Solo DD = Broken Game Theory.

[Vegeta1326]

Archers have always been at the top top of L2, this is no secret, but now its gone too far. A solo archer can out XP any class by an exponential amount. I have seen archers do over 700T in a few hours in coal mines, no other class can even compare. (this is mostly to do with multi arrow's mechanics, and coal mines, but still.) Add a ISS running to a pet and its even worse. (this should be nerfed immediately). If you look at any of the main XP zones, its all 1 or 2 toons per group of mobs. This limits the spots available as there are less players per spot. The most efficient way for any DD to xp is solo. This means supports do not help you xp, they slow your xp. this is backwads. the server population will never be balanced as things are. Currently the best way to level most toons is to make an archer and gear it to xp them. that doesnt make since.There is never a time you need a healer past 105 to xp, they are only useful for dailies and instances, other than that a healer is just a leach, the literally contribute nothing to an xp party. even a half ass geared tank never needs a healer in xp zones. We also now have events blatantly giving a huge advantage to any DD class, even more so for archers. A 108 decent gear archer does better in kama than tyrr heros...this is broken. Basic game theory does not exist here. Somebody needs to pull out some old monster manuals and get the basics back on track.

[Vegeta1326]

Most players say the "weaker or lesser classes" are broken and need buffs, this may be true for a few, but in reality the archer is whats broken, and breaking the entire server.

[Slycutter]

I have no clue what game your playing but Evis, maestros, and daggers way out damage archers unless archers are in TIP TOP gear and have super enchants on skills.

Archers only become broken if you break your Amex card.  I am very well geared but an evi with exalted gear same level as me xp and kills a lot quicker than I ever could.  Did you look with the top 150 people are on a server?

Top 10 on Chronos are 2 Evis (1 being 115 top of the server) 2 Nukers 2 Daggers 2 archers 1 tank 1 duelist.

Top 150 is divided pretty much the same with a healer or iss here and there.  SO let me say learn the game better before you speak.

[rash]

its because the "core" community is missing on NCsoft servers, let me put it this way: you have players with stacked items that spend their monthly wages on the game, you have grinding players who spend the minimum amount just enough to get pass, and you have the new players trying to find some gameplay. On NCsoft you have 90% of the first kind...stacked players who dont need to get supports cuz they can solo anything, and the rest are the other players from your category, meaning the players you need to find so you can play supports dont exist or are extremely hard to find, this is what killed NCsoft, they simply didnt understand that its one thing to pay for a brooch or a rune or a skin or ss and another to not be able to progress without spending, their mentality is ironically killing them and there is no sign of any brain activity from them to understand this.

Edited July 15, 2020 by rash

[Argus]

@Vegeta1326

I agree with some of your points, yul is atm the most efficient class in the game. I also see from your post, that you do not exactly know why is that, I can give you a few good reasons.

1. Maybe most important why - people who pay for this game, want to get the most efficient class to play pvp/pve = archer, almost 99% of the people, will invest more in yul and this is one of the main reasons why yuls look much better that other dd classes on Chronos/Naia, it is not like that in Korea or Taiwan/japan, there you can see insane tyrrs/othels, who can farm/kill/xp even faster than yuls. 

2. There is a limit for XP now made by NCsoft, after a certain amount of gear, you XP on spots where mobs are limited, you cant pull 20 groups and 1 shot them, you are bound to staying in 1 spot and killing 5-6 // 10-12 mobs. That's why in last few updates all zones got more or less the same.

3. On Chronos/Naia promos are prices are x3 x5 x10 times more expensive = so all ppl choose yul to get the best kill speed for their money and optimize their investment somehow + yul is much more easy as a macro class.

There are many more reasons but main is = you get much more for your money with yul, than you will get from any other dd class … If all DD's were stacked like in Korea it is a different story 

[Vegeta1326]

1 hour ago, Slycutter said:

I have no clue what game your playing but Evis, maestros, and daggers way out damage archers unless archers are in TIP TOP gear and have super enchants on skills.

Archers only become broken if you break your Amex card.  I am very well geared but an evi with exalted gear same level as me xp and kills a lot quicker than I ever could.  Did you look with the top 150 people are on a server?

