When rank7 first hit, a lot was said about power creep. The base-damage of certain skills, such as Cannon Blast and Snipe, was brought up to argue that Rank7 classes were much too strong compared to everything else that came before them. To a certain extent it is true, but because of Attribute prices, weapon stats, and non-damage skills in each tree, it didn’t turn out to be much of a problem. The most OP Rank 6 and 7 skills are major players, but there’s still space for other skill to be useful.
Now look at all those Rank7 class numbers: 10k base damage multihit skills, 15k base damage skills with multiple overheats, 10k base damage aoes that take half of the screen, etc. The powercreep from Rank7 to Rank8 is TOO BIG. Apart from very few exceptions, outside Rank8, Rank7, and a select few Rank6 skills, almost none of the damage skills from Ranks 1-5 is even remotely useful. They’re not even worth the SP cost of activating the skills. We were really excited to see classes like Highlander and Barbarian finally getting balanced to the level of other DPS classes, but this has made it all moot.
Then comes the monsters. Even at level 270+, the 130k HP monsters we currently have are still really strong for most classes. Why the hell did IMC think of raising their HP to 370k~500k HP? You know, it’s not making the content actually any harder because the AI hasn’t improved at all. It’s just a larger HP sponge, a bigger DPS check. This artificial difficulty spike is completely unacceptable, and the main reason the power creep exist in the first place. You could’ve made the monsters range from 180k~230k and cut all the Rank8 base damage skills by 2/3 and it would still be the same thing, except without rendering 80%+ of all already-existing damage skills useless.
Oh, but the worse has to be the immunity effects. Missile Hole is the most ridiculous thing IMC has ever conceived. It’s been 24 hours and it’s already been emergency patched to “only” block 16 hits with 31 seconds cooldown. PARTY FU.CKING WIDE BUFF. The Scout Barrel was ridiculous enough, and then they go and do this. The Featherfoot levitate buff was balanced over the fact it takes extra damage from ranged and not having 100% uptime, but somehow it was acceptable to give complete party-immunity party-wide for Sages.
If the damage-power creep isn’t fixed, PvP will turn into an instant 1-hit KO fest of who can target the other faster through the FPS lag. Unless Sages are involved, in which case nobody dies.