Intense Balancing: Matador, Musketeer

Greetings, Saviors!

As promised in our last post here at the dev blog, this time we’re showing some love to the Musketeer class and the new Matador in another round of Intense Balancing plans.

We’re sure you already know that the content we’re discussing here can look different once it actually makes it into the game. Any changes will be announced through the patch notes when they’re ready to be applied.
 

Matador Changes
 

The Matadors may be new in town, but we have a few things planned for them already. This class is all about counter-attack, provoking enemies and Rapier combat, so we wanted to tweak its skills and attributes to better reflect that concept.

First, the new attributes Picador (Circle 1) and Banderillero (Circle 2) are going to increase the damage on enemies targeting your Matador. Picador increases the damage of all skills when you’re equipping a Rapier. Banderillero, on the other hand, limits its damage increase to Rapier skills, but grants an even bigger damage boost than Picador.

During solo play, the fact that enemies take you as a priority target means that there is not only an instant increase in damage, but also significant synergy with Ole. For party play, the effect will vary according to the damage you can deal and the use of Capote, since the increased damage of Picador and Banderillero will apply to enemies provoked by this skill.



Muleta can be a little inconvenient to use effectively, so we’re changing it to apply both cooldown and SP consumption immediately when the skill is cast. Not only that, with these changes the duration of the muleta is more than doubled, and a successful counter-attack with this skill will completely nullify the damage received and apply a buff that temporarily increases critical rate for every level of Muleta.

Tile attack skill Faena is having its damage on large-sized enemies increased by 20%, with attribute Risk-taking boosting Faena damage even when a shield or a dagger is equipped (having a shield equipped, however, will not apply block). Ole will also have 50% of its effects apply even on enemies not targeting your Matador.

In Circle 2, Paso Doble will grant you immunity to all attacks while you’re casting it, which can be used as an evasive move. We’re also adding a new Paso Doble: Remove Knockdown attribute. Finally, Back Slide will give you a 100% chance of evasion all throughout the skill’s maneuver.

Musketeer Changes

Okay, let’s get straight into the Musketeer changes. For this Rifle-wielding class, instead of sticking to simple skill balance adjustments, we decided to rearrange the structure of the skill tree itself. We wanted to address the problem of Circle 1 being too crowded with attack-heavy skills demanding high skill point investments, and the fact that it requires you to use close-range attacks for damage amplification right from the start.
 

As you can see, this Musketeer rework involves some serious structural changes, starting with the removal of Circle 1 close-range attack skills Butt Stroke and Bayonet Thrust.



The functions and actions of Butt Stroke are being reintroduced as a basic feature of Musketeer C key sub-weapon attack (no performance increase), while the new Circle 1 attribute Musketeer: Safe Distance provides the back step effects of the current Bayonet Thrust attribute of the same name.

Circle 1 also gets a new skill in Grooving Muzzle, which temporarily increases your character’s accuracy and ignores part of the enemy’s defense whenever you attack with the Musket. Grooving Muzzle also gives you a chance of applying regular attacks as critical multi-hits.

Snipe, currently in Circle 1, is being moved to Circle 2, with maximum level reduced to 10 and skill factors increased. Snipe’s attributes, of course, are also moving to higher circles, with Enhance and Stun set to Circle 2, and Ricochet Shooting changed to Circle 3 (Perfect Aim remains in Circle 3). The pause occurring after casting Snipe, on the other hand, is being reduced to less than one third of its current duration. Covering Fire is getting a similar treatment, with casting removed altogether, while Volleyfire gets an overheat increase.



The new Circle 3 skill, Prime & Load, lets you reset the cooldown of all your Musketeer skills. In the image above, for example, you can see the character activate Sniper’s Serenity, use Snipe, then reset skill cooldown with Prime & Load to cast Snipe again.

Unlike the Chronomancer’s Pass, Prime & Load completely resets the cooldown of your skills. The difference is that, according to the type and number of skills that get reset, Prime & Load’s own cooldown is increased. To counter this and slightly shorten the skill’s cooldown, you can learn the new Circle 2 attribute Prime & Load: Fast Reload. Going back to Pass, however, the Chronomancer skill will not apply to Prime & Load, having no effect on its cooldown.

As for the other Circle 3 skill, Sniper’s Serenity, it’s going to allow your character to walk even when the buff is active. Regular attacks and certain skill attacks can still be used, although the character will stop walking to cast them. And, if you use Sniper’s Serenity again while the buff is still active or you let it end, the buff will deactivate and the skill’s cooldown will decrease from 20 to 1 second.

Below is a table showing how the Musketeer skill tree is changing with this patch:

One final adjustment we’ll be making to rebalance the Musketeer class will be to increase the minimum/maximum attack of all Rifle weapons by about 8.33%. This boost will of course influence proportional attack increases like item transcendence, so we expect good results in the final physical attack of Musketeers after these changes.
 

That’s it for today’s updates! You’ll be hearing more about the skill changes discussed in here in future patch notes, so keep an eye on the News page for more details. And make sure not to miss out follow-up blog post, where we’ll be revealing some intense balancing plans for the Wizard class tree.

Thank you as always for your support.