Decades ago, many people, myself included, sat at our PCs, looking through the character creation screen at all the different classes we could make in Maplestory, checking youtube videos to see skills, and deciding which one we would invest our time and possibly even large amounts of money into. For some of us, that decision was Kanna. A character who fires off very large ghosts that hit rapidly, warping all around the map, farming extremely well and using multiple "FMA" attacks. Ones that would be affected by CD reset. A stat that felt absolutely worth investing in for our Kanna's.
Taiwan thieves reworked our class recently and I don't think it's a controversial take to say, this is not at all what we chose in character creation. It is very opposite of what this class once was. When you create a class, you can't always expect it to remain the exact same over 13 years. Changes need to be made, sometimes your class is too good at farming and has to lose part of what makes it so strong at farming so that others aren't forced to all play it to. That makes sense. It however does not make sense to take a strong, low effort farm character and make them bad at farming, and requiring of a lot more effort to achieve far worse results.
Because of this, I have 3 things to ask be changed about Kanna to make her more comfortable to play, and more in line with what players picked as many as 13 years ago.
First Soul-Shatter Talisman:Dance is one of the worst basic attacks in the game, now that wouldn't be that big of a problem if not for the fact that Kanna used to have one of the best basic attacks in the game (In this context, a basic attack is an ability with no CD, that can be spammed by the user) It's arguable that a few "Hurricane" style basic attacks were better than Shikigami Haunting, but not much else was comparable. It makes no sense to take away such a class defining ability to replace it with absolute trash.
Please bring back Shikigami Haunting to replace Soul-Shatter Talisman:Dance.
Below I will share an image of my old Shikigami Haunting, before 6th Job, as well as my post-6th job Soul Shatter Talisman:Dance. If 1 of them is 6th job, it should probably do more damage and yet, it is not even close. Shikigami Haunting used to hit 3 times in the time it takes to even get out 1 Soul Shatter Talisman:Dance. (not counting the stand still and hold, which does increase speed, but isn't how the moves are generally used when farming) The 3 hits of Shikigami Haunting that go off in the time of 1 Soul Shatter Talisman:Dance equal at 5th job, 3840%. Soul Shatter Talisman:Dance equals a total of 1704%. You could double that, and it still hits less than Shikigami Haunting, but it's made worse by the fact that the move also doesn't hit as much area as Shikigami Haunting. Shikigami Haunting was a large ghost attack that nearly covered the entire 1 side of a screen. It is insane that something so core to this class was taken away and replaced with something so bad.
The next change I would like to request in the next rework is to bring back Exorcist's Charm. A lot of times when I'm farming on the new Kanna, I run into this issue. Tengu and Orochi are on CD, and Yaksha is on the field, but moving so slowly that she's at the left of the map and I'm at the right surrounded by mobs. If I press my basic attack, I tickle like 3/11 of them. So I try to cast one of Yaksha's skills and she uses it where she is. Now if I had only held down before pressing the skill, it would have caused Yaksha to warp to me and then cast the skill, but I've spent years playing an effortlessly amazing class like Kanna. Holding down before pressing a skill is an insane ask of someone who used to win by showing up. I used to play a powerhouse unrivaled and now my character can't do anything without a summon, all of which have fairly low availability. How am I supposed to keep a map cleared when the summons and their skills unaffected by CD reset or summon duration, are constantly on CD or worse lagging behind me where the map is less populated.
The worst part is Exorcist Charm was replaced. It wasn't just scrapped like the rest of my class was, it was a second job skill with a low CD, replaced by a new second job skill with a low CD. That other skill that replaced it is horrible. Evil's End Talisman is a uniquely bad skill, because unlike most characters who gain useful skills that lose relevance as they get newer skills. Evil's End Talisman is completely not worth binding from the start. There isn't a single Kanna using this skill because it's actually the worst attack in the game. I asked some people who know the game, to show me 1 skill worse than Evil's End Talisman, in the end only 1 skill was found that rivaled it. A new Hayato skill that is ever so slightly better because of it's lower CD. Still the only skill to rival this one in awfulness is from the same terrible update.
