-Explanation:
This whole list of ideas should be implemented on purpose to considerably increase the time having All Together! Critter Crossing!, this Lv190 Hyper Skill added in the patch v.214 – Rise of the Guardian. Since the previous revamp last summer, in 2019, some Beast Tamer players have noticed how their client visual damage didn’t fit with bosses HP being known, but other players could see their real damage. Because sharing passives from other animal modes than the one being currently used, which wasn’t intended, some main players realized that it was the kind of stats that have to be kept, it’s needed on balance purpose. With this v.214 patch, this bug no longer occur so Beast Tamer are back at doing very low damage in long run if we can compare this class damage to more supportive classes. Me, thrakkes as a main Hero player and who already had to play a Shade as secondary main, who also played several classes to upgrade my Legion higher and following KMS DPM chart closely, depending of bossing situation. I also know a player who mains it since day 1, he can say a lot about the class. I really think that Beast Tamer class deservers a greater revamp.
In this list of ideas, I tried so hard to think how the class has to be revamped without doing broken damage like we had prior v.214 patch with passive sharing bug, so I had to considerably decrease a lot of sources of %Ignore Enemy Defense plus removing some of them. I have also thought of the concept Beast Tamer with many right ways of play it, depending of play styles we want to give it. Let’s say a player want be more supportive and with our current amount of SP, we can manage playing 3 animal modes efficiently at most, not more, by using Bear/Snow Leopard/Cat or using Bear/Hawk/Cat. Then a player want to play more offensively by using Bear/Snow Leopard/Hawk set up. By definition of balance, playing supportive has to deal less damage than offensive. This is what I did by playing with some Leopard and Hawk passive skills, relocating some of them on very last skills of their branches. By doing this, playing Cat mode while still using Bear for bossing, there will be no way of getting passive skills from both modes unless playing Snow Leopard/Hawk/Cat which none of them are good for bossing. Hawk may have potential being a decent bosser, but not as great as Bear mode.
Now, there are several skills that I suggest adding more number of attacks especially Bear and Cat modes, I also touched Hawk Formation Attack. I am trying to incorporate Fishy Slap in bossing, but it won’t be able tanking damage or moving so it’s very risky to use, but I try to give it a really good burst of damage.
As for Leopard mode, if all these ideas are implemented for a greater hyper skill duration, then the extra %damage gained on Lethal Lai and Leopard’s Roar from where they were prior patch v.214, respectively 20% and 10%. Moving a portion of some leopard passives to very late hawk skills is done so Bear/XXXX/Cat, same goes for Hawk passive skills.
Then, Cat mode was really hard to give it a fair balance especially when using buffs then switching back to Bear mode for DPS. I wanted suggest moving Cat’s Claw farther in tree so there will be no way to benefit from this skill if we want play the offensive built. I also gave a cooldown on Meow Heal since Bishop Heal also has a cooldown. I gave Purr Zone a better HP recovery for late game players that exceed 55,000 HP. I am also trying to buff a little more Meow Card and Gold Card by giving additional buff to Blue Card and additional chance of obtaining Gold Card.
For 5th job now, several Beast Tamer players have asked for the skill Champ Charge to be revamped because it lacks of number of attacks and %damage, making it useless, so I tried to revamp it to be more worthfull using. Giving a buff at Bear Special Attack may be a nice touch, but maybe it should be limited to more %final damage. The class also misses so many useful Boosted Nodes.
Beginner tab or other:
1- Receiving quest to get Maple Alliance Skill (Lv75+)
2- Allow certain skills Master Level to be surpassed with Combat Order/Decent Combat Order/+1 All Passive Skill Level inner ability, nothing else.
3-Give Beast Tamer the skill Echo once Lv200 like every other classes
Bear:
-Paw Swipe + Furious Strike:
Changing system so we are not forced to keep tapping, we should now hold the key instead. It might not be doable if we must press on Attack command, so it may be better to drag Paw Swipe skill icon into key setting to make this easier if anything.
-Paw Swipe: First 3 hits, Damage:
420 > 210% and Number of Attack:
1 > 2
-Furious Strike: Extra Paw Swipe Damage:
+100% > +50% due to increase of Number of Attack. Damage:
450% > 420%
-Majestic Trumpet: Add mention of Cooldown Time: 5 seconds
-Fort Follow-Up: Additional Damage:
825% > 415%; Number of Attack:
1 > 2. Change activation rate for 25% chance to trigger to avoid some potential bug.
