I main a level 202 BW. I initially started a random Cygnus Knight to get the Empress Blessing but unfortunately or not, I received gifts on that character and ended up going all out and deciding this class was/is going to be my main.
I enjoy it for the most part, but there are a few problems. Firstly, the class has been nerfed. Orbital Inferno's CD has increased and I was hoping that there were methods to reduce skill cooldowns that are effective like Orbital Inferno. Apparently, the skill cooldown cap/limit/effect has been changed? But there are no official patch notes that I am able to find...
Being able to lower the cooldown to 2 seconds with either potential, inner ability, nebullites, etc. seems like a reasonable and balanced option. If not, there are ways around this. i.e. If a legendary hat was the only way to get up to -4 or -5 seconds on skills, make it a legendary weapon only potential. That way it's class restricted and not every class has access to cooldown reduction. Indeed some classes would be broken if allowed to spam a 5 second skill without any cooldown at all. But shaving 2 seconds off of 100, 90 or 30 is... not noticeable. Not effective. Worthless for a legendary hat-only stat line. It would be valuable if certain base 5 second CD skills were able to be lowered to 2 seconds. You wouldn't even have to change the coding of weapons or anything, just the cooldown limit of the class's skill itself. So if let's say a piece of gear has -5 seconds skill cooldown and you have a base 5 second CD skill, the skill will say "Max cooldown reduction limit: Down to a minimum 2 seconds", so 3 of those 5 seconds would be applied.
From level 10-250, Blaze Wizard's kit revolves around 80-90% Orbital Flame. 5% Blazing Extinction up until Orbital Inferno. 5% rest of skills, excluding buffs as they don't count.
- Cataclysm is interesting but has a very long CD. 100 seconds could be shortened to 45, or even 30. Damage-wise, it's barely mediocre. For a screen-wide blast of fire, it doesn't actually do that much damage. Either reduce the CD or make the skill better. Increase AOE, damage, max enemies hit & let the skill match the visuals. If I one shot 12 mobs, the blast of fire still lingers & visually touches new mobs that spawn. Fire is fire. It should continuously burn until or do damage until the visuals disappear. It's very weird seeing huge swaths of flame seemingly burn mobs but not actually doing so.
- Dragon Blaze is the Hyper bossing skill and also has a very long CD. 90 seconds could also be shorted to 45 or 30. Its damage is slightly above mediocre. The length of time you can hold it down for should be extended to 5 seconds and knockback resistance should go up to 100% so you don't get knocked away using your main, long-butt CD of a boss skill.
- Towering Inferno is... mediocre because the damage/range/aoe is equivalent or less than to that of spamming long ranged Orbital Flames, with a 30 second cooldown. This could be shortened to 15, or even 10 seconds.
- Blazing Extinction could use a little range extension given the cast delay and maps with platforms that are ever so slightly too high for the Orbital Flame to reach . It's fairly good, but later on, casting it becomes a waste of time and you're better off spamming Orbital Flame and buffing as necessary. If and when Hyper Skills get another update, I'm thinking that there should be an option to send out two Blazing Extinctions, one in the direction your character is facing and one in the opposite. This would help with mobbing as again, casting it is a waste of time unless you're doing something else (like playing an app on your phone) while pushing a button in one spot every 5 seconds. Or it could work similarly to buffs/skills that require a mode/directional arrow key to decide how you want it to be used. Left key for Blazing Extinctions on opposite sides and Right key for Two Blazing Extinctions in front of you, making it actually useful for bossing. Instead of trying to cast it while you die, dealing less damage than you would have if you just spammed Orbital Flame. Also... get rid of Blazing Extinction's cast time? It's a very large drawback when used during mobbing or bossing as that's when the game actually gets hard. It's one of your main skills that shouldn't be left behind.
- His other 2nd/3rd job advancement damage dealing skills are in a viable place. Like most other classes, better versions of those skills or better skills in general will replace their role.
- If you notice the trend, almost every skill that should be somewhat useful isn't, mostly because too much emphasis is placed on Orbital Flame.
The reason why this class is so popular for botting/hacking is because this class's strength lies in 80-90% Orbital Flame.
High ping/latency & lag spikes are more frequent now. Hackers get 0 delay and can spam Orbital Flames 50 times a second all over the map. They only use the ground buff & occasionally I'll see a hacker that throws in a Blazing Extinction macro that's part of their bot. This class literally screams "USE ME FOR HACKING". Shift some of the power from Orbital Flame back into the other skills. Open up more options on how to play this class (and perhaps all classes). If certain potentials are broken on certain classes, come up with a balanced way to restrict abilities or a new system that incorporates more options of versatility. Maybe instead of transferring the strength from Orbital Flame to the rest of BW's skills, make the rest of his skills equally as effective by reducing their base cooldowns as well as their maximum (or minimum?) cooldown reduction limit. If Orbital Inferno (5th job skill) is able to be used every 2 seconds with upgrades from gear/abilities, that would make BW a solid class that doesn't scream over powered.
I believe this is fair, as I can compare this class to Kanna since I've been playing with a friend who mains a Kanna (level 210).
Kanna's damage is inflated, but still greatly outranges a BW.
Kanna has a very sought after skill... increases spawn rate, which in turn increases item/drop rate, exp rate, daily-quest completion rate, monster collection rate, etc.