So why not
replace the current second job skill Evil's End Talisman, with the old second job skill Exorcist's Charm. It was a lot more useable and added a lot of comfort to the character, and that's what's missing right now. This character is so uncomfortable to play. It's high effort but it doesn't have the effectiveness to justify it. It feels like it was made to intentionally suck at what it used to excel at. Here is an image of the 2 skills side by side. But that's not all, he is also an image of the Dual Blades basic attack. To truly sell how awful Evil's End Talisman is, here is it compared to a skill that has the same animation, and hit box, but comes out faster and does more damage, while not having a CD.
Now let's add context. Bloody Storm is a third job skill used as a basic attack for a Dual Blade it does 795%, and shares the exact same animation and hitbox as Evil's End Talisman. It has no cooldown as is normal for a basic attack, but it also boosts some other skills damage. Blade Fury is the 4th Job Basic Attack and the one that serves as the primary attack for Dual Blade from this point forward, it does 1250% damage and does both slashes instantly with no CD and an additional 20% Ignore Defense. Evil's End Talisman, is just a clone of these skills, but it's animation is slowed, so that both slashes come out 1 at a time. (Why the mage Kanna is slashing anything I have no idea) It does 1080% damage. This means this 8 second CD skill is a weaker version of a skill that Dual Blades spam endlessly. It's not even that good of a basic attack, it doesn't compare to old Kanna's Shikigami Haunting. Still even though Evil's End Talisman manages to deal more damage than Bloody Storm, it is still arguably weaker than it on 2 different grounds.
So please, replace Evil's End Talisman with Exorcist's Charm. Why should we lose such a huge source of comfort, and functionality, just to get a skill as bad as Evil's End Talisman. THE WORST SKILL IN THE GAME.
Lastly, I'd like to ask that Kanna be able to lock summon skills to make them cast on her. Earlier I mentioned how if you hold down, and press a Yaksha skill, it will warp the Yaksha to you before it casts the skill. This is a high effort maneuver and not exactly a viable option during 2+ hour farming sessions. If we could lock the 2 active skills used by Yaksha to make them always cast at Kanna's location, it'd make the class feel a lot more comfortable, and that's a big issue for her right now, this is the most uncomfortable class in the game right now, and I've played Demon Avenger.
Comments
Kanna really should be a support and eliminating this destroys her core identity.
Now she is just going to be a forgotten job with no support skills and her gameplay being warped entirely to something players never signed up for.
Hayato they did a better job because it was a glow up with majour quality of life improvements and a much better dash, but Hayato is still Hayato.
They also did not take a support and forced him to be a damage dealer, he went from being a damage dealer to being a damage dealer.
Talisman Dance feels a lot weaker on my Kanna in Cernium since it is not a good skill to mob with while back then using Haunting at the same mobs prove more effective and I was able to kill them faster. The only thing good I can think of Talisman Dance is hits below the character. Hitting goes above only requires a standard jump while attacking and hitting the mobs on the floor doesnt need you be down there. Even if the skill kept is hitbox and just inherited Haunting's numbers, it could be an improvement even though it has lower horizontal range for more of a vertical range.
Evil End Talisman is another terrible skill. So weak and has a long cooldown that hits what? There are no boost nodes or HEXA version of it so it will never grow past the 180% x 6 DMG. Didn't even bother assigning to my keyboard either. Heart-Wreak in 4th job fill its role as a large AOE attack with the added debuffs when Kanna attacks but 30 seconds is too long. Even other skills such as Hero Puncture that debuffs is spammabe. If this skill was spammable, it would be excellent for mobbing for Kanna when using her summons isn't an option or her target boss missed and she has to debuff it again. This skill can "evolve" off the existing Evil-Ends by having it be introduced as a weaker version in 2nd job and have it reach its enpowered stage at 4th Job and pull state at 6th job. This is similar to how Soul Shattering goes from Scores >> Icon >> Spirit >> Dance. Evil End's could follow Evil's End >> Heart-Wreak using Heart-Wreck as the hitbox and damage for the beginning stages.
Yes. It would be nice to have a command to input the down command version of each skill so it plays like a regular class casting regular skills at that location. I had the Command Skills on the right side of my keyboard since it where I put my long cooldown skills, but I found it was bad since I won't be able to use them with the arrows so they are all clumped in the left corner of the keyboard. One of my streamer friends Kyo was also suggesting the ability to just station the Shikigami at key points around the map similar to how Mechanic places his summons or just like placing Erda Found and Sol Janus.
Also as another skill change. Make Peacock's Plumage Passive with a minor INT Boost. IDK why some Grandis classes and Hayato still need to have their boosters as an active skill