-Defense Ignorance: Passive %IED:
30% > 20%. Attack Speed passive:
+2 > +3
-Li’l Fort: Bear Damage:
1900% > 640% Adding mention of Number of Attack on description. Number of Attack:
1>3. Change Duration so it can be affected by %Summon Duration. Bear Duration:
60seconds > 70 seconds. Icon on top of screen should be shown to show Bear Duration left.
-Bear Assault: Remove Passive Enemy DEF Ignored of 20% to apply the change on Defense Ignorance.
Remove the %damage buff.
-Fishy Slap: Damage:
660% > 410% Number of Attack:
1 > 5
-Table Flip: Number of Attack:
8 > 12
Snow Leopard:
-Macho Dance: Enlarge the skill hit box to match a little more the diagonal movement. Adjust its damage to be similar to Macho Slam.
-Bro Attack: Level 1: Summon Chance:
1% > 6% and Level 15: Summon Chance:
15% > 20%. Cooldown removal, anyways it hits 0 second cooldown at max level and skill duration is way longer.
Reducing attacks interval a bit or make them hit stronger unless we get Boosted Node of this skill. If reducing attacks interval, we can decrease the baby leopard duration to 25-30 seconds.
-Deadly Fangs: % Final Damage:
20% > 15%
-Lethal Lai: Built in Enemy DEF Ignored removed as we already have a high source of the stat from Leopard Reflexes, so unnecessary.
-Leopard Reflexes: Decrease %Ignore Enemy DEF from
60% to 30% and adding
10%critical damage which came from Eka Express.
Bird:
-Formation Attack: Increase range by 15% and number of monster hits:
3> 5. Be able to jump while casting. (See hyper skill section)
-Eka Express:
Removing passive 10% critical damage being relocated into Leopard Reflexes.
-Max Mobility: Remove 30% Ignore Enemy Defense
-Regroup: Increase
20%>30% Ignore Enemy Defense
-Raptor Talons: Cooldown removal because it has 0 second cooldown at max level, so possibility to put the skill in pet auto buff.
-Feather Boots: Add %Final Damage:
15%
-Tornado Flight: Mentioning number of hits. Number of Attack:
4 > 8, Damage:
800% > 400%
Cat:
-Friendly Launcher: Damage
800% > 215% and 4th hit delivering final blow Damage
1600% > 430%. Number of Attack on every hits including final blow:
1 > 5.
Make it so we no longer need to smash the attack command in order to deal second, third and final blow!!!! Just by holding! If needed, put a system which resets hits count after stop attacking for 3 seconds.
-Meow Heal: Add cooldown of
3 seconds. Put maximum recovery to 60-70% when lower players in the range.
-Cat’s Claw: The skill must be moved after Friendly Launcher – Enhance (see explanation section) Critical Damage:
10% > 8%
-Purr Zone: %Critical Rate has to affect the skill periodical damage (DoT). Change Heal Recovery to be
5% HP periodically. Increase cooldown from
15 to 30 seconds. Damage:
1000% > 600% Number of Attack:
1>6 Damage over time should remains the same as activation.
-Meow Card: Red Card= Damage buff:
40% > 25% Blue Card= Add
5%Critical Damage, +50 all stats and +30 w.att/m.att
-Gold Card: Increase chance to obtain all Meow Card effects:
30% > 70%
-Cat’s Cradle Blitzkrieg: %Critical Rate has to affect the skill periodical damage (DoT) being dealt by party members hit.
Possibility to add Bind effect, Bind duration: 10 seconds. Decrease Skill Duration from
12 to 10 seconds.
This skill should work similar to Shade bind skill.
Hyper Skill:
-
IMPORTANT!!! Highly suggested!!! Lv190 hyper = All Together! Critter Crossing! : Summons all of the animal spirits at the sound of Chase’s strong, magical whistle.
Lv1: MP Cost: 1000, Duration:
60 >120 seconds. Skill applies all of passive and buff skills with a few exceptions, regardless of the mode. Only skills with SP invested will be kept and all buffs will disappear when this skill ends. Remove Cooldown (HIGHLY Suggested, look at explanation above) or at least put
60 seconds cooldown.
