Ebony

All she wanted was to heal people. She just wanted to help and make friends. She didnt understand why she was being attacked by Teayre, or why Teayre was attacking Scarlet too. She frowned as her health bar drained to zero, wondering why she couldnt be allowed to just help. She didnt have any antagonistic intentions, her whole build was centered upon healing and taking damage, not dealing it. "I just wanted to help." She let out quietly before bursting into crystals. As she faded away she came to her final conclusion. It wasn't Kayaba who was messed up, it was the other players.

Ebony stared as Scarlet, AKA Manta, stabbed into the woman. Ebony rushed over to Teayre, staring at the woman and all of the glowing red holes in her. She was a pker, but that didn't mean that she deserved to die like that. She whirled around, tears in her eyes and rushed out of the cave, back into the rain. She didnt want to dwell on what had just occured, let alone face Calrex's wrath for not being able to prevent it. She found herself hoping that Scarlet would be safe, but at the same time wishing that she would be cause and punished for what she had done.

[Ebony leaves the thread]

3 minutes ago, Takao said:

Making them equal to their counterparts defeats the purpose of having them in the first place. It's not necessarily unfair to say that if you want to do x, you take a weapon that does x. That's the reason some weapon skills have sword arts that have higher AoE multipliers, and why some have higher stuns. That information is also available to you from when you create your character, and when sword arts were introduced players were given the option to reallocate your SP, so the fault is entirely on you if you pick the wrong one.

I agree that something should be done with Rapier because the damage and supplementary abilities lean in neither direction, but I don't think putting it on par with current Dagger/Whip is the solution.

While I was on staff, I was working on a rework to sword arts that further differed their intended purposes and gave them special abilities. Dagger's SAs received overall nerfs but larger buffs when used with stealth, Curved Sword had special AoE skills that hit more than 4 enemies, things like that. Overall multipliers were closer together, and their auxiliary abilities were what differed them instead. I think doing something like that would be a better way to go about balancing the sword arts, instead of just making a bunch of them replicas of one another with a couple differing SAs.

This isnt what I'm suggesting. I was just using dagger, whip, and rapier as examples because I know them best. I certainly dont think that Rapier should be changed to mimic dagger. However, it really already does that with less damage. Im also not saying that all weapons should be unique. After all, we only have 3 things that we can make a weapon specialie in (Not counting Wild Dance and it's special effects). AOE, Stun, and Damage.  

What I am saying is that they should all be equal in their own right. No weapon should be a ton better than the rest. Whip and Dagger are the damage dealers (As little sense as that makes logically), so their equal in damage output. Same with the AOE and Stun weapons. Rapier is just kind of there, with sort of high damage but no good stuns or AOEs. 

Im sure there are problems with other weapons, but once again, im most experienced with rapier, dagger, and wild dance.

33 minutes ago, Takao said:

Why not just take dagger or whip if you want the damage, and a weapon with higher stuns/AoE if you want the stuns/AoE? There's no real point to buffing another skill's sword arts to compete with them, and nerfing them would do more harm than good.

50 SP is a lot, enough to grandmaster a skill. Not all of us have the time or muse to go grind 50 more Sp to make up for an imbalance in the sword arts. And I dont see how nerfing Dagger or Whip slightly so that their equal to their counterparts would do more harm than good except for in your case where you went and grinded to get dagger. 

There is a serious problem with the sword arts, and mainly the rapier and dagger. These are the two weapons I am most accustomed with after all, which is why im going to be using them as an example. A lot of people dont understand how the difference between a x14 sword art and a x16 sword art can be a problem. As such, i'll be giving you the math for maxed out stats on both with buffs, just because i already have those worked out.

However, before I address the straight math, i would like to address the sword arts of the two weapons alone. Comparing and contrasting the two will show you that up until that last rank, sword arts are relatively the same. The big difference before rank five of the two is the extra sword arts you can get with two ranks of martial arts. Dagger has a pretty good stun, and Rapier has an alright AOE. However, no one wastes SP on the MA sword arts, and those two are very similar as well, although the stun is probably more useful than the AOE.

So, it's not like Rapier really gets anything over the dagger, yet the dagger gets a x16 as opposed to the rapiers x14. I can hear the comments down below now. "Theres only a x2 difference, it's not a big deal." 

