Unbanning Rush Quake in Hall of Life

Crosscy

Sup guys, I get that the official server atm set the tone of what's the banned buff for rigel atm, but i'd like to point out that it's causing party setup to be very stale and expressionless for Rigel.

At the current stage, there's inherently a biased towards definitely NEEDING both am and EM in the party as they both provide a huge boost of damage that works for everyone:
-All Bloom 2x fire dmg
-Comet 1.5x incoming dmg
-Earth insignia another 1.5x fire dmg
-Volcano 1.2x fire dmg

Stacking these up results in a 5.4X damage multiplier to everyone in party, or 4.5X if the earth insignia and all bloom belong to the same source. That almost guarantees a clear for any top tier party with enough fully geared dps atm, especially if the am and em themselves are geared. However, that leaves a lot of other choices left behind as they can't provide their class boost as it's banned.

From the current banned list, i'd like to point out that meister's in the worst position for this, perhaps it would be nice if rush quake is unbanned so there will be more demand for them in party so in case we can't find a EM or an AM for example, so the party's not locked from having enough damage steroids just because they miss one of the two mages. It's pretty sad at the moment that this is the only choice- and i get that it's the official stance, but i only see it as better for the game if some of the other steroids, especially meister's rush quake is unbanned. Especially since Meister itself isn't even in top dps tier and their buffs won't boost the magic dps of the party who are already mostly the guaranteed party choices already (in top parties the AM and EM are also fully geared DPS themselves). It could help them be viable choices and still won't change the meta.

toadspaz

Crosscy banning raid is criminal, the skill is not even that good

airto

+1 from me. I'm not against this since I like variation in composition. I theorycrafted a bunch during my HoL tries, and there's no way out of running with AM and EM if you want to reach 20 with our current gear.

But adding to the discussion, I know the suggestion is about Rush Quake, since Meisters are in an awful position right now. However, I can't understand why Dark Claw and Oleum are banned while the magic buffs still apply

Honestly, if they are proven to be too strong, I would be open to adjusting the numbers inside the instance (like some skills work in PVP) instead of outright nullifying the use of the skills. Meisters and SX are both in a similarly non-useful spot right now, even though SX's damage is better. You would rather go with a WH or a DK in their position. By the way, this isn't a custom skill change; it's more related to instance balancing, in case someone comes with that argument.

It's even funnier that a lot of the physical debuffs already have dimishing % when used against bosses, i don't know why gravity is so much in favor of magical classes theses days, honeslty.

jinbou

airto

i don't know why gravity is so much in favor of magical classes theses days, honeslty.

My pet theory is, they were trying to enable debuffs that amplify all types of dmg, and disable the ones that only amplify a specific type. The enabled ones, All Bloom/Comet/Insignia/Volcano, amplify all damage types (physical + magical), whereas the disabled ones are mostly for one specific type of damage. They were probably afraid of players stacking debuffs for one dmg type, making other dmg types less relevant. No idea why raid is disabled too though.

I'm not saying it makes sense btw, it doesn't, it's poorly thought out. Just saying what I suspect their reasoning was.

The end result is that strong parties only recruit AM/EM/Cardi/IG/Performer for utility and AM/EM/SA/WH/DK for damage, because all the other classes suck. Even with endgame gears and mvp cards on my meister, using TL build which is supposed to be a single-target build specialized for mvp/instances, I can't join any strong HoL parties, and honestly I don't want to join any strong HoL parties because I feel like a deadweight pulling them down.

Some changes to improve class variety could be nice, although I have some concerns. Rush quake by itself is not a big deal, but if they enable all the debuffs at once like people are suggesting, wouldn't rigel become too easy? Maybe rigel itself will need some buffs too, if they decide to do that? Or, even though I hate such customizations, should these skills be added back to HoL in a "nerfed" state like @airto suggests? (with nerfed numbers? or maybe rush quake/dark claw/oleum sanctum debuff effects could only work on the caster inside the instance, so that the characters would become strong enough to contribute, but the total damage multiplier wouldn't become crazy high from all the debuffs stacking with each other?)

Maybe it's an unnecessary worry, but if possible it should be tested to see if all the debuffs stacking results in party dps becoming too absurd, since I believe Rigel being super difficult is a good thing. If that's not the case then sure.

Akin

+1 Another instance of Gravity being biased against physical classes. Unlike EM and AM debuffs which could benefit almost the whole party, they decided to ban physical classes debuff. I'd argue even dark claw should be allowed, 75% more melee damage for an already unpopular build type for HoL is nothing. There's already 3-4 role lock for HoL at higher levels and this ban just made other builds that have their support skill banned getting pushed aside in party composition.

Sora

+1, allow all debuff. Usually penalty is applied to nerf op class, not the weaker class.

