Hello BDO Dev Team,

I’m writing to offer feedback regarding the current state of Awakening Sage, specifically in the Arena of Solare. As it stands, the class is creating a severe imbalance in the competitive PvP scene, and this issue appears to be consistent across all major regions.

A Global Problem

In reviewing the Arena of Solare Top 100 leaderboards across North America, South America, Japan, Europe, and Russia, Awakening Sage is overrepresented to a staggering degree. Currently:

• Awakening Sage accounts for 15% to 35% of the entire Top 100 in many of these regions.

• In most cases, there are 5 to 6 Awakening Sages in the Top 10, and often 10+ in the Top 20.

This isn’t anecdotal — it’s a clear statistical trend that shows how dominant the class has become. Such a disproportionate presence across multiple independent leaderboards cannot be chalked up to player preference or coincidence. It points to a fundamental balance issue.

Why This Matters

This level of dominance undermines:

• Class diversity – Players feel pressured to reroll to Sage just to stay competitive.

• Fairness in matchmaking – Teams with an Awakening Sage are often at a clear advantage.

• Enjoyment of the mode – Facing the same class repeatedly, especially one with clear strengths over others, creates a stale and frustrating experience.

Even at lower rankings and casual play levels, the gap in impact and pressure between Awakening Sage and other classes is obvious.

Suggested Balancing Feedback

It is my firm belief that changes to Awakening Sage are absolutely necessary. While several other classes in the current meta are strong, none feel nearly as oppressive or uncounterable as Awakening Sage in the Arena of Solare. If not for this class's overwhelming dominance, I truly believe this season would offer a fun, balanced, and competitive experience for a wide variety of classes.

Unfortunately, Awakening Sage is single-handedly diminishing the quality of gameplay for many players. Its toolkit enables it to dictate the pace of matches and neutralize counterplay options in a way no other class currently does.

There are four key factors contributing to Sage’s overwhelming strength, each of which must be addressed for the sake of class balance:

1. Low stamina consumption, which allows for near-constant mobility and pressure with minimal risk or tradeoff.

2. Two overly impactful core skills, which provide excessive utility, mobility, and disruption in neutral engagements. These skills are "Impaling Flash" and "Chain Lightning".

3. Excessive access to slows, with more than six skills capable of applying the debuff — an issue made worse by Sage being one of the fastest classes in the game.

4. High burst damage during movement, often with built-in I-frames, making it extremely difficult to punish or peel during engagements.

Suggested Changes

To restore class balance while maintaining the identity of Awakening Sage, I propose the following adjustments:

1. Reduce stamina regeneration during the second phase of “Impaling Flash”. This will prevent Sage from regenerating stamina mid-mobility and force more deliberate usage of the skill.

2. Remove the crowd control effect from “Impaling Flash”. A skill that covers significant distance and bypasses frontal guard protections should not also offer knockback — it's too much in one package.

3. Eliminate Mouse Movement support from “Impaling Flash”. With Sage going invisible during this skill, allowing mouse movement creates excessive desync and makes it nearly impossible to predict or counter.

4. Increase stamina cost on ”Overcharged Bolt" to 250. Reducing this cost has made the skill disproportionately strong given its mass mobility possibility.

5. Remove the slow effect (“Shocked”) from “Divine Executioner”. Combining a powerful damage tool with a debuff that heavily limits enemy responses makes this skill far too effective as an opener or follow-up.

6. Remove the Frontal Guard on “Chain Lightning”. Given the auto-aim and chain functionality, this skill is better suited for PvE. Its inclusion in PvP, especially with a -50 DP debuff, is simply too powerful.

7. Substantially reduce PvP damage from the summoned pet in “Spear Bolt”. A skill designed primarily for mobility should not also serve as a high-damage threat through a secondary source.

8. Remove the slow effect from “Flow: Judgement”. This skill is already a teleporting back-attack with I-frame properties and strong utility — the addition of a slow is unnecessary and excessive.

9. Reduce the PvP damage on “Flow: Judgement”. This ability, which should function as a utility or repositioning tool, currently serves as a devastating engage option with little risk due to its protections.

10. Reduce "Shock" slows across the board from 20% -> 10% . While other slows got nerfed and many are sitting at 15% on only one skill, Awakening Sage retained his slows at the now maximum 20% Cap on multiple skills. 

11. Introduce an animation lock at the end of “Flow: Judgement”. This would add meaningful risk when used without follow-up skills like “Divine Executioner,” finally opening Sage to counterplay and punishment when misused.

I hope this feedback is received with the intent it was written — to help improve the balance and overall experience of the Arena of Solare. Awakening Sage, in its current state, is clearly overshadowing the diversity and fairness that make competitive PvP enjoyable. Addressing the issues outlined above would not only create healthier match dynamics but also restore opportunities for other classes to shine. The season has great potential, and it would be unfortunate to see it derailed by a single overperforming class.

Nerf sage and hash

remove awk sage grab and give it to awaegu thx 

i think the stamina nerf is whats needed the most. u cant just fly around like a mosquito, endlessly.

killed awaken nova to make a more busted class than she ever was.

How to suggest nerfs without  knowing the class.

So you wanna add 250 stamina to divine executioner which violates the rule that, every class has/requires neutral mobility.

Judgement already locked animation you can grab at the end. If I can do it so should you. 

You wanna remove fg from ChainLightning which we got it last patch as pve. Which will make class in pve at end game spots miserable since you can't take 1 2 hits in spots like orze. 

You wanna remove knockback from implaing which is also violates the unspeakable rule for most awakening classes 1 protected cc outside of the core(this can be main hand) and 1 protected cc with the core 

You wanna remove shock effect from divine executioner which literally not even a nerf.

Removing mouse movement and CAMERA rotation from implaing flash I wholeheartedly support. This should carried into extend for any movement abilities. Whether it's berserker or ninja or lahn. 

All these nerfs has no correlation with each other. It's either having no effect or completely heavy nerfs. More I read more it felt like this was just a emotional feelings rather objective nerfs for class to be balanced. 

What surprises me armin you ve worked at pa and been playing this game for 6 years and still doesn't understand how devs do their balance changes. 

If you want stamina nerfs you nerf overcharged bolt. It's the heart of the class and it's the skill that allows sage to move like a demon. You nerf the stamina go back up to 250. Sages can't move anymore or all those skill spammer sages will cease to exist. 

You can't remove knockback from implaing without giving any ccs to the class and any ccs you give to sage will just make the class better so the best way would be bump the cooldown up to 10 seconds while removing camera rotation and mouse movement. And you need to remove grab cancel after implaing. 

The damage on 

Divine executioner 

SpearBolt 

Aftershock 

Judgement 

Should be nerfed. 

And damage on chain lightning should be nerfed and chain lightning should gain crit rate. So the skill can't peak insanely high numbers but do normal damage. 

For shock effects removing from divine will do nothing. 

However nerfing the value will absolutely do something. 

Shock effects are 20% drop them to either 10% or 15% will be way heavier nerfs than simply removing it from divine executioner. 

Next time ask me before you make emotional post about my class. I could ve saved you big trouble and point you in the right direction. 

. 

At the end no one wants their classes to be dead in the water and no one want their classes to be broken in the level fotm players pick it up. Atleast I don't.