210 replies to this topic

[iCandy]

Do admin ever read these feedbacks?

This thread has been up since October yet no admin has replied to it... its just plain SAD...

my concern is make the Arrow Vulcan Skill instant cast. it's nerfed so bad that it's barely usable.
2nd: make Severe Rainstorm usable with instrument.

I wish you will listen to your player-base, yes?

[Sapphic]

They did read it. They just can't implement stuff instantly. They have to do a lot of back and forth discussing / planning with devs and there's a ton of other issues to figure out besides just Maestros. Just because they don't comment on anything doesn't mean they haven't read everything we posted.

AV was awesome, but SR kind of replaces it. Though, it'd be nice to have a single target skill again, I really dislike using DS.

[Mefistofeles]

Needs to be discuss that arrow vulcan back to instant? Deep Sleep Lullaby DONT SLEEP ANYMORE PARTY MENBERS AND GUILD-MATES IN WOE, song of despair need a shorther time, i mean... fiber lock and all rangers traps are instant, why maestro traps no? the maestro needs a super buff in def for PvM, becouse the def in binoculars its not true( dont give the 21 def that it say) becouse maestros cant use shield for leveling, they need a exclusive item for defend their hp

[Crow]

I would like to add another opinion to the performer feedback. I agree with many of the points made by posters above me but I repeat them in order to provide a better understanding of percentage of playerbase that believe certain aspects of performer classes need attention.

First of all I donâ??t believe performers are too weak in general. It is that they are outshined by certain skills that are clearly too powerful ( Howling of Mandragora, Dragon Breath, etc.). The solution for class imbalance should be looked for in other classes skills.

I believe that so many players are unhappy about performer classes because they have a range of skills that have a great and fun design, but during implementation underwhelming values were chosen for some parameters, rendering the skills mostly useless. They seem very easy to fix from the implementation point of view, as simply some constant values need to be adjusted.

The only really faulty design about performer classes is the song buff system. Lets assume that there are 3 performers in a party, which is a very uncommon scenario (most of the time there would be 1 maybe 2). Only one of the three can provide a buff to the party and on top of that the buff effect is very minor. The other two canâ??t use almost half of their skills at all.

The buff system would be fine if either the effect they provide was stronger (performers can give 1 but significant buff to the party) or there was a possibility to stack them (than performers provide the party with a number of minor buffs). I believe that the correct approach here is somewhere in the middle â?? allowing each of the performers to keep one buff on the party, and the buff value could be slightly increased.

Let us take a look at specific skills now. For every skill let us ask ourselves a question in what scenario this skill could be used. Starting with chorus skills.

Lerad's Dew: 1000 hp is almost insignificant with current hp pools (30k hp at minimum). It is better than nothing, but as I said in overall chorus notes â?? taking 3 performers to the party to give 1600 hp to everyone (5% buff, not counting the high HP classes) without the possibility to add any other buffs from them doesnâ??t make any sense.

Warcry of Beyond: Unless there are 10 performers in the party this skill is inferior to Windmill Rush. I donâ??t see why anyone would like to use it at all.

Melody of Sink: Similarly to Warcry, this skill is both inferior to and doesnâ??t stack with Moonlight Serenade. I donâ??t see why anyone would use it at all.

Unlimited Humming Voice: Doesnâ??t work in WoE and in PvE it is inferior to phen switching by players (on top of not being stackable with real buffs). This skill is not easily fixable by adjusting constant values and unless a big revision is made to performer skills this will remain useless.

Song of Mana: See Lradâ??s Dew â?? Extremely insignificant effect that prevents party from using any other performer buffs.

Dance With Warg: This suffers from similar issues as above choruses, but is closer to the power level of what we would expect from chorus skills. In PvM it is rendered useless by Sacrament, but for more messy woe situations this could be useful. Possibly the strongest chorus skill.

Saturday Night Fever: Canâ??t be used in PvM. In WoE it prevents allies from using pots, which is a certain death before they can make use of their +500 ATK. Can only be used as a debuff, which is very impractical.

