Exilia

In my opinion the only problem with elf right now is that you need to add 4k energy to unlock ice arrow, and the fact that using those points on ene provides us literally nothing more than the spell itself. Just imagine if BK would have to add 4k ene in order to unlock combo - he would still get % skill damage and stronger fortitude buff. If sMG would have to add 4k ene in order to unlock fire slash - he would still get higher % defense reduction. If DL would have to add 4k ene in order to unlock chaotic - he would still get stronger critical damage buff. If summoner would have to add 4k str in order to unlock her abilities - well, that would be lame, right? I do think that pure pvm elf is still able to do the things she is supposed to (ks goldens, bc, other bosses, etc.), pure pvp elf is still pretty strong against melee range fighters, but this hybrid build - or so called support elf - feels really incomplete due the way you have to build her. I do understand that the ice arrow is pretty strong ability, and im fine with the fact that we will lose some damage and survivability if we wish to use it, but I also feel like there should be some additional benefits for using that 4k points on energy. And still I think the best option to do this would be to enable the def/dmg buff on sv1, but only with xx(10/20 maybe?) % of the basic value. This would simply give more identity for this "support" elf and those points used on energy would not feel like such a waste anymore. And since we're talking about DL's, I don't play the class by myself, but at the moment it feels like he has the top tier mobility, top tier damage, top tier defense and top tier range. Don't really have ideas how to balance it, but I give my +1 for disabling the horse movement in Illusion Temple, it's just unnecessary benefit which creates nothing more than unbalance.

Yes, technically it's ranged class since we can shoot the arrows from a far, but if we ever wanna actually deal any damage, we kinda have to stay in melee range. Multishot dmg cuts off big time if we stand even one tile away from the closest possible position of the target. And with ice arrow or penetration it's not possible to kill anyone that's even remotely close to the gear / stats you have. Another thing that should be taken into consideration is that weapon upgrades ain't gonna do a shit for us. The difference between +12 and +15 bow is roughly around 60 damage. Maybe it's the same for bk/smg/dl, idk since i didn't test it. But meanwhile sm and summoner benefits around 2k dmg from this upgrade at this point of the game. And the gap is going to get even higher after every reset.

Good job with the interviews! It's nice to visit forums every now and then and see what is going on on the server. Also, some good ideas mafy has there; "Maybe I would make a small group with top active players on server and ask them about the game play every week. I wouldn't wait until ppl start complaining and shake things on the server. I will also tell you what I would love to see here. If I'd own the server, I'd do the next thing: I would try to make an EPIC MEGA ULTRA LEGENDARY edition by bringing here GROM, DEADCATS, SQUADRON and old Linkmania rival guilds - Regal and SCREAM. I would like to see a legendary database that can bring back a lot of oldschool players and combining with the players we already have in this community, and with the stable server like this one can be a combination that can last months and will still be fun!" #unbangrom

The idea of adding Moss is great, but enough time should be taken to plan the rates and items received carefully. This event was intended to be "gambler event", so every roll shouldn't be considered as win. If every roll gives you something valuable enough to be sold in the market it would just be an money making machine at first, and then eventually with time inflates the market with items that nobody wants to purchase. Imo 10% chance for extras like toca, mbp, feather, crest etc. is way too high. Those are still the "top-tier" goodies for mid game gameplay and should remain their value as such. If people can get their hands on these items with only zen, those rolls should play the role of a "jackpot". I mean, would any casino hand out jackpots with 1/10 ratio? Maybe you could add different category for each piece of equipment that's available from the Moss (helmets, armors, panties, gloves, boots). This way people could focus gambling on the parts they're lacking from completing their sets and it would reduce the anxiety of "winning" the parts they already possess. Also each weapon type could have their own category as on the original event, but still keeping in mind that it should be gamble, and not less than 50% of your rolls should be considered as loss.