-REMOVED Formation Attack: Spread due to additional number of monster on original skill
-NEW Formation Attack: Extra Strike: Number of Attacks: +1 or whatever it may take to get closer to Bear DPS including Bear Assault, but not equal, giving people option bossing with Bird mode.
5th job + Boosted Nodes:
5th job:
-Champ Charge: Since the buff in August 2019, with so many skills being changed for better overall DPM increase, this skill no longer does enough damage to be comparable with Furious Strike and some other skills.
I think that all this skill should be casted by holding the skill rather than tapping. It will stop if release the skill. Give possibility of Bear Special Attack to give short duration of buff for extra burst. Increase Attack speed of casting animation slightly, because it takes around 6 seconds to select special attack then casting all attacks. Do something so the character will keep facing to same direction after selecting animal, so we won’t miss hit.
Level 25: Add effect: While channeling this skill, damage taken from enemy attacks (including attacks that deal a fixed percent of damage) are reduced by 50%! Give possibility of Bear Special Attack to give short duration of buff for extra burst.
-Lai: -Normal Attack= Number of Attack:
3 > 8 Damage:
750% > 1100%
-Special Attack= Number of Attack:
6 > 10 Damage:
700% > 1200%
-Fort: -Normal Attack= Number of Attack:
2 > 8
-Special Attack= “First hit” Number of Attack:
3 > 12
“Second Hit” Number of Attack:
8 > 15 Damage:
750% > 1200%
When selecting Fort as Special Attack, every Bear attack skills following the last hit will see number of attacks doubled for 10 seconds, can’t go further than maximum # attack being 15.
-Eka: -Normal Attack= Damage:
325% > 800%
-Special Attack= Number of Attack:
10 > 12 Damage:
350% > 950%
-Arby: -Normal Attack= Number of Attack:
1 > 8 Damage:
1300% > 750%
-Special Attack= Number of Attack:
4 > 8 Damage:
600% > 850%
When selecting Arby on Cat Mode, doubles the Tree buff duration.
-Aerial Relief: Level 25: periodically attacks 34 times, Damage: 900% >600% Number of Attack: 8 > 12 (or either 720% skill damage and 10 attacks). Maybe not changing it at all.
Boosted Nodes:
-Deep Breath: Now Really Deep Breath will be affected, should affect both skills
-REMOVED Really Deep Breath because being affected by boosted Deep Breath
-NEW Majestic Trumpet to replace Boosted Really Deep Breath
-Thunder Dash: Add mention of Advanced Thunder Dash. Fix bug which only Thunder Trail is affected by the boosted node if at least 1 SP is applied into Advanced Thunder Dash
-Add Bro Attack node or include it into an existing Snow Leopard Node, ideally Party Time?
-Add Purr Zone node, make it affecting initial hit and DoT.
-Add Cat’s Cradle Blitzkrieg node, make it affecting initial and extra DoT damage coming from party member hits
Special Notes, how to improve game play/bug list:
-Allow us to hold Paw Swipe so we can keep swing Furious Strike instead of tapping nonstop. Make sure that we are still able to slightly move while spamming Furious Strike.
-Giving Invincibility Time from moment Aerial Relief starts dealing damage, so a while after it starts being casted, allowing player to move freely, maybe 1 second duration. It can already ignore physical damage on whole casting duration.
- Bug:
-Attack Speed going from stage 2 to stage 1 not affecting most skills including Furious Strike (I actually made bug report ticket to Nexon with a video I uploaded)
-The skill Thunder Dash is replaced by Advanced Thunder Dash, but the cooldown of the skill is not shown in the quick slot after using it. The kill Advanced Thunder Dash is not affected by Thunder Dash boosted node.
-Sometimes, a player can get softlocked when using Meow Card too quickly after switching to cat mode and switching back to another animal mode.
What do you guys think of all these changes? This sould be made in condition of having 100%uptime on the Lv190 hyper skill because the passives from all the modes are needed.
Comments
Here if you guys want see comparaison of passive stats from other mode than Bear between each built, with 100% uptime hyper skill. With Bear as main mode of course:
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/559450035033604097/724314188855640104/unknown.png
I also posted this forum link on Reddit to bring more attention:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Maplestory/comments/hdblcc/beast_tamer_revamp_ideas_with_100_uptime_on_lv190/
For Cat mode:
- Instead of debuffing red card and buffing blue card in that way, the red card should stay the same and blue card replaced with -%dmg taken (instead of +def). It would make more sense with the intention of the card.