Sound of Destruction: This could be used to combat enemy Gloomy Dayâ??s, but again the numbers (success rate and reuse delay) cause that using other skill instead (DSL, Song of Despair, Sirens Voice, Harmonize) will always be a better choice.


Single target song buffs are actually useful as opposed to chorus skills (which with lack of stackability make choruses even more useless). Echo Song, Windmill Rush and Symphony of Lover and Swing Dance are fine (not strong, but ok). Moonlight Serenade isnâ??t too good with how magic attacks work, especially since it does not affect heal.

Harmonize: Is a totally different story. This skill has clearly a faulty design, unless it was supposed to help leveling low level characters. For high level characters this skill will only work as a debuff on their major stats. It is a good offensive move (cancels +30 stat foods, god items, job bonuses, priest buffs) at level 1. Other levels are useless.

Circling Nature: Canâ??t be used in PvE, in woe it shares the flaw of other buffs â?? very minor effect that prevents from using any other buffs. The SP drain is too little for this to be used as debuff and hp regen is too low for this to be used on friendly targets.

Valley of Death: Canâ??t be used in WoE, and for PvE it requires 3 points in Circling Nature, which canâ??t be used in PvE. Giving ress skill to performers is a nice idea, but it would make more sense to have this as a prereq to some other useful skills (like in priest tree) rather than requiring you to put 3 points in a skill that is disabled.

Other performer skills have their issues, which have been mentioned before, but they are not as pressing as the ones I have listed, so I will omit them. I know in renewal there is less care for 2nd job skills, but I would like to point into the direction of Hermode's Rod. This is a skill that has no use at all, and has been like that since it has been implemented. Performers have obviously lived with this, as they had other useful abilities, but in renewal over half of our skill tree has the same problem (that is â?? its mostly useless) and we are afraid, that they will share the fate of Hermodeâ??s Rod. Also note that in long history Lullaby, Down Tempo, Battle Theme, Harmonic Lick and Sheltering Bliss were virtually not used at all too.

I would also like to agree with people who mourn after AV death. It can be easily replaced by 3rd class skills, but AV was one of the skills that added the â??cool factorâ?? to performers in the past.

At the end I will make a short answer to the question asked in opening post. Perhaps a look at this would explain the low performer population.

What skills are fine, need tweaking?

Skills that need tweaks: Sound of Destruction, Leradâ??s Dew, Warcry of Beyond, Unlimited Humming Voice, Song of Mana, Melody of Sink, Metallic Sound, Improvised Song, Circling Nature, Valley of Death, Harmonize, Great Echo, Reverberation, Symphony of Lover, Harmonize.

Skills that are fine: Voice Lessons, Dominion Impulse (provided Reverberation is â??tweakedâ??), Severe Rainstorm, Deep Sleep Lullaby, Despair Song, Gloomy Day, Voice of Siren, Swing Dance, Moonlight Serenade, Windmill Rush, Echo Song.

Many of the skills that need tweaks are not even marginally useful at the moment.

I hope this was not too tiring of a read and as most people in this thread I am looking forward to some form of feedback from GM team.

[Akin]

stuff...

well put. there's nothing there that I don't agree with. I think it's the same for all of us who play performers.

I am looking forward to some form of feedback from GM team.

I would love to see this, but it's been a long time with not even one response.

What Gravity needs to do, is just hire 17 teens at minimum wage (even with no benefits it'd still beat working at McDonald's), and have them each play a specific class, a few hours each day, non-stop, until they reach 150. Along the way, require them to submit reports about what they like and don't like about the game, but more importantly, about the class they play. Require them to mingle with the community while not informing players that they work for Gravity. Have them siege, PvP, and quest as well. Don't give them GM powers and don't give them any special abilities in game (maybe an allowance of 1k Kafra points a week or something). If they can work full time or more hours in the summer, then let them answer support tickets that do not require GM action. Gravity could even call it a QA internship and pay in nothing but pizza.

[Sapphic]

Almost none of the chorus skills will ever be good and I am fine with that. I lack points as it is. Even if they were awesome, they would be pointless unless they stacked with Windmill Rush or something. If they tried to implement that, I can foresee the GMs messing up and not allowing me to cancel other skills. I prefer Maestros the way they are at this point.

