End Game

• Silverkun wrote on 2013-09-04 09:02

  Quote from Tally;1144055:

  A guildie of mine swears by fusion bolt. And everytime I run with him, I can see why. He decimates everything, and hardly needs that much setup time. In the time it takes everyone to catch up, and get ready, he's already fully charged with ice-fire. And he makes a good point when he explains it to me about why fusion bolts are better. You're not taking very much of a time-hit to charge a single fusion bolt, but you're still gaining the fusion bolt bonus for it.
  
  Granted, though, you could just roll with a CC fire wand, but you're losing the versatility that a speedcast wand would provide otherwise. And as a bonus, staves will be able to do this too.

  
  
  How exactly does he decimate the harder content like that with fusion bolt? As a Master Mage, I am not seeing it currently... Yes the damage is in many cases still significant (if you can fully charge your Fire-Ice, although a single charge of Fire-Lightning is still nice for its speed and knockdown) and I also do like how quick it is, not to mention that it does not destroy the dura on your wand or force you to chug pots. However, to say that it decimates everything is probably even beyond hyperbole-tier, especially considering that you put it in bold.
  
  EDIT: My post is going by current NA content. Maybe your friend plays on KR or something, I don't know...
• Tally wrote on 2013-09-04 09:28
  Maybe it is by my standards, or at least comparative ones, but I was still notably impressed with its efficiency and damage output. Besides that, it does allow some pre-charging while allowing you the ability to move after. The utility of being able to pre-charge in the last room over while you wait for your buddies to finish up stragglers shouldn't be understated, I feel.
  
  
  I think it is fair to say that CC firebolt would be more efficient, but I think fusion bolt will definitely have its place in Zero, when staves can fuse.
• Gensokyou wrote on 2013-09-04 09:44

  Quote from Tally;1144055:

  A guildie of mine swears by fusion bolt. And everytime I run with him, I can see why. He decimates everything, and hardly needs that much setup time. In the time it takes everyone to catch up, and get ready, he's already fully charged with ice-fire. And he makes a good point when he explains it to me about why fusion bolts are better. You're not taking very much of a time-hit to charge a single fusion bolt, but you're still gaining the fusion bolt bonus for it.
  
  Granted, though, you could just roll with a CC fire wand, but you're losing the versatility that a speedcast wand would provide otherwise. And as a bonus, staves will be able to do this too.

  
  
  Would like to see fusion bolt even finish charging by the time room is dead with act 7, crash shot, wm, or shooting rush. And then you have either low damage aoe or decent single target damage that drops off. I'm not a huge fan of it. I'd love to see some videos of this deadly fusion bolt in action, especially in harder content.
  
  Come zero, it's going to charge faster at the price of apm and vulnerability to screwing up. And even then, firebolt's going to hit much harder.
• Kaeporo wrote on 2013-09-04 15:17
  Everything has become situationally useful, some talents more so than others. One thing is certain, however; we need harder difficulties.
  
  You're comparing the difference between the destructive power of the atomic bombs otherwise.
• Kingofrunes wrote on 2013-09-04 15:22

  Quote from Kaeporo;1144120:

  Everything has become situationally useful, some talents more so than others. One thing is certain, however; we need harder difficulties.
  
  You're comparing the difference between the destructive power of the atomic bombs otherwise.

  
  
  Unfournately, devcat has been failing on delivering on that front. The last attempt they did was the Abyss Dungeon. The main issue however comes back to Reforges. The only way Devcat can make challenging content that does not cater to the people who reforge up their asses is to create content that completely disables the effectiveness of reforges all together.
  
  If Devcat caters to the reforgers in terms of difficulty we run into the risk of turning into Maplestory where everything is centered around cubing your shit to the point where you cannot beat high level bosses WITHOUT cubing your stuff.
  
  I don't want Mabi to stoop to that level.
• Kaeporo wrote on 2013-09-04 15:25

  Quote from Kingofrunes;1144121:

  Unfournately, devcat has been failing on delivering on that front. The last attempt they did was the Abyss Dungeon. The main issue however comes back to Reforges. The only way Devcat can make challenging content that does not cater to the people who reforge up their asses is to create content that completely disables the effectiveness of reforges all together.
  
  If Devcat caters to the reforgers in terms of difficulty we run into the risk of turning into Maplestory where everything is centered around cubing your shit to the point where you cannot beat high level bosses WITHOUT cubing your stuff.
  
