Many games struggle with balance. This is an unavoidable fate that having 22 classes with multiple specializations is inevitably going to produce. MMORPG's can amplify this feeling of imbalance, because unlike a MOBA, you can’t simply put down the class you’ve invested time and money on and pick up whatever is flavor of the month without making major sacrifices. These sacrifices come in many forms. Monetarily, the cost to swap to another class is a substantial amount if you feel the need to grab weight for potions or desire anonymity with a ghillie. Most players consider these to be necessities. In the form of time, hours a player has spent on a class could eventually net them an extremely unrewarding experience in terms of end-game PVP. Throughout the history of BDO, especially in Siege or Node War, there has always reigned a “top dog.” Ranger’s descending current, Wizard’s meat ball, Witch’s kit post-protection overhaul, Guardian’s succession 100% spam, and Berserker’s succession 200% spam were all considered to be the driving forces in large scale PVP at the top level. While varying in duration, all these metas eventually came to pass due to nerfs, buffs, or complete mechanic changes so far. Except for one.

The top 4 guilds in NA’s Siege/Nodewar scene all consist of above 50% of their members either maining or tagging a Wizard to utilize its succession. Many of you probably watch a few streamers who have joined, or are in, a siege guild that have tagged a Wizard simply out of necessity. Class diversity has never been lower in the history of this game if you look at end-game PVP. Prior to Wizard’s succession, you could argue that awakened Witch or Wizard were just as sought after. Those classes were significantly weaker in every form of PVP outside of largescale. The meta has reached the point where Wizard with its succession no longer has an exploitable weakness where its predecessor once did.

For nearly an entire year, the Wizard’s succession has reigned supreme in end-game group PVP content. This is due to various reasons. The first I’ll discuss is the big PVP damage rebalance patch that Pearl Abyss put on Global Labs shortly after Guardian’s release. The initial patch was basically a blanket reduction in damage for many of the most oppressive classes, with Wizard’s succession being one of the hardest hit by it. Public outcry led to Pearl Abyss walking the patch back and instead buffing the damage of classes and producing the one-shot meta that we’ve had since. This damage issue was only magnified even further by the class-to-class ratio changes that were introduced later. The damage problem unsurprisingly got even worse once they allowed every class to put whatever armor piercing concoction of add-ons they could come up with on any skill they wanted. This resulted in the meta that has allowed Wizard’s succession to sit comfortably at the top for nearly 12 months consecutively. Pearl Abyss has stated they don’t intend to nerf Wizard’s succession but instead bring other classes up to that level. This is mechanically impossible, and I’ll explain why.

The potency of ranged damage was never the complaint in large scale PVP after the brief stint Archer had before being nerfed into obscurity. Sacha, GM of BlackRose, was well known for his awakened Witch Sage’s Teleport Meteor engages. The purpose of this was to CC a large group of people and have his guild play off his CC. Inevitably, Sacha would be trading his life for the engage. There in lied the tradeoff. The issue with Wizard’s succession currently is largely rooted in their ranged skills, with meteor being the biggest offender. Not only do they have CC and protection on nearly every ranged skill they cycle, they also do such an immense amount of damage that the class can be played almost completely ranged with great success. There isn’t a tradeoff.

Introducing split teleport to the mix is where the class truly ascends to tomfoolery. Once the gaps been closed by most melee classes a Wizard will iframe away (if the servers allow it.) The melee then must close the gap once again while most likely having caught a slow by any of Wizard’s lightning skills. At this point, the Wizard can use any combination of Magical evasion, Earthquake, and Earth’s response to buy time for one of their teleports to come up again. Split teleport is also used for the most potent large scale engage in the game currently. Teleporting forward, casting a meteor, and then following up on their own meteor with a melee range burst comparable to that of the strongest melee class in the game is something old awakened mages only dreamt of. It probably should’ve stayed a dream.

While having the most powerful offensive kit in the game, Wizard’s succession still retains all the support spells its less overloaded predecessor had. Rabam heal, Healing lighthouse, and Protected area have been the staples of support throughout BDO’s history. Many considered the recent nerf to Protected area to be a significant nerf to Wizard’s succession. It turns out it was the complete opposite. The class which can set up its own engage and then follow up on it benefits greatly from the opposing ball not being to give themselves 999 DP as a counter. Melee super-armor classes relied heavily on Protected area as the only viable way to play melee in Siege and Nodes above 50v50.

The ranged meta is currently painfully unrewarding to play in as any melee class for anything outside of small scale. I hope that Pearl Abyss can look at the state of end-game PVP and try to give up on achieving the impossible task that is bringing classes strength up to Wizard’s succession. With 22 beautifully crafted kits being in the game, it’ll be a day long overdue when everyone can finally go back to the class they mained before this balance nightmare began.

One thing I want say is PA response that is "We don't seek to nerf wizard, we aim to buff all classes to wizard power." Is what called PR BS. Why cause they made that statement almost over a year ago now an haven't buff any class once. In fact non wizard classes have actually received nerfs in the past year not buffs. So ya that statement was just PR BS to please as many users as they could an nothing more cause it been almost a year now an were exactly are the buffs they mentioned?

A few other things that really put succ wiz over the top from my experience is...

Instant cast-The biggest issue with it is that cast time is time where you can be cc'd.Without cast time their is nearly no gap to be cc'd making them nearly immune to cc's while attacking.

Their faster skills allow them to cast 2-3 skills for every 1 of an awaken caster.That not only results in alot more damage but also gives them a much better chance to cc the enemy in between gaps and also allows them to stack more addon and skill debuffs on enemies in a short time such as slow debuff stacking.

No transitioning - the witchard has always had one of the best non awaken kits in the game due to its support skills.Awaken staffies needed to transition to use support skills including rabams which makes using them much more risky and needs mindfullness vs much faster,less risk succ version.Being able to use the non awaken support kit on the go is a huge boost for them.

Forward Gaurd- With succ wiz they was also given a nice FG rotation that awaken never had allowing them to nuke you without being melted through SA while also due to instant cast having a near seamless SA rotation as well if they have enemies behind them.

Very Noob friendly- With no need to transition and being able to spam skills just by pressing F,with all skills being protected with very little protection gap it causes even new players playing it with little experience to have huge success and be very competitive by just spamming skills with F and teleporting.Most classes with enough skill and experience can perform on the level of succ wiz but this kind of power even in the hands of new players with little skill and experience is pretty devastating.