Most people who complain about Maestros aren't even 150 (or anywhere near it). I'm tired of reading posts based on speculation, not actually having used the skills in its proper environment with your max potential. Some skills suck, but everyone has sucky skills, we're not special. At least some of the more terrible ones don't take up most of your skill tree (ABs and the requirements to get Sacrament come to mind).

"Well you know, this skill sounds awesome cause it does X, but I haven't actually tested it. However, I'm going to tell you guys it seems awesome anyway." Weren't a bunch of people talking about how great Echo Song was, because it did X things, but no one tested it properly? I had already used it at that point in Abyss and I already knew it was garbage, but I can't believe how many people followed the information like sheep.

I didn't care that most of the ensemble skills were worthless. I don't care now that most of the chorus skills are useless.

If you want to make this class stupidly OP:
-Have it so that Siren's Voice can no longer be cancelled by taking damage.
-Make Siren's Voice full screen.
-Make Deep Sleep Lullaby only work on enemies (and PvM, please).
-Reduce the cooldowns on Deep Sleep Lullaby and Siren's Voice to near nothing.
-Remove our fixed cast times for Deep Sleep Lullaby, Siren's Voice, and Saturday Night Fever. Or hell, give Maestros their instacast back.
-Raise our HP mod to something that doesn't suck.

This would break the class entirely and it would probably be one of the most OP classes in the game, but it's not going to happen. I'd rather not see the GMs spend their time working to buff worthless skills to make them slightly viable. It's just a waste of time.

The way Maestros work with all their skills is fine by me. Get 150 and test it out in a serious WoE environment before whining on here about how the class is terrible.

Removing fixed cast on AV is fine. That's the only thing I wouldn't mind being changed. Everything else, who cares? You don't even have the points to get everything.

Edited by Sapphic, 21 January 2011 - 05:24 PM.

[Akin]

Almost none of the chorus skills will ever be good and I am fine with that. I lack points as it is. Even if they were awesome, they would be pointless unless they stacked with Windmill Rush or something. If they tried to implement that, I can foresee the GMs messing up and not allowing me to cancel other skills. I prefer Maestros the way they are at this point.

Most people who complain about Maestros aren't even 150 (or anywhere near it). I'm tired of reading posts based on speculation, not actually having used the skills in its proper environment with your max potential. Some skills suck, but everyone has sucky skills, we're not special. At least some of the more terrible ones don't take up most of your skill tree (ABs and the requirements to get Sacrament come to mind).

"Well you know, this skill sounds awesome cause it does X, but I haven't actually tested it. However, I'm going to tell you guys it seems awesome anyway." Weren't a bunch of people talking about how great Echo Song was, because it did X things, but no one tested it properly? I had already used it at that point in Abyss and I already knew it was garbage, but I can't believe how many people followed the information like sheep.

I didn't care that most of the ensemble skills were worthless. I don't care now that most of the chorus skills are useless.

Fair enough, but if you don't care then why get so upset with other people who do care about them when they express their opinions? Let's face it, all this Renewal Feedback forum is is a place to vent if you don't like things about Renewal. I would guess that 99% of the changes requested, won't be made. However, the question of what we liked and what we would change was asked, and so everyone who has an opinion has responded, including you. If you're satisfied with Maestro now that you've hit 150, that's cool, but there's no need to bash others for it.

As for speculation, I'm not sure who was doing that but I know it wasn't me. Sure I had my hopes and dreams about how certain skills would work, but when RE hit Ygg for testing, I made 4 performers and quad cliented in South Pront, PvP, and the WoE physics PvP rooms, to test each and every skill. I posted my findings in the tech support/renewal testing forum, offered corrections to skill translations (the skill descriptions in game and on the website were a direct copy and paste of my descriptions), and gave my opinions. By the first siege on Ymir, my maestro already had enough skill points to get any skill I wanted, and I was testing every skill in pvm, during instances, and in WoE. I was literally resetting my skills and stats every day. I have a fairly solid understanding of how the skills work, even if I sometimes post about how I wish they would work. If I've ever suggested my opinions or desires were fact, then oops, my bad.

