Quote:Darkwood's Massacre
Power: 10
Accuracy: 80
Critical: 10
Critical Damage: 125%
Weapon Type: Sword
Damage Type: Slash
Range: 1

Item Description:
It's a chainsaw, said to have been behind the Black Forest's entire deforestation. Ignore its whispers, don't start a murder spree!

Item Effects:
- On-Hit: Deal protection-ignoring bonus Slash magic damage split over 4 times, to a total of 30% of the weapon's SWA. (Damage can critically hit.)

Scaling Tags:
Cunning (70% STR, 40% GUI)

Quote:Imperial Gunblade
Power: 10
Accuracy: 80
Critical: 0
Critical Damage: 110%
Weapon Type: Sword
Damage Type: Slash
Range: 1

Item Description:
The cutting aspect of a sword, and the blasting aspect of a gun, wrought together by the ingenuous craftsmanship of the Empire's finest.

Item Effects:
- Also treated as a Gun.
- Attacks done to enemies beyond 1 range become Pierce damage.

Scaling Tags:
Basic (100% STR)

This is more like a general survey mixed with a suggestion board... Do you all feel Summoner is in a fun to use and healthy place right now? I sure don't. Feels more like a balance nightmare where because of the bonus stats and passives out the butt you gotta limit what youkai can do because summoner both does TOO MUCH and NOT ENOUGH at the same time.

 You may wonder what im proposing. A rework of some kind, not just to the class but all youkai as well. The fact that Youkai are so easily called out in Zerg rush fashion when in the right cases fp sustain for them is very possible for enough rounds to get absolutely massacred forces them to be relegated to being weaker statblocks than most PVE monsters just with neat passives that either destroy people like Suzaku or Seiryuu, or are useless like orbelo.

 So, I propose an idea. Summoner having another meter to manage where all youkai have a rating. Depending on a few factors, you can only have a certain number of youkai on field according to this. In my head I thought of the Ascendeds being the highest rated and thereby can only have one on field at once, maybe two if using grand summoner with a specific passive skill from it. In turn, youkai that are weaker can have more out at a time like a snow crow alongside a hippogriff and a fairy. I also thought of this system causing you to only be able to ever have 3 youkai on field max if not using grand summoner for 5. A main class skill for sure. This limiter will help remove some of the un-fun nature of grand summoner, slightly...

 From here, touching up Grand Summoner a bit would be needed as well, such as Summon Storm. I now propose it summons the first youkai in your list up to 5 but takes the meter into account for how many are actually summoned. As a bonus i'd like it to also prioritize summoning ascendeds to their proper side of the field if only because its an invocation.

With the changes above neutering swarm tactics, now youkai can have their stats changed to be a little bit better, but the biggest thing is that I want youkai to gain 'items' as they level up from 1 to 60. They have torso, hand, and accessory slots, this could be where they get better stats or effects they're known for from... For example, Drowned Woman no longer has Amendum, sin, and purpose as a passive but instead its moved to a torso effect. This srops summoners from being able to install her for tanking purposes and encourages summoning her for the effect. this also allows something like cripple arm to MATTER as itd remove a glove item temporarily if applicable. This change combined with treating their monster weapons like monsters in game and having them actually scale their power hit and crit based on youkai would give Bonder the actual feeling of fighting with the youkai AND make the youkai with cooldowns on their skills actually feel WORTHWHILE.

 Okay, now onto the problem of passives... the summoner I feel should only ever gain halved, quartered, or altered effects from evoke passives given they're all so stackable and effective. Certain passives arent as eggregious but due to having so many it gets overwhelming... On top of install passives... This is a tough one but I had the thought of removing sync mind... Instead give that effect to promo classes! Shapeshifter specifically receiving a passive to allow the summoner to use the evoke passives of a youkai while installed so the other two cannot make easy use of it. Bonder on the other hand having a passive to use the passive evokes of only BONDED youkai. Grand Summoner will not have one so they cant start summonimg powerful youkai while being immune to elements.

 Finally, I want Evoke skills/Spells to properly use SWA in their calculation which makes them use weapon accuracy so they dont miss as stupidly often. It also makes buffing a youkai far easier and an option to consider.

