, but you still can’t neglect mobbing, otherwise what would you consider good mobbing classes like Luminous to be?

Whatever you consider to be �"average” is all in the eyes of the beholder. I consider us to be: above average mobbers, average damage, and under average utility. Therefore, I list us as a jack of all trades.

I don’t consider us as being like bodyguards. We don’t need to be useful in terms of party buffs. If you take a look at Dual Blades, they don’t have any party buffs either. You stated that you wanted us to have more damage, well we can’t have good damage, good mobbing, and good party buffs all in 1 package. Not like I’m completely neglecting having party buffs, but a PDR AND damage buff on Concussive Blows sounds way too good. Not to mention you want another party skill on top of that, it’s a bit too much for a class that thematically wants to 1v1 and punch their faces.

Bind wouldn’t make sense for us and it is not as useful as before. I don’t think any class should have a revive skill either outside of Bishops. It doesn’t make sense on classes that have them and its completely overpowered. Which is why all of those revive skills besides Heaven’s Door are being nerfed to the ground. Utility can mean a lot of things, as I mentioned before, we need the utility to reposition and survive.

Lastly, lets take a look at our options for improving our damage after reaching the damage cap:
- Speed
- Damage lines
- Higher damage cap
- Burst
The reason why I’m so adamant about improving our speed is because of the other benefits it can provide. Not only do I think it fits our theme perfectly, but out of all those options to improve our damage, speed is the only 1 that has an extra benefit. What I’m talking about is how FLUID our skills in general will feel with more speed. To fit the criteria of keeping our super close ranged playstyle that I desire, we would need that speed to react to every situation effectively. In the end, nothing would feel as good as having more speed in my eyes.

@tricks122 I haven't grinded on my Buccaneer for a while now, but I can agree with you to an extent. When clearing content like Mechanical grave, I find myself climbing ladders a lot and making it so that I'm in a suitable spot to clear the most enemies at once with the linear laser. In some situations, I make up for that by using our hyper to hit above platforms when I have energy to expend. The linear way that our skills work... it's more of a feature and play-style, though it has it's hindrances as we're aware of. There are some fixes for this, such as vertical mobility, though it's also okay if we're not super great in all mobbing scenarios and make up for it elsewhere noticeably.

... as I think more and more, it really seems like most of our skills except buffs, flash jump and spiral assault are all pretty 'niche' in their uses, though octopunch being a 1v1 skill only makes sense. It's okay to have lots of things to rely on for different scenarios, and that might even be essential to our theme, but... I 'unno.

It feels like we're missing something, as there are situations in which we struggle with our current tools. We've all got good ideas. Balancing it all, and deciding what's worthwhile and what isn't so much is tough, since we don't have a clear goal in mind at the moment other than "make it better". Maybe a better approach is to identify which situations we struggle with and excel in, ask if we should be able to perform such tasks, then think of ways to change, add to, or remove from our tool-set if they make sense. <<EDIT: Realized that's exactly what Kyo's google doc is; progress is good.>>

@4kyosuke4 Care to call that return / teleport skill to replace Nautilus 'Instant Transmission'? Haha. I actually had an idea very similar to that, but I didn't give it a whole lot of thought yet. I do believe Nautilus is a skill shared by all adventurer pirates, so convincing the developers to ditch it is probably going to be tough. The new skill is still welcome none-the-less; with it we'll have less (or next to no) need for an upward or downward mobility skill, and it will likely work VERY well with our close ranged and 'horizontally-linear' long ranged style.

<<Addition: Some more thoughts>>
What if Stun Mastery was simply added into Precision Strikes in the sense that we keep the 20% stun rate? This keeps the stun functionality for those that find use for it, and opens up room for a new skill, namely the debuff. Instead of having +60% crit rate when they're stunned, we could make it so that the current 15% crit rate on the skill is increased a bit, or leave it unchanged at +15% and make the debuff more significant. Stun mastery actually only made sense when we were forced to use backspin, corkscrew, and sommersault in third job with the new energy blast (hedgehog buster now) when monsters didn't die in 1 hit typically. If we add in the debuff it'll have us keeping our attacks on more, and more than make up for the lost desire to keep monsters stunned instead, though the stun option will still be there for lower level play when things are tougher.

Something I'd like to ask is: Is anyone aware of how Admiral's Wings, the Zero link skill, and Pirate's Revenge overlap or stack? Having Admiral's Wings to reduce damage by 20% is mostly to avoid 1/1 deaths, though Pirate's Revenge also is supposed to decrease incoming damage by 70%, 25% of the time (seems almost like shadow shifter); I'm not sure why we need different skills 'defensively' when we already have HP boost and Perseverance as well. Sorting out these four skills into three defensive ones, such as combining any of the two would make more sense. Any increased damage from pirates revenge is optional; it can always be compensated for somewhere else. This reorganization would also open up a possibility for a new skill; perhaps the warp one you mentioned.

Typhoon Crush could also be removed if the IED functionality (or PDR reduction, depending on how it's implemented) was part of the new debuff instead, opening up a slot for another old skill to return, perhaps snatch or energy drain. I know I'm pushing a lot for this on the debuff and for it to be party-wide, haha. It just makes sense to me so that we're helpful, but not buff or skill mules in the slightest since we HAVE to stay active with the debuff expiring so quickly. Either way, this still seems like a win-win if it's just an IED / PDR reduction for us.