lmao that was actually hilarious! we need more content like this

I'm not saying that my opinions are the correct ones, they're just my opinions. This has some truth in it, but lets take a look at the mana shield as first example. As I wrote on the opening post; Only problem with Soul Barrier is that you don't have to go for agi build, so called support sm, in order to gain efficient shield to play with. Basic value for barrier is 6%, with 20 ML points you gain additional 13% increase, with current agility formula(agility/62) you easily gain another 10%. That's already 29% absorb without even thinking about if you want to play as a supporter or heavy damage dealer. With 620 agility, you should be easily able to get ~1500 energy, which gives you 6% additional barrier. That is total of 35% absorb with a simple build that also gives you decent killing potential since the formula for max damage is ene/2. My point is that with the current ratios, there is literally no reason to aim for the supportive build since ++30% shield is so easily achievable without hurting your damaging abilities. As the math says, you can reach 35% barrier with no effort. You don't have to make supportive agility based build, but you can focus on topping your damage with huge amounts of energy. If we try to reason how strong mana shield should be on pvp/support sm, rough example would be that pvp sm has 20% barrier while support sm has 40% barrier. Wouldn't it be more reasonable that this simple build that works for pvp and pvm meets you halfway there, and gives you 30% barrier instead of 35%? Why the formula favors pvp build so heavily that he doesn't have to think about if he wants to rely more on dealing or absorbing damage? I think that the agility formula for barrier growth should be (agility/100-124)(%) instead of the current one. Then your barrier strength would be more close to 30% instead of 35% with damage based builds, or you could choose to build for more supportive style in case you wish to reach the 40% barrier. I don't think this would significantly weaken any sm, but it would bring more diversity into building one. Second thing was the dd option. I do understand that the global damage % ramps up with your resets, but was some class/builds really doing so much damage with 10 resets that the dd cap had to be buffed from 55% to 60%? I admit that I spoke behalf of nerfing dd a bit too harsh since I haven't tested it with maxed characters, but nevertheless 60% seems a lot to me. My point was that agility based builds are strong in pvm, yes, but they're also best ones for pvp. There is no reason to waste 600 points for str, just to increase your max damage by 200, which then gets decreased by 60% because of dd. Much more beneficial way is to add the 600 points on agility and therefore gain the power ups in terms of speed and defense. And ae is the only class that doesn't have to make decision if he wish to build for speed and defense or damage, she has it all. Sure her formulas are pretty well tuned so I'm not saying it's op in any way. This situation just correlates with the problem I see with damage decrease at the moment. Can't say that it's op cause I don't have the math to prove it, but it makes building damage just not worth it, no matter which class you're playing as. While it's the only way for her to win cc, it's also only ability that makes it unplayable for us. This is why I'm saying that the duration should be nerfed, not that the ability should be removed. While reducing the duration she still has her advantage to play the event with her strengths, but it would also give us an opportunity to survive from that. I don't know what's the math behind that how resistance rings/pendant work, but solely relying on wasting 20 points on ML tree to reduce the effect by 9% feels little awkward.