On top of this, they have higher damage map clears with bigger aoe that have shorter cooldowns than BW's giant butt Cataclysm. That doesn't make any sense in combination with their god-given skill that people pay 400 mil an hour for. Three map clears that are spammable in succession? OK.... Meanwhile as a BW, I have to learn how to dash around everywhere, switch the directions my character is facing while shooting Orbital Flames up down left right & the occasional Orbital Inferno/Cataclysm/Towering Inferno.
With both of us having 2x Event, 2x Coupon (Cash Shop), 2x coupon (Buff) & occasional Runes, his Kanna was leveling at 8x time the rate I was, literally. It was not very inspiring for me to continue playing this class but I wanted to be amazed by the 5th job and I still hope that in the future, BW will come back in the top 10 classes with some much needed improvements to his kit.
Right now BW sits at:
Mobbing: B (Once funded, I'd say A-)
Bossing: C+ (Once Orbital Inferno is gained, B+)
Defense: C+ (Drains excessive amounts of mana... and more mana...)
Mobility: B- (Dashes + Orbital Flame are useful to hop across specific maps but get really when maps are more vertical based and platforms are stacked above each other. BW doesn't really have an effective/fast way of moving upwards and diagonally. He either goes hard horizontal or hard vertical.)
So overall, this class is sitting at a C+ as it doesn't really excel in any category as classes should.
Whereas Kanna sits at:
Mobbing: SS
Bossing: A+
Defense: C
Mobility: B
This class excels at mobbing in every way, additional spawn rate, additional drop rate, high damage short cooldown map clears and multiple of them. Underrated at bossing due to it being a newer class. Gives superbs buffs that can be used on all party mages instead of being restricted to Cygnus Knights. Essentially doubles damage range. Sits at a solid A, perhaps even an A+ - S given that one ridiculous ability.
Any feedback/criticisms on my suggestions/feedback is very welcome.
Comments
Be aware that Orbital flame is nearly considered a 3 line mobbing hurricane and that this class has around 85% final damage, which can be increased upwards by 6% more (combat orders+ +1 passive inner ability) since 1 of the skills that gives final damage is a FOURTH job skill. Their 5th orbital flame works similar to Cannoneer's 5th job skill which allows it to hit a single boss about 3-7 times as long as it's out and depending on the size of the boss.
The class sits right in the middle at 18/whatever classes kms has without the latest 2 classes. I'm not sure if you know but Blaze Wizard is a bossing class not a mobbing one, so it's obvious kanna would out level your blaze wizard but kanna is trash at bossing while Blaze Wizard is world class
as long as you don't die.The only flaw is their low survivability due to super high MP consumption which you pointed out, but nothing else. 1 hit consumes 80% damage * 1.5x*1.2x more mp. All classes (except Jett; Damn you nexon) should have 0 delay flash jumping so while you jump you can throw orbitals on your way up/across a map.
I gave out a few suggestions, one was to transfer some of the strength over to his other skills, rework his kit or make the rest of skills actually effective enough to use.
You're not seeing the point made here. If BW's damage output is strengthened by hacking and weakened because of lag or delay, then why would you leave the class in that state? It's not like hackers are going anywhere any time soon. They are part of the game. They help fund Nexon. So if hackers are going to reap in the rewards, then give us legitimate Blaze Wizards something to stand on.
Yeah, damage per minute charts are a useful reference but they don't take into account everything and I don't know the methodology behind it. From experienced players, friends and guildmates, Kanna is one of the best bossers. Probably sitting equal to or better than a Blaze Wizard.
But for a bossing class, BW is not very spectacular.
They sit at 18/whatever classes for bossing, but they sit even lower when it comes to mobbing, mobility & defense.
Kanna itself isn't a good "bosser" at all, but it is probably the best support, because of Haku buff and that the bind nerf didn't touch its two 20 second binds.
As for DPM charts, don't ever take them seriously. They're highly unrepresentative of a class's damage, since it tests them in unrealistically ideal conditions that you will never see in game. Some classes are even only judged by what they can do in the uptime of some of their cooldown buffs/skills. It's been shown over and over again that these charts are inaccurate and yet people still believe them far more than a "general guideline".
Deciding if BW is bad or good based on a DPM chart is a horrible idea if that influenced this thread at all. Besides, if these charts were accurate, 18 isn't that bad. It's about right in the middle. Also heard Orbital Flame's ability to attack in different directions is a great advantage the class has over others.
To help alleviate the ping dependency, I'd suggest changing orbital flame into a full keydown skill to work more like actual hurricanes instead of staying a "spam button" skill. Although there are the complications that it would make attack speed irrelevant, for better or worse.
I'm sad that they increased Orbital Inferno's CD from 3 seconds to 5 seconds to 8 seconds.... almost triple the length.
I've been playing with a Kanna/friend and he's a better bosser than BW because of those binds & increase in damage range. That's what I was saying. They're fun-charts that test out how much damage a class can dish out on a stationary non-offensive target. It is an interesting skill and yeah those are probably one of the advantages. The disadvantage is that it feels really really terrible when there's a 1-2 second delay trying to shoot these things out. Gotta mash the button at least 3 times before one comes out and then continue mashing. Meanwhile all these hackers get freeeeebies (but since I'm lvl 202 now it's not as bad) but watching them go ham with one spell that works half-assedly with legitimate use is not motivating. It's not like Cataclysm or Dragon Blaze are ridiculously broken anyways. Like... Kanna has 3 map wipes that can be used in repeated succession. 100 seconds for Cataclysm.
I'm not sure what you mean by actual hurricanes. Like shooting multiple out at once in a whirlwind around you? Attack speed doesn't affect BW unfortunately. At least, that's what I've been told.