@Belzier @Xaznninja Buccaneers are trash at mobbing in a practical situation. What a lot of people seem to forget is that not every map is a flat area like Commerci or Drill Hall; in other cases, Buccaneer Blast really isn't an amazing mobber at all. It's essentially a Mechanic's Lazer or a Cannoneer's Blast, but we have inferior mobility compared to them and they have alternate ways to mob effectively. You can say we're good at mobbing... but I certainly wouldn't say we excel at it, in comparison to other classes that have more flexible mobbing, and we're okay at Stronghold, but there are other classes that train at a similar speed(Not to mention training is 'useless' past 210 for practical reasons) and have FAR better party support/bossing(Case in point: Mechanics, Cannoneers).

In an ideal situation, we're not even middle of the pack in terms of damage; we're on the lower end, both in the practical and the theoretical. If we're supposed to be a jack of all trades, then we need a lot of core changes or a lot more damage to even come close to that sort of play-style, which we had a long time ago, although with worse relative damage.

@xaznninja Yes, I understand that our skills get a damage boost, and one skill (Buccaneer Blast) gets a larger range. This does not however account for when we hit 50m damage uncharged. If we hit 50m damage uncharged, we most definitely hit 50m charged, and that's how I believe our system becomes near useless at cap, bar the distance increase of Blast and perhaps the speed and jump boost in charged state. Most other Buccaneers and I might not be there yet, but it's something I insist be addressed; whether it be lowering our cap in uncharged state or raising cap when charged. If this means lowering our current damage when uncharged and raising it when charged to make this change more defined, so be it, though I don't think it's super necessary. My earlier statement of changing the number of lines when charged might have been too difficult to balance, so I agree that number of lines should stay similar between charged and uncharged.

Double blast may be powerful compared to that of other classes, but as with most of our skills it's unreliable and definitely slow; I believe that in itself balances the skill, so I don't see it as us being amazing mobbers. In places such as Commerci Party Voyages, I can barely keep up or hit any of the monsters before someone else beats them in one hit. Not always having the large range also makes grinding more difficult actually (not a bad thing, but less efficient none the less), and also during bosses when we have such close range, we have to use the skill twice often times to beat up all the summoned monsters, compared to other classes with an AOE on both sides. Compared to all the other classes, I don't see our mobbing capabilities as hugely over average since it varies on the situation and it's length, therefore the place I stand on our usefulness remains the same.

I agree that I enjoy the close combat style. It gives me a rush when beating up Gollux and Magnus since I'm on my toes the entire time. Of course we have our long ranged Blast as well, which I appreciate at times.

I believe @tricks122 actually has a really good point when mentioning that we have a theme or a mesh of both slow and fast; which is why I don't think we need to be as fast as Dual Bladers, and by tweaking more than just our speed we can reach such an authentic playstyle that @tricks122 suggests.

What I see is a decent mobber (though in short situations we could be considered over average), under average in party skills, under average in utility, sorta 'ehhh' in tankiness, and under average in 1v1 damage. To be a jack of all trades, one must be at least average in all of them, or over average in one and under average in another.

I'm not sure of the best solution to the tankiness problem, though if we could be in a healthy middle ground I'd be content. Just something a little more than we have now: Perhaps a little more passive hp regen?

Making us break soft cap makes it so that others benefit off us a little is a step to making us better with party skills, though it's mostly just 'helpful' so that others don't have to bother with green MPE potions at this point or if they already have the +1 inner and DSI. I don't see Time Leap as being hugely relevant any more with wheels and revive having a short cooldown, as well as other classes having their own second winds, so it's not a big contributor in my opinion. I suggested a debuff that reduces boss monsters PDR for everyone with your functionality of Concussive Blows (something other than just adding straight damage); if ONE more useful skill for parties was added I believe we'd be average or just a tinsy bit better than average in the party-play department.

I don't see us getting a bind or revive, though they are possibilities. Snatch is an okay addition, though it's still pretty niche in it's uses. This means that I see us as under average in utility, so we should be over average somewhere else. The most utility we have is our rush and flash jump which are pretty universal. Adding in some energy regen could be considered utility, though I mostly see that as fixing the mechanics of our charge system.

I thought it would make sense to up the 1v1 damage a little bit, and Nexon agrees with this seeing as one solution they gave us was two more damage lines with the Nautilus buff. This doesn't fit the theme, and I agree that this functionality should be moved somewhere else such as to simply put it on 'Octopunch' (they need a better name for this skill if they add more lines). The slight speed boost to 'Octopunch' we all desire would be here too, with % damage potentially lowered accordingly to balance it. The debuff or whatever party skill above would also likely help us in solo-play, as well as the cap being different, so they should be taken into account when altering (altering being increasing or decreasing) speed and % damage on skills (some should be faster, others could be slower) as to not make us too strong.

I believe we are fairly balanced in mobbing. If the consensus is to lower this slightly and add it to 1v1, party buffs / debuff, and/or utility in a balanced way, I can understand and may likely agree depending on the solution.

Once all these have been addressed, the rest comes down to gameplay mechanic tweaking, which would involve adding in many of the movement skills you suggested. I'm liking most, if not all of the additions and removals that you suggested, as well as keeping to the authentic feel and not necessarily being fast everywhere. When Nexon might implement these, they will clearly take into account how each affects our abilities and balance them accordingly. I don't think we're asking for a whole new gameplay, but simply to have a few more tools that we once had and also to be balanced in terms of the five things I mentioned above.

I'm pretty sure about everything here, and though I don't have numbers to back up my claims, I see them as being fairly reasonable for the most part. I do see where you are coming from.

