Hi everyone,
Before starting on the topic, I want to say this is might not be pleasant for every player, but I feel it's necessary to take actions about Kanna party buffs before 5th job hit GMS with the new damage cap. These suggestions don't only affect game balancing, but they will also help to prevent game abuses and encourage better behaviors in a team perspective.
What skills are affected with these suggestions? Why? What should we do?
1. Haku's Blessing
Haku casts a spell to increase Magic Defense by 400 and Magic Attack by 50% of the equipped fan's Attack Power for 40 sec.
Why?
This is a skill that works on party members, but only mages can take advantage off. This skill wasn't buffing party member when Kanna got released and it should have stayed like that I believe. Considering Kanna has low damage % skills and few passive buffs to increase overall Kanna damage output, the Haku blessing is justified on Kanna to balance their damage. For people who don't know how this skill works, here's a simple explanation: Kanna uses 2 fans, one for her and one for her pet Haku. The base magic attack on the Haku fan is taken and divided by 2 to finally represent how much % magic attack the Haku's blessing gives. Simply, 200 magic attack Haku fan would give 100% magic attack buff to Kanna and her party members. Take note %boss potential is no considered on Haku Fan for the Kanna damage output.
Mages already have their skill balances when they are alone, without any outside help. This mean you should expect to see few damage differences over time between mages with similar funding. Kanna has to use the huge % magic attack buff from Haku's Blessing to reach herself to the other mages damage potential. But, it's unfair for Kanna and all other non mages classes to give such a significant damage boost to all other mages. We can see already some impacts in the game where boss parties consist of one Kanna with a lot of mages to have a higher damage output than any other possible bossing party. This lead to people to dislike non mage classes when it comes to take down new/hard bosses.
Finally, I have seen few players, including hackers, to use a Kanna mule to buff their mage character to have a significant damage boost when it comes to training/grinding. The buff is so high that their mage character can have access to higher level zones faster or to efficiently clear the map without any effort to find/get/make equips.
What should we do?
I propose three options, where you can vote in the poll bellow. Haku's Blessing shouldn't affect other players (mostly mage) because the skill is a part of the Kanna damage output balancing. One argument to keep the current buff as it is would be Kanna encourages party play. Kanna has already other utilities for party play, such as Blossom Barrier, Bellflower Barrier, Falling Sakura and two binding skills. If we want to encourage party play without giving unfair advantages in term of damage, I would recommend to change back Haku's Blessing buff to only affect Kanna and to share Haku Foxfire instead on each party member. I believe it's the most fair choice for Kanna and other non mages classes, but we could also include all classes to benefit of Haku's Blessing with a really small pourcentage (scaling or fixed) of the total amount gained of % magic attack from the Haku fan.
2. Bellflower Barrier
Summons a magical barrier to strengthen you and party members against boss monsters.
Why?
Bellflower Barrier hyperskill "Cooldown Cutter" reduces the cooldown of the skill by 100%. This means people can use Bellflower Barrier when ever they want without any limit. We, the community and I, found people abusing this skill in towns and lobbies with the only goal to make people lag and/or disconnect. If we look at other classes with similar summons, they can only cast one unique summon at time. Also, for people who doesn't want to turn completely off the skill transparency of other players, the skill BellFlower Barrier can block the view and can be really annoying.
What should we do?
I propose to fix a limit of one Bellflower Barrier per Kanna in the map. I believe Kanna players should place their summon in a strategic place for party members to gain the extra %boss effect. Currently, players are putting many Bellflower Barrier in the map, which is unfair for other classes with summons to not be able to do that. Also, we should encourage strategic gameplay in a team instead of being able to abuse the fact there is no limit and you play brain dead during a party fight.
Annex:
Haku Foxfire
Haku summons 3 foxfires for 60 sec.Has a 50% chance to nullify magic. Reflects 1600% of damage. Every 2 attacks defended against uses up 1 fire.
Edit: Option 2 in the poll: word "casted" should be "cast".
Comments
You do not want that casted on you.
Furthermore, right now it's also part of the "reflect skill + ignore damage potential = HACK dc" bug. Who knows when that will be fixed?
Haku's blessing benefiting only mages is fine. Maybe it needs number tweaks for how much damage it boosts mages because the removal of damage cap, but it's quite a nice niche.
The barrier, all I can say, use transparancy skills. The barrier shouldn't be limited to just 1 place on a map. The barrier is too small for it in boss fights like magnus and empress where the boss moves around or even Lotus or Damien. So limiting this skill is not justified, since it will hurt Kanna's and their party's too much. Spamming this skill aint that easy, since you limited on your mana and after a certain time the barrier will be gone again.
I wouldn't make Foxfire a buff for the party, since its bugged right now part of the "reflect skill + ignore damage potential = HACK dc" bug. Who knows when that will be fixed? (credits to Akradian)
Haku's Blessing wasn't a party buff in the first place and Kanna has already a lot of utilities for party play. It's not necessary to replace the Haku's Blessing with a new party buff, but I did offer options to do so.
Barrier visual effect can be changed with skill transparency to see what's going on in the map. The issue with the skill is how people can lag because of the number of barrier sprite (each summon/barrier = 1 sprite). Almost all summons in the game can have only 1 unique active summon at time, unless the skill description says otherwise. Corsair and Mechanics are two classes that can have 2-3 of the same summon at the same time. Barrier gives 45% boss with the hyper skill and I believe you should position yourself with your party members in the map to take advantage of the effect and not be able to just spam it everywhere. If needed, Nexon could reduce the amount of MANA necessary to cast the barrier. Finally, we can be less strict about the barrier limit and set it up to maximum 3 per Kanna in the same map.