As for the proper environment, WoE isn't everything to everybody. There are plenty of PvM only performers (including my second Maestro), and they get the shaft because a lot of skills are blocked in PvM or work poorly (Despair locking other players, Reverb splitting damage, chorus skills having very low modifiers, etc). I still think those are issues that could be addressed if kRO ever got around to it.

Also, who said Echo Song was good? My tests concluded that it did raise defense, but I couldn't conclude by how much because I didn't have a clear grasp of the defense formula at the time. I've wanted to go back and test again now that I do, but I don't want to pay for skill resets just to get it. Clogon told me that it was the same increase in Armor DEF as Windmill was in ATK. I didn't know anyone besides me actually tried it out past level 1...

If you want to make this class stupidly OP:
-Have it so that Siren's Voice can no longer be canceled by taking damage.
-Make Siren's Voice full screen.
-Make Deep Sleep Lullaby only work on enemies (and PvM, please).
-Reduce the cooldowns on Deep Sleep Lullaby and Siren's Voice to near nothing.
-Remove our fixed cast times for Deep Sleep Lullaby, Siren's Voice, and Saturday Night Fever. Or hell, give Maestros their instacast back.
-Raise our HP mod to something that doesn't suck.

This would break the class entirely and it would probably be one of the most OP classes in the game, but it's not going to happen. I'd rather not see the GMs spend their time working to buff worthless skills to make them slightly viable. It's just a waste of time.

I don't think anyone is asking for performers to be OP (though I would like DSL to work in PvM http://forums.warppo...tyle_emoticons/default/happy.gif ). In fact, I think Performers play fine the way they do in Siege (though I hate the indirect nerf to frost joke and dazzler with the new status resistance formula), I'd just like their chorus skills to be a bit more viable in PvM, and a few bugs fixed (ex. not being able to cast Windmill in a party like you reported).

The way Maestros work with all their skills is fine by me. Get 150 and test it out in a serious WoE environment before whining on here about how the class is terrible.

Removing fixed cast on AV is fine. That's the only thing I wouldn't mind being changed. Everything else, who cares? You don't even have the points to get everything.

I agree, Maestros definitely aren't terrible, and they are clearly a must have support class for any serious WoE guild. Then again, so were Bards and Minstrels.

I like not having enough points or having too many goodies to choose from. Hopefully that would mean more diverse builds out of the community. Unfortunately, most Bard builds were all the same because 1 skill was so much better than the others. Overall, I think the performer skill tree is nice because it doesn't make you wait till the end to get the skills you really want (AB/Warlock), it's not too shallow (RK/GX), and most of the skills max out at 5 instead of 10.

[Sapphic]

I'm not really bashing anyone. It's just ridiculous for people to complain that the class sucks when they're nowhere near 150, most likely in a WoE environment.

I dislike it when people talk about the class when they haven't properly tested it. People were saying Echo Song was good since it raised Armor def and Vit def or something, but it was obvious they never even tried out level 5 at higher levels. It's worthless feedback to give out if you don't even know what you're talking about.

Another thing I noted was that everyone seems to want songs to stack, but if everything stacked together the whole balance of the Maestro is just ruined in PvP. There are certain things that have to be cancelled. Even if they applied it to buffs only, songs like SNF and Harmonize are considered buffs by the game, but everyone knows they really aren't. If those couldn't be cancelled it would be terrible. The GMs aren't exactly great at knowing these little details.

Fiberlock locks other players, I don't see why they'd ever change it so that Song of Despair doesn't. Reverbation will always be inferior to SR unless it does really high end quickly stacked damage like Clashing or something.

Amusingly, if Maestros got all those changes to make them that OP, it'd make for some fun battles between Maestro supports.

Frost joke isn't really nerfed, in fact I think it's more useful now then it was pre-renewal.

Unfortunately in a WoE scene I have Windmill up 24/7 so even if the Chorus got amazing buffs, I'd just end up cancelling them all immediately. PvM builds would have diversity, but all the WoE builds would be alike.

