BeforeMidnight

Tried everything before, damage boosting cards wont matter that much with Martyr's Reckoning. It would only be maximized if your HP is at its highest. The highest you can get. Sacrificing card slots for the dmg boosters themselves would only mean you sacrifice some HP amount, which basically would just deal either the same amount of damage, have you did the all HP, or deal even less. The skill itself is forced neutral as well, so GR and Rays counter it very well even if it ignores DEF. So, to deal more damage, just get more HP.

NYAAAAAAAAAAAA

Not gonna happen GM Danger. This is not Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero where you only press the key to the corresponding fret or whateverthehell those things are called to make combos (for rankers). It's a class intended bonus. It's not even anything close to cast time or after cast delay. It's just what it is because the game said so.

When did I ever mention anything about Kihop in my last post? I was talking about Danger's ridiculous idea of disabling the TaeKwon infinite spam of kicks.

All three kicks boosted by the Blessed ring (Heel Drop, Roundhouse and Counter kick) now deal about the same damage [21k x 3 for each hit of 1 Kick] (I'm only buffed by blessing and falcon eyes). This is fine for me compared to the last one which had 21k x 3 for Heel Drop and then the other 2 kicks dealt only 10k x 3. I've also only done this test on my own. No parties so I don't know how much it does when Kihop is active. You can ask the other TK rankers though if they're fine with this now too. And I totally disagree on Danger's idea of disabling the infinite spam of kick for combos. You mean we should only rank to get that 3x HP and SP? Tamper with the RO system again because you think infinite combos is imbalanced. TK's already have 1 specific skill that's been completely disabled/nulled/FORSAKEN/trashed in PvP maps which is Leap. And now you're suggesting to disable the one best legit and totally intended and totally unique bonus TKs can have which is also inside a skill. This is beyond the game balancing thing already because you're gonna modify the class skill itself. TKs have had enough. Not that there's anything wrong with it but we can't even make any use of the attack bonus you get when you do the Sprint and Stop thing when you're unarmed because yeah, we now wear weapons. It's different from modifying skills through equipment such as the Rings or the Valk weapons because you have the option to wear or not to wear it. What you want is a complete shut down of the Taekwon class, and that's totally unforgivable.

