Anyone that have a class as their main will not care if they have to invest in more than one weapon, specially because any Quarrel Shooter - Falconer will want the new crossbow for +3 in Running Shot, and because pistol is the best off hand anyway so it will not be a problem.
Even the Sapper have a useful for BM because it boost the bossing that the build usually lacks with their insane single target damage with Full Leather Jacket and RIP.
So the 3 Rank 8 classes have their uses and it will be up to the user decide what they want and what they will have to sacrifice by picking a certain class, Musketeer too is a valid and viable choice because of how Covering works under Circling and single target damage that Headshot + Snipe gives.
Due to current affairs, I am going to leave some thoughtâs here.
Harrumph. So letâs see what we got here, my fellow Falconers:
[C1 Skill] Roost
50% increase to Falconer skills used near the roost.
Duration decreased from 120 to 20 sec.
Cooldown decreased from 60 to 20 sec.
Well, thatâs just great compared to the Version we got now.
[C1 Skill] Circling
AoE defense ratio set to 1.
Of course, the limitation to 1 instead of 0 is a bummer, but itâs not the end of the world.
Duration changed from 20 sec to 15 + [skill level x 1] sec.
The thing with the durationâŚwell question here is ->Does your hawk attack while Circling is active???
If it doesnât then we got to a point where it is uncertain if it is worth to maximize the skill or at least investing a considerable amount into it.
Edit: Yes it does atack, ty rockmanex14
Hawk follows the casting character for the duration of the skill.
This of course is just amazing to be honest, though I will miss the LOOK of my âtop of demiseâ (Broom Trap + Circling)
Applied range identical to skill âAimingâ.
Not too different in my opinion.
[C1 Skill] Hovering
50% additional damage to Beast type enemies.
Fine I guess.
[C2 Attribute] Hovering: Guardian NEW
âHoveringâ deals 100% additional damage to boss monsters.
Undeniably interesting.
Hovering has a hard time hitting more than 1 target at the same time, so granting this attribute makes it very attractive since Sonic Strike was preferred almost all the time. Can be annoying when the boss has some summons/traps near to it though.
At least the options activating/deactivating one of the 2 skills used by Pre-Emptive Strike will become really handy now for many more of us.
[C1 Skill] Pheasant
50% additional damage to Beast type enemies.
Fine i guess.
Max. number of targets changed from unlimited to 15.
Annoying, but to be honest it felt always weird to be able to decrease enemies AoE-Def to 0 PLUS having an attack with unlimited targets.
Cooldown reduced from 40 to 25 sec.
Thumbs up.
New C2 attribute âPheasant: Lightning Boltâ.
Increases hawkâs number of attacks when using âPheasantâ.
Howâs this going to work?
Sounds like it will get serious one-shot potential for groups of mobs with a decent amount of HP.
It will very much depend on the hawkâs capabilities while using Circling for this skill to be either great or just good.
New C3 attribute âPheasant: Heavy Impactâ.
Enemies affected by âPheasantâ gather at the point where the skill was cast.
SoâŚHangmanâs Knot without the AoE-Def reduction but more targets, huh?
(not that it would be very much needed anyway) I wonder about the animations hereâŚUsually the mobs are knocked down by hoveringâŚwill it be like piling them so all of them lying at the same spot for a moment? Hard to imagineâŚAnyway this attribute has a high supportive value making Pheasant at at least lvl 1 a must-have for most of the Falconer C3.
[C3 Skill] Pre-Emptive Strike
Changed to ON/OFF function (SP adjusted, cooldown removed).
Looks cool at first glance. But I am afraid of the âSP adjustedâ partâŚwill the same fate as Schwarz Reiter hit us here?
Triggers âSonic Strikeâ and âHoveringâ additional damage.
Isnât it a little too muchâŚ?
Naahh, just kidding! We gratefully take it.
New C3 attribute âPre-Emptive Strike: Sure Victoryâ.
Increases critical chance proportionally to attribute level when an enemy affected by âPre-Emptive Strikeâ has 100% HP.
I have to scratch my head about this oneâŚ
Seems useless for Quarrel-Shooter-Falconers.
Seems useless against bosses.
Seems almost unusable except the manual activated skills you order the hawk DO count, but stillâŚIf you the acting of the hawk isnât changed hence letting it attack targets completely on itâs own without the Falconer having to attack the target himself firstâŚonly then it is NOT useless.
Well of course, you can also argue for Hovering, which would make it work since your Hawk would activate it and wonât attack solely the target you are focusing onâŚStill, I am not convinced here.
[C3 Attribute] Hawk Hunter NEW
The Hawk does not leave when using skills and returns to standby position automatically.
Finally! Even we Falconer C3 hate the fact when the hawk leaves! (mostly right after the duration of Pre-Emptive Strike went out) Itâs sometimes a real hassle to call it back and can even require mroe than 1 usage of Call.
Funny Question here:
Will we be able to go as far not even requiring to invest that single point into âCallâ?
