For easier reading: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ViRbEQYByWsqzTv2YOXb5cr-UZKy78rA0T5tVVgo-7o/edit?usp=sharing

To no one's surprise, tonight's Global Lab server patch contained a nerf to Dark Knight's Prime: Kama Slash. It was abundantly clear that the skill was overloaded to the point the rest of Succession Dark Knight's kit became extremely underused while still having several other tools to utilize. The class will likely reach a point where a second CC is needed to secure a kill, and this significantly increases their time to kill. Prime: Kama Slash produced an issue where the skill was a low-risk high-reward in most scenarios it was cast regardless of the user's intention. If the DK failed to CC the opponent, the DK still did a significant chunk of free back modified damage at nearly 0 risk. If the DK did CC the player, they were knocked down and effectively dead. There is an inherent issue with skills being extremely low risk while offering far too much regardless of the outcome. After the reworks it's clear many of these likely should be scaled back, or some of the effects of these skills should be placed elsewhere in the kit to expand options situationally.

An example of this is Musa's Searing Slam. A super armor skill that does moderate damage and applies a -15% attack/move speed slow when it doesn't CC, while being a 6 second cooldown. This seems like quite a potent skill. Once you combine that with the fact that the skill also provides an egregiously oversized AoE knock down, while still being a 6 second cooldown, you'd think maybe too much of the kit's strength is funneled into one button. Searing Slam then being combined with Dash Slash, providing two knock downs in a fully awakened combo, allows the class to kill at nearly any gear. This is again, against, nearly any gear. As many of our beloved adventurers have likely experienced, when a Musa can kill a large portion of the game off a single CC provided by a large AoE that slows, damages, and knocks down the opponent on a 6 second cooldown, Musa’s follow up damage becomes absurdly high. One would think maybe the skill could instead be changed to a bound. Searing Slam is an example of a skill that keeps Musa in a position above all others in his role. Meanwhile, there are also examples of skills that make classes perform below their similar class peers.

Awakened Guardian has one of, if not, the simplest designs of any class in BDO while only being rivaled by Awakened Mages. In PVP, the class reduces itself down to 4 effective skills in the Awakening state while not under the effect of the super armor provided for 10 seconds when using her E buff. Those 4 skills are Cleansing Flame, God Incinerator, Dragon’s Maw, and the trusty Infernal Nemesis. I’ll use Cleansing Flame as an example of poor design for the current state of the game. Cleansing Flame acts as Guardian’s 3rd highest damaging skill in their kit behind God Incinerator and Dragon’s Maw (fully charged). It also is extremely mid-range, provides super armor, and applies a -20 AP debuff for 10 seconds, alongside a -20% attack/move speed slow for 10 seconds just for connecting with a player. The skill also has the ability to float nearly the Guardian’s entire screen, while, you guessed it, also being a 6 second cooldown. Even with complete lack of functionality changes to Guardian, the class, regardless of statistical buffs, remains completely unplayed. The class simply has too much power funneled into too few skills. This makes it impossible to balance without being far too strong at very low risk if it has statistics that are too Guardian favored, such as reverting back to the original class-to-class damage ratios, or too weak if left to explode to ranged damage in the duration of a single, arguably slow, skill cast. The slow on the passive could be completely removed, and instead the power could be invested elsewhere into more interactive and skill expressive functionalities for the class.

The power creep of this game has produced the least interactive neutral game, in any scale, that this game has ever seen. Adding more risk to the game and comprehending that being ranged should be considered a protection is a move that seemingly was once sought after by the game’s design team, and I hope is ventured toward again. Whether it was due to pandering to inexperienced players begging for unneeded buffs for their classes, or simply a misunderstanding and over reliance on pure number-based data, it’s pleasing to see them reel one of their changes back in within a 6-month period. I hope that this trend continues as classes are periodically reassessed.

All of my previous discussions were related to skills looked at in a vacuum, but there is a plethora more that are used far more frequently than the ones listed so far, but the idea maintains the same. Large scale is an amalgam of undeniably gatekeeping mechanics that will eternally keep the pool of viable large-scale classes extremely low.