[Crow]

The remark about not being max level is surely valid and I tried to keep this in mind when posting in this forum. Note however, that I donâ??t need to be max level to calculate how much hp will I have when I finally am and predict how significant +1k hp could possibly be. Also note, that I have started my post with a remark, that I donâ??t believe performers are too week in general. Just as Akin stated though the question in OP was to provide feedback on skills and so I did. I sincerely regret that my opinions are perceived as complains.

I believe, that making song buffs fully stackable would be a terrible idea. Some of them have the duration of 1 min and you would have to spend all your time rotating through all the buffs in order to keep them up. I only claimed, that being able to keep one buff per performer in party would make it a little more interesting for performers past the first one in party. I donâ??t believe, that the fact that SNF and Harmonize are debuffs is â??by designâ??.

Edited by Crow, 22 January 2011 - 05:47 AM.

[Akin]

Fiberlock locks other players, I don't see why they'd ever change it so that Song of Despair doesn't.

Sorry, I just meant in PvM, not WoE. Same way that Chaser ground skills shouldn't affect players in PvM, and the same way Warlock's Crimson Rock shouldn't stun party members (this was fixed last patch).

[Sapphic]

I wasn't targetting anyone in general, there's really no need to explain yourself. There is just a general vibe of "this class is awful, but I'm not even 138." I just frequently read forums, including iwiki and I just read a lot of assumptions about how X skill is bad and X skill is great but I've tested both and I know it's really the exact opposite. It's not good to give out info like that at all. (An example being that the general consensus seems to be that SNF isn't that great in WoE and it's too unwieldly to use or something). I find SNF to be hilariously great, just a tad situational, but I think I'm the only one who actually has had a chance to use it effectively in a crazy WoE environment multiple times.

Sorry, I just meant in PvM, not WoE.

Ah, I guess it was fixed. I remember in labs I would Fiberlock things, wing them, and then someone in my party would get caught in the Fiber, no joke. For some reason I recall being able to Fiber people, but it didn't happen often since you had to hold shift. I tried it out just now and yeah, it's off now, so it's cool that they fixed that. Unfortunately, Manhole still works on people PvM and considering how abusable that is, I don't think they'll ever fix SoD. It's probably the same reason why they won't let us use DSL PvM.

Yeah, I don't think they considered SNF and Harmonize debuffs, so if they ruined the song stacking thing, it'd make using those skills rather annoying. I don't think they'll ever add in the ability to stack songs when used by different people, it's sad how little faith I have in them.

Edited by Sapphic, 22 January 2011 - 02:35 PM.

[Ralis]

Too lazy to read and see if this was already mentioned, but Maestros still say Minstrel in guild lists.

[Yanzan]

Too lazy to read and see if this was already mentioned, but Maestros still say Minstrel in guild lists.

Oh we know. it also says it outside of the guild list also. and Ralis what are you doing in here?

And second I like the Sig.

[Ralis]

I dunno. I'm shocked too that I wasn't complaining!

[Mosu]

I think Arrow Vulcan needs to be changed. I would totally buy a neuralizer if the change was implemented. I'd say a compromise might be like, .2 second FIXED cast time. But that's not much at all.

That, or heavily increase AV damage.
Along with cast time, Arrow Repel would be nice to have no FIXED cast time.

I also agree with updating Arrow Crafting. Then again, I have plenty of Steel Arrows because I used Destroyed Armor (which is fairly common). I've never used Elunium or Steel for Steel Arrows. Ever. Okay once, but that's because I misclicked.

Edited by Mosu, 10 February 2011 - 03:09 PM.

[Akin]

Oh we know. it also says it outside of the guild list also. and Ralis what are you doing in here?

And second I like the Sig.

just to note, it's on the character select screen as well.

[Lucentos]

For me Arrow Vulcan should have damage weight of Clashing Spiral and Shield Chain. So havin 2700-3600% damage mod is quite fine for this skill. Alternative option for this skill is just remove cast time from AV completely.

[Kadelia]

For the cast time it has now, it should be doing like 2400%. It should be made instant cast instead @ 1200%, and there should be a 3rd job skill that enhances it somehow. Like gloomy shyness working self target and tripling AV's damage. Also clashing spiral should do base dmg like 1/3 what it does now and RS like 3/4 and leave gloomy at 3x, that way those skills aren't OP @ WoE and it makes wanderer/minstrel a great party character, unlike if you nerfed gloomy.

