Pre-Text:

I have mainly dedicated my BDO time to creating and testing builds on Shai. I do this not because I am a skilled player but because I am the average and my main source of income is enhancing. By combining these two, I feel like I've gained a lot of understanding about this class and how it plays. Unfortunately, in end game locations such as the new locations on Elvia Servers and also Ash Forest, it is entirely left behind by all other classes when it comes to PvE.

The main cause for our damage issues comes from two sources, poor ap scaling on our skills resulting in us needing higher than average AP to compete with lower AP players making our optimal set the Tungrad set which still places a heavy reliance on having the Misty Haze debuff for accuracy. As well as the fact that Shai lacks the innate accuracy required to support a pure Tungrad set and as a result benefits greatly from a pure accuracy set (Dawns, Ominous, Turos, Debo) but this unfortunately still places a heavy reliance on having the Misty Haze debuff for reducing monsters DP.

Both builds still suffer from monster DR seeming to affect every hit and it seems to be reducing our ability to stay competitive greatly. When taking my builds to grind zones where monsters have higher than normal DR such as Mirumoks then I saw my damage plummet regardless of build. Meanwhile, my similarly geared friends seemed to be appropriately displaying their equally impressive gearset with ease and convenience expected of an overgeared player grinding a lower end zone.

All builds were self-made via enhancing and tested with full Pen armors, Pen Blackstar + Kutum, and Tet accessories. The AP on the Tungrad set was 297 and the accuracy set was maintained at 281. The accuracy set feels more reliable in areas such as Ash Forest and Oluns but lags behind the Tungrad set in areas where accuracy is not required.

The monster DR issue on multi-hit attacks makes any solution complicated. I would like to see our accuracy greatly not only because the Tungrad set felt more powerful but also because it increased BSR. Being able to Generate more BSR meant I could feed more BSR or use my party-wide z buff more appropriately without feeling inefficient by holding on to it while capped at 100%. 

How to fix Tungrad Build:

Fixing the AP set with Tungrad could be done by simply making all of our florang attacks have 100% chance to hit in PvE. This is drastic but would reward Shais in PvE without changing our state in PvP where the AP Shai is entirely obsolete and avoids having to address our scaling issues for some time. Unfortunately, I do not think this would be the best way to address our class issues but merely the laziest and quickest way to get PvE to feel better on Shai while still promising future issues. Disclaimer: While I do not support the state of our PvP for AP Shai, I also do not think that 100% accuracy will fix our scaling issues in PvP and so I will refrain from addressing that here and now. 

How to fix Accuracy Build: (Recommended)

We would need our scaling adjusted so that Shai's can adequately fight higher DR monsters without entirely losing her damage. There really is no other way around this because of how badly she is affected by DR. This issue is also present in PvP where our 60% dmg restraint is compounded by players having DR being able to negate almost all damage entirely. I tried my 281 ap full accuracy build against a Hashashin using the standard DR armors at C20 and was hardly able to out DPS his HP potion. This type of tank is usually reserved for players who have sacrificed all AP for DP but that was not the case when it came to Shai. I think this issue should absolutely be resolved because being weaker in PvP is one thing but being entirely unable to defend yourself in the least is borderline unacceptable. 

Attack Design Issues:

When a Shai throws her florang out to attack, it damages along a line in front of her. This attack has verticality issues that prevent her from being able to engage some mobs that move onto unlevel ground such as Afauru Graverobbers. In addition, she has a dead zone right in front of her where many mobs often congregate while trying to attack the Shai. This dead zone is most often abused by mobs with small hitboxes who are immune to CC's such as mobs found at Ash Forest and the new grind zones on Elvia Servers. This dead zone needs to be removed because it severely affects the reliability of the Shais' DPS and our class is not able to effectively maintain her damage while moving and adjusting like other classes because our main damage source is stationary RMB-based attacks.

Buff Design Issues:

Her reliance on Misty Haze is horrible because you end up spending 7 seconds buffing and 10 seconds attacking. The class should not be designed solely around her buffs if those buffs are not going to make up for the segments where she is not able to apply damage because of the time-consuming process of buffing. The solution is to simply allow more flexibility with her buffs and debuffs by extending her buffs like Sun Moon Stars, Summer Rain, Time to Shine, and Shout to the Sky to last 5 minutes when affecting any Shai. The most powerful song will be the most persistent which will encourage Shais in pvp to work together which is a class theme. This will also clear up her solo grind issues in PvE by allowing her to focus mostly on DPS. As for Misty Haze, it is actually a wonderful ability with horrible timing but with the aforementioned change then all that is needed to be done is shorten the Misty Haze and Delusive Light CD to 15s at rank 3.

PvP:

I will be short and sweet here. We are not a very protected class, we have two heals and both are on a long cooldown and our SA rotation does not apply very much damage at all. Thus, our class should not be under a PvP dmg restraint. Whatever the intent was in the past for this restraint has clearly not lived up to anything meaningful or been realized in any other aspect of the Game other than turning every Shai player into a victim of bullying. No class should have their gear and progression invalidated at the character select screen. Not having any defensive mobility options, sustainable healing, or reliable Crowd Control rotations should be enough deterrent to keep shai from being a prominent PvP DPS while still allowing them to protect themselves if needed should the restraint be lifted.

+1

282bsk shai (full tet tung) here with depressing news; 

everything bad on this thread is true.

About your attack design issues:

1) Completely agree with the verticality issue.

2) I have no issues keeping mobs within the attack animations, but I won't say no to an increase in aoe radius.

About your buff design issues:

1) I agree with reducing the CD on the Debuffs so it can be used on every pack/maintain 100% uptime.

2) I'd love longer duration buffs, 5 minutes might be excessive though 2 minutes would be plenty, also don't limit it to just shai.

I'm confused on why it takes you 7 seconds to apply buffs during pve grind. Are you using all 4 buffs? If so that's not required for pve you can get away with just the attack speed buff(rage buff if you wanna maintain lots of BSR). You should be able to apply the aspeed buff, animation cancel into the dp/eva debuff in less time.

TL;DR: Agree with most of it, confused how it takes 7 seconds to buff in pve grind rotation.