Heyo! I’d like to take the time to share some feedback with taking Sapper 3 for Musketeers.
The main purpose is to discuss my personal experiences and comparisons to Quarrel Shooter 3. What felt weaker in comparison to QS, while trying to identifying the minor struggles I had with Musketeer, and Sapper. There will also be suggestions on what I’d like to see from the Sapper rework.
At the current time my build is fixated more on identified skills that were to be utilized for a PvP setting that included zoning. https://goo.gl/eW4g8p It mainly takes the two more effective skills Broom Trap and Detonate Traps.
While this may not seem like the most optimal PvE or PvP spec. This re-specialization was an attempt to see if Sapper 3 could provide the AoE that Quarrel Shooter builds could not.
It sadly became obvious a few days into the build that my ability to farm quickly dissipated. Running Shot and Grooving Muzzle are extremely good tools to farm mobs from area to area. The high cooldowns of Sapper were very ineffective and became cumbersome. I still relied mostly on the AoE of Musketeer, utilizing Covering Fire and weaving Volleyfire’s into the rotations just like previously with Quarrel Shooter.
When compared to group play it seems like Broom Trap provides a slightly faster push for CM’s, clearing dungeons, and ET DPS checks. However the long CD’s don’t mesh entirely well and often times I found myself still auto-attacking, with everything down, that’s including Stockades, Detonation and Claymore.
For Sapper’s enhancement both major skills are at 80 enhancement, while the minor ones are at 40. While my Musketeer skills sit at 40 with the exception of covering fire at 83.
Ultimately for common bosses, your primary damage is from Musketeer, and without Running Shot paired with Grooving Muzzle your damage as a caster based Sapper is not competitive for Monarch Demon Lords. My Broom Trap was a liability at Zaura due to Monarchs being able to constantly detonate magic circles or tiles.
I’d like to use this time to emphasize Sapper desperately needs a rework with condensing like Musketeer, but an entire overhaul on the class. This portion are just some suggestions I’d like to see.
Stake Stockades - To have tile based permanence much like Deploy Pavise and more overheats. Sapper’s design should definitely have more zoning based pressure for Territory Wars. My suggestion is a 5 overheat based skill, while giving it a large uptime to remain on maps but limiting how many can be placed on a map.While an enemy is within a stockade slowing and damage should tick imitating the concepts of Barbed Wire in video game culture, being a hindrance. Much like Pavise they should have a limited hitcount before being dismantled.
Conceal - I think this should most likely imitate a 5 capped skill like Missile Hole or a 1 capped skill providing extended times and trap amount in attributes.Its utility should apply in creating the theme that Sappers are a high pressure zoning based class and enemy movement should be cognitive, tactical and cautious.
Claymore - I’m no explosive expert but seeing claymore revitalized as a mine, or at least given more overheats and charges would be a great addition. Much like to the previous stated theme, a sapper should create an environment that players should tread carefully or provide an explosive AoE experience.
Punji Stake - From most of the feedback I’ve gotten has had a lot of credibility. While the damage has been good, and mostly used as disruption/crowd control, I’ve found it to be extremely limiting. An attribute to remove the knockback is severly needed for specific content. I think Punji should be replaced with an pitfall based trap that acts as an crowd control with impact based damage. One of the things that Sapper is missing is a utility to really keep people in place and it’s something that they can definitely provide thematically.
One of the ideas that I would have wanted to provide for Territory Wars Feedback was adding the concept of falling off the Map. Most of the maps selected had narrow corridors and in our game elevation is often shown. We’re usually traversing on top of cliffs or hill like trails. While on the Galeed Plataea, there’s a segment called Pamatas Pillar near the entrance Elgos Abbey. It looks jump-able and would of allowed another point of attack while providing knock-backs intensive utility for warring and control. It something that could help skills that provide knockback like Punji shine.
Detonate Traps - Is perfect in terms of concept, it should punish magic circles and provide the utility of disrupting them. It feels extremely limited on how much it can break and the fact that it’s close range is the bane of archers. Pushing it to be a midrange grenade can allow it have attributes or scaling with how much it can shatter. While being a place-able/skill-shot it allows the player to have more control especially complimenting the long range design tree like archer. I think the attribute for flying mobs should be more universal and not something just for Detonate Traps.
Broom Trap - It is by far the most popular and most effective skill, however allowing it to hit flying mobs isn’t too huge of a power creep, when comparing it to every other AoE mage. I’d even settle for an attribute that reduces the damage on flying mobs by 20-50% but applies some debuff as consultation. Conceptually adding an attribute that converts Broom Trap to lightning based property and applying the shock status much like a bug zapper was joked about previously in discord conversations.
Collar Bomb - I cannot effectively review it but it feels like it should be some sort of projectile debuff applied to a mob that can be detonated with Detonate Traps to apply the damage from both the skills for synergy. Instead of on contact detonation, tweaking the skill to be on execution of the target can allow increased skill modifiers due to it being a condition. It allows a stradegy for the player to choose whom to apply it to and creates a focus fire opportunity for group and solo play.
Spike Shooter - It’s just like it doesn’t exist. Everyone tells me no and the few people that gave me their feedback with 1 point in it, well regret that choice. I think it’s a good opportunity to create a pitfall trap, attributes that can poison, bleeding or create status ailments. Maybe switching Punji to circle 3 could be another option as well replacing this. There’s a lot of opportunities for this skill slot.
If I were to make any recommendations if you’d like to pursue Sapper in its current state with Musketeer, is fixate it around attack speed, Grooving Muzzle and Covering Fire. (I will be testing this out before swapping back to Quarrel Shooter to confirm and write a finalized review. My recommendations are still Quarrel Shooter.)
In short, Sapper had a lot of downtime that felt like it didn’t provide the AoE uptimes I sought. Although I have not explored some of the other skills after hearing feedback from previous Sappers. Their opinions detoured me away from the other skills and their recommendations paved out this skill set. If you have feedback about Sapper I’d love to hear it, I’ll be using skill potions to play around before resetting…
The dream was to stealth in and drop a broom trap with Froster Lords in Territory Wars. o 3ob it hasn’t been met yet.