- I disagree with adding CD on Meow Heal unless it doesn't need to be perfectly aimed (AOE instead of pixel-perfect-straight-line) and usable while jumping. Having no cooldown on it allows us to try again as hitting other players with it is really difficult in its current state (since players are rarely where we see them due to ping)
- Purr Zone dmg would be too high with 6 lines of 600%. That skill should focus more on the healing, so making it 5%hp/s makes sense. I suggest this more balanced alternative: DoT: 3x 600% dmg/s, Heal: 5%hp/s, CD and Uptime remain the current one (30/22). Allowing to have 2 of them on the field for 8 seconds actually matters and would allow for your suggested 6x 600% dmg, for only 8 seconds at a time. This would make it more balanced and more useful, as long as they are stackable.
For Bird mode:
Yes to everything and I would add the following:
- Baby Bombers: remove cooldown or change to 2seconds. Fly mode is useless without it, even if defensive formation always attacks. The trade-off is terrible. (Also fix the bug where Baby Bombers literally does nothing)
For Bear mode:
Yes to all. That would make it much more playable. Also, I would suggest reducing cast time on Table Flip.
For Leopard mode:
Yes to all, no further suggestions for it.
Again, this really hinges on the 190 hyper skill being %100 uptime.
I hope this class gets these fixes that it deserves.
While passive stacking was in error, the fact that Nexon came back and codified in an ability that performed essentially the same effect tells me they are at least vaguely aware of BTs need for it. Otherwise, we would have gotten just another Epic Adventure skill.
This change makes BT very unresponsive to funding, requiring significantly more investment from the player to reach the same level of play as other classes. While there may be the odd one or two individuals that are happy playing the class in the current state, it seems that the majority are not.
One note before I get any further, I am not a Beast Tamer main. My understanding of all the mechanics and playstyles is therefore limited and there are more skilled players out there that might be able to articulate better ideas.
BT suffers from an identity crisis because the developer is trying to make a single class act like four. Where all other classes in the game have 4 jobs that build off each other, allowing them to get stronger, Beast Tamer’s animals act independently. While it gives BT some unique versatility, it hampers them from excelling because the critter modes don’t interact with each other and the modes skill trees are not large or powerful enough to deal with the lack of cohesion. The lack of skill points available only exacerbates the issue.
I believe it makes sense for Beast Tamer’s animal companions to work together and passive stacking seems like a good way to do this.
The easiest way to go about this would be to modify the new hyper skill to something like the following:
All Together! Critter Crossing!: (Req. Lv. 190) Temporarily summons all of the animal spirits at the sound of Chase’s strong, magical whistle.
Lv. 1: MP Cost: 1000, Duration: 60 seconds. Skill applies all buff skills with a few exceptions, regardless of the mode. Only skills with SP invested will be kept and all buffs will disappear when this skill ends. Cooldown: 180 seconds.
Passive: All animal mode passive skills are applied regardless of mode.
The active effect mainly targets Cat and Hawk modes due to Leopard and Bear not having active buffs.
Now, while this much is simple, looking at the possible shared passives/buffs we can see that the total amount BT gets stats looking pretty absurd, and yet only that level of base stats got BT to a level playing field with other classes.
Here what I calculated as BT’s combined base stats would be, in Bear Assault but minus Gold Card. I'm sure there are some errors but it should be close enough to demonstrate things.
Secondary Stat: 90
Crit Rate: 198
Crit Damage: 85
% Max HP: 205
% Max MP: 83
FLAT M/ATT: 415
% M/ATT: 31
Damage: 35
Boss Damage: 63
IED: 92.97536
Final Damage: 40
Much of those stats came in the v206 skill update where many passive buffs were tacked on haphazardly to skills, particularly in Hawk mode.
Thrakkes is suggesting some changes to the damage of many of BT’s skills, most of which fall in line with the more recent KMS patch that decreased the %damage of skills but increased the lines. If BT does get updated damage formulas, some of the passives are going to need to be toned down.
