Buccaneer

Welcome back to Class Design Diary! It's time to debut our changes to the Explorer Pirates! Both Explorer Pirate classes are different enough that I'll have to do separate entries for each, though. But let's start with the melee Buccaneer!

Energy Charge 2nd Job

Buccaneers already had a unique aspect going on for them, centred on their Energy Charge passive: after fully charging their energy resource with regular skills, they gain access to "charged" variants of their skills that come with upgrades such as extra damage, additional effects, etc. We decided to further build on this system as the foundation of their class identity. As such, Energy Charge is now their Specialized Skill, learnt in the 2nd Job advancement.

There are also some changes to the way Buccaneer's attacking skills consume resources. At higher job advancements, take note that some skills have both an MP AND an Energy cost. Before reaching a fully charged energy state, however, all skills will always recharge more energy than the energy cost of the skill, so you will always notice the energy bar charging even if you are casting skills that cost energy. Once you reach the fully charged state, attacks which cost energy will only drain the energy bar until it is completely drained.

Corkscrew Blow & Spiral Assault 2nd & 3rd Job

Buccaneers in this version have always had insufferable mobility. The intention was for two particular skills, 2nd Job Corkscrew Blow and 3rd Job Spiral Assault, to act like the Warrior's Rush skill and provide the same type of mobility. But these two skills, just like Rush, could only move the Buccaneer when mobs were within range. With such restrictive mobility, Buccaneers were definitely one of the classes with the worst mobility, and in the early phases of our Beta, it was amongst the least picked classes as well.

We could easily solve its mobility and bring the class up to par with the rest by simply throwing it an actual mobility skill (e.g. Flash Jump), just like many other MS private servers did, as well as more modern versions of MapleStory like the RED update. But simply giving every class the same format of mobility really dilutes each class' uniqueness and identity. Many of you have noted that we imported skills and effects from later updates like the RED update, which we did indeed. But what we dislike and disagree with is blindly importing skills from future versions, monkey-see-monkey-doing what RED did for Explorer classes, because not all of those changes would fit into the pacing and power scaling of a v117 server.

We don't even think some of those changes were good at all, such as what they did to Night Lords, rewriting their iconic identity as a bursty single-target damage dealer into a telekinetic sprinkler fountain that emits shurikens at mobs practically whole-screen wide. Hence the reason for taking the time to deliberate and implement customised changes that don't betray the original experience of the game, such as giving Night Lords a completely custom Specialized Skill (go check out the NL's diary!).

So in this light, we went with a slightly more novel approach for Buccaneer's mobility: enabling Corkscrew Blow (CSB) and Spiral Assault (SA) to dash even without any mobs in range. This should compensate for the lack of a Flash Jump-type mobility skill, and it has the added bonus of doubling up as a mobbing skill, since the skills can damage mobs.

Animation cancelling

But the real prize of not settling for laziness and simply throwing a generic Flash Jump at Buccaneer is that it enables creative functionality to be tied to both CSB and SA. Buccaneer is a melee fighting class, and we wanted to emphasize its class identity of being eager to jump into fights and brawls with mobs.

What we came up with was an animation-cancelling tech with CSB and SA that allows Buccaneer to cut short any of its attacking skill animations and quickly reposition itself. To do this tech, simply initiate any attacking skill, and tap CSB/SA immediately during or right after the attacking skill cast. In fact, you can even animation-cancel CSB/SA with another attacking skill, making this one of the most fluid and satisfying mobbing playstyles in the entire game!

But be warned, there is a skill ceiling to get used to, as the animation cancel only has a few frames of opportunity to be executed.

Heck, you can even animation-cancel CSB and SA with each other, resulting in an even burstier dash. This really extends the perception of Buccaneer as a class that is always raring to go, jumping from fight to fight with a wild nature.

Turning Kick 3rd Job

There's another aspect of Buccaneer's class identity that we wanted to establish, which is a distinct difference between regular attacks and charged attacks. We wanted regular attacks to have spherical hitboxes centred on the Buccaneer itself, because not only does an AoE-around-character attack fit Buccaneer's theme, character-centred AoE hitboxes are also quite a rarity amongst all class attacking skills.

Hence, we remodelled the visual effects and hitbox of Buccaneer's 3rd job mobbing skill, Landlubber Blast, into the flashy Turning Kick:

Sea Serpent's Rage 4th Job

We then wanted charged attacks to be attacks that "blast" forwards from the Buccaneer, fitting for its energy-themed aesthetic. However, we didn't like the idea that Buccaneer, a seafaring pirate, would end up becoming a Super Saiyan blasting laser beams in its penultimate 4th Job advancement. We wanted an aesthetic that remains true to the pirate theme, yet keeps the badassery of the Super Saiyan aspects which defined the peak of Buccaneer's prowess.

So we decided to import visuals from GMS' Destiny update, where they rightfully returned the pirate-like aesthetic to Buccaneers. In 4th Job, Octopunch, when fully charged, will no longer transform into a Super Saiyan rendition of Octopunch. The fully charged variant is now Sea Serpent's Rage.

Sea Serpent Burst 4th Job

Likewise, we removed the longstanding Buccaneer's Blast and replaced it with a fully charged variant of Dragon Strike (which wasn't in v117), Sea Serpent Burst.

Serpent Assault 4th Job

And to end off Buccaneer's changes with a bang, we also reworked its 4th Job Full Map Attack. Previously, all Explorer Pirates had the same generic Full Map Attack called Nautilus Strike, which summons the Nautilus to bombard the whole map. Like all FMAs, it was hardly keybinded and definitely underused due to its long animation and cooldown restriction. However, we like the idea of FMAs, but we also want to slightly differentiate them from the FMA styles of Explorer Magicians.

Introducing Serpent Assault: a slightly smaller-scaled FMA, but still with a wide hitbox nonetheless. It has an extremely badass visual of the Sea Serpent Lord, and we also changed up the mechanics of casting it. Instead of being a regular FMA skill with a cooldown, Serpent Assault has no cooldown, but costs a massive amount of Energy instead, and can only be used in the fully charged state.

The class fantasy

This brings us to the end of our Buccaneer showcase. Here's the class fantasy we are leaving you with:

The swashbuckling Buccaneer channels the ancestral viking spirit that lies dormant in the depths of their heart, seeking out every opportunity to brawl with heavy kicks and punches. The Buccaneer is a living example of having aura, literally, manifesting the wrath of the seven seas unto those who foolishly pick a fight with him.

So, how do you like our rework of Buccaneers? If it floats your "ark", stay tuned for the last ever Class Design Diary for Explorer classes, where we will be covering the changes to Corsair! Who knows, you might actually see an ark...