@xaznninja Any system that promotes more diversity generally requires a revamp, but there are indeed pseudo-tanky classes, such as Dark Knights or Thieves, who avoid certain attacks or just take the hit and recover(%Max HP based damage is poor balancing in the first place anyways). In any case, defense as a whole wasn't always what made classes tanky; Buccaneers were built to take hits and were definitely meant to be tanky in some regard, as beyond Warriors we were the only class with HP Increase. Time Leap isn't exactly fast, so much as it seems to be one of those 'odd' skills that doesn't make canonical sense; I definitely don't see it as being speed related, however, the same way Zero isn't speed related due to their time aspect.

Damage charts are pretty important; they just need to be combined with how reliable/survivable a class is. Buccaneers have neither of those elements in comparison to classes that have an average amount(Reliable being less luck based buffs, survivable being mobility at this point in essence), so... well, it doesn't take a genius to see that there are multiple factors at play, and we're all aware of that. Comparing 'unfunded' to 'funded' doesn't really work in Maple either; most classes with similar funds perform about evenly in terms of accessible content around the mid-range of the game, and there's a larger variance as a 'new' and 'end-game' player, which is where the primary problems of balance seem to happen.

Also, I don't think speed is important for Buccaneers... Barrage was slow, Dragon Strike was decently slow in terms of animation, Corkscrew Blow/Backspin Blow definitely weren't fast, Energy Orb was slow... Demolition was probably the exception to the rule, given the Super Transformation State, and it only worked quickly in terms of implied animation. I mean, there's also Flash Fist, but that's quite literally named to be a fast attack; I think to have a more 'authentic' style, we'd need to mesh both slow and fast moves together, but it's unlikely that it would be practical to have that kind of style nowadays, especially without significant changes to end-game bossing or the class mechanics.

@4kyosuke4 It's alright, I have been fairly busy myself.
(New Idea) Perseverance: Add the ability to recover 5% of our energy every 5 seconds as well. You would think that we would be able to recover our energy naturally too instead of just draining it from monsters and by activating our hyper skill.

Spiral Assault: I wouldn’t say completely unnecessary, rather the 4 second cooldown on it is unnecessary. Keeping the ability to animation cancel will definitely help us out a lot.

Link Skill: I’m not sure what to put in for a link skill either. But the point is, its not really balanced to have some classes with link skills and others with none.

Dash: Keeping the stance effect would kind of be pointless. Buccaneers obtain 100% stance in 2nd job with HP Boost. While Corsairs get 60% stance in 4th job with Jolly Roger; if Nexon really thinks it is necessary to give Corsairs more stance then they should just buff Jolly Roger.

Roll of the Dice/Stun Mastery/Pirate’s Revenge: Backspin Blow, Energy Drain, and the Concussive Blows skill I described could be used to fill these gaps. Some skills might need to be moved around to different jobs, but other than that I think they would fit. Like you mentioned in your opening statement, we have an excessive amount of buffs. Replacing 2 of them with attacking skills seems like a good start.

Octopunch: I still think we should keep Octopunch super close ranged, its our identity after all. I believe most of us were striving for some diversity in playstyle if we got an update. If Octopunch obtains the attack range increase, it wouldn’t be any different from Shades and their Spirit Claw. A good example would be Hell Gollux; in my Hell Gollux video I mentioned that Buccaneers probably have the hardest time clearing. This is in fact true, however the way we have to play during Hell Gollux is VERY unique compared to every other class. In fact, I love the way we move around while fighting Hell Gollux and it has become 1 of my favorite and most challenging bosses to fight. I also mentioned that I had a 50% success rate of killing Hell Gollux without dying. With the release of safety charms in Matilda’s shop I have been more inclined to solo Hell Gollux since I don’t lose experience anymore if I messed up. After a bit of practice it got a lot more comfortable and easy for me. I can safely say that I have a 95%+ success rate of killing Hell Gollux without dying now. I imagine if we get the speed increase to Octopunch and the mobility options, I could boost it to a 100% success rate without needing the attack range increase.

Nautilus Strike: I think we should keep Nautilus Strike the way it is currently but with more lines of damage. Not that I think this is a good skill, but most classes do have some sort of full map attack. All of our skills being useful wouldn’t exactly be good in terms of balance. Besides, having a full map attack isn’t exactly terrible, we just need more lines on Nautilus Strike so that it can actually clear the map more effectively than Buccaneer Blast and Power Unity.

Time Leap: Reset our hyper skills ONLY. Keep in mind that having it work on other classes and their hyper skills might be a bit too overpowered.
@tricks122 I wasn’t really talking about how useful Decent Skills are compared to others. Rather I was simply saying that its unbalanced for other classes to benefit off Decent Skills while classes with the real skills get nothing in return. (They get 1 more skill than us essentially) Besides, like with attack speed, some classes were not meant to reach 100% critical rate either. Those classes would usually have higher %damage on their skills to compensate or other factors.

Buccaneers are definitely in the middle, however I think we lean more towards Thieves. We have literally no armor compared to Warriors. More times than not, I see us trying to dodge rather than taking the hit/guarding. Our previous form also had Demolition which literally made us untargetable and unseeable. Granted Demolition only looked like it hit very fast, we were also the only class to have 2 speed boosters in our arsenal. Not to mention leaping through time with Time Leap.

Talking about defense is pretty funny since Nexon evolved it into being very 1 dimensional now. You are either tanky or not tanky, there is no in between. What I mean by that is, every new boss now deals %HP damage negating whatever inherent defense you may have. Unless you are a Paladin or Mihile, you will be just as tanky as everyone else. Therefore I don’t see a way for Buccaneers or any other class to get tankier without making them blatantly overpowered.