  I don't want Mabi to stoop to that level.

  
  
  Reforges are less concerning than pets. I smash 7k barehanded. Pets allows me to smash enemies who can't fight back, while buffing the team and debuffing the enemy.
• Kingofrunes wrote on 2013-09-04 15:27

  Quote from Kaeporo;1144122:

  Reforges are less concerning than pets. I smash 7k barehanded. Pets allows me to smash enemies who can't fight back, while buffing the team and debuffing the enemy.

  
  
  Luckily devcat has rectified that with Field Bosses. They just need to release more content like that, where certain dungeons are no pet zones. Also the increase in using Elemental Immune enemies has also helped reduce the OPness associated with elemental reforges so they are making attempts at making content more challenging.
• Tally wrote on 2013-09-04 15:58

  Quote from Kingofrunes;1144121:

  Unfournately, devcat has been failing on delivering on that front. The last attempt they did was the Abyss Dungeon. The main issue however comes back to Reforges. The only way Devcat can make challenging content that does not cater to the people who reforge up their asses is to create content that completely disables the effectiveness of reforges all together.
  
  If Devcat caters to the reforgers in terms of difficulty we run into the risk of turning into Maplestory where everything is centered around cubing your shit to the point where you cannot beat high level bosses WITHOUT cubing your stuff.
  
  I don't want Mabi to stoop to that level.

  
  
  I may need to be filled in on what cubing means.
  
  However, given the massive power creep that I am certain Devcat is probably aware of, I am surprised they haven't implemented an 'RP dungeon' of sorts, where your character is given specific gear, skill ranks, etc. to start with, and you work with what you've got with limited resources and what the game decides to give you.
  
  I feel this would be the perfect challenge dungeon, and despite this, cuts down on the power creep and the level and gear differences in the community by shifting all the focus away from it.
• Azareel wrote on 2013-09-04 16:15

  Quote from Tally;1144129:

  I may need to be filled in on what cubing means.

  
  
  Part of MapleStory's upgrade system. There's like 4-5 upgrade methods in MapleStory, all of them more crazypowerful than the last. It basically turns any item, whether weapon or not, into this.
• ewire123 wrote on 2013-09-04 16:16

  Quote from Kingofrunes;1144123:

  Luckily devcat has rectified that with Field Bosses. They just need to release more content like that, where certain dungeons are no pet zones. Also the increase in using Elemental Immune enemies has also helped reduce the OPness associated with elemental reforges so they are making attempts at making content more challenging.

  
  
  Like I said in the other thread , just disable mana shield and disable pet. GG elitist.
• Aubog007 wrote on 2013-09-04 16:36

  Quote from ewire123;1144133:

  Like I said in the other thread , just disable mana shield and disable pet. GG elitist.

  
  
  It's amazing how crippled you are when you don't have pets at all nowadays.
  Although NA now allows you to get 3 free AOE pets. Pretty damn good ones at that.
• Tropa wrote on 2013-09-04 16:37

  Quote from Aubog007;1144145:

  It's amazing how crippled you are when you don't have pets at all nowadays.

  
  
  I always try to avoid using pets.
• Aubog007 wrote on 2013-09-04 16:39

  Quote from Tropa;1144146:

  I always try to avoid using pets.

  
  
  AOE pets were a godsend for that event.
  
  20 mules of event spamming.
• Kingofrunes wrote on 2013-09-04 16:49

  Quote from Tropa;1144146:

  I always try to avoid using pets.

  
  
  I also try to avoid using pets if I can help it. Sometimes though I just can't pass up the opportunity to summon the bone dragon to speed things along. Soloing ghost rooms in Peacca though is still a royal pain the ass.
• Johny wrote on 2013-09-04 16:56
  Well end-game is simply that; you're on wait list for the next exciting thing. You've invested so much on your character that it power-drives through all game content, and it becomes less and less exciting to play. I for one am happy I'm not end-game. I want to take my time getting there, and enjoy the ride. But idk, thats just me.
  
  Anyways, post-zero, I think all talent sets will be fairly equal in terms of use-ability, end-game wise. What you choose to use and speciallize in won't really matter in terms of being able to actually clear stuff effectively. Comparing talents post-zero update probably won't have argument. It's more of a question of which is more broken and what is not.