Where did the Buccaneer class go?
Okay, yes, I know you can still technically make a Buccaneer, but... why? I don't mean to offend anyone who still enjoys the class - if you're loving the new direction they've taken with the class, more the power to you, but they have just lost so much that made them cool.
To be clear upfront, I am only recently back after leaving shortly after the release of Aran and I am yet to get a pirate to level 100, so for all I know these complaints could be unfounded (and, if they are, please let me know, as I will be extremely relieved), but prior to my departure, the Brawler class was my absolute favourite.
In first job, they were nothing special, the halfway between a warrior and an aspiring bandit. In second job, however, all that changed; they got corkscrew blow and backspin blow, allowing them to aggressively control mobs in a very involved way, spinning around constantly to make effective use of each skill. In third job, it got even better, with a super-sayian style transformation, a sort-of stance dance before they became commonplace, which was built upon in fourth job.
Now, all that was replaced with the energy system and, while they are no doubt stronger for it, I feel that they have lost almost everything that has made them unique, with Corkscrew Blow nerfed to a generic forward attack with a slight delay and second job training boiling down to spamming the new tornado skill; a generic line attack. Worse, third and fourth jobs no longer offer the fantastic Dragon Ball transformations, simply summoning the spirit for a handful of the attacks.
Does it get better? Do the next levels of energy allow you to still experience the transformations that made the Marauder and Buccaneer so interesting? Do we eventually get the mobbing skills that Corkscrew Blow and Backspin Blow offered? Please, let me know, as I want to love this class, but just can't at the moment. If my fears are realized, what was the "replacement" class for most Buccaneers, that offered similar involved gameplay, preferably with some kind of transformation to look forward to.
12 Comments • Newest first
@ackarred Oh, trust me, I'm aware of the homogenization and how Nexon is pretty incompetent. I give them a lot of well-deserved criticism, and I'm harsh because, time and time again, they've proven themselves to be incompetent in everything from glitch fixing, class balancing, class design, etc.
Big Bang didn't actually do much that was productive, to be honest. Unless I'm mistaken, our 'Big Bang'(I believe Pirates had their skill updates delayed for a while due to technical issues and the fact that it came out later in Korean MapleStory, whilst others had it come instantly) was the beginning of, well... making our class trash. It was the first step to the homogenization, and all in all it was a mistake by Nexon; the experience curve reduction was, in part, a mistake, but the bigger part was the fact that 90% of the content in the game became obsolete. Unless it's changed recently, a lot of the game's "flavor" has been reduced; places like Signapore, class-specific training spots, CrimsonWood Keep PQ(And the whole New Life City area, quite frankly), various Theme Dungeons(Both post and pre-Revamp), the Crossroads change from old Victoria Island, old Dojo... all in all, Big Bang gave you a faster catapult to the end-game, but pretty your effective options are far more limited, since effective grinding blows anything like quests, most PQ's(Ludi PQ and R&J are the only real PQs done, with the latter being grinding rather than completing) and most bossing out of the water. It didn't even DO that much for Buccaneers; we were STILL bad, even after our Reboot/Big Bang, which is another reason I don't believe in Nexon.
You don't need to rework every class to the core, though. You can have similar fundamentals, but different play-styles because of a different system. For example, in World of Warcraft different Mages have different play-styles; Arcane Mages want to burn their mana pool heavily in a certain way to maximize damage, whilst Frost Mages are somewhat more consistent in casting a basic rotation(That also excels at kiting people). Both play different, despite having the same in terms of 'fundamentals', which is pressing buttons. Nexon managed this with Mechanics compared to other Hurricane classes; Siege Mode was an interesting spin on them, and even if Mechanics were blatantly overpowered(Especially pre-4th job), their play-style differed because of their heavy summon-based method of dealing damage and their need to use those summons to make themselves more durable(Or to heal, or deal more damage, or to avoid attacks...) was a good spin. Nexon IS capable, I just don't think they're consistent in making updates like that often, and that's the problem; more often than not, they take the lazy route, and you can only do that so many times(And they've done it so many times) until it starts biting you. And we're long past that point.
@tricks122: You'll need to rework every single class to the core for 5th job to be a hit. That's what years of homogenization does to the game. What can you add to 5th job that has already been done already. Hyper Skills alone could have passed for 5th job. Every class needs to be fundamentally different with enough cookie cutter skills washed away. It'd be wishful thinking to believe Nexon had spent the several few years in silence working on it. We could use another Big Bang.
@apexalpha: I honestly forgot about them lol
Merchanics dont seem to give me the yarrr harr harr feel of a pirate though
@tubring22: What about mechanics?
@amin45678 Well, if you talk about skill names/animations, we still have Corkscrew Blow, Energy Blast(Somewhat different animation though?), Energy Charge, Somersault Kick, along with the skills you mentioned. We also have the laughable passive of Stun Mastery, which somehow STILL exists in its current state and has, ironically, remained mostly unchanged despite it being arguably one of the WORST skills in our arsenal for a long while. Bonus points to Shockwave skill existing; that thing has never been a good skill/option, and it was poorly designed from the start.