@belzier I’m not trying to dismiss your opinions, I’m merely giving my thought process on how it would work out in my mind. Sorry if it appeared that way. I’m sure we all have our own playstyles/biases that we want to see happen for a future update.

Looking at DPS charts isn’t a good way to grasp how much damage each individual class can deal. DPS charts don’t factor in a lot of other important information. The fact of the matter is, unfunded we are pretty strong due to Power Unity and how strong our Buccaneer Blast is. As for funded, we have a lot of potential given the fact that we have 9 lines of damage without Shadow Partner and decent speed on Octopunch. Like I mentioned earlier, we are not as weak as we appear, we just lack the opportunities to attack due to our lack of attack range and mobility to compensate.

Damage and utility are not the only factors when it comes to �"usefulness”, mobbing plays a role too. Our Buccaneer Blast is way better than what a lot of classes have in terms of mobbing. Which is why I think we strike a middle ground of not being the strongest 1v1 and not the strongest for mobbing; a jack of all trades. Realistically if we want more power during 1v1 situations, I would see Buccaneer Blast being toned down in some shape or form since there needs to be a trade off. I approve 100% for increasing our 1v1 potential and lowering our mobbing, but I don’t see Nexon doing this.

I’m not exactly sure why you think Energy Charge will become useless. We gain 25 attack, more %damage for most skills, and longer ranger on Buccaneer Blast when we are fully charged. Out of all the Specialized Skills that Adventurers obtained, Energy Charge is by far 1 of the best when it comes down to damage. Adding more lines on top of what we already obtain from Energy Charge would make it completely overpowered compared to the other Specialized Skills.

If we really were to gain more lines of damage I would like to see it directly on Octopunch. This way there wouldn’t be the inconsistency of having wayyyyyyyyyyy less damage when uncharged. We stay uncharged for a fair amount of time and speed/lines of damage contribute A LOT more damage compared to the stats Energy Charge currently gives.

When I mentioned breaking the formula, I specifically meant for breaking the damage cap. Only low damage line classes can break the damage cap currently and we are clearly not low on damage lines.

Speed is a bit hard to judge, but I guarantee that if we get the same casting speed as Dual Blade’s Phantom Blow, we will be a lot stronger. There is a reason why Dual Blades can kill bosses significantly faster than us when the difference between our skills damage wise is mostly the speed factor. Like I mentioned before, we are the only class with 2 speed boosters and even the ability to leap through time. Demolition also made us untargetable and unseeable which made us look very fast even though we were not. I think a lot of the Buccaneer theme is tied in with speed.

@xaznninja Then I'm also okay with making us have LESS lines uncharged, and more charged, but that doesn't make much sense either when we're so low on the damage charts have have very little utility to begin with.

If we're not contributing to the party as SI is not desired, Time Leap isn't effective on hypers and stuff, and we have no binds or other useful party buffs, it only makes more sense for us to be higher on the damage-dealing charts. Take the two lines from the nautilus buff and stick them on charged state skills, OR make it so that charged state has higher potential than not being charged with a damage cap increase. Do you really want the skill that is basis of our class to become useless like roll of the dice and crit rate one we reach an imposed cap? I sure don't, since that's horrible design considering most end-game content requires cap damage to complete.

It's not breaking a formula; plus I don't think we'll be seeing as big of an attack speed increase as you think. If the developers thought charged state should be x times more powerful than being uncharged, they should tweak the cap and/or number of lines to reflect that, which could also be lowering cap / lines when uncharged. Lowering the cap doesn't make sense, so choose another route. And I also meant tweaking the speed of skills other than octopunch that need it too; such as sommersault and how quickly we travel horizontally with spiral assault. Yes the speed will help us not risk as many dangerous situations, but we'll still be less desirable. It's a form of balance that you can't just fix reasonably by tweaking just our speed, though that's a subjective thought of mine until we see numbers and calculations done. I don't think we should be ultra fast; if you remember, the class was designed as slower with demolition, which is much like boomerang step. Backspin blow was relatively slow, and charging corkscrew took time. We weren't made to be the fastest, though I agree that we should be slightly faster than we are now; to BALANCE things, we need to change our other limiting factors as well. Keep to the theme.

This view of mine may change if SI can break soft cap, or a debuff skill is added to our class that is useful to each member of a team fighting a boss or mobs, but otherwise we'll still be less useful than most other classes. I didn't choose Buccaneer to be a solo player. Please don't simply write off my point of view. I'm not here to make us broken. We also have the possibility of lowering our damage on skills and adding lines instead, or lowering damage and increasing speed. It's just that 'speed' is the thing we experience more, where numbers and lines are just math in the background that are less noticeable.

@xaznninja Decent Skills make SOME sense for skills that don't have a reachable cap; for example, Critical Damage isn't really useless unless you hit the damage cap with it(And I don't think many classes hit 100% Critical Rate without some form of Sharp Eyes), ergo Decent Sharp Eyes is okay. The Bowmaster version also provides a good boost over its Decent form... but this doesn't go for, say, Haste or Speed Infusion, which have easily reachable caps, offer little benefit from a 'real' form of the skill. As a result, the Decent form is just as good(If not 'better') than the normal skill, which is the root of the problem; you can also look at how many classes got passive +1(Or more) Attack Speed in their revamps, along with the prevalence of ideal faster weapons(1H Swords over 2H Swords, for example), which also contributes to the problem.

I played back when Corkscrew/Spiral could link. It was useful. Not terribly so, but I didn't do end-game bossing; I can definitely see the use, and there are other classes where Flash Jump feels... a bit less useful, but it seems to be the 'ideal' method of movement Nexon is pushing.

