210 replies to this topic

[Marloe]

Requesting a mechanics change to ensembles. Make the four support ensembles (Battle Theme, Harmonic Lick, Acoustic Rhythm, and Power Cord) apply to all players (ally and enemy) in their range.

While it may be too much to ask, I would like a lot if either the GMs or a Community mod would take the time to collate these suggestions at the top of the thread. Having all the good (and the bad) suggestions all together would at least make it easier to put a proposal together (what IRO would like to see) and put it to the kRO devs to pick and choose which suggestions to implement.

Edited by Marloe, 13 July 2011 - 09:22 AM.

[AhinaReyoh]

Requesting a mechanics change to ensembles. Make the four support ensembles (Battle Theme, Harmonic Lick, Acoustic Rhythm, and Power Cord) apply to all players (ally and enemy) in their range.

Why would you want your enemy to have those buffs too? They're not even used in PvP/WoE situations as is, at least to my knowledge.

[Akin]

Requesting a mechanics change to ensembles. Make the four support ensembles (Battle Theme, Harmonic Lick, Acoustic Rhythm, and Power Cord) apply to all players (ally and enemy) in their range.

While it may be too much to ask, I would like a lot if either the GMs or a Community mod would take the time to collate these suggestions at the top of the thread. Having all the good (and the bad) suggestions all together would at least make it easier to put a proposal together (what IRO would like to see) and put it to the kRO devs to pick and choose which suggestions to implement.

That is a very odd request to have it affect enemies...why would you want them to have those benefits? Not trying to knock you for it, I'm really just curious to hear your reasoning behind it.

Also, you're second suggestion, while a good idea, is probably long past due. The GMs have already sent what they feel are the communities suggestions to kRO long ago (without giving us the list btw) and kRO is already finishing up a rather extensive skill re-balancing that we are expected to receive here on iRO, hopefully, within a month. Hopefully at that time, we can re-start this exercise and re-evaluate Renewal Balance then. Hopefully that time as well, the GM team is more actively involved in this forum.

[Marloe]

To balance it. Having an Acoustic protect just guildies in its radius while leaving any enemy that could break into it still vulnerable is ultimately too strong - the skill is an analogue to ME (that you can put blinding mist and pnuema up in) so it *should* work like those skills do. the effect doesn't persist, so forcing the players using it to drop it when enemies get too close is fair. These skills never got popular in woe simply because needing two characters to keep up such buffs on 10 people was just LESS good than ME, which could protect everyone in its radius. Renewal added plenty of neutral damage and disable that would ignore this protection, which would make AR simply "good," rather than "too good."

Another (considerably more crazy suggestion) would be to bring back the forgotten ensemble "Ragnarok" as a chorus skill. I could envision it requiring improvised song level 5 and saturday night fever level 3 - and being a silly but rather powerful chorus (the old effect of Ragnarok started a "chain" of about 10 aoe spells selected at random). The chorus mechanics balance the exploitable nature of the original ensemble, and now that our class has access to mATK as well as pATK it might even be good.

Edited by Marloe, 15 July 2011 - 08:14 AM.

[Kadelia]

You are wrong. The skill was never popular because it SETS your resistance to the specified percent, including status resistance. If you wore a marc card and walked in it, you were susceptible to freezing. The double edged effect here ruined the usefulness of the skill by too many degrees.

If I recall, ragnarok was meant to perform a spell every X seconds (not rapidly chain 10 spells) and was dropped either because they couldn't code it to work the way they wanted to, found it useless (which it is) or overpowered. Regardless, it made its way into the game as improvised song, which is garbage. it would be better if selected levels of improvised song let you choose single target or aoe (example: even # levels of improvised song are AoE, odd leveled are single target. Maybe even split it further with support/1targetoffense/aoeoffense) or something to reduce the randomness a bit. i.e. an mATK performer could spam the AoE to level or position bug people in woe without using a bow.

Edited by Jaye, 15 July 2011 - 08:04 AM.