Top 10 on Chronos are 2 Evis (1 being 115 top of the server) 2 Nukers 2 Daggers 2 archers 1 tank 1 duelist.

Top 150 is divided pretty much the same with a healer or iss here and there.  SO let me say learn the game better before you speak.

Do some testing on your own instead of looking at what the TOP players are. There are many factors in why they are top, not just what current meta is. Any toon with equal gear and level doesnt compare to what archers are capable of. also those 3 classes you listed, are single target. archer does just as much damage aoe. Plus i never mentioned damage, i said they out xp. go troll elsewhere.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Vegeta1326

[Vegeta1326]

46 minutes ago, Argus said:

@Vegeta1326

I agree with some of your points, yul is atm the most efficient class in the game. I also see from your post, that you do not exactly know why is that, I can give you a few good reasons.

1. Maybe most important why - people who pay for this game, want to get the most efficient class to play pvp/pve = archer, almost 99% of the people, will invest more in yul and this is one of the main reasons why yuls look much better that other dd classes on Chronos/Naia, it is not like that in Korea or Taiwan/japan, there you can see insane tyrrs/othels, who can farm/kill/xp even faster than yuls. 

2. There is a limit for XP now made by NCsoft, after a certain amount of gear, you XP on spots where mobs are limited, you cant pull 20 groups and 1 shot them, you are bound to staying in 1 spot and killing 5-6 // 10-12 mobs. That's why in last few updates all zones got more or less the same.

3. On Chronos/Naia promos are prices are x3 x5 x10 times more expensive = so all ppl choose yul to get the best kill speed for their money and optimize their investment somehow + yul is much more easy as a macro class.

There are many more reasons but main is = you get much more for your money with yul, than you will get from any other dd class … If all DD's were stacked like in Korea it is a different story 

I understand why it is this way. Its mostly due to the economy of coin. price of coin on this server is higher than the others. So yeah, if your gonna invest hundreds or thousands into a toon, archer is the only real option. best bang for your buck. but this is the problem. you can spend 3x as much on any other toon and not get the same results. this is broken. this is against basic game theory.

[Slycutter]

36 minutes ago, Vegeta1326 said:

Do some testing on your own instead of looking at what the TOP players are. There are many factors in why they are top, not just what current meta is. Any toon with equal gear and level doesnt compare to what archers are capable of. also those 3 classes you listed, are single target. archer does just as much damage aoe. Plus i never mentioned damage, i said they out xp. go troll elsewhere.

MrMind can out xp any archer I promise you that.

Also aoe becomes less efficient as you level.  As you can not pull multiple groups of mobs as they are restricted in more high level zones to their area of spawn.  If your talking under 105 yes Archers are the most efficient class to level but many high level instances are not aoe they are more focus fire/single target.  In the highest level archer in my ally single target kills at 112 because its more efficient.  I been playing this game 16 years no clue how long your playing it but its obvious you do not fully understand game mechanics.

 

In addition why there are more Yul and mostly ghost sentinels is its easy to xp with them click and shoot macros are easy does take much to understand them.  I have beaten higher level archers with better gear in the olympiad because they do not fully understand how to truly play an archer.   Look up evi and maestro 1/3 kill skills and then you understand why they level faster in areas they shouldn't be then equal level archers.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Slycutter
typo

[Rodah]

34 minutes ago, Slycutter said:

MrMind can out xp any archer I promise you that.

Also aoe becomes less efficient as you level.  As you can not pull multiple groups of mobs as they are restricted in more high level zones to their area of spawn.  If your talking under 105 yes Archers are the most efficient class to level but many high level instances are not aoe they are more focus fire/single target.  In the highest level archer in my ally single target kills at 112 because its more efficient.  I been playing this game 16 years no clue how long your playing it but its obvious you do not fully understand game mechanics.

 

In addition why there are more Yul and mostly ghost sentinels is its easy to xp with them click and shoot macros are easy does take much to understand them.  I have beaten higher level archers with better gear in the olympiad because they do not fully understand how to truly play an archer.   Look up evi and maestro 1/3 kill skills and then you understand why they level faster in areas they shouldn't be then equal level archers.

