Night Lord & Shadower

Welcome back to Class Design Diary! Today we bring you snippets of the iconic and ever-popular Explorer Thief classes.

The Explorer Thief classes had the fewest major changes to their kits, so I'll be combining the diary entries of both the Night Lord and Shadower classes.

The Explorer Thief classes were fairly popular in our Beta. Many players had created a Thief at some point, and the main reasons for any fall-off were crucial skill bugs, which should all have been fixed for launch. The combination of speed, aesthetics and nostalgia will remain the bedrock of their popularity for the foreseeable future.

And yet, we still think we can do better in defining a unique class identity and playstyle for the Explorer Thieves. In modern servers such as UmbraMS, where almost every class has had its mobility boosted, along with an abundance of Speed and Jump sources in-game, the Explorer Thieves were becoming less and less differentiated as other classes kept up with modern design updates.

So we went back to the drawing board, pondered the original reasons for the iconic status of Thieves, and then challenged ourselves to double down on the distinguishing features that made the Explorer Thieves so widely enjoyed from the very beginning.

Where did that land us? Back to "Mobility", where it all began for the Thieves.

We started by accepting the reality that having Flash Jump in v117 is no longer a unique thing. So we wanted to weave a unique experience of mobility into both Explorer Thieves' playstyles. Not just unique to the Explorer Thieves broadly, but unique to each individual Thief class too.

So here's what we've cooked up.

Star Jumper 2nd Job

First, the Night Lord. If there's one thing this class does more than every other class, it has to be Jump-Attacking. So we thought to ourselves, what if we made a Specialized Skill that rewards the already-innate Jump-Attacking habit that every Night Lord player has?

Enter the Star Jumper, learnt at the 2nd Job advancement. Star Jumper gives an occasional instance of damage (which scales with the Night Lord's level) upon executing a jump-attack or a jump-skill cast. It has a 3-second interval between each time Star Jumper is ready, so hardcore Night Lord players can push for every extra percentage of damage output by weaving Jump Attacks into their skill rotations. Night Lords are always jump-attacking while training anyway, so it will be a free damage bump for their mobbing sessions. And if you aren't jump-attacking while playing Night Lord... why are you even playing it?

We're so serious about the jump-attack being a core identity of the Night Lord that we also built into the Star Jumper passive the ability to break the soft Jump cap of 130%. Night Lords will be the only class that can hit a new high of 140% Jump. That's not a Star Jumper, that's an All-Star Jumper!

Retreating Throw 2nd Job

In 2nd Job, Night Lord had 2 mobbing skills with the same mob count, but each with its own flaws. Shuriken Burst had a very limited AoE upon impact. Gust Charm was a straight-line projectile skill, and even though it had a more practical hitbox than Shuriken Burst, it irked me in all the wrong ways when I tried to use Gust Charm as my main mobbing skill during 2nd Job. The straight-line projectile does not synergise with jump attacks, whereas Shuriken Burst at least had a homing projectile which complemented jump-attacking. So we decided to replace Gust Charm with something that actually synergises with the Night Lord's playstyle:

Retreating Throw is a new attack-and-mobility combination skill that moves the Night Lord backward and, while you keep holding the key, gives the Night Lord a bit of hang-time while firing stars on the way down. Using this skill also automatically triggers Star Jumper's bonus damage instance.

But the niftiest feature of this skill is that it can simply be used as a backwards Flash Jump if you don't want its built-in attacks to execute. Just tap the skill instead of holding it, and watch yourself leap backwards majestically. Our hope is that this skill alone will be used just as much in combination with the forward-facing Flash Jump, and bring back the awesome feeling of superior mobility that stole our hearts when we first played the old-school Thieves.

Into Darkness 3rd Job

We also imported a unique mobility skill for the Shadower: Into Darkness, aptly named once you see what it does:

Don't mind the lack of an animation for now, as I am doing in-production testing. Into Darkness is a 3rd Job mobility skill that causes the Shadower to blend into darkness and appear right in front of the closest enemy in range. You can even do nifty stuff like teleporting to platforms above you if timed right.

But Into Darkness is also a strategic skill, not just a mobility one. It automatically puts the Shadower in Dark Sight upon landing at the enemy as well. This isn't just a defensive manoeuvre. It is also an offensive tool, thanks to the new Specialized Skill for Shadower: Shadow Walker, and its 4th Job upgrade, Advanced Shadow Walker.

Shadow Walker

Dual Blade enjoyers will find Shadow Walker familiar, as it was part of their skillset. In much later versions of retail MapleStory, this passive was eventually added to Shadower, probably because Nexon realised just how many of Shadower's existing skills were influenced by Dark Sight. I mean, it's called Shadower for a reason, agree?

In addition to some juicy passive damage stats, Shadow Walker gives Shadower a very bursty damage bonus when attacking out of Dark Sight. What's more, Shadowers have a chance to auto-trigger Dark Sight upon attacking, as well as to remain in Dark Sight when attacking. If the stars align for you, the Shadower will be one of the burstiest classes out there, landing consecutive attacks empowered by Shadow Walker.

And of course, Into Darkness lets you simply unbind the normal Dark Sight, reducing keybind bloat. Into Darkness will be used throughout the Shadower's lifetime, all the more by min-maxers trying to draw out every opportunity to attack out of Dark Sight.

Dark Flare 3rd Job

Before leaving 3rd Job, we gave a slight buff to Dark Flare by making the skill also deal 280% damage every 900ms within its amazing hitbox. Not only is this an amazing bossing utility skill for its damage reflection, it also won't be completely ignored during 3rd Job levelling anymore, since you can use it as a secondary attacking skill.

Shadower's 4th Job

We did not overhaul any skills or mechanics in Shadower's 4th Job, because it was already a very competent skillset. We simply wanted to augment its destructiveness by adding the Dark Sight synergy that was sorely needed, given skills such as Assassinate doing boosted damage when cast in Dark Sight.

Showdown 4th Job

But we do have a surprise for the Night Lord cultists: Taunt has finally been upgraded to its spiritual successor, Showdown!

Showdown is a mobbing skill that also grants additional EXP and Drop Rate from the enemies hit. Night Lords were traditionally less capable of mobbing due to their heavily single-target class design, so this skill, with its classic mobbing hitbox, should patch that specific weakness.

And that's all for the Explorer Thieves rework! While we didn't overhaul as much compared to the earlier Explorer classes, we gave them a much-needed makeover so that they can rightfully regain their Best-in-Class Mobility. Both Night Lords and Shadowers should feel more fluid than ever, and if you put their new mobility toys to work, you'd be surprised at how potent the Thieves can really be.

The class fantasy

As usual, the tradition of ending with our class fantasies:

No one can rival the Explorer Thieves when it comes to outmaneuvering and outsmarting their opponents. The Night Lord strikes from unscalable heights, while the Shadower ambushes its target from the dark shadows. It's a cardinal sin to enjoy the best of both worlds, speed and power alike.

Thank you for tuning in to Class Design Diaries. Hang in there, we are almost at the finish line with just 2 more main classes to go!