[Marloe]

Just becoming susceptible to freeze wasn't the *only* reason. People used Tao Gunkas and Ghostring Cards in woe, yes? I also have reason to believe the bug with AR overriding the 100% marc resistance was fixed give or take 3 years ago (around when it was discovered) The skill stacked with mist and pnuema, but not with ME; and ME advantages (walkable, protected more players, only needed 1 player) just meant ME was what was used. There was a guild on Valkyrie Server that used AR instead of ME with some rather dramatic results, but they only fielded 12 players, so the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.

You can look up the old description of Ragnarok here http://irowiki.org/wiki/Ragnarok which corrects both of us. I was wrong to say it was a chain of 10 skills at random - it was a "chain" of 31 (one every 2 seconds) casts of 12 different spells selected at random. The word "chain" merely referred to one its most bizarre mechanics - Ragnarok was not supposed to stop when the casters died. I'm not an expert, but I could guess the skill never went live not for being useless, but being exploitable. I remember faint tester accounts of it working in towns, and can imagine terrible terrible things happening when players dagger-stopped it to cast it as many times as possible before death. Making it a chorus would at the very least prevent it from being spammable, and it's been enough years that they've designed all kinds of ways to prevent other exploits.

Edited by Marloe, 15 July 2011 - 08:54 AM.

[Kadelia]

Just becoming susceptible to freeze wasn't the *only* reason. People used Tao Gunkas and Ghostring Cards in woe, yes? I also have reason to believe the bug with AR overriding the 100% marc resistance was fixed give or take 3 years ago (around when it was discovered) The skill stacked with mist and pnuema, but not with ME; and ME advantages (walkable, protected more players, only needed 1 player) just meant ME was what was used. There was a guild on Valkyrie Server that used AR instead of ME with some rather dramatic results, but they only fielded 12 players, so the advantages outweighed the disadvantages.

You really don't like to be wrong do you? Sheesh. Normal people can own up to being wrong, but you... jeez.

If a bard initiates the AR then the dancer has her resist set to 50%, meaning dazzler or frost joke portal casted gave a high chance of ending the duet. This will wreck any precast protected by AR.

You can't get 100% elemental resist with AR because it sets your resit to 80% regardless of what equip you wear. This means your wizard flinches and can't precast. This defeats the point of having AR here.

Pre-casters, the ones needing this protection from storm gust, do not wear tao gunka and ghostring. :facepalm:

ME is vastly superior for protecting a precast. There are threads for this topic on iROWiki. You had to make up a reason why people didn't use AR because you aren't well versed in the skill. Or WoE apparently. Just own up to it and stop arguing. Jimminy Cricket.

Edited by Jaye, 15 July 2011 - 09:05 AM.

[Marloe]

Just go and test AR, alright? It doesn't work that way anymore. It worked that way (overriding marc resistance) for six months to a year after AR received the 80%/50% buff, and got fixed. I am pretty well-versed in this skill, tyvm. I was the second Minstrel aware of the Hermod trick, as well as one of the first to find that AR had been fixed in a unreported patch. Don't just assume people don't know what they're talking about.

Ran a quick test myself. Had 24 levels on a performer duo wearing glorious and unfrozen, couldn't freeze either of them with Frost Joke. Once they had the marc/glorious off, it took 3-4 jokes.

I don't mind being wrong at all if I am misinformed. But I do hate misinformation enough to challenge a misinformed opinion.

Edited by Marloe, 15 July 2011 - 09:34 AM.

[Kadelia]

Mind addressing the myriad of other points I made that you are wrong about? I am also not aware of a "fix" to AR. I have not tested this since renewal myself. It may have been corrected in renewal, but the story pre-renewal is unchanged.

Fact of the matter is you stated the main reason people didn't use AR was it took 2 people to support 10, which had almost nothing to do with why people didn't use it.