Yeah, well, I think the difference between 528 damage, and 462 damage is a pretty big deal. Calculations: 

Dagger: 5 (Skill)+1 (Base)+ 6 (Weapon)+ 12 (Dmg Potion and Alcoholic)+5 (Charge)+1 (Athletics)+1 (Ferocity)+2 (Crit)=33x16= 528    

Rapier: 5 (Skill)+1 (Base)+ 6 (Weapon)+ 12 (Dmg Potion and Alcoholic)+5 (Charge)+1 (Athletics)+1 (Ferocity)+2 (Crit)=33x14= 462

In conclusion, Rapier and Dagger are almost exactly the same weapon in terms of sword arts except for that 14 and 16x. Something needs to be changed, whether it means giving rapier a buff of some sort, or a new SA with high rank AOE to balance the pros and cons out, or a nerf to dagger to make things balanced.

Lastly, Im not adressing the other weapons as I dont have much experience with them and i havent compared their sword arts. However, i do know that whip has a 16x, which i feel should probably be nerfed as well. I dont know much about those sword arts though. Please vote in the poll above, and dont let your weapon type influence your vote. 

Ebony slipped and fell over, losing her balance, she glanced up, noting how the battle was going. No one was injured, the boss was almost dead already.... Ebony felt like she had almost no reason to be at this boss fight in particular. There were a bunch of minions, and naked men who were kidnapping players, but all in all things were going quite well. She looked around again. Yup, not one point of damage. She didnt make a move, just sort of sitting there and waiting for something to happen that she could help with. She couldnt do damage, and there was nothing to heal, and she couldnt very well garner enough hate to make a difference. She would just need to wait for someone to be injured to help them out.

 ID# 59501 results:

 Craft: 3

Ebony walked up to the doors of the boss room, looking them over. Apparently they were going to fight some sort of chained down monkey. It sounded like a wimpy boss. She was sure that it would be harder than they were used to, but it shouldnt be anything too difficult. She felt as though Kayaba had just made a mistake with the Rohk, and the boss fights from now on would probably be slightly easier to make up for it. Or she could be completely wrong and Kayaba was purposefully making the boss fights much more difficult, in which case they were probably all dead.

Ebony smiled as she watched everyone working as a team. The efforts somehow seemed a lot more coordinated and the sequence of events smoother than in a floor boss raid. It was obvious that even though the majority of these players were low levels, it wouldnt be long before they were up at the boss fights with her. In fact, the teamwork going on here was so much more fluid than on the frontlines that she almost wondered if, with this much coordination, the lower levels could beat a floor boss on their own. She looked over to their main tank, keeping an eye on his health bar. He was doing well, but better to be safe than sorry. She rushed over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder, activating her first aid skill and healing him for the majority of his HP. If only she had her glove, than she could have healed him all the way... It wasnt a big deal though. The remaining wolves werent all that strong and nothing back would come of it.

 ID# 58936 results:

 Craft: 7+3=10 Success!

Ebony looked ahead of her through the crowds and almost immediately saw the blood red hair of Scarlet, a frontliner that had seemingly popped up out of nowhere and was incredibly stroong for no one having heard of her before now. As she approached she noticed that Avi was there sitting on the ground for some reason. Now that they were all together they could do something or other, if Scarlet didnt get distracted and start doing things with Avi. Who knew with red heads, they were usually pretty wild. "Heyo. Lets go kill this flaming thingy."

No, not this goblin thing. Just what Xion said. Full on war with armies and gathering territory. 

3 hours ago, Xion said:

I would love to play through this, to be honest I would like to see a full on campaign of thats even possible on the site. You know army vs army, fighting to claim territory as if it's an actual war. 

 

Regardless of my stupid ideas I would be 110% down for something like this. 

Sounds like what was planned for ALO.

I knew there was a news letter, but i havent been getting it either.

 ID# 58634 results:

 Battle: 6 Success: 4 (Dagger+Silver Weapon)+3 (Skill)= 7x4= 28-10=18 DMG

Ebony smiled at the players around her as they all engaged in battle, taking out the weak werewolves first and then starting to target the main boss. It was a good strategy, to get some of the sources of damage away before dealing with the main threat. She raised her silver dagger and charged at Lyrica, activating her <<Fad Edge>> sword art and striking the enemy four times incredibly quickly before retreating.

Ebony was both happy and a little bit upset that no one was injured. She felt a bit useless at this point and found herself wishing that she had a skill to gain hate with. She glanced around at the other players, taking note of Takao barging into the boss room and almost one shotting the boss. Yep, he was definitely one of the top players in the game at the moment, probably in the top five. She couldnt really do anything, so she instead decided to save her energy for it anyone needed healing a little bit later.