CongaLyne

+1, I'm happy to see other people agree with this, it feels weird magic classes can slam down as many damage multipliers as they want but physical classes are told to sit in the time out corner.

It would be nice to see some options for physical attackers

karunatan

+1 from me as well. Hell, allow Raid on top of this too. ACs have a crappy time getting parties anyways to begin with. HoL is pretty much about getting the core support classes and then just as much firepower in form of DPS as possible.

Choi

jinbou Oh yeah, good points, I was for this thread, but now I'm kind of on the fence. I think it should still be fine? But somethings to consider would be:

If these are added, with no compensation buffs to Rigel, then it would be easier overall.
If these are added, and compensation buffs are added based around the addition of these buffs, then HoL party requirements possibly be stricter. If you need AM, EM. Cardi, IG, Performer for utility now, you might then need AM, EM, Cardi, IG, Performer, GX, meister, Inquisitor, which would possibly make it even harder for PUBs to get a good group going.

Also, it would change the DPS meta a decent bit. While the AM and EM buffs can theoretically benefit all classes, rush quake, dark claw, and oleum sanctum only benefit melee and long, melee, and ranged respectively. This could possibly make it so that other classes are more highly prioritized and push out other classes. But I think the main impact this would have on is magical classes which already provide a lot of support, so even if their dps is impacted i don't think they will be pushed out (maybe some magic classes like ninja, hyper novice, etc. that might not provide support), but just wanted to call that out.

I wouldn't be against these changes, and it'd be interesting to see how it impacts the meta. For example, i think it would be really cool if multiple variations of party compositions were viable. For example, if the current optimal set up is still viable but you could also go GX/meister + melee dps as a viable option or inquis/meister + range dps as a viable option. I just wanted to call out my points above to be considered because it can have negative impacts of rigel being too easy, parties having more restrictive requirements, or the meta just being changed from one to another.

The change to make it only affect the caster though is the one that I'd be against. I do agree it would have the least impact on the rigel meta, but to me this is very close to basically just being a custom buff. I don't really see a difference between allowing dark claw only benefit the GX that casts it and just giving the class a 50% damage buff.

fuqueiji

Poor meister

CongaLyne

I think I've changed my mind on this, the reason things like comet, climax 4, volcano & insignias are allowed is because they affect all damage classes equally.

Rush Quake, Oleum Sanctum, Dark Claw, etc only benefit specific classes.
The only banned debuff which doesn't make sense is raid since it also affect all classes equally similar to comet/insignias/etc.

I think these debuffs are disabled in HoL for a good reason.

jinbou

I think these debuffs are disabled in HoL for a good reason.

Tbh, on a second thought, I think my theory on "gravity's thought process" is completely off. If their concern was HoL party balance then the same skills wouldn't be disabled in Lake of Fire too, which makes absolutely no sense. It shows that they weren't really thinking anything, I gave them too much credit :d It was just an arbitrary decision that the bosses of new instances should be made immune to debuffs, but they didn't do it thoroughly. Since raid is banned, I assume other stuff like comet are only allowed because they "forgot" 💀 And I doubt they'll rethink their decision, I'd expect the same debuffs to be banned on all future instance-related content too, so imo this is just a red flag telling us to ditch these classes ASAP if our priority is instances/mvps. Which, thankfully, I was already doing.

CongaLyne

jinbou I can understand why they'd be disabled in HoL but not LoF since LoF is soloable while HoL requires a party.

It feels weird the debuffs they themself are made are disabled in party content; since said debuffs should shine the brightest there.

xosofiya

I think that with Meat's (OP) DcB DK video 💪 , it only shows that the only "needed" classes in HoL right now are Cardi, EM, and AM (as debuffers ONLY), and a good DPS that can survive. Not really sure about the Doram cause i don't know how the skills work sorry 😿

Even Devo IG and Performers are not "needed" (Performers can just be buff slaves outside as can be assumed on the vid since buffs still work after entering. And if all members are tanky enough, IGs aren't needed)

Maybe the fear of some classes getting shafted due to enabling these other physical debuffs can be quelled a bit now? It would definitely help the minority classes like Meisters, SXs, and SCs be picked for certain physical heavy team comps and might possibly help reduce the time of pubs shouting looking AM/EM debuffers when there is none available. Allows more creativity too since right now, the comp strictly requires either an EM or AM to debuff Rigel (better if both, but doable with just AM (level 20) in one run i experienced). I think having these debuffs available only really makes it easier for pubs to work around missing "essential" debuffers right now.

EDIT: Not sure if it's possible, but maybe if the worry is stacking all buffs/debuffs for physical classes, something like a diminishing return/non-stackable debuff thing might work? Might be too complicated, but having party/build variety is always a good thing i think 😊