You called it an analogue to M.E. so it needed a nerf (buffing enemies). This is far from true. 1) ME is superior in every way 2) AR takes 2 people and makes them otherwise useless. A Sorcerer can ME and continue to do a myriad of other useful things.
Bottom line: Sorcerer >>>>> Performer at defensive WOE support.

Honestly Sorcerer is a better 'support' character than Performers, with their White Imprison, Striking, Dispel, Magnetic Earth, Soul Siphon, etc., while we have pretty much DSL (getting heavy nerf) & Gloomy (changing completely), & (just maestro) gets harmonize which is also getting nerfed. Seems to me sorcerer focuses more on protecting/buffing allies with supportive abilities, and performers debuffing enemies/status crippling them, which actually overlaps strongly with shadow chaser.

Edited by Jaye, 15 July 2011 - 09:44 AM.

[Marloe]

Having it affect all players in the aoe is a huge buff to the skill. Why can't you see that? As for your argument, (ME just better, begin sorcerer rant) the Guild Sakura on iRO Valk was a 12-16 attendance guild that defended better than many 40-50 member guilds, and could hold against almost any other guild 1v1. They used AR, combining it with pnuema and blinding mist to become almost impervious to damage.

They were DAUNTING to break. You either had to overrun them on open ground (if you could get an ME off on them you would overwhelm them), or tank the brunt of their damage betting that you could get a lucky pickoff (ie: a pnuema dropping on a character within range but not in mist) or a champ past their lines - once they lost one of the easy to identify/target lynchpins of their defense they usually couldn't recover fast enough. They didn't freeze to frost joke nor did their bryn wearing characters stun (dark bacs would stack with the stun resistance). Getting that buff to apply to as many as 70 other players would be huge.

They used this technique at LEAST a full year before Renewal, and I'm dead sure AR was fixed long before they started using it.

Sakura History on Valk

While their recalls were often funny to watch, they were a pretty strong guild. You might note that for "single castles held" they're ranked number 1 in WoE2 and number 2 in WoE1. Their strategy EXCELLED at holding single forts, and it really did take an alliance to take forts of off them.

Edited by Marloe, 15 July 2011 - 05:24 PM.

[Kadelia]

If you can't break 12 people hugging an accoustic rhythm with a guild of 40, you should break your guild. I highly doubt the experiences you are writing about. A simple gambetain or ME would wreck that guild setup in under 3 seconds, even a mediocre crit sinx would destroy that setup, and its completely ignoring your objective is the emperium, which you could walk past this tiny immobile precast easily and focus on.

The skill is weak and so is your argument.

[Marloe]

If you can't break 12 people hugging an accoustic rhythm with a guild of 40, you should break your guild. I highly doubt the experiences you are writing about. A simple gambetain or ME would wreck that guild setup in under 3 seconds, even a mediocre crit sinx would destroy that setup, and its completely ignoring your objective is the emperium, which you could walk past this tiny immobile precast easily and focus on.

The skill is weak and so is your argument.

Meh, I submit that they had a good chance at holding using AR with 12 people, and suggested a buff that would allow AR to apply to 40+ people. Because 40+ people with that buff really WOULD be strong at holding. Might you begin to think that in a precast, the critical difference between AR and ME is more the number of people it affects rather than AR being a "bad skill?"

Edited by Marloe, 15 July 2011 - 04:44 PM.

[Kadelia]

No, you submitted 2 things
1) a poor & inaccurate claim about the prior usefulness of AR
2) an opinion on what AR should do going forward which I also strongly agree with as it allows for stacking with ME and becomes a a beyond-essential buff that makes Warlocks even more useless and still doesn't reduce damage from Dragon's Breath, which would be the only deserving need for this skill, and that we would be forced into spamming all siege along with deep sleep.

I proved beyond a doubt that you are wrong on point #1, and you've failed to come up with a reasonable explanation for #2. Whatever nonsense you're doing with the rep system doesn't change the situation.