Yes, the default state was a joke indeed, and you've come a long way to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. Also I think the "perfect balance" is something that you can never achieve, but then again, we shouldn't consider the current state to be as close to perfect as it will ever get. I'm fine that no radical changes is going to take place on this edition, but since MU is the only game I keep coming back to year after year, I'd like to encourage the implementation of this project to make the gaming experience even better in the future. The idea of this poll was not to get people to vote on one thing, and then drive changes based on majorities opinion, but rather to see how people view these points themselves, and to give them the opportunity to provide an explanation for why they see things as they do. I should have been more clear with my intentions, that's my bad. I do understand the idea of this, but I think it's a little paradoxical with the balancing tweaks that are taking place right now. I'd rather not repeat my self, but take an AE for example; She builds only agility which makes her one of the best PvM class as it's always been, we all know that, and many people choose to play this class since they prefer the PvM play style over PvP one. However, I don't know if it's the class being naturally tanky(due class vs. class damage), the fact that she has basically one build that works for both play styles, the current state of dd options, or combination of all these things, but she seems to be easily top tier choice for both playstyle categories. Then comes the SM, it's often viewed as god tier PvP class with so called "class cannon" build, which hits like a truck, but lacks the survivability. This style requires the perfect support party to make it thrive, but without such it's quite easy to counter. The other end is the support build aka. agility SM. That style should be played as a tank, buffer, holder, however you wish to call it, but it does it's job great without relying on others. Then there is something mixed between those two extremity, that could be called the nirvana of SM builds. However, as the state of the game is right now, every SM seems to reach the "nirvana" quite easily, as long as they wear good gear they become almost unstoppable and fit the both categories of tank and damage dealer. Some people criticize sMG for being over powered. What I think is that the class is pretty versatile. You can build him to be good in PvM, but that hurts your PvP abilities. Then again if you build him for PvP, that hurts your PvM abilities, a lot. And if you build him for PvP, you are very weak against players with +dd sets so there goes your damage. With the nerfs for AA weapons, being a melee character and current state of other classes and items, I'm not considering MG to be top tier PvP choice at the moment, not even close to top. Sure against anyone who doesn't build defensive stats nor gear, MG is going to hurt like hell, but you're barely scratching any tank right now. But many tanks hurt you for sure. Unfortunately I can't give extensive opinion on other classes since I have very little experience on those. People say that DL is weak right now, but I think that with agility build they are going to be top tier in PvP as well. Summoner felt very strong few weeks ago, but I think it's starting to feel more balanced as peoples progress. For Rage Fighters I have literally nothing to say, don't know how the class works nor should work. And for BK, well, it's always the best choice for PvP if you actually know how to build and play it, but it's not easy. What I'm trying to say is that there should be more ways to counter each play style. More diversity to build your character to be a tank, class cannon damage dealer, bruiser, support etc. Of course every class has and should have their pros and cons, but the current balancing state doesn't support those diversities, but rather favors the idea that anyone can and should be able to do anything - and in my opinion that is causing some issues. And the major issue in my opinion is that agility based builds, or characters that benefit the most from agility based builds, are heavily favored in both, PvP and PvM, no matter that for what kind of play style they are choosing their character for. To put it simple, agility based speed & defense builds > Strength based high damage builds. Damage decrease sets > Damage sets (ancient). Sure, the defensive option should exist to counter the damage option, but not with such huge marginal that it makes the damage option not worth to build around. Agreed. Agreed. Still can't completely agree on this one. My point was that AE has ice arrow because she used to be weak PvP class. Now she is top tier PvP class, but the ability to lock down people still exist. I see very little difference with ice arrow being disabled/enabled in Illusion Temple and Chaos Castle. In Illusion Temple, in theory, you could drop down the ball in case you get iced and let your team mates pick it up and continue carrying it. But then the other played would get iced as well and he'd have to repeat the process. That we consider not fun and disturbing of the important event. In Chaos Castle, keep in mind that my opinion is based only on the fact that MG is melee class, and we're not able to fight back from range, the ice arrow hurts us the most. Even in a situation where AE wouldn't ice us, we're on a bad spot because she gets to land all her arrows on us from close range gaining equal strength in duel. Other ranged characters can still fight her back in case they get iced, and has the theoretical opportunity to kill her before falling down. Sure, why wouldn't they think that the ice arrow is signature ability and there is no need for change. But I feel like many people fails to look at this from a melee characters perspective. We're just doomed against a one single ability, that basically has no reason to exist in chaos castle, but still does because it was designed by the Webzen, even though the class that was designed for PvM has been changed to become a potent challenger in the field of PvP gaming. As you stated yourself that the default state by Webzen is a joke, I would very much count the ice arrow in chaos castle into this very same category. I have never said in public that ice arrow must be removed from chaos castle, but I stand behind my words that one ability, or a "specific trick", should not have such a huge abusive potential that it completely ruins the event for small group of characters. I'm not crying about MG being weak. I'm not crying about AE, SM, soul barrier, ice arrow, damage decrease being OP. Never ever has my intentions been to cry about something. But I'm trying to provide well reasoned opinion on things that I feel like can be adjusted to get us one step closer to the utopia of perfect mu online server.

I'm not underestimating any work that has been done to configure this server. This has been the most balanced project I've seen ever since I joined the first edition of non reset. Your attitude towards the topic seems to be the problem if you look at this as trash talking. I have done my very best to give reasoning behind every subject I've touched here. No changes has to be made nor will ever take place unless admin thinks there's a need for them, but trying to shut down any constructive discussion about the balancing issues from our perspective is pretty naive in my opinion. Nothing is perfect and never will be, but there is always room for some improvement. e: Because it's a class that's designed for PvM play style, and the reason they gave her an ability to stun people is to deny anyone who tries to attack her. No other skill even remotely fits the same category with broken and ice arrow. Still, on this server, AE is equally strong in PvP with any other class, and in Chaos Castle, it has very little to do with PvP while she just abuses the skill without actually killing you - she locks you down and makes you fall and there is nothing you can do about it. If you are able to explain to me why she should have ice arrow in cc, with the current effect duration, I'm ready to take back everything I have said. But before you do that, I'll consider your post yet another "trash talk"-opinion, and it has very little value for sorting out this situation.

With 6k hp that shouldn't be too much of a problem But yeah you're right. We can't know how it will turn out once people start to get closer to max resets.

Maybe you're low def/agi then. He also has 50 more ml, and maybe more defense based skill tree. If that's not the case, maybe other class damage vs. elf is configured too low, as I remember class vs. class damages being modified here for more balance.

