Final Story III 0.55.5 Class Discussion

The next version of FSIII will be a big one. As such, Zeru wants to open a class discussion to discuss potential changes about the characters to provoke changes.

All discussion on all classes/characters is welcome. Preferably, talk about these topics:

~Early/Mid-Game DPS (0~1 RBs)
~Late-Game DPS (2+ RBs)
~Supportive Ability
~Also their performance in normal encounters, boss battles, arena battle, etc. (added by Zeru)

Here are the current AGREED UPON propositions:

• All charge skills are severely underpowered. The time it takes for a single charge allows another character of equal agility to get nearly 4 turns in-- simply too much. Therefore, the delay for them must be lowered.
  

Here's Zeru's working changelog:

Alch Luna:

• 4 new elemental skills (last tier)  
  
• Soul Beam now may decrease phys and mag def
  
• the new elemental skills have status effect each of their own
  Arti Luna:
  
• More atk increase for the Hollow skill buff
  
• final charged skill might stun
  
• More atk increase for the Hollow skill buff
  
• final charged skill might stun
  
• Also damage increase in the final charge skill, and anchor damage
  Sniper Evelyn:
  
• Gale Shot damage buff
  Hunter Evelyn:
  
• Haste Step skill, instantly grants next turn for the target
  
• in general, Arti and Sniper has less charge time
  
• also fixed the charge time death stuck animation
  
• the 4 new elemental skills for Luna status effects: Ice = freeze, fire = burn, water = phys def decrease, shock = stun
  

Feel free to tier the characters, but give your reasoning for each. And remember, if you want to make a hard proposition, try to back it up with empirical evidence (that is, test it out in game first).

It's not just about damage and utility. Also their performance in normal encounters, boss battles, arena battle, etc.
The topics can vary more.

My initial two cents:
(This shouldn't count as a double post since this isn't set in stone yet, so I won't add it to the main thread)

Luna is underpowered late-game. The Imouto's Artillery Buff, while amazing on paper, isn't so great in practice. In practice, her ArtSoulCharge/Atk+ Soul Anchor coming off at 999dex/999str w/Crepitus equipped deals roughly 10k-12k to Blessed Glen/Bren/Yel while Ethan's Atk+ (w/Glacies) Soul Blizzard does 9-10k. ArtsoulCharge/Atk+ soul Beam does roughly 10k.
Although Alchemic Expansion is an amazing ability, Luna's still blown out of the water when it comes to support by Ethan's Relics. Finally, Ethan completely beats her 1v1 DPS with Icicle Barrage. Her elemental attacks as a Alchemist are also nigh useless endgame since they simply don't output enough damage. Effectively, Alchemist Luna works as an HP buffer and nothing else endgame unless she's subclassed.

Silvie's Hollow Skill as a Seeker is TERRIBLE. Most skills rarely miss anyways, and it's dispellable and is essentially a wasted turn.

That's all for now. I'll have more later.

Zeto's Soul Rave EX is way too weak compared to Calamity Bomb EX.

I've used it a few times and its damage is even lower than Soul Impact/Valiant Soul Slash/Radiant Soul Slash. Soul Rave EX's multiple hit counter is usually only 5~7 hits, resulting in poor damage (around 7k-9k damage at LV99 No Rbs, Strength Build). I may be wrong, but I don't think the multiple hits can crit.

Compared to Calamity Bomb EX, it does huge amounts of AOE damage, which is way more worth using because it does more damage to an enemy than Soul Rave EX (around 15k-23k damage at LV99 No Rbs, Strength Build to each enemy hit), rendering Soul Rave EX useless, as it only hits one enemy. Not to mention, Calamity Bomb EX hits 4 times so if it crits, it does an insane amount of damage.

Due to this comparison, I believe Soul Rave EX should get a buff, to balance the power between those two Soul Rage Skills.

Thoughts on Soul break second for Acolyte?

I compared the damage between Acolyte Zeto's Soul break second (75mp) to Hexer Klaire's Demon Soul Leash(110mp) both at max main stat and Klaire can do roughly double what Zeto can do.(with similar def debuff.)

