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[QoL Suggestions] Warrior - Hero
I just wanted to jot down some ideas I had for the class since it's my favorite and only main character in the game.
Panic - Coma has gone through a lot of changes and transformed into the Puncture we know and love now, but it's gone through several iterations of patches whereas Panic has remained almost the exact same for the last 5+(?) years with the only change being how blind formula works. Here are my observations on the following:
- Panic's range - Panic's range blows, let's not kid ourselves. You swing and it looks like the tip of your sword hits but now you're just doing 20% less FD. This leads into other points I wanted to talk about.
- Panic's attack speed - Panic is the equivalent of a normal poke's range with a DrK's spear sweep recovery time. This is not cool.
- Panic's damage - The damage is hyper lackluster as a finisher past 4th job; it does less than both Puncture and Raging Blow and Shout and so has little value to an attacking arsenal
- Panic's orb deduction formula - I think the original purpose of increasing orb penalties was supposedly to penalize spamming a strong finisher by increasing the number of orbs needed from 2->3->4->5->...etc, but the only time you really need to re-apply Panic is when you miss due to the sheer lack of range on the skill.
- Panic's PURPOSE - A user posted a damage analysis on Youtube regarding whether Puncture was viable or not whilst soloing bosses here, which I feel ultimately led to Puncture dropping from 4 orbs to 1 orb consumed because it took away from DPS and utility of the skill. Panic is about as useful as pre-patch Puncture because it has less damage utility; it's real purpose was originally to lower accuracy pre-BB (which didn't work, Panic blind-induced enemies still had 100% of their original hit rate). After Chance Attack was introduced into the Hero skillset, it's primary purpose changed to increasing DPS by 25%.
I'd like to see some work done on one of two things for Panic:
- Please consider taking away the orb deduction formula and increasing the range. Both these suggested changes imply improvement in general DPS for the class and thus less annoyance over a very finicky skill that has poor usage utility in late game bosses due to the difficulty of the hitbox being so short. Since the 4 orb penalty was lifted from Puncture, I see no reason why it can't be lifted for Panic as well.
- Consider reworking Panic from an active to a passive skill. This is the change I'd really like to see because Panic is only feasible as a bossing skill; during training it should never see the light of day since it has no range and no damage. Both Puncture and Shout have purpose in that their hitboxes span higher than Raging Blow's for some vertical range. Again due to the sheer slowness, orb penalty, and range of Panic, bossing utility is still a tough argument to make. If you Panic were to be turned into passive that doesn't take orbs away and has a set % proc for darkness, you essentially eliminate all the penalties that I've mentioned: training viability, less clunky skills to maintain DPS, good range, greater bossing viability, aligns with DPSing purposes (no lost orbs, strong multiplier maintenance). Of any changes I suggest across this post, I want to reiterate this as being the point I feel most strongly about.
Rising Rage - I only really request maybe some iframes while the skill is cast. It would certainly help with survivability since Hero does struggle with that a lot. Otherwise I would consider
Self Recovery - I know every Hero I've talked to has had a complaint about this skill during late game at some point in their lives. Is 1500 HP every 4 seconds even useful for anything anymore? If anything can we consider changing this to every 2 seconds or changing the set HP amount to % or both?
Pet Sword AKA Sword of Burning Soul - I like the idea of giving us a turret because there really isn't much to the theme of a Hero beyond swinging a sword around. But I think one of the reasons why training as a Hero goes so painfully slow is because of the lack of map coverage we had prior to 5th job. Pet sword offers some compromise to this, but the limitation to how far away you can walk really limits the value of using the 5th job skill while training. Can we consider removing the range before it auto returns to you? It would really help with training at large maps or leaving your turret at a strong spawning point while you walk around and do things.
There are other things I want to nitpick but these are the points I think would really help improve QoL for the Hero class. Note that nothing is directly related to damage value increase on skills as I think that point is very close to perfection regarding how frequently Nexon updates skill values. I think they do enough testing on raw DPS that Hero damage is exactly where it needs to be. These are all points I'm highlighting because of how clunky Hero can come across during training and bossing.