Ranged damage exists in every video game. But similarly to those skills stated above, many of these classes’ ranged skills have an absorbent amount of power linked to extremely low risk skills, with an imbalance that far exceeds everything that’s been listed prior. Many adventurers likely hold the opinion that being ranged is not an effective protection simply because in the current state of the game, reworks made classes too fast and close gaps in far too short of a time to safely range. Fair. Anecdotally, I’m sure everyone has a story of an Awakened Nova flying in off screen and obliterating them in a stiff. Looking even a single tier below in movement capability, Musa and Maehwa have the protection and raw damage to kill a fully super armor ranged class kiting backwards while isolated if they have the stamina to do prior to the scenario presenting itself, sometimes. This is where the line gets drawn. Skilled rangers are capable of kiting and using a questionably intended mechanic called “hit stunning” from their movement skill Blasting Gust to create a movement gap that even a renowned “rat” class cannot overcome if spotted approaching. The retreat from a failed attempt at an engagement also becomes impossible because of the hit stun making the player’s character non-functional. This is where the “sometimes” comes from. This mechanic is one of many that render the large majority of super armor based melee classes ineffective if they’re not moving at legitimate light speed. Once the ranged class travels back in their ball and is surrounded by the rest of their guild, your options to contest as an individual player return to zero, which is completely as it should be.

When an Archer isn’t sliding across Serendia and turning heads with its beautiful flowing movement, it’s laying down massively crippling ranged damage that can easily 100-0 some of the tankiest classes standing. Although none of their skills are necessarily too stacked in terms of effects and options covered in a single button, the raw amount of damage that Marked Bloom outputs while on and off cooldown, especially with E buff activated, is potentially too high for the speed and commitment required animation wise in comparison to even Ranger’s skills. Grand Bloom is another skill that offers widespread coverage of damage at very little risk, and effectively with very little information on what’s in front of the Archer due to the fact the cone of the skill is so large. It’s extremely common an Archer casts Grand Bloom at a specific target and accidentally kills others well away from what they’re looking at because the other arrows do significant enough damage to chip standing players reliably. It’s debatable whether it’s too rewarding, but the arrows moving outwards from the center could progressively do less damage to incentivize aiming directly at the intended target and applying the most damage to that target.

Awakened Berserker is a prevalent class in all guilds for large scale PVP, and for good reason. The class has a nearly infinite arsenal of damage and remains one of the tankier classes in the game with a great kiting ability to boot. A clear example of the class currently having far too much power invested into a single weapon from its arsenal is Titan Blow. Titan Blow is an extremely high damage ranged skill that has a stiff on the first hit and knock down on the third hit and only a 7 second cool down. The skill happens to be effective at both ranged and melee because it has a frontal guard that turns 1:1 with your mouse turning your screen as opposed to something like Awakened Witch’s Gorr Roll which updates your frontal guard periodically based on where you’re looking. With the tools that Awakened Berserker can use to kite, it becomes a minigame. Contest a Berserker while eating a 30% attack/move speed slow that’s a 1 frame cancellable slow (Earth Dividing) and potentially eat the Shake Off into grab or let them return to safe Titan Blow distance. Once optimal distance is reattained,  they can return to chunking opponents for an enormous portion of their HP with Titan Blow, or successfully CC them with either the stiff leading into the knock down, or just the knockdown and follow up with a clean up combo. Awakened Berserker currently uses the same skill as a catch, a trade, as ranged chip damage, as follow up damage and re-cc, and as combo damage. The power from Titan Blow could very easily be redistributed elsewhere in the kit, the stiff from hit 1 could be removed, or the damage could be simply toned down as the rest of the kit has an extreme amount of it left to offer. The multiple application choices at their disposal of 30% slows should also be looked at to be brought in line with Awakened Warrior’s Gravedigger values. 

