Lost Ark Online

Voldeth

Trakanon Raider
1,065
545
So this is actually a slight damage nerf in exchange for some solid utility. Not too bad I suppose.

Going based off KR PTR and some of the people I know who have been testing. It's a significant shift in how Soulfist plays. Similar to many classes, the goal was to make things a bit 'simpler' to manage - in the case of SF's, they were undesired for a lot of the more difficult legion raids for two primary reasons;

1- As a melee with limited survivability, we simply died too much.
2- As all of our damage came from burst windows, missing out on these windows resulted in a huge DPS loss. This is not really problematic in our current tier of content on NA however, boss patterns and movement is going to get a lot more complex.

Based on the above, Energy Release damage was mostly made baseline. Thus you are no longer focusing on your windows to maximize damage; you're just able to DPS and keep consistent decent numbers. This is a negative in my opinion as one of the aspects I enjoyed about SF was that it wasn't 'brain-dead' and your ability choice and windows in recognition to patterns mattered. With that being said, most classes saw this shift so it's certainly not unique.

They also increased our ult's base damage quite a bit (it hits even harder than with Energy Release now), so the window of play is still focused on that. We were also given one of the best shields in game - thus our utility has gone up the whazoo. There's still debate over whether the extra increase to Energy Blast makes it viable but they seem to want to return some of the ranged component to SF (thus when we're not in melee range, we have some forms of good damage.

The changes to Energy Overflow are also worth looking into - we may no longer be stuck in a single cookie cutter build (but there's not enough testing there that I know of). All in all, this makes the class more group/raid friendly and easier to play at the expense of losing out on the feeling of, well, feels good that you got when you nailed your burst windows. Now you're mostly focused on mechanics and positioning as opposed to planning out your windows. It's nowhere near the DPS boost that a lot of the reddit folks claim (but there is an overall increase) however the added utility and potential access to ranged makes it an interesting shift.
 

Sabbat

Trakanon Raider
1,832
760
Jesus, did I read that right that the Deathblade Surge nerf is a 50% reduction in damage from the 20 stack Zero? and you can't get back full charge with only a 15 stack?
 

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
36,397
115,684
I feel like I must be a retard because I was running RE blade this entire time. It's because I was following all the guides, again, based on KR. Everything about the KR test changes say surge was vastly superior for our version.

I'm getting tired of how shit the information is for us on our version.

With me changing mains, it makes it even less likely that I switch. Although maybe we'll get the changes much sooner than we would otherwise.

I also try to not care since the game is very forgiving with the content we have. All of the people wasting tens of thousands of gold on 3/3/3/3 engravings when you can completely half ass it and finish everything easily right now.

It's still annoying though.
 

Voldeth

Trakanon Raider
1,065
545
I feel like I must be a retard because I was running RE blade this entire time. It's because I was following all the guides, again, based on KR. Everything about the KR test changes say surge was vastly superior for our version.

I'm getting tired of how shit the information is for us on our version.

With me changing mains, it makes it even less likely that I switch. Although maybe we'll get the changes much sooner than we would otherwise.

I also try to not care since the game is very forgiving with the content we have. All of the people wasting tens of thousands of gold on 3/3/3/3 engravings when you can completely half ass it and finish everything easily right now.

It's still annoying though.

Information on the game is definitely hilariously bad but this genuinely made me feel sad. Surge is crazy OP (albeit the DB style of play with charge attacks is still a difficult one to master) and the fact that you haven't been taking advantage of it sucks.
 

Cyni

Lord Nagafen Raider
549
192
I've been running RE as well, though I did try Surge for a while with non-optimal engravings. I really dont think the difference is all that meaningful, sure the 12 Million dmg surge's are nice, but RE does it more often, and is WAY FUCKING EASIER to play. Can't tell you how many times a boss would jump up in the fucking air as I was winding up, or go into some -90% dmg phase right when i hit 20 stacks. Was honestly pretty annoying. But yah... BIG DAM numbers for sure.
 
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Daidraco

Golden Baronet of the Realm
9,217
9,326
I've been running RE as well, though I did try Surge for a while with non-optimal engravings. I really dont think the difference is all that meaningful, sure the 12 Million dmg surge's are nice, but RE does it more often, and is WAY FUCKING EASIER to play. Can't tell you how many times a boss would jump up in the fucking air as I was winding up, or go into some -90% dmg phase right when i hit 20 stacks. Was honestly pretty annoying. But yah... BIG DAM numbers for sure.
Generally, I think the boss fights in this game are infuriating when you're trying to plan damage. I hate constantly being on the reactionary end of a boss fight but Im not sure how to really describe what I'm talking about. I know there are a few bosses that have HP phase changes, but for the most part.. I feel like you're just constantly reacting to shit a boss does. Like on Night Fox, 90% chance she'll do a double charge in her later phase but she may only charge once instead. Your long casts could be coming up as she starts to charge, so you wait for it to be done. It appears shes done, so you blow your load, but as soon as you do, shes using her defensive. Or, hell, her aggro just all of a sudden flipped to someone else and she takes off running across the map to that person.