You have some fair points and I'm not trying to argue with you but I think you are wrong in general.  First off you can't really use the top 10 as a representation of class balance (imbalance).  The simply reason being we don't know what they are spending on XP boost items.  Maybe MrMind runs more Vit boost than Tityus; we don't know.  While I haven't done a full breakdown of the top 150 on Bartz I feel confidant it is overly represented by Archers.  Lest we forget, it also doesn't factor in high level dual archers like Scoobz or Ishmilia.

Your appraisal of AOE is wrong as well.  I would invite you to journey out to Sea of Spores and observe the full AOE parties FS is running out there.  I would also point out that FULL AOE in Swamp of Screams is without question the best XP in game ATM.  AOE in Storm is a close 2nd.  Using your archer friend as an example is misleading for obvious reasons.

Even beyond using XP as an indicator of class imbalance we can also look at the current Rim event and the past issue with adena farming in IoP.  Has there been a non-archer in the top 3 in Chronos or Naia?  No!  Additionally, was ANY melee character able to make BILLIONS in a single day in IoP before the adena nerf? No!  

So, in addition to being inherently better at obtaining XP archers are also better at obtaining adena and event rewards which, in turn, allows them to get better gear.  Thus increasing the disparity between classes.  I'm actually pretty surprised you can't see this; it's glaringly obvious.  

EDIT:  Just to further illustrate the imbalance; I am a 500b toon.  A 109 Maestro with a +12 Bloody Avenger with top Aug and other related items.  An archer with comparable gear would easily out XP me....  Hell, I can't even hit S reward in Rim but I am 100% certain a comparable Archer would.

Edited July 15, 2020 by Rodah

[Slycutter]

I completely understand game theory and ncsoft broke that when they let people multibox.  1 every archer has a ISS buff slave because they are useless without buffs its a class that needs to stack buffs to be efficent but since it fairly simple now to box an iss almost everyone I know has a decent level buff slave mine is only 50% behind me in level gear isn't as great but its not exalted gear either. 

The buffs they added for the most part made healers not needed in run of the mill xp.  I can xp without a healer because vamp rage (which as much as I like should not apply to range toons) without vamp rage archers would either need a tank to hold agro off them or a healer constantly healing them.  When i got to higher xp areas I keep a healer in party just in case of lag etc where I could die as archers are not known for high hp and pdef. 

Since awakening happened in GoD the ideal party thing disappeared.  In areas where mobs are resistant to arrows that can be overcome now for top gear.  However this is a little point I would like to make Yuls were not the preferred class until about 2 - 3 years ago it was nukers.  Archers has so many restrictions on them and where they could hunt some had daggers to still xp with a party because of so many arrow resistant mobs.

 

Basic game theory breaks a RPG down into 4 - 5 classes.  1 Tank (standard in all RPGs no explanation) 2 Healer (pretty standard) 3 melee/range rouge (Our dagger/archer without many trap or chest skills anymore we actually use to have them) 4 range nuker (standard to ours) 5 melee high hp DD ie titans, duelist, dreadnaughts.

Many variations in this game but that is the usual standard in original RPG.  However archers are not even have skills like rouges should have IE traps, open chests, hide in shadows (30 seconds come on with 5 minute reload which mind is only a semi recent addition).  Before afk macros were allowed you had to kite mobs you were killing which is a way an archer should hunt.  It this is a little better for the theory part?

[Vegeta1326]

7 minutes ago, Slycutter said:

I completely understand game theory and ncsoft broke that when they let people multibox.  1 every archer has a ISS buff slave because they are useless without buffs its a class that needs to stack buffs to be efficent but since it fairly simple now to box an iss almost everyone I know has a decent level buff slave mine is only 50% behind me in level gear isn't as great but its not exalted gear either. 

The buffs they added for the most part made healers not needed in run of the mill xp.  I can xp without a healer because vamp rage (which as much as I like should not apply to range toons) without vamp rage archers would either need a tank to hold agro off them or a healer constantly healing them.  When i got to higher xp areas I keep a healer in party just in case of lag etc where I could die as archers are not known for high hp and pdef. 

Since awakening happened in GoD the ideal party thing disappeared.  In areas where mobs are resistant to arrows that can be overcome now for top gear.  However this is a little point I would like to make Yuls were not the preferred class until about 2 - 3 years ago it was nukers.  Archers has so many restrictions on them and where they could hunt some had daggers to still xp with a party because of so many arrow resistant mobs.

