R10 is not enough as long as the unbalance continues to exist.
At one point they have to make a decision: either keep expanding till Rank 12 to give all Rank 6-7 Classes a chance to get another Class (basically a Rank 8 Class since the other Classes are mostly too weak to be feasible for most game content as everything is just hacking through HP sponges) into their build,
or rework all Rank 6-7 Classes to have enough damage to clear Rank 9-10+ content.
There is simply no reason why some Classes should be weaker than others besides sheer arbitrariness, and adding onto it with a mindset that’s basically “my build is good enough so I don’t want other people to include more of my build into their builds/get more damage circles if the Ranks go beyond Rank 10”, I have to say that it’s a pretty narrow mindset totally neglecting the fact that new Classes continue to come out, resulting in more and more diverse build options if you can get beyond Rank 10.
But every build needs to include at least one to be able to level/farm/etc.
Looking at Enchanter e.g., you have good support and damage, looking at Plague Doctor you have good support and damage, it works.
It clearly shows that developers are aware of the issue and thus designed those Classes the way they are, except for Kabbalist/Oracle.
The reason why Chronomancer and Thaumaturge have no damage (yet, who knows what will come with Wizard rework) is because their support is located at lower Ranks [similar to e.g. Priest] and is so much better compared to most other support skills [Thaumaturge is a damage multiplicator against non-bosses, boosts atk,matk and defence and even can multiply drops/EXP, while Chronomancer boosts attack speed,movement speed,crit rate/evasion, can reincarnate monsters for more exp/drops and even ressurect with Backmasking]. Linker is essentially the same.
Now, I wouldn’t strain DPS so much if there was any PVE content that actually made use of survival skills like Ein Sof, Reduce Level or Revenged Sevenfold, e.g. boss skills that deal 100.000 non-reducible damage or a new type of dungeon where you have to survive but your armor is unequipped/debuffed to 0. But currently there isn’t.
If you need too much time in ET and challenge mode/instanced dungeons you will simply fail because you didn’t deal enough damage.
If you want to farm equipment you need damage(especially in the new Hunting Grounds) or you will take forever to farm your stuff together.
If you want to clear the new raid dungeon you also need damage and basically anything else can be compensated with CON&equipment+pots.
You simply cannot stress enough this issue that continues throughout the game, which makes it inferior to e.g. other badly designed games like Dragon Nest. Looking at RO e.g., you always needed a Healer/Supporter [e.g. High Priest+Clown] for harder contents/bosses unless you were clad with maxed-out equipment & MVPcards.
Here you go in with outdated lvl 315 rare equipment and recieve nearly no damage, even from field bosses like Zaura/Marnox/Nuaele,partially also thanks to Aspersion&Increase Magic Defense buffs and armor value boost.
About Warlock&Featherfoot:
Did you even read what I’m talking about?
I’m talking about the changes that Rank 9 brought with it.
We’re not talking about how good or bad the Classes are but how Rank 9 influenced/changed them. That’s why I used Cannoneer as an example, because Cannoneer is basically a bad Class at Circle 1 that gradually gets turned into a good Class with Circle 2 and becomes really good at Circle 3. This is where you see how good balancing and Class developement works.
And this is why I said that Featherfoot C3 is bad.
It added a lot to the boss fighting capabilities and more damage if levitating, but aside from that?
Neither the blood-sucking capabilities nor the skills like Bone Pointing/Ngadhundi were improved, the Class is basically still all about the Kurdaitcha&Kundela Slash combo.
I’m also curious about the build choices, did you see FF break free from Linker/Thauma? I surely didn’t. Maybe I’m just blind or Fedimian is too small to see a good sample size.
The same for Warlock. The Class itself is really good, but what did Circle 3 add to it? More skilllevels + fear chance and more damage with Dark Theurge. Demon Scratch was so bad in the beginning that it went from 1 OH to 3 OH to make it feasible.
If only the devs did the same thing with Merkabah or actually introduced some monsters with high matk capabilities so that the defensive attribute has any effect…[Even then a Barrier Scroll is more effective]
At least for Cleric it’s not true.
Rank 2-5
Priests C3 brough Stone Skin that initially had the same capabilities of nowadays Enchanters Enchant Earth, allowing people to block without using a shield & giving them a high amount of block rate + Exorcise, which allowed Priests to deal damage.
Krivis gained Melstis,which was overpowered when used in combination with Ausrine/Glassmole/Chapparition card effect, resulting in eternal immortality+ high duration damage boost.
Dievdirbys gained Statue of Goddess Ausrine, which not only provided non-channeling immunity to damage but also to knockback&knockdown, being unique in the Cleric tree until Rank 8 with Druids Lycanthropy.
Bokor got Damballa, which is a really strong AoE damage skill, dealing a lot of damage even back in the time when it was still limited to 15-18 hits, due to the sheer amount of zombies you could have& recieved a boost when zombie capsules came out and Ogouveve, which was pretty neat for zombie-based builds because of the AoE-attackratio boost.
Paladin recieved Barrier, which was a pretty needed survival skill because it prevents you from getting swarmed [many people back in the days used Barrier scrolls for utility or defensive reasons]
and Conviction, a pretty useful attack&debuff skill.
Sadhu got Transmit Prana, which could be used to buff your OOB spirit to deal more damage [before the Sadhu nerf].
Monk recieved Golden Bell Shield, which was a useful damage mitigation skill against certain skills/attacks that were very strong back then[the CD time was too high,though].
Pardoner I have to agree, the 1500 silver cost and 1 OH nature of Decatose make it a pretty crappy skill.
This is actually a strength of the update, that Solmiki doesn’t get to remain the pinnacle of equipment, because running ET simply sucks, it’s repetitive, boring and highly discriminating against the Classes that are simply flawed in their design. It’s also a chore as long as it doesn’t change towards weekly entries.
Farming and rerolling for the perfect stats takes at least as much chore-like dedication & time as getting Solmiki equipment does, but at least it’s also as rewarding as Solmiki is, which is the sole reason why outdated Solmiki should not be changed to being better than the new equipment.
It also makes Solmiki equipment more readily available because you can actually advance from your Solmiki Set to something else, resulting in the equipment being sold on the market for more funds.
Did you ever try to farm orange gear outside of Hunting Grounds without looting chance involved?
It’s pretty rare and most of the time you identify it, you only get useless blue/purple stats or only a single green one. Getting a good base to start rerolling is pretty hard!
Farming 340 HG is also hard if you don’t have the gears to back you up or are some meta-OP build like Thauma>Linker>Shadowmancer. And farming in a party is also not an option, because item distribution is random and might just give you only the bad spoils or only the good ones, leaving out you or your party members.
Only challenge mode actually drops enough equipment for everyone to benefit from it (and mostly blue[i.e. magic rarity] crap).