Sure, the high percentage of random versus a scripted nature keeps the fight a bit more lively for a longer period of time. But ffs, I hope the bosses that are coming out later start to allow players more control.

Point being - I think classes that have constant stable damage versus burst damage just have a better time in this game (right now.)
 
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Chersk

Trakanon Raider
1,390
1,220
I can’t stand that guardians don’t have health bars. I know it’s intended. It’s stupid. Fuck monster hunter. If I wanted to play monster hunter I would…play monster hunter.
 
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Mahes

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,724
5,419
I can’t stand that guardians don’t have health bars. I know it’s intended. It’s stupid. Fuck monster hunter. If I wanted to play monster hunter I would…play monster hunter.
That is easily one of the worst design decisions of this game. Health bars were created as a way of understanding damage progression when graphics could not do it. It would be ok if the target you were trying to kill progressively lost limbs or leaked oil. The only way to understand progression in this game is through the stages the creatures can go through. It sucks though at the end when you want to know whether or not you really are close or to just restart the event because one person is just not enough.

In short, its a stupid system.
 

Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,435
1,643
I can’t stand that guardians don’t have health bars. I know it’s intended. It’s stupid. Fuck monster hunter. If I wanted to play monster hunter I would…play monster hunter.

Could be worse - imagine you had to do multiplayer for Guardians like Monster Hunter
 

Mahes

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,724
5,419
Could be worse - imagine you had to do multiplayer for Guardians like Monster Hunter
You do Multiplayer for guardians. I mean you "could" solo them in some cases. Also, I give you ....Argus. He is 8 man with no health bar.
 

Raes

Vyemm Raider
3,262
2,717
That is easily one of the worst design decisions of this game. Health bars were created as a way of understanding damage progression when graphics could not do it. It would be ok if the target you were trying to kill progressively lost limbs or leaked oil. The only way to understand progression in this game is through the stages the creatures can go through. It sucks though at the end when you want to know whether or not you really are close or to just restart the event because one person is just not enough.

In short, its a stupid system.

*leans on cane and scratches beard* Back in my day, when your party ran out of rezzes, the fight ended. You guys are so lucky that you get to watch some noob spend 15 minutes trying to solo a 4 man guardian because he has no idea that's it's still at 90% health.
 

Mahes

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
4,724
5,419
*leans on cane and scratches beard* Back in my day, when your party ran out of rezzes, the fight ended. You guys are so lucky that you get to watch some noob spend 15 minutes trying to solo a 4 man guardian because he has no idea that's it's still at 90% health.
You think I stick around. When you get players like that, I just go do something else for a bit.
 

Chimney

Trakanon Raider
1,652
1,167
Pushed my scrapper to 1370 and all 6 of my other alts to 1340. Wasn't so bad tbh I think I pitied like 7 times from 1340-1370 and I still have loads of mats for the LM release.

I also finally had some time to do the excavating maps I've been crafting for the last few weeks. Here is the breakdown.

110 Maps = Cost me around 28-30k gold in materials/craft.

I would make roughly 15-18k profit if I sold everything today, but will wait until after Thursday patch price spike when everyone is juicing their LMs.

Will I do this again? Undecided. It took me nearly 3 boring ass hours and I'd probably be better served flipping accessories, but as I'm not hurting for gold it wasn't a bad investment for time spent and it helped level my stronghold. The quality/perks of various tools didn't seem to make any noticeable difference nor did summoning the dog on cool down. I went in as L33 excavating.

relic930
rare relic2853
oreha relic1292
solar protection2430
solar grace7380
solar blessing8225
apprentice craft84
adept craft120
expert craft5700
masterwork craft17000
46014

excavating.jpg
 

Xexx

Vyemm Raider
7,435
1,643
You do Multiplayer for guardians. I mean you "could" solo them in some cases. Also, I give you ....Argus. He is 8 man with no health bar.

I more so meant it in the technical way that you have to do MH MP by doing stupid codes and bullshit. The method of MH MP is exactly why i dont play MH and games similar.
 

Chersk

Trakanon Raider
1,390
1,220
TIL you can queue for PvP from anywhere.

…I've been going to the colosseum moment thing.
 

Pyros

<Silver Donator>
11,059
2,262
TIL you can queue for PvP from anywhere.

…I've been going to the colosseum moment thing.
Yeah it's nice if you have ~5mins to wait for islands or whatever. Later they'll add the ability to queue anywhere for other stuff too like chaos/guardians/abyss, it's in KR's version, just not here yet.
 

Amycus

Lord Nagafen Raider
845
102
I’m excited to try this class. Love spears! Those with experience, which is the better class engraving?