Ebony smiled as they approached the end of the dungeon. Just two more enemies to go before they finished this and got all of those skill points. Still, she didn't approach the remaining two mobs. The other players or Takao would take care of them. Ebony felt like anything she did to those mobs wouldnt really matter at all because of her incredibly low damage. She really needed to get a hate garnering skill.

^ Stats subject to change before the start of the event.

Ebony made her way to where the fight was supposed to take place, incredibly nervous about the upcoming fight. This seemed to be a new sort of boss, and she wasn't seeing any high level players around. She sighed, hoping that this wouldnt all come falling down around them. If it did she would likely get blamed as a healer. She glanced at her gear, wondering why exactly she had decided to take off her mitigation shield and unique glove. She supposed she yearned to prove that her worth came from herself rather than special gear. In it's place she equipped her other shield.

Ebony glanced around. Seemingly everyone was fighting mobs except for her. And dealing more damage than her. She felt as though maybe she should join in, but she was a bit ashamed of her own damage output. She was a healer and a tank, not a damage dealer though. She raised her shield and waited for the other to finish up with the weak mobs. She would heal if she needed to.

(OOC: Sorry, i would have spawned and attacked one, but im in a rush and dont want to hold the thread up. ^~^ )

Ebony smiled at him. It was nice to just talk with someone for a while without fighting any creatures or planning builds. "That really nice of you." She stated, reaching up to tap the accept button on the friend request. She reached down to pick up her wolf cub, snow, and nuzzle him gently. He let out a long yawn in a very cute way. "Well, Snow is gettting tired, I need to drop him off at my shop so he can sleep." She paused. "Would you like to come with me?"

Ebony arrived at the meeting place rather quickly after recieving Takniel's message. She was all for doing a dungeon and getting a bunch of skill points. She needed points to make her build, which was only about half finished at this point. She still had three whole skills that she needed to grandmaster. She waved to Takniel as she approached the exit to the city where he was waiting.

(OOC: Any mobs spawned that are going to count towards the dungeon need to meet floor requirements.)

Ebony followed Takao into the dungeon, not informing the others of her own stats as Nik had as she didnt want to seem like she was bragging. She equipped her shield and attatched the black rose hairpin to her hair, her glove already equipped as usual. Unsurprisingly, Takao had no trouble with the first group of enemies, destroying them before they could even attack him. Ebony supposed that if he kept doing so well she would be playing more the part of the healer than the part of a tank.

Ebony looked around at their group. "Avi, you specifically I would advise to just stay back and watch. At your level you dont have much health and even with that armor I gave you, mitigation doesnt mean anything if you dont have health behind it." She explained. She paused, looking each player over except for Takao. "Nik and I dont have hate gaining abilities, at least i dont think he does. That means that we'll be getting hate at the exact same rate as you guys if you attack, making you targets, especially if you land a critical. I would advise everyone who isn't confident in their abilities to let Takao and myself shoulder most of the fighting." She stated, not mentioning Nik as she wasn't sure of his level or mitigation or abilities, just that he had said something about being able to take hits.

Ebony looked over at Avi who seemed quite flustered from a simple hug. "Yes, I know where we're going Avi-chan." She replied, reaching a hand out to grasp the girls hand, leading her into a nearby cafe. Ebony had been there quite a bit before, so the waiter recognized her and gave her a nod and a smile. She led Avi to a nearby booth and sat down as the waiter walked over.

Ebony walked towards the girl and gave her a gentle, short hug, before releasing her. "You dont need to repay me, it's a gift from one player to another. We're all in this together after all." She started to lead the way towards the main settlement. "Cocoa would be nice. Thenwe can really talk in depth about your build, or anything you'd like really." She said, glad to have found a friend. She seemed stable and calm, steadfast. Maybe Ebony would be able to confide in her eventually.

Ebony smiled at the girl. "It's your money now to do with what you want. Just accept it. I get a lot of money just going about my life as a frontliner. Your just starting out, you need it more than me." She explained. She adjusted her stance slightly before speaking again, slightly uncomfortable from standing in the same place for a while. "It's nice to meet you Avi. With any luck we'll be able to get you strong in no time."

She smiled as he hugged her back, asking if this make them friends. She released him from the hug and took a step back. "Of course. I wouldn't hug you if I didn't think of you as a friend." She said as though that was incredibly obvious. "Thank you for trying to help, it made me feel a bit better." She stated glad to have met someone who wasnt part of the front lines and seemed to be a lot more lighthearted than everyone else. She thought about his comment on becoming a paladin. That was an interesting choice, something that Ebony was planning to do herself eventually.