MabiPro: The Authentic Old-School Mabinogi Experience

Defense and Counter

Posted at 01-29-18, 11:16 pm Link | #1

Slayerj

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So, me and Fruttie were talking a little while back about things, and we came to the conclusion that Defense and Counter are two of the worst mid to end game skills. Early game, they are great, and can come in handy a lot, but so can something else to almost a better degree even.

The Talk:

The late to end game content of Mabinogi is FULL of both light and heavy Multiagro situations. The key to dealing with them is hitting them fast and hard, and as many as possible. The counter to being ganged up on, is having someone have your back OR a single skill with an absurdly short load time for something that seems to be meant to get you out of a pinch above all else.

Said skill, of course, is WM. .8 second load time, deals a fair amount of damage to an unlimited amount of mobs in a wide range around you, gives you I-frames, and it's only real cost aside from SP, is 10% of your max health. This skill is so fast to load that even in some situations where you're getting hit, you can load it and get away. Aside from all that, it is one, if not, the SINGLE BEST MULTI AGGRO SKILL IN THE GAME.

How does Defense and Counter hold up? Well, great! ...In single aggro situations only. The skill itself, by rank 1, gives you a large chunk of health, and 15 base defense. On activation you get a nice 55 defense and 25 protection added to you! With a shield, it's even better, giving you around 50(?) more defense on top of that!

It has a 1.5 second load time. It deals with ONE attack and has 1.5 seconds of load time at all ranks. This is death in multi aggro. If you have time to load this, you have time to WM. If you have time to WM, you WM. If you do not WM, you are doing it wrong.

For an example, a hard mode Gold Bone Lancer, deals 50-110dmg per normal attack, which it can hit you 3 times. That's 150-330dmg. With JUST defense without a shield, you take 1-30dmg. Very little compared to it's combo that would most likely kill you outright. But remember, that was 1.5 seconds for that and if this isn't a 1v1, you're surrounded by more mobs that may or may not be ready to attack you as well. So just Spin. And just Win.

1v1, Defense is great, but only at very late ranks and the harder content doesn't want you to really use it.

The exact same can be said for Counter. 1.5 second load time, not multi agro friendly.

Changes:

So, how do you change Defense and Counter to be Multiagro friendly, and thus, useful late game?

Use Charges. 1.2 second load time.

For example. Defense rank 1, 3 charges. Load the skill up and you have a little 3 in the skill bubble. Get hit, you defend, you still have the skill loaded, but now you have 2 charges left. Easy to understand. Perhaps each charge uses a point or two of stamina as well.

Shields give +2 charges to every rank, so rank 1 has 5 charges. On top of that, shields add level 1 melee ping on activation. This does further reduce damage however, but this makes shield defend in the early game much more useful as well as helping it scale with future content that might hit harder, it also increases the stun time of those who hit defense to be longer. This doesn't change much in 1v1, you still get to attack the foe as you did before, though now you might have enough time to load smash or something else. (Maybe, not 100% sure on the extra stun time)

Now, before you jump at this, you're defending, not attacking. Nothing is dying, you're trying to keep yourself from dying. Every other combat type skill? kill stuff. Even counter is protect yourself and deal damage. You're also throwing out extra damage that would be from a 2h, or the current meta, of two swords or two blunts, for a great defensive increase ONLY once you load the skill.

"My pvp!" This actually helps pvp, don't you think? You now have an extra hint of stress over having to read if someone is faking defense or not, as well as having more you can do once someone fails to read you doing it. It also helps open the door for team PvP a bit more. It also opens the door for the free for all pvps a bit more too.

Now, as for Counter, it is stuck at 3 charges by rank 1, and nothing more. On top of that, it has a MUCH higher SP cost over time. While one can bolt counter ALMOST ANYTHING in this game to death, it's still very powerful to just stand there and not be touchable 3 times in a row, 1v1 or multi agro. Of course, ranged attacks destroy this as they always have.

Posted at 01-29-18, 11:28 pm Link | #2

Fruttielicious

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I'll +1 my own idea's as discussed above here xd

Posted at 01-30-18, 12:45 am Link | #3

Jinforrver

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I personally think defense is perfectly fine the state it is in. Its good to have something that is very powerful, like defense, in a more niche situation. Not every skill needs to be a catch all like windmill is used as. Its mitigation in a 1v1 situation is very strong, it is usable in multi aggro situations when used well and the its base stats it gives while leveling should not be understated.

Defense is great passive gains with powerful niche and thoughtful use.

As for counter I don't use it and never did playing live outside of some use in pvp. So with my experience with it i don't have much to add other than even with the changes you suggested I still wouldn't use it.

Posted at 02-01-18, 10:01 pm Link | #4

Blighty

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As soon as I read the 'charges' idea, I have to agree. I have seen it implemented in other games but never in Mabinogi so I don't know how easy or hard it would be to add in. Regardless, the idea fits well with the theme and doesn't appear overpowered.

One thing I would like to input is that there is no shield mastery which is a shame. I would rather have the charges apply after ranking shield mastery rather than adding it to a skill that already works fine by itself.

The main question is, what position are we to be directing Mabinogi's gameplay decisions? If the developer designed it this way, maybe it wasn't meant to be changed. Changing it even slightly could reveal more problems and possibly even unbalance the game itself. Considering it's an old skill, I wouldn't be surprised if the whole game was based off of it.

Would need a game developer to confirm though. Completely conspiring over here. Don't even know if it's possible. I love it though.

Posted at 02-03-18, 11:08 am Link | #5

Slayerj

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Snip

Because Mabi went through a few directors, it's direction is all over the place. The original Mabinogi was meant to be a slow adventure of growth and development of your character through a long time. Over the generations, it changed to what we have now, clearing content as fast as you can for as much exp gain as you can so you can grow as fast as possible. It was like this before, but it was harder to do. We didn't have the best EXP options on a board in a single location just a few steps away with a fixed map and much less running and more 'exciting' combat.

You slap yourself with the best gear you can get your hands on to do more damage and go faster. There's no room to care about defense, the stat or skill, because there's no real point. Why 1.5 sec load time a single attack into less dmg, when you can outright kill the monster most of the time with .8 sec wm, or deal a large sum of dmg to it, knock it back AND all around it, reset its AI, and give yourself I frames for a small amount of time, for just 10% hp? Your health doesn't even mater a lot of the time, because without focusing on defense in harder missions and having a lot of HP to start with, you just die from a combo, let alone getting multi agrod on. So spinning to knock everything away, deal dmg, and only 'lower' your health to a minimum of one hit is the best way to approach almost anything.

But does the community even want changes to this? Most don't. They're content with it how it is, and that's fair. Some like how it is now, and some miss the old days before they found out WM was busted and fought battles the best they could with friends backing them up in multi agro situations. I'm honestly a hypocrite if you think about it. I want these changes and balances to help make the game more than x things, but that means taking away so much from those that like that exact thing. There's no real way to make any change to this game to make everyone happy. We just have to hope for the best form the devs and the community to not go down the wrong path that we all end up hating.

Posted at 02-05-18, 09:39 pm Link | #6

Blighty

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My intention was not meant to appear political. I'm not for or against any side. I'm simply referring to the code and the fact that it may take too much effort to 'change' or 'add' things to the game because of the way it was designed. The fragility, so to speak. Our devs may have a lot of talent, but they're still only people who have to do people things 24/7.

As much as I want the charges idea to be real, it may not be physically possible for our current position. What with so many problems to deal with currently.