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@Vivi As you and the GS team would love us to all participate in the forums, this is only so much of the game's population. I personally only responded here because @KawaiiNyanNyan told me that this would be the best way to go. Many of us who are somewhat content are busy playing the game, working, or doing other things. We might not all respond on the forums. This is probably a significant portion of the players. Some of us you will probably see on the forums when the game is down to type in the chat box. These changes were motivation enough for me to come voice my opinion(s). Let me highlight some things, because I have earned myself a negative reputation with plenty of players, and I feel I should emphasize that I am willing and trying to work together and be a more positive person. Please do not dismiss my ideas simply for being mine. I welcome all feedback and realize that we are going to need to meet in a middle ground. "I come in peace." - Vivi, you personally are doing great. You have taken a game that was dead and data for updates was destroyed. You took ASB, Dragona, and some of your own programmer artwork to make something unique. I do not like every single bit of your changes, but when I look at the positives, they far exceed the negative (which I will not bother listing, as we are focused on skill changes). Please do not be hard on yourself. - The negative crowd is always the loudest, but not necessarily the majority. Most of us who are remotely happy with the game are online playing, and not on the forums. I just spent 10 minutes shouting in-game to urge people to come on the forums and reply. Experience tells me that of all the people online right now, only a couple are going to come on here and respond. They are going to wait and see what the team does, and either feel their voice does not matter, maybe they cannot type so quickly, or maybe they are focused on playing the game. - I have every reason to be biased on changes to punisher and shadow walker, as these are my main two characters. I am trying to put aside my biases so that you can have more accurate feedback, and so that I can better represent the population. This also means that you are not getting such polarizing opinions. If some arbitrary person who only plays shadow walker was against any nerfs on shadow walker, it would make sense. We can justify things in our heads to keep ourselves from becoming weaker. I encourage you to look for bias on my opinions on SW and PU. I am trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who does not play those classes, so I hope I can present to you feedback that is consistent. - It is without saying that a lot of players do not like me. That is their choice and I respect that. I may have earned it, as I am not perfect by any means. However, I want to work together with everyone so we can keep the game as fun as possible. If I have upset you or made you mad at me, I apologize to all who feel that way. I cannot expect you to suddenly like me. If you fall into this category, I ask you kindly to please still consider my suggestions with fairness. That was a lot to read, but I really feel a need to emphasize that we must all work together and try to keep in mind our own biases and to be as open minded as possible. I am going to go through a list of changes that I think might need immediate attention when we revert to the older skills. Punisher: -Mighty impact and overkill had a range of 28 and 27m respectively at max level. Currently no stuns or direct target skills go past 25m range. -Our current AOE's can actually hit people over 31 meters though, because of the range + the AOE diameter. As a person playing PU, if the range on those skills were to be lowered, it would definitely make casting these skills harder to do without getting stunned/pulled/killed in the process. People playing other classes may see this as a huge disadvantage, but at the same the AOE's are our weakest skills. I would highly suggest waiting before nerfing the range on those. - Stun cooldown for overkill will be 10 seconds again. This was a balance issue, and will need addressed at some point. You have it set to an 18 second cooldown at this point in time. - DOTS on PU are very powerful when they are all stacked. A great deal of the power from them comes from the -2000 dot reduction that is on penetration. Please consider our debuffs and not just the DOT skills, as we also have -750 dot reduction in major Ishtar. This is going to be very tricky to balance, as other classes benefit from our dot reduction debuffs. I would rather keep the mech skill and see the dot reduction on penetration go, than to see the DOTS themselves get nerfed. This was a change made by VSB, and was not in ASB. In ASB, we got to reduce our opponents crit? Yeah, not even their crit evasion (if I remember correctly). It would seem more beneficial to lower the DOT Reduction debuff on penetration, or remove entirely and keep on the Major ishtar. Otherwise I will be buffing WH's dots, and then people are going to cry that WH needs a nerf. The crit rate reduction did not seem to match the offensive nature of the debuff, and it may make it possible for PU to be a little too tanky still. However, I strongly advise against removing anything on PU without making adjustments for other classes. There is a fine line between making the game more balanced and stripping classes of things they really need to keep. -Major mech skills for PU, I do not see any reason to change, especially if arkana skills are going backwards. I would highly recommend keeping the major mech skills as they are, and giving us less debuff in arkana form in the future. - Slows. Now PU has a lot of backlash partially because of how some of us have used our skills. If I play my PU like a glass-cannnon (no cocoons, no passive HP, all points in damage), then my only defense is a good offense. I have 2/3 slows maxxed, the third slow is close enough to max. I can debuff someone on bike to 0 move speed. I also have DOTs all maxxed out. This is not a typical punisher build. In order to do this, I had to lose almost all defensive ability. Doing the dungeon, or avoiding pulls. These things are much harder if you try to build purely for damage. Other PU, who put all points in cocoons, passive HP, and stuns: they have the option of maxxing one skill tree, or putting partial points into slows and dots. On