The most egregious offender of everything discussed prior is the same class I wrote a post about more than a year ago. Succession Wizard is still the strongest class in the game. This is a sentiment shared by several of the top Wizards on multiple servers, and it’s not without cause. The most pertinent reason ranged classes have remained dominant in large scale is because players are inevitably forced to eat a slow closing the gap, or they’re forced to take so much damage the trade is lost before they’ve even attempted it. Succession Wizard currently does both, while also retaining melee options that rival the current strongest melee super armor trader in the game, Musa. It’s understandable that when you compare an Awakened and Succession class, a Succession one would have many more effects crammed on to a single skill because they simply have less skills to work with only using half their kit. The major issues lie within the fact that Wizard weaves in the Shock effect on several of their most used skills, Lightning, Residual Lightning, and High Voltage, all of which lead to players inevitably being debuffed by a 40% attack/move speed slow, from ranged. That’s 3 different skills that are basically used off cooldown with High Voltage having a sizable AoE, you’re going to get slowed in an engagement. While 2 of these skills are completely protected, and all 3 are ranged, why is a ranged class applying a slow that has a value 3 times more potent than a warrior? Why are the slows also on their most commonly rotated skills that have a chance to stun or do significant damage? Why does their most damaging skill, Blizzard: Domain, also apply a 30% move speed slow while hit stunning their opponents with a 30 hit skill to the point they can’t move and are forced to lose the trade into a frontal guarded skill? It’s the same problem as stated prior, most akin to Searing Slam and Guardian’s Passive combined with Cleansing Flame, the skills are extremely overloaded with effects, namely slows, while being extremely low risk and constantly rotated. Slows are a huge problem in this game. There are a significant number of matchups, even in small scale, where if players receive a slow they won’t be able to kill their target even after successfully landing a CC just because they’re too slow to produce a proper combo. This is multiplied infinitely further the larger the scale of PVP gets. Slows are far too accessible. These should not be applied on commonly rotated skills. It appears this was the thought process when you look at the design of Awakened Mages. If they want to slow someone, they use their specialized ranged slowing skills Ritardando or Paralyze. That’s all these skills do, they slow. Succession Wizard already has a whopping 50% move speed slow on Mana Absorption, which design wise, is the most reasonable example of a skill specialized for slowing. Mana Absorption can also be cancelled so it can be used to apply the slow in a single frame like Earth Dividing. This would allow Succession Wizard to still have an accessible option to slow in small scale, or even on an isolated target in large scale that they’re aware of, even if the shock effect were removed from the 3 lightning skills listed prior. Removing these commonly rotated AoE slows would allow many more melee classes to have a place in group PVP outside of Awakening Musa, Succession Berserker, and Awakening Valkyrie. A melee class currently needs to move at the speed light to interact with a ball of enemy players or is relegated to being supportive for their ranged classes in their backline.

This is simply scratching the surface. Grabs, heals, and super armor frontal blocks, Succession Ninja E buff, resistances in PVP, and Succession Berserker stamina usage are all mechanics that potentially need their power looked at and distributed differently, in both large scale and small scale. Larger heals can be moved away from Mages and given to a pure support class like Shai. Increasing wind up time on grabs before they’re cast could remove a portion of frustration with desyncy dash grabs that you basically can’t space yourself against unless you’re Nostradamus. Setting a timer on the super armor portion on an SA/FG block could produce more counterplay if you’re a class with no grab so you’re not left with 0 options in far too many scenarios. Class to class modifiers could be separated between Awakened and Succession specializations on classes that have drastically different functionalities for each, namely Berserker and Mages. Awakened Mage requires much more survivability than their Succession counterpart, Awakened Berserker requires much less, but both could be tweaked to bring classes more in line for every scale currently. Every one of these suggestions are being made with the idea of bringing some of the game’s skill expression back in mind. While having the most fluid and exciting combat engine of any game to date, the release of Successions and the most recent broad class reworks have done a major disservice to the skill ceiling for those who want to invest a significant amount of time into polishing their skills on a game they’re irrationally passionate about.

TLDR: Over stacked skills in kits should have their power redistributed throughout the kit, ranged dominance in large scale could be toned down, low counterplay aspects of the game could be changed to produce more risk, older systems in the game should be revisited.

I’m also looking for work if you’re hiring PA. :D