 Okay, thats all i got so far, I havent thought of every interaction but I poured some time and my soul into this. What do you all think? Maybe add suggestions to the mechanics? Or suggest an entirely different system. My goal was to address the power of install, zerg rush, and how weak youkai feel.

The randomly generated dungeons on G6 seem to be able to spawn any enemy to fill themselves up, rather than just their dungeon type's enemies. For example, in a bandit den, snakemen may spawn, or in a Crypt, goblins may spawn. This doesn't seem to happen in the quest BDPs (the Haunted Mansions, the Mirage Deserts, and the Spirit Forests); those seem to have proper mob spawns.

To reproduce, just go to one of the randomly generated BDPs on G6 (Not one of the objective-based BDPs).

If you use Titan Gale on an opponent in an FFA and a member from another team takes down the Titan Gale'd opponent, they do not gain the SWA boost.

Team 1 Titan Gales Team 2
Team 3 kills Team 2.
Team 3 does not get Titan Gale benefits.

bone marauders don't count as having a head for headshot

For some reason, for me anyway, with my macros here:



These will emote properly but won't show the face icon, instead defaulting to the first one, now this is purely a one-sided issue, they load properly for anyone else, but they do not on my side.



Instead just showing my default face icon.

As an aside, I have figured out that it flat out doesn't create the cache icons as well, which may be the cause.

I've heard it from multiple people by now, and have experienced it firsthand. It's a trope in MMOs for a reason, and I recognize this, but... Plainly put, a fight of healers vs non-healers will end with the healers winning 99.9% of the time. This includes 1v1s, assuming the non-healer can't do insane damage versus the healer's defenses, which is considerably rarer than heals.

Yet at the same time, there are plenty of classes that have no reasonable healing options at all. There's a massive imbalance between classes that can heal, and those that can't. I'm not saying every class needs to be Priest, but it would help if every class had SOMETHING going for them in the way of longevity. Skills like Shore Up are a good balance between not being just a Priest skill, yet not being too small a number to be useless. To highlight this disparity, I'll go over some healing-abundant classes, and some classes that have nothing going for them. I'll (mostly) be going for non-spirited numbers in these break-downs, but at max ranks. Just keep in mind, they can definitely get stronger.



Priest. This one's very self-explanatory, it's THE healing class. It's the one I'm most fine with being a healslut, but it can't be ignored how hard it can be to overcome a team with a good Priest.
   - Graft: 25 + 100% light attack (And I think 100% SWA as well?) 14 FP - Can be made an AoE, 4r cooldown
   - Second chance: Revive spell. 21% HP, 17 FP - Can be made an AoE, 5r cooldown
   - Needle (Small heals admittedly, don't know the numbers off the top of my head), 3r cooldown, 31 fp
   - Malmelo: Up to 30% HP, based on scaled FAI/2, halved for summonable allies. 36 fp, 7r cooldown
   - Mercalan Mist: 25% of light attack as regen per turn for allies, invocation. One of the worst ones in Priest, but still notable.
    - Staff battle items, not sure of the numbers but only curates can use them IIRC.
   - All of the above (save for maybe staves/mist/needle?) are increased by 50% by Detailed Care if they're within 1 range.

Dancer. Basically Priest lite, with more damage. I hate this class with a passion, but I'll try to keep myself contained.
   - Cantus of consideration: 125 + 25 per active bard buff on target, 6 range diamond (9 with volume up). 6r cooldown, 20fp
   - Rest Beat: 30 hp AND fp per tempo (40 with spirit, if it can be spirited?), 180 FP and HP at max unspirited, and removes statuses based on tempo. 8 round cooldown
   ###(Bias warning on this next one.)###
   - The most egregious in 1v1 fights by far, Idol Step: Inflicts charm level 25, battle rush 15, 25+150% light attack as damage or healing (reduced by 50% if they've been hit with it this attack) FIVE times. SIX if spirited. That's 400+ healing, AND damage on top, AND charm, AND battle rush (which becomes worn out). This skill has entirely too much going for it. It could be ONE hit max per enemy or ally, NO charm and NO battle rush and still be a decent skill, assuming the cooldown was cut some. The current cooldown is 7 rounds, but I've seen 1v1 fights where it's used twice. 30 FP cost.