The critical difference between AR and ME right now is ME is mobile (+1), ME is immunity to the flinch caused by AoE magic (+1), AR requires two people (-1), AR makes both the involved performers useless for any other task (-2). So We're looking at a huge discrepancy in usefulness. If you want to buff it and make it nearly as good as ME that's one thing, but a chorus stacks with ME, which is a horribly badly conceived idea IMO.

I love how your ideas for making performer better at support are making us closer to as useful at support as sorcerer, and yet scholars were able to kill people 1 on 1 in woe, yet you don't see a problem with our dps lol

Edited by Jaye, 15 July 2011 - 11:53 AM.

[asayuu]

The critical difference between AR and ME right now is ME is mobile (+1), ME is immunity to the flinch caused by AoE magic (+1), AR requires two people (-1), AR makes both the involved performers useless for any other task (-2). So We're looking at a huge discrepancy in usefulness. If you want to buff it and make it nearly as good as ME that's one thing, but a chorus stacks with ME, which is a horribly badly conceived idea IMO.

You mean. Performers can't use bow skills on precasts? The other thing they could do would be CP+Trap [Despair].

http://irowiki.org/w...ing_for_Freedom
http://irowiki.org/wiki/Voice_Lessons

Also. Dragon Breath is a weird skill. Fire element, and can't be reduced by fire element reduction gear [Including that AR], except armor.

It seems it does not have fixed cast time, making its cast faster than our Rainstorm [Our best DPS at the moment]

It is also a physical strike, so neither GTB nor MDEF blocks it.

If Dragon Breath got that so called fix, Acoustic would be useful. If Acoustic blocked all the elements, then we would see it being really useful

I love how your ideas for making performer better at support are making us closer to as useful at support as sorcerer, and yet scholars were able to kill people 1 on 1 in woe, yet you don't see a problem with our dps lol

Me neither. The problem is you wanting magical DPS on a melee-type class. [Example: Do you see any battle sorcerer killing people 1 on 1?]. And then, I steal that from the wanderer topic:

A ) I want Metallic Sound to suck more SP from opponents.

B ) I want chorus skills to be useful.

Metallic Sound sucking more SP from oponents does not mean raising its HP damage. At least not all the time.

[Off-topic... Or not?]

You two are always arguing ridiculously in all the [decent] discussion topics I see. I mean. Both are right, but always want to proof the other is wrong with random arguments from nowhere. Then the discussions get always to the point of ridiculous and nobody gains anything from that.

[Marloe]

It's just weird. Because Jaye will say stuff like "AR stacking with ME" or "AR can't give immunity to flinch" Stuff like that confuses the hell out of me. ME overwrites most ensembles, and when they changed the status resistance from AR to stack properly with other % based status resistance, they ALSO changed the element resistance to stack properly with % based elemental resistance. That means you can achieve 100% resistance to cold element with JUST a valk shield, and 100% resistance to many more elements by using an Aesprika, garment card, or glorious rings.

I wouldn't contest that ME being mobile where AR was not was a huge part of its favor, but I can guarantee that AR+Pnuema+Mist (oh yeah, wouldn't THOSE block breath?) provided a stronger fixed defense for the players affected. If the ensembles were to affect more players, Longing for freedom could allow the performers using the ensemble to support actively with joke/dazzler/tarot (and in RE, with choruses/DSL/siren's)

The arguments she bases on these inaccurate statements are flawed because of this weird habit; and I feel like I should set the record straight rather than let other performers that read our (all too petty, I know) arguments get the idea that some of the things she's claiming are actual fact. That, and she really does irk me when she says things like, "proved without a doubt" as if simply saying the phrase added weight to her argument.

Edited by Marloe, 15 July 2011 - 05:32 PM.