In terms of combat, though... Buccaneers are essentially Warriors/Thieves. They strike a middle-ground between the two classes(Not as fast or quick as Thieves, but more durable, yet not as hardy as Warriors; Buccaneers lean towards Warriors more, while Corsairs should lean towards Thieves more). More 'practical' defensive skills wouldn't be unbalanced, I think; as long as we aren't rivaling Paladins, I think it's fine. Yes, we've certainly got some quickness in us... but considering, even from our original incarnation, we weren't terribly agile(Iframes were more of a 'I can take the hit' moment to me) and had self-recovery methods that included damaging ourselves(Which represents durability through MP Conversion)... I think giving us more reliable defense is fine, but anyways, I'm rambling a bit.

In the end, I think what we need is viability and reliability. When over half of our good buffs/skills involve some form of trigger luck(That can kill us) or just mesh poorly... we need changes. How those happen will be Nexon's decision, and I clearly have preferences that I've stated before, but any suggestion that gives us more viability and less randomness is one I can at least appreciate.

@xaznninja Sorry it took so long to reply. Life got in the way, and I felt I wasn't in the right mindset to reply at the time. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jid6PIY4unCmj9GJlrsLrQG2YGeiAl8mCjEB4iKJNb8/edit?usp=sharing Hopefully this will send this time.

@belzier Regarding breaking the soft/hard speed caps, what I meant was to give it passively to Real Speed Infusion only. This way we would be the only class benefiting from it. Breaking the hard speed cap was possible before, Nexon just never bothered to fix the disconnecting issue and added a hard speed cap instead. It wouldn't be that far-fetched to see it get fixed, Nexon is just taking the easy way out. But I digress, increasing the casting speed on Octopunch is good enough.

Keep in mind Nautilus Strike has a cooldown which makes the Final Attack not up all the time + we would have to actually cast Nautilus Strike in between attacks. If I didn't make it clear already, I hate how inconsistent our damage is right now. Final Attack not being up all the time and varying speeds while charged vs uncharged is inconsistent. Buccaneers definitely have enough lines right now; 9 lines of damage without a Shadow Partner like skill is huge. I think the only class that beats us without Shadow Partner is Kaisers at 10 lines of damage. Breaking the damage cap has always been limited to classes that were slow and lacked lines. (Shadowers/Marksmen/Angelic Busters) I don't think it would be a good idea to break that formula now; what we need the most is speed.

@xaznninja:

Adding going past max attack speed might sound like it would make us very unique; in reality, I don't think it's necessary to implement, nor would Nexon simply change it for one class. Increasing our casting speed makes it so that only we benefit from it without other classes being able to scale with it, which is the problem with DSI.

I really only mention the lines as that was Nexon's attempt at bringing us back up to par. Having a balance of more lines and attack speed will make it so that we don't have an 'excessive amount' of either. I'm mostly adamant on more lines / higher cap damage for charged state though, so that it's always relevant and increases our output (charged skills COULD be faster in comparison to uncharged too).

I'm not really the one who should be dictating our playstyle concerning corkscrew, spiral assault, and backspin. Whatever anybody decides, I'll use it to it's fullest potential; as long as it's different from now and from having a cooldown on our only rush/dash.

Like we said, giving us a passive ability to break soft cap would make us unique enough to be immensely more valuable than people with DSI (in my opinion, as long as DSI doesn't get that ability). In this case, people that even reach hard cap will be benefited since they won't require to use green MPE potions any more.

@belzier @4kyosuke4 @tricks122
Speed Cap: I guess I was a bit too ambitious about going beyond the hard speed cap. Increasing the casting speed of Octopunch definitely does the same thing. I figured giving us the ability to go beyond the hard speed cap would give us more potential. Given the fact that +1 speed inner ability is a thing and other speed buffs. (In hindsight it would have been pretty broken) Also, a while back there was actually no hard speed cap. This is why the few classes that could go into the negatives by stacking speed buffs would disconnect; Nexon could fix this to make my idea viable though.

Lines of Damage: Adding more lines to skills isn’t the only way to increase damage; speed is also a huge factor. That is why I mentioned going beyond the speed cap as an option. Having the Nautilus striking down as a final attack like Mages doesn’t fit to well with me. It would make more sense on a Corsair that actually uses their ships.

Corkscrew Blow: I’m not sure how many of you played back when Corkscrew Blow and Spiral Assault could be linked together to decrease the casting speed, but it felt super good to me. It was the reason why I thought us not having Flash Jump would be completely fine; similar to other classes like Hayato who felt like they didn’t need Flash Jump. Another example is at Chaos Vellum, Spiral Assault simply over rushes you more times than not. Having the diversity of 2 varying ranged rushing skills is great for keeping us alive. Point being, I really don’t think Corkscrew Blow is as redundant as most of you think it is.

Flash Jump/Vertical Mobility: I don’t think Bowmen/Thieves/Pirates having mobility is out of place thematically. Traditionally Bowmen/Thieves/gun users have to be quick and agile due to how squishy they are defensively. While people who utilized punching would either be quick to dodge or guard like in boxing. I did consider adding some sort of guarding skill similar to boxing, however I figured it would be pretty overpowered to completely negate an attack as a Pirate. I’d rather keep the guarding mechanic to the Warriors who deserve it. On the other hand, I agree that Warriors and more recently Mages gaining Flash Jump (Even though they have teleport) is kind of ridiculous.

