Except that’s not at all what anyone is saying. Personally, I love squire regardless of it’s “weakness” in battle. I love the basecamp it can make and the food table/buffs, I played blacksmith in RO so of course I love the repair and weapon buffing abilities, and Arrest is very nice as well (I also happen to think Arrest past level 1 is very under appreciated). A lot of my enjoyment from the class comes from the type of play style it promotes; hanging out in fields grinding. Which, in turn (in my experience) leads to a lot of socializing. I find that to be a great deal of fun in MMOs.
This issue I have is that Penalty Reduction is (in my opinion) boring, not in line with the theme/feel of the class, AND under powered. I don’t mean “weak”, I mean that the ability that this specific class has isn’t as strong as it should be relative to the strengths and weaknesses of this specific class. And also, you know, it’s boring. I don’t think any of it’s other skills are boring because I feel they’re in line with the theme of the class. It seems completely tacked on for no reason.
Let’s look at the skill in detail (at this point in development, at least):
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Penalty Reduction
“Reduces penalty from incapable of combat (death)”
Max level: 5
-Equipment Durability Penalty -2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / -10%
-Consumed Silver Penalty -0.4 / 0.8 / 1.2 / 1.6 / -2.0%
-Consumed Gem Penalty -1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / -5%
First and most important: this skill only works if you die. This does not help to PREVENT death in ANY way. This skill also does not remedy death. It does not revive anyone or even gives a player the option to revive at a cost. This is a major issue with this skill. If everything goes well, this skill is absolutely useless. ALSO, if something bad does happen… this skill doesn’t do much anyway.
Equipment Durability.
It’s so-so. First off, 10% is weak when durability for equipment is in the 30-50 range. This is basically increasing your items’ durability by 3-5 if you die. Otherwise, again, it does nothing to extend the life of your gear’s durability. At the very least this is in line with what the Squire class does, BUT this is already done much better with the Repair skill’s over-repair mechanic… which actually does increase an item’s maximum durability. Regardless of if you die or not.
Consumed Silver Penalty
I keep seeing the argument that players are losing 100k silver on higher level maps, which makes this skill useful. This buff protects two whole percent of that. Two percent of 100k is 2k. You’re saving two thousand silver. That’s… not a lot. At all. You’re going to have to die a LOT for that to add up over time. And if you’re dying very often, let’s face it: something is wrong in the first place. And if you fix that something… This skill then becomes useless. Because you’ve stopped dieing.
Consumed Gem Penalty
Honestly, I don’t know what five percent could possibly mean in terms of dropped gems. If you have 20 gems in your inventory, you’ll drop 1 less? That’s… very underwhelming. Aside from the question of why you’re carrying 20 gems in your inventory. Could it mean 5% less chance to drop ANY gems? That’s a bit better, but it’s still only 5%, and the question of why you have them in your inventory is still valid, and then if you don’t die this skill is useless. Have you noticed the trend yet?
In short; the skill is under-powered and fundamentally flawed. The ONLY thing I can see this being useful for is pushing end-game/extremely difficult content because the risk of death could be rather high for that… but… Why are you bringing a c3 squire along for the ride if that’s what you’re doing? Why not a class that can prevent a death all together? Even if using one as the tank, pelt c3 > rodelero c3 brings more utility than pelt c3 > squire c3 as far as combat goes.
So no, it’s not “stop making this class be what it is supposed to be”. It’s “this is borderline completely useless. Give us something else or make this skill useful.”