[Kadelia]

You're confused because I said something factual that has a bearing on gameplay and you have no clue how to play the game? Yes, I believe that. Again I am not aware of a single bugfix to this skill. If they did it was some sort of submarine patch that only hit your client during that dream you had 2 years ago. The only patch I am aware of to this skill since its inception was it was improved from 70% to 80% and expanded from water/fire to all 4 main elements. If the skill works as you say it'd be used frequently, and warlocks and other classes would be QQing nonstop. Deviling, Ghostring, 2 Glorious Ring, and Accoustic Rhythm would make someone practically invulnerable to any MVP if it worked this way. Of that list, AR is the only thing people aren't using.

To boot, if this wasn't an ensemble, your performers would be able to use it from a screen away, safe from the MVP. So you'd only need 1 GR instead of 2, and have a higher HP tank. Pretty absurd of a buff if you ask me. Why you think such godlike buffs to old skills are justified but correcting a new 3rd job skill to be useable is not to you mystifies me.

The last statement is cute because the only person that ever posts inaccurate stuff unapologetically here is you. Frequently.

@asayuu - My understanding is Voice Lessons works with Songs/dances not Ensembles? If it works with ensembles then I stand corrected.

Edited by Jaye, 16 July 2011 - 04:41 AM.

[Marloe]

This is you getting proved wrong about this property of AR. In 2009. http://forums.irowik...Acoustic Rhythm the bugfix (and that was what it was) didn't make patch notes, but continuous testing of the skill revealed the change. Screenshots in thread.

@asayuu - Just voice lessons works with ensembles, but only for the initiator of the ensemble. For the partner to start using skills they would need to Longing for Freedom. once they used Longing, they could actually use 3rd skills regardless of voice lessons level (they should even be able to use skills unusable with Voice Lessons 5 alone)

@Jaye: Really? I'd like a list of it. Cause I really DO hate inaccurate information. I never asked for the CURRENT ensembles (AR/Battle Theme/etc) to lose their current activation mechanics, just that they had their effect extended to non-party members.

Edited by Marloe, 16 July 2011 - 08:45 AM.

[Maka]

Jaye and Marloe. Please keep it civil. You both have differing opinions. Telling the other person they are wrong and stupid isn't going to persuade them your right. Just continue posting your suggestions without the discord. Ignore each other if possible

Edited by Maka, 16 July 2011 - 01:35 PM.

[Marloe]

Jaye and Marloe. Please keep it civil. You both have differing opinions. Telling the other person they are wrong and stupid isn't going to persuade them your right. Just continue posting your suggestions without the discord. Ignore each other if possible

I was not aware there was a forum rule against telling someone that they were wrong. There IS a forum rule against telling someone that they are stupid. However, you are the mod. I'll trust your judgement in this matter even if I disagree with it.

[Akin]

To balance it. Having an Acoustic protect just guildies in its radius while leaving any enemy that could break into it still vulnerable is ultimately too strong - the skill is an analogue to ME (that you can put blinding mist and pnuema up in) so it *should* work like those skills do. the effect doesn't persist, so forcing the players using it to drop it when enemies get too close is fair. These skills never got popular in woe simply because needing two characters to keep up such buffs on 10 people was just LESS good than ME, which could protect everyone in its radius. Renewal added plenty of neutral damage and disable that would ignore this protection, which would make AR simply "good," rather than "too good."

Wow, I disappear for a few days and miss out on all this action lol.

Anyway, I disagree that any of those 4 ensembles you mentioned are too OP to only affect party members. The real OP skills are CP and Magic Strings and that's why those skills affect everyone (though, if you're going to be fair, you should throw Slow Grace into your list and make it affect allies as well). The true reason these skills never became popular is because most guilds simply couldn't, and still cannot, field enough performers to have CP and Strings, and AR/Battle Theme/Harmonic Lick/Power Cord. A good sac Pally or 2 was far better protection than AR could ever provide a pre-cast line; Battle Theme and Harmonic Lick, because their effects don't last outside of their AoE like solo songs, destroys the mobility of melee classes that could benefit from their effects (mobility is what melee thrive on in WoE/PvP); and Power Cord just really isn't that useful (especially considering the advent of gym passes and Kafra cards).