the other hand, they will not die so easy, but they have made a choice when building their PU's. My PU uses crit-atk jewels and randoms, so I can get extra damage. I can also be killed easily, and punishers with cocoons are probably going to do less damage from their skills than my PU would. Some things come down to how the player builds their character. I do not know that other players can fairly say that PU have too much slow, or can do everything at once. In reality our skill builds are all going to differ somewhat and different people play differently. If I had cocoons + my passive HP + passive atk + all dots and slows maxxed, that would be an issue. This is not the case, as in order to max our both slows and dots, you either give up your passive skill or cocoons in most cases. PU needs some damage nerf, but we need to look at how ALL of the classes play into it, and what could others skill into? For example, the medic skill that gives them cleanse, dot reduction, plasma resist, and even move speed is seldom used. Why do people complain about PU DOT and slow, and other debuffs, when a tool has been given to medics that benefits against PU more than anyone. Maybe medic ignis buff needs a boost in the future, or greek fire no longer a pre-requisite to get it? - Damage mastery does not need to be any stronger. I like using it, and am one of the few level 65 PU who actually puts points in it. Most people do not, but I do not think that it is broken. In fact, you guys took a nearly useless passive and made it into something useful, It is not something that is a huge deal breaker, and I do not see any point in changing. My damage without it in PVP is not boosted enough to justify nerfing it. - PU cocoons, eh. They are strong, but they also benefit allies, and both factions tend to have plenty of punishers. If anything needs changed, it would be nerfing evasion across the board, or making it a solo buff. At this point in the game, when ME + PU + SE/SW are together, a lot of evasion can be stacked. I do not think we should blame any particular class for that, but maybe lower evasion slightly across the board. I am not even voting for changes to evasion, but that is my "if we have to do something, here's what I think" answer. If you're still reading this, I thank you and appreciate it. I am going to touch on shadow walker quickly and stop there for now. I will get to other classes in future posts. Shadow Walker: - As I stated above, EVA and Ch-EVA may be concerning issues. They are not necessarily issues with a lone SW versus a SE/PU with a Ch-ACC set of gear. I can hit most SW most of the time (up to the RNG and SW gear). Now, when a SW gets more Ch-EVA from medic, and then they get more evasion from PU cocoon and medics on top of that....it can be overwhelming. SW can easily become the deal breaker in PVP. This can be mass PVP or small scale. On the other hand, I have been in situations with medics who have ACC/Ch-ACC buff + SE in full chakra gear. It is hard to dodge stuns and finish off a medic in the backline with certain SE's, mainly buffed by medic. It is such a situational thing, as to whether or not you have a medic and what buffs the medic has. For 1v1 SW, I do not see any need to nerf their EVA/Ch-EVA, as my PU can stun a buffed SW if luck allows. This requires a full Ch-ACC set. It is a very delicate issue, because EVA and Ch-ACC are stats that heavily used by many playing other classes. - Passive DMG for SW + void slash + fatal thrust is too much. When I am on SW, it has a much different feel than on ASB (I played SW from begging of ASB until the game closed). Some changes are nice, but some need a nerf. I am sorry to my fellow SW players, but it is true. There are a few main types of SW right now, but I am going to simplify it into 3 categories with 3 subcategories. Category 1 is SW no passive ATK. Category 2 is SW with some passive ATK. Category 3 is SW with full passive atk. Subcategories are simple: uses particle tree, does not use particle tree, and since I cannot draw a diagram here I will throw in SW who uses poison smoke. Category 1 and 3 makes only minor differences in PVP. It comes down to the SW's preference, however the passive damage is very nice, and I do not think it needs to be stronger than the damage mastery of the other classes. However, so many points are given up from arkana skills to do this, that the damage on these players is going to be from select skills and the passive will obviously boost mech damage. Category 2 players are probably getting the best of both worlds in all honesty. Now we have particle tree or not, and poison smoke or no. Chances are that a SW who uses poison smoke is trying to utilize Ch-EVA, and then as far as particle versus physical damage SW, is simply a matter of preference. My point here is that SW's are kind of limited on how to build their SW for optimal damage right now. I do think removing the passive or reducing it to 75% of its current state would be a nice start. - Removing passive ATK from SW might not be good though, if we take away both of their debuffs. Void slash and shadow strike, in my opinion, should be combined as one buff again, but not at the full strength. Personally, my SW is not max geared like my PU. My SW can still kill medics with ease though, because passive damage and major debuffs, along with more stun and disable than any other class in the game. I think it is fair to make SW lose some of this damage, especially the debuff damage that they have. Keeping passive atk is fair, but it should not be the best passive DMG in the game. I do not think the passive DMG and debuffs should both be kept, unless they are both nerfed to balance things out. - My opinion is that a SW should be able to kill a medic, but it should require a nice solid combo and not just a few hits. SW should be more like a "mini DE" except with evasion and stuns. They should be a able to change the outcome of a battle, or win a 1v1 still. I think that players should not be able to just come out of fade and kill anyone they please by using those debuffs + passive damage + maxxing out hard hitting skills. Thank you if you have made it this far into my post. I tried to offer numerous ideas and positive criticism, as well as multiple ways of looking at PU and SW, versus simply labeling them as too powerful. I am open to questions or criticism. Sorry for trying to cover so much information at once and making a long read.