Real Speed Infusion/Decent Speed Infusion: I wasn’t really specific when I mentioned Speed Infusion. The reason why I think Speed Infusion benefits everyone else more than us is exactly because of Decent Speed Infusion. Out of all the decent skills available Decent Speed Infusion is BY FAR the most overpowered and we don’t benefit off of it. Excluding the few Hurricane classes, most of the other classes were not meant to reach such high speed with their attacks. But since they are able to now, we are technically a lot weaker because they got a lot faster compared to us. Decent skills in general was a terrible idea, why isn’t there a decent skill for every class to balance things out or why do they even exist in the first place?

To end things off, I wanted to give you guys some examples of how slow our Octopunch really is compared to others. It makes sense for Dual Blades and maybe even Shades to be as fast as us, but Warriors really? I expected Octopunch to be as fast as Phantom Blow is currently.

Buccaneers: http://maplearchive.com/skill-wp.php?id=5121020
Dual Blades: http://maplearchive.com/skill-wp.php?id=4341009
Cannoneers: http://maplearchive.com/skill-wp.php?id=5321012 Faster (2) 690 ms
Shades: http://maplearchive.com/skill-wp.php?id=25121005
Heroes: http://maplearchive.com/skill-wp.php?id=1120017
Paladins: http://maplearchive.com/skill-wp.php?id=1221009
Dark Knights: http://maplearchive.com/skill-wp.php?id=1321013 Faster (2) 600 ms
Kaisers: http://maplearchive.com/skill-wp.php?id=61121100

Speed Infusuon is actually near useless for a lot of classes; with Decent Speed Infusion, most hit the speed cap anyways unless they're a Mage or using Slow weapons(Many weapons don't need a +2 to hit the cap, just a +1). Some classes don't even benefit from it due to their animations(For example, Bowmasters and many Hurricane classes get nearly zero benefit, as it only affects the start-up animation). It was a good party skill back when a lot of classes weren't getting increased attack speed from other sources and parties were done at a lower level of funding, but now it's not nearly as good.

I really enjoy what @xaznninja put forth... it's not all things I enjoy(I loathe Flash Jump on classes which aren't Thieves as much as I hate vertical mobility), but considering Nexon won't be changing the came to make classes which lack it viable... it makes sense to have it. And many of the changes are good; it's been a while since Stun Mastery has been useless, although I did enjoy the old overlap of skills Buccaneers had with slight differences(Such as Corkscrew Blow and Backspin Blow). What I really want is 'fluid' combat, but that doesn't seem like it fits with MapleStory anymore, and as long as we retain our uniqueness and roots as much as possible whilst remaining viable, I think the idea is good.

I've already given my several cents worth of thoughts to Kyo, but I'd be okay with most ideas in this thread. They aren't always the ideal, but they're definitely more tolerable and more engaging than our current state.

@4kyosuke4 I didn't mean to suggest that it should break hard cap anyway; if anything our base skill animations for certain skills such as Octopunch should be sped up. No need to break hard cap when some simple balancing will do.

Having SI (and *NOT* DSI) break the soft cap would be very beneficial to us solo, increase our helpfulness in parties, and (if we don't get any additional passive attack speed) will even provide us with some reasoning to consider the +1 att speed Inner Ability so that we needn't farm Green MPE potions any more.

@xaznninja Yeah, I ran out of room replying. Too tired to type it all out again, it's 4:35 am right now. I'll write a document or something to give you my opinion on each point you made. Just know that I love a lot of the things you wrote, I don't mind how long it is at all, I love reading the posts, and the more detailed they are, the easier it can be to understand.
@belzier Haha, don't worry about it! Yeah I agree with a lot of what he said and could see a lot of it being approved, seeing as how a lot of the skills were previously in the game. The whole attack speed thing I'm iffy on. As I posted before, I would also like to see speed infusion allow us to break the soft cap at least though. The passive increase would also leave us at the hard cap. Going beyond the hard cap seems like it would cause some problems. Someone I knew was able to exceed the hard cap using a green potion (so it seemed) and disconnected because of it. I don't know if it's because of his computer, or if the game won't allow for attacks to be too quick. What I'm trying to say is, I don't know if SI should break the hard cap.

@xaznninja @4kyosuke4

Without doing a complete overhaul of the class and energy systems, I do believe that xaznninja provides more realistic changes that would benefit us; not that they should be the only changes, but that his point of reference is a valuable one. I agree with most of the suggestions he's made, especially the fact that we attack so slowly even with both boosters.

Of the ideas I've presented so far, it seems that the simpler / more realistic changes that I've presented would be:

- Bypass damage cap by X amount when charged AND/OR charged skills have y more lines to make sure charged state is always relevant at cap;
- Add in a debuff system (I'd rather it be different than just additional damage, that also works for parties; for example: a stackable percent damage reduction reduction debuff that would obviously work on bosses; stacking would work like xaznninja suggested with the 5 seconds).

Two changes that are cool, fit our theme, but are still so-so would be the addition of downward mobility skill and the revive/second wind with full energy; maybe those additions are too much though.

Now that I think about it, I pretty much agree with everything xaznninja suggested. I'd rather not lose the extra FA lines from Nautilus, but perhaps the charged versions of skills could just have more lines compared to uncharged anyway as mentioned above. I'm not a fan of snatch, though it would perhaps see more use if we could use it mid-air or chain it somehow. Having Corkscrew work like the old bandit assaulter skill (using it mid-air and charging it up are optional) where it is just a dash and not push monsters would be a good compromise to keep Spiral assault as the main rush skill. Either way, this makes it so that we can use the rush to link skills and then rely on the dash instead for positioning. I think that we should pick between having Corkscrew as a dash or having backspin blow return so that we don't have an excessive number of skills that serve the same purpose.