To be honest, considering all the strong ranged damage skills given to 3rd class jobs, Battle Theme is, arguably, the most viable of these 4 for a precast line. 250 attack is quite sexy in Renewal.

In conclusion, I don't feel that a change like this would make performers any better as a support class, or more tactical as a debuff class. Bards and Dancers as they currently exist in RO need buffs to their support skills, not nerfs.

Just my opinion though.

[Marloe]

*Shrug* I still think allowing 1 ensemble to affect more than just 12 people would be a rather large buff to our supporting abilities. Right now in woe the likelihood of having the party members and the performers be both the only ones in the precast and all together to be supported is nil. However, you can think what you want about it. Even buffed, ensembles would only be useful in fixed positions - but having them able to affect their alliance would give the 3rd and 4th performers in a precast line something useful to do in addition to spamming joke/dazzle/tarot etc. It's largely how I feel about the chorus skills - if they can only affect 12 people at a time they're largely useless almost regardless of what they actually DO.

Slow grace and magic strings are good because they have effective targeting - an aoe debuff hitting enemies only and a buff that hits everybody give them a balanced use. Both the chorus tree and the support ensembles are severely limited by their targeting - the 12 members of your party in range.

@Jaye: what nonsense with the rep system? I've linked our debates to other performer players that I know, but other than that I have no idea what you're talking about.

Edited by Marloe, 18 July 2011 - 07:41 PM.

[asayuu]

Actually, about the choruses. Even being able to target up to... The whole guild maybe?

Most effects are useless "as is". Before being able to hit everyone, some effects should be changed.

For ensembles, I agree about them affecting everyone. It would be slighty better than affecting only the party. It makes only 11 possible targets. 12 if the caster is linked.

Acoustic got a huge nerf on Renewal. This nerf is because of the "forced neutral status attack", and for the huge amount of melee AOE skills. Warlocks are no more the "main precast class" like it was pre-renewal. This job came to jobs that have the "forced neutral" damage.

[Akin]

*Shrug* I still think allowing 1 ensemble to affect more than just 12 people would be a rather large buff to our supporting abilities. Right now in woe the likelihood of having the party members and the performers be both the only ones in the precast and all together to be supported is nil. However, you can think what you want about it. Even buffed, ensembles would only be useful in fixed positions - but having them able to affect their alliance would give the 3rd and 4th performers in a precast line something useful to do in addition to spamming joke/dazzle/tarot etc. It's largely how I feel about the chorus skills - if they can only affect 12 people at a time they're largely useless almost regardless of what they actually DO.

Whoa, I'm not arguing that they shouldn't affect allies, that would actually be a good buff. I just feel that allowing them to affect enemies defeats the benefit that ensembles are supposed to give over solo skills (that benefit being that you don't have to worry about enemies stealing their effects). Fixing ensembles in place puts a well thought out limit to those benefits, and Longing for Freedom provides the performer with a reward for transcending by giving them some measure of survivability and the ability to do something other than just standing there waiting to die. Voice Lessons 5 takes it even further.

Either way, the fact still remains that most guilds on iRO don't have more than 3 performers (2 for CP which are often slaves, and 1 stringer), so most of this is moot. If I could change one thing, I would allow ensembles to affect alliance members as you suggested, and allow performers across alliances to perform ensembles and chorus skills together. It might be a bit too much if Ymir still had the 5k+ people that Chaos used to have long ago during siege, but it wouldn't be OP in the <1k population we have now. Especially with the changes coming to Song of Destruction.

[Yanzan]

So ya as a side note am still going to keep working on this Kvm weapon.

(sits on the side lines and reads this heated debate)

[Marloe]

If I could change one thing, I would allow ensembles to affect alliance members as you suggested, and allow performers across alliances to perform ensembles and chorus skills together.

You mean allied performers could use ensembles and chorus skills without being in party with each other? That'd be a huge convenience but my knee-jerk is that it would make things TOO easy. Still, such a change would be super nice.