I mean when the hawk never leaves, why bother having it?
On the other handâŚwe all know itâs IMC! So, of course, in the end the hawk will get bugged at some points and we gotta call it, right? Heh, come on, suprise me here devs!
Edit: Answer is no, thx to HueMeAllNightLong
Makes you think, what does it say to you, when the company that designed those things, gets them wrong?
Was there a version of falconer that we never got to see, and they updated that one? Did they look at the latest document they had and made this statement, without even checking their current live documents? Are they really this careless? y⌠yeah, they are.
Regardless, I welcome change, but, I also fear it, they might of created something they feel even stronger, and in turn. leave us in worse shape than the one we were during rank 7.
I just wish this hits us soon, Weâve been waiting for too long⌠In a game with not much to do, the promise of new content, even if we know it will run out in a week, is something.
Anyways, the buffs are overshoot because the class is underplayed. The circling change does nothing for me as i already run centaurs and aoe ratio gear, also i already oneshot all the current field monsters with a sonic strike crit. So basically, iâll deal like 50% free extra damage?
Circling was also almost useless for solo play on a geared falcon before these changes. Only use was killing red waves. What i get now is basically free 10+ targets sonic strikes that deal an absurd amount of damage sounds crazy.
It looks that it work like the Doppel attributes, you gain 5 lines of damage (fake multihit), I donât know yet the damage but it looks like it is at least 2x times stronger than without the attribute
I find this attribute useless, the Bird usually only attacks the target that you attacked during Preempetive strike, that means that to use this you will have to cast the skill in the normal way.
This is only a band-aid for the problem and requires a lot of investiment, AoE headgear is expensive and will probably make you sacrifice patk headgear, cards make you sacrifice Glass moles, the only weapon that have AAR for Archers is subweapon (Manamana and Cannon) but Mergen requires Two-hand Bows, Gloves make you sacrifice defense or use a expensive Earth Tower glove, the acessories are fine, Squire is unreliable because the Base camp disapear all the time at random and even using all of this you end with worse AoE than all the other classes trees (Swordman and Physical Clerics not only have natural AAR but their skill gives then more, and Wizards / Magic Cleric hit everyone inside of the skill or have a high number of targets).
And if you are going all out in AAR anyway you donât need Circling, because you probably Strong enough to kill the normal mobs.
I had to come to a conclusion that Circling is not a AoE enabler anymore but just a way to use the Expand attribute, Sappers and Quarrel Shooters donât really care about the set to 1 (Scaltrops and Sapper skills donât use AAR), but is a big loss to Mergen and Hackapell.
In response to AAR and [circling], was it last year or early this year that IMC did in fact state that 0ADR with [circling] was not intended?
On the 1 hand, we knew it was not intended. On the other hand, we knew how much the current AAR vs ADR sux particularly that archers by default have only 1 AAR naturally.
Hereâs a solution IMHO can easily be done to âbandaidâ (not fix) this issue. Create attributes locked behind class circles that add AAR in the archer tree. For example cannoneer is AAR heavy but it is baked into the skills. Take away AAR from these skills (not all of them) and put them back as an attribute: +5 AAR for cannoneer1, +5 AAR for cannoneer2, +5 AAR for cannoneer3. You can do the same for the other AAR heavy classes like musketeer and mergen (maybe 2 or 3 per circle)
A different approach would be to change ADR per size and bring them down by 1 (where small has 0 ADR). I would prefer this as this also addresses AAR vs ADR for everyone else but it screws with the design they are already going for.
It still is, for any other class tree but archer.
It will still enable those that have like 10 natural AAR on their skills, plus whatever amount they have on their stats, to still hit everything, since enemies will have 1 AoE def and in this game, thereâs rarely more than 12 enemies at any given damage focus spot.
It seems like theyâre crawling towards everything relying on aar, crawling, very⌠slowly.
This would make a good way to make up. But to be honest I would be already happy if they give at least 5 AAR to skill that are affected by it just like the Swordman classes have.
And unfortunally this is the main problem, Archer is the class that need the AoE enabler the most.
It almost seems like theyâve designed many things from the archer tree to count circling into the mix.
So they forgot to add AAR to many of archer skills (and for those skills that do have, they donât list the values) since it seems they thought circling reducing to 0 was fine, then, not now.
As you said, they should add AAR to our stats and increase certain AAR values from skills, also list that value in the tooltip.
3 Centaur cards are 6 aoe, phada is 1 each. Solmiki medal +1, Solmiki gloves +1. With the new patch you can farm Lolo gloves and medal to get to 10 ratio easily. If you are poor you can boost a bit by using manamana for that +1aoe.
You can even double frieno for total 3 aoe attack ratio with the bonus.
This is true. It seems they intend to push everyone towards Gear = everything even more. Stats (STR, dex, âŚ) cannot cover for AoE because stats do not increase AoE attack ratio.
Longer duration circling expand is great support though.