I also compared Seeker Silvie's Soul bomb II(also 75mp cost) and it can do more then double of what Zeto can do with Soul break second (without stat debuff)

Dunno if this intentional seeing as Acolyte is supposed to be more of a single target class but it just feels dumb weak to me and it should possibly get another tier upgrade or small dmg scaling buff? (nothing big but just something to close the gap more.)

myfantasy wrote:

Thoughts on Soul break second for Acolyte?

I compared the damage between Acolyte Zeto's Soul break second (75mp) to Hexer Klaire's Demon Soul Leash(110mp) both at max main stat and Klaire can do roughly double what Zeto can do.(with similar def debuff.)

I also compared Seeker Silvie's Soul bomb II(also 75mp cost) and it can do more then double of what Zeto can do with Soul break second (without stat debuff)

Dunno if this intentional seeing as Acolyte is supposed to be more of a single target class but it just feels dumb weak to me and it should possibly get another tier upgrade or small dmg scaling buff? (nothing big but just something to close the gap more.)

Hmm, that one is harder to say. Like you stated before, Acolyte Zeto is supposed to be a 1v1 class. Soul Break Second isn't supposed to be a damage skill but a debuff skill that inflicts some damage at low SP cost for an Acolyte for Zeto's beginning arc team + before getting to the library.

There are other factors comparing with Hexer Klaire as he does magic damage, and doesn't have strong single target skill. And Seeker Silvie actually being a damage class with no debuffs.

Alright I was kind of curious about that. tyty

Lots of multi-hit skills seem gimmicky/bad in general.
Take, for example, Ellis's Shadow Soul Step-- on each hit, it does 500~ damage plus a 1k~ final hit. For some random trials, I tried to record her # of hits:
8, 14, 1, 8, 3, 1, 8, 20, 13, 29, 1

Average: 9.6 hits. Let's round up to 10.
10 hits means Ellis at MAX STATS is doing 500*9+1000 = 5500 with a LIBRARY SKILL.
Silencer Ellis is dealing nearly double that damage with the same stats...
...using Autumn Blade Dance, her 3rd tier non-library skill.

For some reason it seems I missed the latest message of this discussion. (A year late?)
Multi hit skills has fixed damage. Some of them are based on character's stats. Hence they don't scale that well compared to other skills. Another thing is that they ignore enemy's defensive stats. Some of them have a base damage from the first hit like a normal skill. They're also slightly a bit RNG dependent. You may even be lucky enough and get 999 hits.

Another thing I want to hear is the player's input on Hope Arc character current skills. Although the difficulty of the arc itself is hard it's possible to set up some proper synergy to overcome battles. (inb4worseclasscombinations)

I had a whole blurb typed up about what I thought of each individual class but I accidentally deleted it... Basically I feel that each class is too gimmicky, and that the different strengths of the classes don't address the weaknesses of other classes well. The only good healer (Terra - Soul Meister) is basically useless within a battle besides everyone having access to the potion effect. Also, very few of the skills seem to upgrade to any other skills, which makes me think that they may scale badly into the late game. Also, these skills and jobs don't reflect any classes within maplestory, which every single other FS game and FSIII arc does. Although it's not objectively bad, it doesn't follow the same format as previous things and feels a bit strange to me.

Overall, I think that this last arc for FSIII requires a bit too much skill/outside knowledge/testing. In other rpg games such as Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, or KOTOR, I love being able to customize my character and being able to beat the game in a somewhat straightforward manner with any combination of classes or skills or whatever. In my opinion, an rpg's storyline matters as much if not more than its gameplay. And FSIII has a very good story imo, but having huge difficulties with the gameplay makes me a bit less excited to grind out the last arc of the game.

Terra Soul Meister is more focused on utility rather than combat. (SR increase, priority, item gathering, etc.) FS3 isn't supposed to follow MS classes or story, I wanted to make something a bit more original when I started FS3. As for Hope Arc I'm planning one more nerf for the current content after job adv.