Miss, miss, miss is because of the IT spell shield. But other than that it's the power of magnificent 60%

I think you're wrong here my friend. I could bet you that any player who has reached the 60% dd cap isn't just barely surviving at the moment. They are basically immortal with 3rd wings and correct build. And reducing the max dd from 60% to 50/40% isn't going to break the game and make those characters unplayable. E: Nobody is dependent on the 10/20% (60% -> 50/40%) damage decrease, those amounts can be fixed by building your character in a different way. E2: And many times we're not even talking about this big numbers, it's just the theoretical maximum cap. You for example got 2 items with +7% ddi. Would you say that you're dependent on the 4% difference it would make if the maximum cap is reduced to 50%? (e.g. max ddi +7% -> +5%).

Can't you see that this is caused by the absurd amount of +dd people can achieve so easily. You trying to make a high damage build where you aim to get your max hits as big as possible. But you're basically wasting your stats on a attribute that is very easy to counter atm. It is very inefficient to try to focus on huge numbers cause your damage gets reduced by 60%. The reason AE and SM are strong now is because they can build agility based build with more additional benefits, which makes them harder to counter. AE for example builds only agility with some vitality. All her damage comes from agility, it gives her great speed, great defense and great success rate. This makes her top tier in both, pvp and pvm. SM can build some agility to gain natural damage absorb, while still being able to add huge amounts of energy to max out his damage output. On top of that he can choose between set +dd to become more tanky, or ancient set to even further increase the big damage output gained by his damage ratios. No matter which option he choose to go for, both are top tier on their respective category. Exactly the reason why I'm proposing to nerf the max cap of damage decrease is to bring more variety in game and to allow more builds to be viable. Lets be honest here, we need damage decrease option in game to counter high damage dealers, not for it to be only viable option to go for. And to counter the high damage numbers, 40-50% should be just enough.

First of all, I never said that Ice Arrow should be removed. I just gave an option for people to vote if they feel so. I've explained my concern about the current state of the skill pretty clearly in multiple topics. I have always been fine with Ice arrow since AE has never been top PvP character, but on this server, AE is as good as any other class, but the Ice Arrow remains the same, and that is the reason causing the problems. Also, as you can see I never mentioned that the cap for DD should be 40% because MG can wear only 4 items. I think I made my points pretty clear, but you just failed to understand my reasoning. Please, if your opinion on this is so strong, explain yourself to us instead of just throwing out aggressive assumptions. The idea for soul barrier wasn't to reduce the max cap - but to make agi sm viable as a support character, and decrease the barrier strength for sm's that are purely build only for PvP.

There has been a bit of discussion about these topics, some in public and some between smaller group of players. In my opinion these things, as they are now, push the game into unhealthy state, and some improvements could be done to improve to overall balance of game play. I'm not gonna go too in depth with explanations, and I don't want to push any changes unless majority thinks the same, but these are my thoughts from a players perspective. Chaos Castle and Ice Arrow skill has had a lot of attention recently. I try to play every cc daily and from experience I can say that regardless of winning or losing, it's just not fun to play against. And from what I have understood, the server aims to give a fair chance for any class on anything they do (with some variety of course), but playing against Ice Arrow in cc is nowhere near 50/50, tops 80/20 I would say. Damage Decrease (+dd) is another thing that bothers me. Maybe it's just because I play MG and DD counters my ass big time, but still I think that having the option to gain 60% of the damage dealt to you decreased by excellent/harmony options is just way too much. To put it another way, this makes it very inefficient to build your character to deal tons of damage since most of it is going to get absorbed, and it heavily favors agi/speed based builds. Of course there has to be a way to counter high damage dealers, and in my opinion 40% dd would do that just fine. It would also leave more room for +ref and +hp builds, as for now those seems to always be the secondary options. You should be able to build unique stats for your character according what you want to use the character for, and there should me multiple sets to choose from to support these builds. Now easily over 50% of the players, no matter the build and usage of the character, just simply has to wear +dd set because it's so over tuned compared to other options available. Only problem with Soul Barrier is that you don't have to go for agi build, so called support sm, in order to gain efficient shield to play with. Basic value for barrier is 6%, with 20 ML points you gain additional 13% increase, with current agility formula(agility/62) you easily gain another 10%. That's already 29% absorb without even thinking about if you want to play as a supporter or heavy damage dealer. With 620 agility, you should be easily able to get ~1500 energy, which gives you 6% additional barrier. That is total of 35% absorb with a simple build that also gives you decent killing potential since the formula for max damage is ene/2. My point is that with the current ratios, there is literally no reason to aim for the supportive build since ++30% shield is so easily achievable without hurting your damaging abilities. If you don't agree with my lines I'd like to hear your point of view, but mostly I'd just like to see you voting so that we can hear the voice of many. Peace.