 

Basic game theory breaks a RPG down into 4 - 5 classes.  1 Tank (standard in all RPGs no explanation) 2 Healer (pretty standard) 3 melee/range rouge (Our dagger/archer without many trap or chest skills anymore we actually use to have them) 4 range nuker (standard to ours) 5 melee high hp DD ie titans, duelist, dreadnaughts.

Many variations in this game but that is the usual standard in original RPG.  However archers are not even have skills like rouges should have IE traps, open chests, hide in shadows (30 seconds come on with 5 minute reload which mind is only a semi recent addition).  Before afk macros were allowed you had to kite mobs you were killing which is a way an archer should hunt.  It this is a little better for the theory part?

i been here since beta, but missed the last like 2-3 years. i know about the past. i would say there is no "rouge" anymore, they are all just DD now. The way tyrr are built, they are some failed hybrid of melee DD and CC. I wouldnt expect a full party XP to be the best outside of instances, but it doesnt make since for any DD to get top XP solo, period. Ideally a small specified party should be your best chance at xp for any class. Im playing a healer now, since NOBODY wants to play it. You literally have to make a DD toon to level with if you want to keep up with anybody. I used archer as example because their advantages are blatant, but the problem exists across other clasees. evi and maestro as well. i have no desire to play archer, thats playing the eisiest version of a difficult game, but anyone who plays support needs to have a DD toon to keep up, or do events. The multi boxes are definitely the biggest problem, but that will never change. To NC that translates to more coin. If you've tried to play a duelist anytime recently, it really shows that what toon the top players have is insignificant.

[Vegeta1326]

24 minutes ago, Rodah said:

First off you can't really use the top 10 as a representation of class balance (imbalance).  The simply reason being we don't know what they are spending on XP boost items.  Maybe MrMind runs more Vit boost than Tityus; we don't know.

even thier personal living situation factors into it at that level. i know quite a few of the top groups actually live together.

[Zvr]

Archer has its advantages and disadvantages, anyone who thinks archer is god given best for all toon has never played it , probably was just watching some video of stacked toons 1 shoot things

[Methodical]

3 hours ago, Zvr said:

Archer has its advantages and disadvantages, anyone who thinks archer is god given best for all toon has never played it , probably was just watching some video of stacked toons 1 shoot things

dont think so , its simple math yul skills has 40k++ power added to their p.atk

e.x feohs have 300-500 power to their matk (but they got more m.atk)

telling this every item added to the yul will simply give them more power.

accordingly the yul class on its embryonal stage (without items) has more built in firepower how hard is that to understand.

thanks

[Slycutter]

2 minutes ago, Methodical said:

dont think so , its simple math yul skills has 40k++ power added to their p.atk

e.x feohs have 300-500 power to their matk (but they got more m.atk)

telling this every item added to the yul will simply give them more power.

accordingly the yul class on its embryonal stage (without items) has more built in firepower how hard is that to understand.

thanks

Wish it was that simple.  Magic Skills and Physical Skills has very different damage forumulas so 100 power on a nuke is not the same as 100 power on a physical skill.  Also there is skills that may look physical but are actually magical which further compounds this issue lol

[BlackIce]

On 7/15/2020 at 7:12 AM, Zvr said:

Archer has its advantages and disadvantages, anyone who thinks archer is god given best for all toon has never played it , probably was just watching some video of stacked toons 1 shoot things

Archers don't do everything well, they just do it better than mostly everyone else. Stack them up and then forget about it.

[voo]

aoe has always been best leveling in this game whether by 1 toon or full pt.

[LordDragnil]

Archers AOE, solo DD - total target control.

If you like archers, take and play.

[Skyone]

On 7/15/2020 at 12:12 PM, Slycutter said:

Top 10 on Chronos are 2 Evis (1 being 115 top of the server) 2 Nukers 2 Daggers 2 archers 1 tank 1 duelist.

Just for the sake of the argument..

Top 10 Naia: 6 Yul(2x 115), 3 Feoh, 1 Evis

[IceIceBaby]

Wait. There is more then archers class in this game?