That reminds me that the current Dash skill doesn't provide Corkscrew with additional damage. I've tried linking them and my damage doesn't increase. My first thought is that the Dash buff is cancelled before Corkscrew can be used, so it's never registered. Maybe that can be fixed, eh?

...yet again another long post.

@4kyosuke4 I am aware that it is pretty long but bear with me. I decided to brainstorm and let out all of my ideas on how I would change our class.
Basil wouldn't let me post it due to the length probably, therefore here is the GoogleDocs link to it. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jy8-s_6WIZSIAnNSZjeilTEGPJRwDDM9rE5E7fc51Fg/edit?usp=sharing

@4kyosuke4 After reading through the idea again, I realize that adding in the stats being changed with respect to energy stored doesn't work if we have to 'pop' the skill to obtain said passive buffs. In the case said above, if we don't charge significantly faster it would actually be a nerf. Three different fixes to the idea are:

- Ignore the whole proportionality thing, and keep it as full-buff / no buff (easy, and similar to what we have now);
OR
- Include proportionality all the time; allow passives to be had without 'popping' the charged state, and have the charged state be to simply alter skill damage % and animations (might seem odd, though it 'averages' our output over time relative to stat boosts);
OR
- Increase passive charged state buffs (or skill damage) to balance / counteract damage lost over 'powering down' compared to now (this would do the opposite: making us more bursty; I think we'd be able to be charged more frequently anyway though)

...now that I think about it, I'm not sure why I added in the whole 'powering down' idea to it. Maybe it just seemed more natural to me, rather than: "Oops, I ran outta super saiyan power now I'm weak". Powering up and instantly being stronger makes sense though for some reason.

I'm not really sure if we're intended to be a burst class or in it for the long haul; we just don't have that much control over our energy to be consistent in either of the two. It might be a good idea for that to be more clear by increasing / decreasing the stat differences between charged and uncharged (though nothing comparable to ultimatum rings, and not having no difference at all). I'm okay with changes as long as the average output doesn't suffer. With that said though, (the very few) capping Buccaneers may feel left behind since they don't experience the 'average output'; their low-end output is always their output, so consider increasing the damage cap in charged state (could also be proportional to energy if desired) to reflect that charged state should ALWAYS be better than not being charged. This way Nexon can decide: Buccaneers should be approximately y times more powerful (when capping?) in charged state.

ANYWAY, one other completely separate idea would be that if we die we could re-spawn with x energy (maybe 1/2 of max?) so that we don't feel like being stuck in a hole when we die. If this would be implemented WITH being able to 'pop' the charged state with an active skill, it would make sense from a 'revenge' or 'typical hero' sort of standpoint (hero loses fight, powers up, comes back and beats bad guy).

HEY, or even give us a revive skill instead that leaves us 'unconscious' for a few moments, then we come back fully charged and clock the boss in the face with our nonapunch (is it hendecapunch with the recent Nautilus buff?) : Instant typical television show scenario. It's perfect. Maybe we'd have to earn the revive somehow while unconscious, while our energy charges up as we earn the second wind... maybe having a key combination or spamming space bar or even something completely different. Obviously would have an associated cooldown.

At this point I'm just spouting ideas of adopting anime-cliches that would make sense for our class both utility-wise and lore / character-wise. Tell me what you think or if you think I should stop, haha.

@belzier: Well I've updated the post on reddit to show what you've suggested, hopefully people will see the edit, and respond to it. I think it's a pretty good way to balance the hyper. We wouldn't want to completely negate the way we currently charge, but also not make the new system too overpowered. I use the term overpowered loosely, we aren't that strong currently anyway, and this will not severely increase our damage, but will at least make us a bit more unique. Thank you for your input. Thank you @dabronxenigma as well, for sparking the idea.

@4kyosuke4 Keep in mind that standing still in a boss fight is super dangerous on it's own, we should be rewarded for our opportunism. Also, look at hypers such as Shadowers flip of the coin: it adds 50% crit chance (which is absurd), increases their cap, etc... I don't believe it to break anything if the current attacking charge rate is left the same. Making this a key-down charge without cooldown will also 'effectively' remove our limitations after dying, allowing us to actively charge up slightly quicker than attacking, as well as making sure we always have enough energy to get our hyper stacks.

I do suppose the trouble would be determining how long the charging could go on for, or if it can only be used when not currently charged. I'm not sure if it would be too powerful to be able to be charged for 100% of the time (being rewarded for balancing it), but I do have another idea regarding that:

- Stat boosts for being charged could be applied proportionally to the amount of energy we have (in 5% or 10% intervals);
- At 1/2 of our maximum energy capacity we can gain the full passive charged effects once activated;
- We press the 'class specialty skill' (the skill automatically at level 1 in second job, but made an active skill) to activate charged state and buffs;
- Once in charged state, skills and animations are changed normally as they are now to the upgraded versions;
- Once we go below 1/2 energy, our passive effects are reduced by the same proportionality;
- We cannot gain any more energy until our energy is completely depleted;
- Energy cannot be gained from attacks until 1-2 seconds after energy becomes depleted;
- Energy charging hyper (Stimulating Conversation?) goes on cooldown for 1 or 2 seconds when energy becomes depleted (stops people from charging for an instant then using a skill, then repeating);

- (OPTIONAL) If energy becomes maxed, automatically enter charged state;
- (OPTIONAL) Charged state can only be activated after gaining more than 'x' energy;

I've always tried to manage my energy the best I can. Additions like these can be added to make the game-play more dynamic where the player is rewarded for paying attention. It also allows us to DECIDE how much energy we think we might need, and let's us either take more time preparing for a longer engagement (rewarded by keeping max passive stats for 1/2 the time), or if we need our charged skills in a rush. Also, the passive effects being diminished with respect to energy left creates a more 'averaged' damage output, rather than our current huge damage fluctuation that's basically toggled with our charged state.

