juniormints
New Member
Not really a suggestion for the server, but Maplestory (especially on launch) was filled with a ton of questionable design decisions. One thing is the fact that Double-Stab is basically objectively worse than Lucky 7 in damage output, leading bandits go go the SinDit route. This was probably a balance choice since assassins would use lucky seven throughout 2nd job as well, while bandits would upgrade to Savage Blow. But even ignoring the fact that lucky seven does damage regardless of mastery, the base damage is still noticeably higher. Taken from Hidden-Street
Since they're both double-hit moves, lucky seven does a total of 300% compared to double stab's 260%. But what i found really interesting is that since the mana usage is lower for double stab, so I was thinking maybe double stab would be more mana efficient?:
So Double Stab isn't really more cost effective (excluding star costs)
But what about actual damage? Let's look at what a level 20 thief would look like, assuming both go dexless, because that makes things easier for me, and there's no level 10 dagger to make an even comparison. I'm taking damage formulas from hidden-street again, so correct me if they're wrong
so that would be 23.29 damage/mp at best
So looking at the max range, 17.09 damage/mp at best
That's pretty messed up. Even if you assume that the Assassin can't afford wolbis, and is sticking with subis, thats only a 2 Watt difference, dropping the assassin's max damage to 345, which would be 21.56 damage/mp. Also realistically, being able to get wooden tops by level 20 isn't a crazy concept, since Dark Axe Stumps are fairly easy to farm which would raise their range to 400.2, raising this to 25 damage/mp.
My next thought would be that, especially with 2nd job and on, Wizet/Nexon's vision for bandit was always make a bunch of low damage attacks that are cheap and fast, but in order to get the same damage, the amount of time to double stab would need to be at least 1.6x the speed (and that's assuming the aspiring assassin wouldn't try to get a meba, for the same attack speed bracket as the fastest daggers).
My only other thought is that with the bandit's general skill choices, they wouldn't have to max keen eyes, so they can max their attack skill later, which would probably make an bandit have better damage output for levels 10-15-ish. It also opens up the thief to invest in disorder, which is theoretically a good move that could let you train on higher level monsters. While at the highly optimized gameplay that anyone reading this forum before the private server launches, we might scoff at things like putting AP into health for a non-gimmick build or for HP Washing, but having a little extra survivability does have value, and it's really better than Threaten is if the enemy has less than 100 WAtt/WDef, which at low levels covers a huge portion of them (less so for attack).
I guess the moral of this is double stab is a bad move, which everyone already knows, but I thought it was interesting to look more into it to try and figure out why it's so bad. Did Wizet have something in mind I missed? What other weird/bad/good design decisions have you noticed? Am I the only one who cares about mechanics to this extent?
Code:
Lucky Seven:
Level 20: MP -16; Damage 150% x 2 Hits
Double Stab:
Level 20: MP -14; Damage 130% x 2 Hits
Code:
Lucky Seven:
300 damage/16 mana=18.75 damage/mana
Double Stab:
260 damage/14 mana=18.57 damage/mana
But what about actual damage? Let's look at what a level 20 thief would look like, assuming both go dexless, because that makes things easier for me, and there's no level 10 dagger to make an even comparison. I'm taking damage formulas from hidden-street again, so correct me if they're wrong
Code:
Assassin: Since i'm giving the Bandit a level 12 weapon, I'll assume the assassin was able to buy wolbis from someone, and is still using the garnier, so they have the same WAtt:27:
Lucky Seven (Maximum Damage for 1 Throwing Star) - [((5.0*LUK)/100)*Weapon Attack)*Damage Percentage]=>
[((5.0*92)/100)*27)*1.50]=186.3*2=372.6
min damage for lucky seven is just half that, so the damage range is
Max: 372.6
Min 186.3
so that would be 23.29 damage/mp at best
Code:
Bandit: lvl 12 Triangular Zamandar (27 WAtt):
visible range is 15~96
Min:39
Max: 239.2
That's pretty messed up. Even if you assume that the Assassin can't afford wolbis, and is sticking with subis, thats only a 2 Watt difference, dropping the assassin's max damage to 345, which would be 21.56 damage/mp. Also realistically, being able to get wooden tops by level 20 isn't a crazy concept, since Dark Axe Stumps are fairly easy to farm which would raise their range to 400.2, raising this to 25 damage/mp.
My next thought would be that, especially with 2nd job and on, Wizet/Nexon's vision for bandit was always make a bunch of low damage attacks that are cheap and fast, but in order to get the same damage, the amount of time to double stab would need to be at least 1.6x the speed (and that's assuming the aspiring assassin wouldn't try to get a meba, for the same attack speed bracket as the fastest daggers).
My only other thought is that with the bandit's general skill choices, they wouldn't have to max keen eyes, so they can max their attack skill later, which would probably make an bandit have better damage output for levels 10-15-ish. It also opens up the thief to invest in disorder, which is theoretically a good move that could let you train on higher level monsters. While at the highly optimized gameplay that anyone reading this forum before the private server launches, we might scoff at things like putting AP into health for a non-gimmick build or for HP Washing, but having a little extra survivability does have value, and it's really better than Threaten is if the enemy has less than 100 WAtt/WDef, which at low levels covers a huge portion of them (less so for attack).
I guess the moral of this is double stab is a bad move, which everyone already knows, but I thought it was interesting to look more into it to try and figure out why it's so bad. Did Wizet have something in mind I missed? What other weird/bad/good design decisions have you noticed? Am I the only one who cares about mechanics to this extent?