Comments
If Panic costs less orbs and cast time, and especially if it becomes a passive, that instantly translates into higher DPM.
I can see making its range a little longer, because some bosses are truly difficult to come within arms' reach of. That would still raise DPM, but mostly for those Heroes with less-than-perfect control who waste a lot of time and orbs trying to land Panic on a boss. The "ideal" Hero player, for whom the balancing is done, would not gain that much DPM from this.
As for Burning Soul Blade, I would love for it to become a proper installed summon, like some classes get in 3rd or 4th. But it obviously isn't just about QoL. A change like that would make some bossing way easier (Gollux summons being the perfect example), and would hugely increase mobbing (and therefore leveling) speed. Being able to leave your Blade to clear half a map, while you kill the other half, pretty much doubles your kill rate (for the duration of the Blade's uptime).
Self recovery is a problem, although arguably it is intended to offset Hero's high damage. The "Glass Cannon" thing. Lacking both avoidability and self-recovery might be a little much, I agree. However, again, changing this goes beyond QoL. As things stand, a Hero must watch their HP and waste attacking time trying to avoid getting hit until they recover or potion cooldown ends. Given a better tanking ability, a Hero would be spending more time attacking - so, again, higher DPM.
Note that I'm not against your suggested changes. As a Hero main I'd love to get all these improvements. But I don't kid myself that they'd leave the class balance where it currently is.
I think you're exaggerating the use of Pet Sword install for half a map. The ideal example for study is CLP since most people will be there 230-250 for the time being. Setting up a sword in the center will yield half of one platform and half of another platform, maybe 2/3s of one. In any map larger than this the amount of space you can cover can really only increase by the number of enemies you the actual Hero can hit and caps relatively quickly. I don't think it ends up doubling your kill rate, but as it stands the kill rate would increase by a factor greater than one for sure. It also mitigates against accidental mistakes if you accidentally stray too far and the sword resets, which ends up being either a waste of time to set up again or a loss of space control to not set it up again.
I'm not sure what "leave the class where it currently is" really translates to. In my mind it sounds like you expect them to shoot up in the DPM charts or something (we've already held #6 on the KMS chart for a year with one reveal at #10, does it really matter to try and take a higher position?) when it's phrased like that, but I stand by the idea that these are pure QoL changes; making it easier to inflict a necessary status debuff every 80 seconds and not screw up turret positioning and healing more sound like good suggested changes to me. I think what it comes down to is there are other classes that need more balancing than us, but I definitely think these changes should be up in the air for eventual consideration
All the changes you suggested would make bossing and mobbing faster and end up with more damage inflicted per hour. There's no way around that.
You yourself are saying that you don't want to waste time and orbs reapplying debuffs - that means you want to be doing damage in that time, and at full orbs. How do you not see that this is more damage, over all?
CLP is only used because it's a small map that many classes can destroy while standing in one spot. If the Blade let you move away from it, then a map twice or three times as big would be the ideal training location.
If you feel that way about Panic being redrafted, then all the things I've mentioned - Panic, RRage, Self Recovery, Pet Sword - would still not improve DPM. Likening Panic to down + Combo Fury, missing it would do the exact same amount of harm to a Hero's DPS/M because of loss of positioning and downtime. You are correct that a QoL change to allow mapping for down + Combo Fury would not affect the overall DPS/M of a Hero based on mechanics of skill, but also keep in mind that it does not deduct from orb FD% to begin with; it still doesn't make sense to increase the penalty for repeated use, and all I'm implying is that turning the skill into a passive solves all clunkiness issues related to the skill.
Maybe I haven't run into enough competition at CLP to have an opinion, but I feel like extendable turret and summon and FMA classes would be able to do all map variations of training even better than Hero, no? They still choose to train at CLP, but they aren't limited by skill set to small maps whereas Hero still is