The two optional ones at the bottom aren't required, but may be effective for balancing and convenience reasons. Being able to enter charged state with simply 1 energy (though you wouldn't get any passive effects) might not be reasonable, and some people might not want to worry about the system just like Phantom's manual / auto judgement draw.

What do you think of this idea? I'm aware that this is a significant change, though I for one am looking for a more dynamic and less monotonous play-style.

@belzier: Off topic: I should have saved everything I said! I got an error when I sent a reply. Oh well lol.

My Buccaneer has 100% critical rate at the moment when bossing. We have naturally high critical chance, so it makes sense that we gain critical damage with Power Unity. I merely put that change into the post to see how many people would agree with it, and I'm glad to see a response to it.

Snatch was added into 3rd job as a way to bring enemies closer to Hedgehog Buster's range. A fix for losing the high critical rate on Hedgehog Buster may be to add it into the skill's description. Allow the skill to not only stun enemies, but also when it stuns enemies, crit rate is increased 60%. Snatch would probably become useless once we reached 4th job, which is why it can activate Pirate's Revenge. It's a much easier solution than we currently have regarding Pirate's Revenge, and with Dragon Strike lowering enemies damage, it's a lot safer as well.

While I'm a big fan of mobility and i-frames, because of the amount of % HP attacks which ignore invincibility (on most skills), I don't think this would help too much when bossing. When training it may be useful before 4th job. Feel free to disagree with me, none of this is set in stone yet.

Downward mobility would for sure help out in many situations, including Gollux. What if we add this ability to the Uppercut skill. When holding down while the uppercut skill is pressed you punch the ground instead of launching upward, and continue through platforms as long as the key is held. This sound good?

I had tried to keep Stun Mastery in my previous post by allowing it to stun bosses as well, the same way Paladins do. The feedback I received was more for the removal of the skill, and replace it with a more useful skill than changing it.

I, too, like those thoughts. We could probably add them into the full charge effect of some of our skills. Otherwise having them always activating may cause this change to be overlooked. No one says we can't try though. <3

Stimulating Conversation: Removal of cool down. In return, allow for energy charge while skill is held down. Passive Effect: 20% attack, 20% Boss ATT. Is this how we want to have the skill work? I'm sure they will only allow this change to be used while we're standing still. Hopefully the rate we charge isn't too bad either. Currently we charge at a decent rate, so to balance it, they will probably make the rate we charge pretty low, but I don't work for them so I don't know.

Thank you very much for your support and feedback! I hope at least some of these changes are considered, or show that the community isn't giving up on this class the way they seem to have.

@4kyosuke4 I'm for most of the changes you described except for two.

Currently my Buccaneer reaches 100% min ~ 118% max crit damage with our hyper stacks. I'm actually really proud of this, and the amazing thing about crit damage is that it is a constant multiplier; even if my damage range is low, my damage will always be doubled. It's a stat I actually work on getting as high as I can. I'd dislike to see the crit damage replaced with something that scales with range and also has diminishing returns; having high min and max crit damage is something that I see as being VERY unique in Maplestory, stat-wise.

I'm also not a big fan of snatch, and don't think that it works well with our current abilities other than hedgehog buster, but if you remove stun mastery, hedgehog buster will lose it's niche use of stunning normal monsters. We already have amazing horizontal range mobbing skills, and with a vertical mobility skill potentially being added, I see no point in vaccing monsters in front of us. I'd much rather have speedier mobility and i-frames / or a unique mobility that hasn't been seen before.

(SUPER-AFTER-THOUGHT: What about a skill that would give us DOWNWARD mobility? It could be a giant punch downward that would allow us to pass through platforms while the skill is held; the skill would continue once released and we'd continue until crashing into the next platform, then dealing an AOE 'shockwave' damage and / or causing knock-back on either side. It could be just straight down, but it could also be on an angle or even worked out to be at various angles depending on the characters current horizontal momentum.)

I'd rather see stuns reworked in the game (not very likely). If you do want to replace stun mastery though, it's been said quite a few times that adding a debuff system (maybe called 'bruising', or 'gouging', or something along the lines of causing a weakening / weak spot) to our attacks that could benefit others in party-play (either reducing enemy damage or 'status causing spell accuracy', party-piercing defenses, anything unique but NOT JUST slapping on flat additional damage) will make us more relevant than just SI mules that nobody needs because of DSI. I'd really like to see something like this happen, and for the debuff to work on bosses especially.

@dabronxenigma I see what you're doing. You wanna be able to power up for an episode instead of being stuck fighting for three. The solution I see here is to change Stimulating Conversation to from being skill with cooldown to one that can actively replenish energy, then just add the damage boost from the skill as an additional passive +20% damage when charged. That would be interesting to see, and it really might fit in well with the whole idea of the class.

@4kyosuke4 I want to be hopeful and support you in your pursuit to make some changes for us. Hopefully the big challenge of getting the developers to agree with your changes bears fruit sometime in the see-able future.

Sounds like great changes. But i was once pointed out to you about the energy system. Could there be a way to charge up without attacking. Like hold down a button and rapidly start charging up energy since charged up version octopunch has a much larger range.