Off the top of my head, the problems are they butchered most of the original skills. Corkscrew Blow has zero utility. Energy Blast isn't useful anymore due to how Buccaneer Blast and Dragon Strike beat it out in the air or on the ground respectively. Somersault Kick has some use, but only because it was given invincibility frames(Which is okay in my book; having a 'dodge' key is fine, but it's a small upside). It isn't even a matter of removing the skills themselves; it makes 'sense' to remove Demolition and Snatch if you're going to remove Transformation states(I have no idea why Shockwave wasn't removed either). It doesn't make sense to severely gimp our mobility beyond Flash Jump(Or 'Octopush' ) by removing Corkscrew Blow and Backspin Blow; sure, Spiral Assault is a replacement, but its functionality is much different and it lacks a lot of character. That and the whole 'half summon' aspect they went for with the Transformation sprite is kind of dumb; the whole point of the Transformation state was that you were incredibly strong and went beyond your normal limits. There's no sense of that now, because even in an ideal situation with Buccaneers(5 on Dice and max Power Unity stacks), they aren't amazing. They lack that 'oomph' that a Buccaneer had when they popped Super Transformation and started using Demolition.
I have little hope for 5th job. As I said before, I don't follow updates before they come to MapleStory(As in, to Global Maple), but just based on how much homogenization is in classes now... it doesn't fill me with much hope for another 'level' of skills when they haven't bothered to make many unique changes in some time, since even Hayato and Thunder Breakers have cookie-cutter mobility skills at their disposal. Other games with fewer classes manage to make them unique through various interesting resource systems(Like Energy and Super Transformation were) or through the method classes use to actually attack(Such as old Arans and Thunder Breakers, who need finesse to work well). That's just not very prominent in anything but end-game bossing(And even then, I'd say most of the challenge isn't playing your class well so much as playing the fight itself well, because with similar mobility/defense tools the same fight tactics transfer to many classes, with different attack ranges being the primary difference)... so if Nexon can BARELY manage to make classes unique at the highest level of play, I've got no reason to assume they can even try to make the AVERAGE 5th job class even remotely unique.
I hate what they've done with the class. As @tricks122 said, they remove and change all these things and offer nothing decent to replace it. Rather than attempting to rebalance the old skills, they straight up removed 95% of them (assuming the only original skills left are Dragon Strike, Time Leap, and Speed Infusion) and replaced them with the generic cookie cutter shhht you see all over the place. It's why I sometimes hop on some private servers.
And I'm not looking forward to 5th job with much anticipation, considering what they've done already. And like the guy above me said, I wouldn't be surprised if they gave us something similar to Shadow Partner. No wait, they might even give that to everyone. It's not like they think much before making drastic changes anyway.
RIP Buccs. Play a TB or cannoneer instead if you want a pirate class.
I wouldn't count on Buccaneers getting better. If Nexon designed a skillset that at least partway restored Buccs to their former glory, they would probably give it to some new class instead (see: Hayato, Thunder Breaker and now Blaster too). I wouldn't put my hopes on 5th job either. The only thing you can look forward to as a Buccaneer main is being shafted for all eternity.
@tricks122: Oh boy, I can already imagine Nexon giving Buccs a Shadow Partner for their 5th job.
Nexon is HORRIBLE at balancing. They really don't understand how to balance classes without making them cookie-cutter versions of one another, such as via Flash Jump. Nexon can't really make a hard-hitting, short duration power spike class like old Buccaneers balanced; they just don't possess the knowledge, or effort, to do so. Buccaneers have had the SAME problems through multiple revamps, and Nexon is incredibly slow/poor at fixing them, whilst destroying the soul of the class.
They've done the same thing to a lot of classes. Bandits lost Assaulter, Band of Thieves and Savage Blow, a lot of interesting skills got simplified(For example, our loss of Barrel, Aran's much easier combo generation, 100% Stance as a norm for most melee classes...). Most classes have similar versions of cookie-cutter mobility skills, along with similar ways to survive(Percent based damage in and of itself is somewhat poorly designed and makes it difficult for durable classes to be, well, DURABLE). A lot of Nexon's changes were also completely unneeded, such as those to Corkscrew/Backspin Blow. All in all... the game has taken a different direction, and Nexon managed to destroy a lot of what kept classes unique, because balancing cookie-cutter classes with similar fast attacks is better than ensuring that fast attackers(Bowmasters with Hurricane, Night Lords) could compete with hard-hitting classes with large down-time(Buccaneers, Arans to some degree). Nexon chose the 'make classes more similar' route, which led to, well... boring classes.
Some changes were needed. Invincibility Frames were problematic to the game's overall design, but they could've been changed to give damage resistance while active instead. Or attacks could hit through them(But others could be avoided). Even way back when, several mobs or bosses could Seal you while you were in the middle of Demolition/Barrage, whilst others couldn't; this was because the way the seal was applied(Via an area of effect of via an actual attack) made a difference. It's just a far different direction.
Anyways, that's a bit of a rant. Long-story short, @piana is right; Thunder Breakers and Hayato play more like old-Buccaneers. They rely on chaining skills together rather than spamming a single one, and a lot of their skills have utility(Such as mobility for themselves, for mobs or vastly different hit-boxes). I don't tend to follow updates before they come to MapleStory, but any combo-based class with a lot of utility will hopefully resemble old Buccaneers. It's just a shame that, in time, they might be destroyed because Nexon can't be bothered to balance them properly.
@arbitorian: It's probably going to be released sometime next month (hopefully). I'm actually looking forward to it myself, even if it means ditching explorers.
Side note: their dash is actually something you charge up, so Blaster seems like a Bucc rework done right.
Actually, the Blaster does look pretty interesting, but just to be clear, it is an unreleased class, right?
Blaster is actually the closest to old school Bucc from what I've seen, especially since they have skills that function similarly to CB/BB.