[Lucentos]

I`m quite agree with that Clashing Spiral and Rapid Smithing should have their damage toned down. It`s a bit ridiculous that such non 3rd class job skills have so much damage capability with such small cost(in SP and consumables).

[Sapphic]

I can't say I ever died to Clashing alone once I hit 150, even with this terrible hp mod we have.

Edited by Sapphic, 12 February 2011 - 12:08 AM.

[Kadelia]

I can't say I ever died to Clashing alone once I hit 150, even with this terrible hp mod we have.

gloomied and lexed?

[Sapphic]

It might be the big WoEs I do, but Lex does not happen to me much at all. If it was a small WoE where I got lexed, I'd just Siren :S

Of course it's OP with Lex, I mean GoH and whatever else would wreck you if you had Lex on. I don't know if I'd live Lex + Gloomy + Clashing, but I definitely barely notice Gloomy + Clashing, it's not a problem. I notice people are crying about it less and less as people get more levels through these events and get their max HP.

[Kadelia]

It might be the big WoEs I do, but Lex does not happen to me much at all. If it was a small WoE where I got lexed, I'd just Siren :S

Of course it's OP with Lex, I mean GoH and whatever else would wreck you if you had Lex on. I don't know if I'd live Lex + Gloomy + Clashing, but I definitely barely notice Gloomy + Clashing, it's not a problem. I notice people are crying about it less and less as people get more levels through these events and get their max HP.

that in of itself is a problem as all other 3rd job attacks don't reach their potential to do > 40k damage until they are higher than 140/45, and Rune Knights have that potential at 100/1. Sura is one of the better woe classes right now but they are far closer to "fair" than Rune Knights, since they have to work to the 130s before they can kill like that.

[Sapphic]

But I'm saying CS doesn't hurt. Added in with this WoE dmg reduction, it's very ridiculously unnoticeable now. The RK would be better off DBing or something. It's so hilariously outpottable that it doesn't even matter. It definitely does not do >40k dmg unless you're like lexed and maybe deep sleeped, but that's not really the problem of CS, that's just lex being a very useful skill and deep sleep adding in another .5x if it stacks, I never bothered testing it.

IIRC I got clashinged without gloomy (before WoE reduction) and it did probably..6-7k so x3 is 21k dmg and that does not kill me and easily allows you time to 1) siren 2) run away 3) outpot it if they aren't in strings. If your HP mod is higher, which it most likely is unless you're playing a Genetic, Warlock, or AB, then it 100% is not a problem. The classes with low HP mods are supposed to die to everything (except ABs they really need an HP buff imo).

Genetics can Howl and kill quite effectively and Warlocks aren't really supposed to be in the frontlines taking Clashings (same with ABs) so it's not really like Clashing is this crazy OP skill. I don't even play an RK and I don't really find a need to nerf or buff gloomy or clashing. Seriously, people stopped making whiny threads about it ages ago, since people got higher HP and it stopped one shotting you.

If you're doing such small WoEs that have priests run around lexing you all the time, then as a Wanderer/Maestro you should be destroying them with your skills, because our skills are VERY good in small WoEs due to the fact that we are good at disabling small groups. The less people there are, the more likely they are to be affected.

In large WoEs lexes very rarely occur and if you are getting lexed, more often than not, you are getting killed with something other than clashing.

Edit: Also, hahaha, good luck being effective in WoE if you're not 150. So that point is moot about Suras. At 100 you have the potential to get one shotted by Adoramus of all things and to stun for 10 years.

Edited by Sapphic, 13 February 2011 - 02:21 PM.

[Kadelia]

You have a really narrow concept about what is fair in this game that is neither logical nor reasonable.

Show me another game where a tank can 1 shot people, while with the same conditions (e.g., lex, deep sleep), a pure offensive class with lower hp/def/etc cannot 1 shot (e.g., mechanic, ranger, warlock), and I will show you a game that is as crummy and unbalanced as RO.

You also seem to be conveniently forgetting pvp/pvm/mvp.

Edited by Jaye, 13 February 2011 - 06:50 PM.