Eka in particular needs some work, many of the skills seemed to be filler due to the devs trying to have the same number of skills for each critter but a lack of ideas on what to make. Cat mode is also nearly as underwhelming, but I don't have many ideas on what to do with the mode outside of a full revamp and that would end up changing how the mode balances with the others.
Assuming my version of Critter Crossing where to be implemented here are some balance changes I think would be necessary.
These changes are of course contingent on the damage output for Beast Tamers skill also being raised to a reasonable level, and enough skill points to max all trees being available. Certain other skills in BT’s kit could have their Max SP reduced as well. But, otherwise, I think this nicely distributes the passives between classes and doesn’t overload any one. Lots of work needs to be done on BT to get it to a respectable level, and I do hope that Nexon makes improvements soon rather than later, but until then mine will probably be benched.
Apparently, what certain players told me is the bug was GMS exclusive. Is it true? idk.
I have highly suggested 100% use of Whistle so a Beast Tamer can have passives from other animal modes permanently and having these big stats at very end of each branch. So as suggested, I don't touch Feather boots and I reallocate the 10% crit damage Eka Express into one of the last passives of Leopard. Razor Break is a buff that gives magic attack. None of BT skill has to be removed, only reallocate certain stats like I did. I only added more lines to the skills that deals 1 line mostly, a bit more on Table Flip and Tornado Flight as well. For 100% uptime of the hyper skill, I also had to considerably nerf the amount of %Ignore Def. The main goal of my list here is to give players any choice of playstyle by maxing up to 3 animal skills (ideally with +All Skills Level sources). Built of attacker or supporter and I still have to rework Bird mode so it can be a potential attacker. Then can we get all combinaisons possible. Bear/Leopard/Bird, Bear/Leopard/Cat, Bear/Bird/Cat and Leopard/Bird/Cat.
also bear needs 100% stance why the .... is it still 95%
Also the fort brave passive skill has no difference between lvl 19 and 20
So part of my goal in removing skills was to free up SP so that players can max all modes. I could have just asked for more SP or reduced SP costs to match the logic in the v209 patch and with other classes as a whole. When we look back Here at the v206 patch notes. we can see just how bad those skills were initially and so making major changes isn't unwarranted. Moving the crit damage to Razor Beak was actually intentional to give BT a stronger support skill in Hawk mode and to further emphasize the active effect of my altered Critter Crossing. If Nexon were to leave the SP the same and force players to choose, more skills in both Hawk and Cat would need significant boosts or likely entirely news effects, not just to increase damage but to make those modes and seem focused are parties not a hindrance.
Since I removed Feather Cloak in my previous example, in this instance the skill could be reworked to provide a defensive ability.
I am not asking a huge rework, so I think that maxing all animal skills is too much. However, a good thing that should be done is to adjust every animal trees to unlock their last skills with 180 SP. Right now, Bear Table Flip and Leopard Party Time can be unlocked with 190 SP then Bird Tornado Flight and Cat cradle are unlocked with 170 SP. As for %crit damage, Cat mode already provides 10% crit damage from skill Cat Claw, no need to add some into Razor Beak since it already gives a buff of magic attack.
The fact that Nexon wants to force us choosing animals makes the class very unique. Ability to make our own playstyle. Now I only need to manage how boosting Formation Attack damage so it can be a viable option for bossing. I have seen a redditer who wished playing Leopard/Bird/Cat because Bear seemed pretty boring. I don't think it would be Nexon intention to make Hawk full support. Just a class like Hero as example who is an attacker class has Rage as support buff, only gives weapon attack and can also give a debuff from Puncture which if party member does critical hit on that monster, it deals additional 10%damage.
Well, our opinions are going to differ on how the class should be handled. I disagree with the idea that we shouldn't be able to max every mode, and while you and others enjoy that uniqueness, to me it has had a negative impact on the class.
I do realize that Cat's Claws provides 10% crit damage. Again, in my version where Feather Boots was removed, the crit damage from that skill was reallocated to Razor Beak, providing a great support skill and adding a bigger buff to the active effect of Critter Crossing. There is no more crit damage than we have currently and though I could have reduced the amount to better align with Cat, I didn't feel it was necessary especially when compared to something like Sharp Eyes. This doesn't make Hawk solely a support mode, but it does improve its support ability. Hawks abilities overall are rather poor and Nexon itself doesn't seem to have a clear idea of what they want its focus to be.
Time to start calling every balance patch change a "revamp"