Those two are the most heal-heavy (unless I'm forgetting one, I certainly could be), but there are a few honorable mentions like Lantern Bearer. Now, we move onto a few cases with no healing at all, or so little that it can't really be considered useful in any meaningful way.



   - Soldier promos, save for Tact, have nothing. 3HP regen a turn certainly doesn't count. It'd have to be upped to 8-12 to even be a factor in a fight, IMO. Admittedly, I think BK is one of the only classes I'd probably not want to see with an Arb-tier healing skill, just because of how tanky they are innately, but DH definitely suffers from a lack of HP recovery and a lot less tankiness to make-up for it.
   - Magic gunner has a 'heal', but it's so miniscule with the change to on-hits that it's hard to really consider it. 7.5 HP per hit, 10 if spirited, but with multi-shot guns only applying on-hits once now, you're shooting yourself in the foot by using this over the other shells to pump more damage out. That's, at absolute best, 30 hp a turn (wasting a spirit, double-critting or using a duelist class and getting 3 attacks off that turn).
   - Mage and all of its promotions. Spirit pain technically counts as a heal, but it has counterplay out the ass, so it's definitely low enough tier to not really count as any form of sustain. RM is strong on its own, but Evoker really needs something sustain-wise. Hexer could use something too, but something low-tier, weaker than Shore-Up. Somewhere between Shore-Up and Disengage from duelist would probably be good.
   - Firebird only has Duelist's Disengage, but Disengage itself isn't really enough to contend in basically any circumstance. It's more of a buff move with a bit of HP sprinkled on top, which is fine, but for the sake of what I'm talking about here, it really isn't enough. A move or two more like Disengage would bring Firebird up to snuff. Ghost isn't included because it at least has rebound and a lot of survivability bonuses (even if it uses HP for some of its skills), and I'm too lazy to go see if Kensei's update got anything.



Not a comprehensive list by any means, but it helps to illustrate my point. I'd like to see every class get some weak heals to make healer vs non-healer match-ups less one-sided. But not only this, I think healing skills in general need something more taxing than just slapping on a big cooldown and calling it a day. With cooldowns alone, a person can feasible go infinitely against an opponent.

A common trend I see in a lot of healing skills is that their FP costs are balanced similarly to damage skills. A lot of 15-20 ranges, with the occasional 30-40 range for particularly big heals. Exceptions apply, of course. Personally, I think healing skills should be twice as expensive compared to their damaging counterparts. Healing should be exhausting as a balancing point, so that spamming all of your healing abilities on rotation will leave you hurting badly for FP. Healers already generally have a load of FP by nature of building FAI to begin with. Let me see a Malmelo taking 60 fp, or a graft taking 30-40.

Whenever using Massed Rescue, the user of the ability is accounted for in the 4-person limitation. Making it a touch awkward to rescue people + their summons if you happen to be in the range.

I think the skill Cut Down can be adjusted to follow its theme a little better. This is before the fact it costs 5 SP to be used, which lets you only have two offensive skills for Ghost at all times. All which massively outperform this single one.

Currently, it deals a single instance of 140% damage, then applies a debuff, which makes it a little worthless to be used for itself. Reaper Scythe outdoes it and is an AoE solely because it breaks guard and can be used to combat tougher enemies. Why can't the second, "supposedly heavy-hitting" skill do the same? The answer is: It should!

Here's my quick proposition to fix this skill, which will make it weaker against evade people, but stronger against durable people:

Quote:Cut Down

Axe skill. Two quick swings from your axe on an enemy in 1 Range. The first swing deals 25% damage and inflicts Cut Down LV X (LV = 5 + Claret Call LV/2) for 3 rounds, and the second swing deals 75% damage, while consuming Claret Call to deal its LV as bonus Dark magic damage, which ignores protection.

Both strikes can critically hit, dealing additional damage. The Cut Down status reduces the target's PDR and MDR by LV%.