Oh my frickin god. You guys are unbelievable. "nobody forced you to rank" "no one forced you to be in top 1" How ignorant can you get, GM team? Are you even hearing what you're saying? You're passing the blame on us? Is this how you're supposed to treat your players? Ask them if they've been forced to do something and make it sound like "no one forced you to do that, so it's just fine if we change things mid-air just because we can". You're not even gonna consider and appreciate the fact that 'we did this on our own and no one forced us to fucking do this kind of thing because it feels awesome and because the TK rankings exist so we might as well go for it', but instead you'd say 'nobody forced you to rank'? Yes we did this on our free will, whenever we can do it. And I myself conquered the top spot and still going because those spots are all open for another ranker to claim. You can get dethroned any time and if you're in the Top 10 which is the point of having and losing the bonuses at the same time, you have no other choice but to find and secure a safe spot you think you can handle. We all want that bonus. Solely because that ranking system exists. It's awesome to be a part of it. You people in the GM team can not use this fact to belittle us, or reason at us because you didn't create the TK system. It exists in all Ragnarok servers! What's the point of it existing if no one's gonna be in this list? To try and achieve that one of a kind bonus? We're not even supposed to be talking about that thing because the issue here is the damage TKs dealt before the "update" (do I sound more civilized now because I didn't call it a nerf anymore?). Sure, they can easily deal that much damage, but as some of you already know, it is because we can adjust our weapon element to 7 different types. Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Ghost, Shadow and Holy. Use the right element and poof, you're in for a ride. But unfortunately, elements enchanted by Mild Wind can be dispelled. Once we're not on any Mild Wind element enchantment, neutralized, we barely even hurt. Classes who can dispel us and players who wear Randgris cards on weapons are our nightmares. Randgris can easily dispel us, because we're melee hitters, even if the enemy doesn't hit us physically, in which case we would have the honors to do so, we'd activate any active cards such as the dispel from Randgris card given the enemy has any sort of reflect equipment. To prevent that from happening we can turn to our trusty GTB shield, which in turn leaves us even more vulnerable to attacks dealt to us. It's either we survive, but not deal damage, or deal damage, but not survive when we take the hits ourselves. TKs were never all just advantages. Not all just bonuses and benefits from some kind of special ranking system. Again, I'm fine with the HP decrease (IT'S VERY MUCH REASONABLE NOW SO PLEASE THERE'S NO NEED TO TWEAK IT ANYMORE). The damage, to be fair with you, okay fine, lower it a bit down BUT FOR GOODNESS' SAKE, NOT LIKE ITS CURRENT STATE. Like I said, Crit build Sinx deal way better damage than TKs right now. No one in here even mentioned that CritSinX are pretty much the same with TKs because they're also melee and they hit for a damage high enough that you'd also be gone in less than a second and reflect is also something that endangers their lives. But no one complained because people are used to it. All servers probably have it because it's a common class. Then we laid our eyes on the TKs who are quite new on the scene and are basically almost the same in terms of ways of killing opponents, but because we're not used to seeing them do it, we judge them. I just want this to be over with. The longer this goes, the more unhealthy arguments come out of it. P.S. Please don't ever use our spots in the Top 10 again to reason with us. Nobody ever should. Give us a fucking break. That seriously annoyed me. Excuse my language but I believe that any member of the GM team or Dev team should at least be sympathizing with the players first and foremost while explaining their side intelligently at the same time and not agitate them even more just to make us see it on their point of view. If you want us to respect you and your opinions, respect and appreciate your players opinions too. P.P.S. There should also be no excuse next time changes like this happen without any notices here in the forums. It might create drama, yes and blah blah blah but at least you guys told us and not left us blank and have no idea what in the world is happening because no one is confirming these updates. Especially these class specific updates regardless whether they're in beta or godknowswhat stage. How hard can it be to type in a few words and post it in the forums? You can observe something, get it coded and release it in the live game but you can't even type in a short memo on the forums about this kind of change? This is probably the only game I know who has done that so far where they release a fix/balancing/update first before the patch notes itself. In this case there isn't even gonna be a memo about it as soon as possible if my friends haven't made me aware of the thing done to TKs and me disappointingly asking about it in here.

Good thing we're referring to this as a nerf rather than balancing. Before the nerf, we can deal around 50k to 70k damage on Heel Drop boosted by the Bless ring. All 4 kicks contain 3 individual hits. So 70k x 3 210k. After the nerf, the highest i've done is 19 to 21k damage x 3. So that's 63k damage. The other 2 boosted kicks (Roundhouse and Counter Kick) deal 10 to 12k damage x 3 which gives you around 36k. It got so low that Crit build Sinx deal way better damage than TKs. Our time ranking was all made pointless if you guys choose to stand by your decision in making TK damage this low in which case we're better off making Crit Sinx. Jeezus. This is your opinion. Only yours. But that doesn't mean you can immediately change things just because you can. You shoulda listened more around you and not judge based only on what you think. I thought there was a GM team who you can talk to about these kind of stuff. Be one and listen to the community if you want the community to be happy.

Let's see, TK kicks (for example: Heel Drop) consist of several individual kicks, so "one hit" is not the right way to call it. Yeah, if we look at it from another perspective, it looks like Taekwons can kick the soul out of you in just a second. But this is not entirely true in most cases because Taekwon kick combos, to become infinitely spammable, it REQUIRES you to be in the Taekwon Top 10 rankings (type the /taekwon command in-game). If you're not in that Top 10, you basically pause each time another kick stance procs, in which case you need to press the corresponding kick to continue dealing damage. Being able to spam all 4 kicks infinitely (as long as 1 kick is not repeated back to back), even with just 1 Stance active, is one of two luxuries a Taekwon can do once they reach and grab one of the spots in the Top 10. Another is having tripled Max HP and SP (mine used to reach 500k with 2x GEC, 2x Skolls, GR+Tao, and the Blessed ring. This is not the gear setting we use when we PvP but this is just to give people an example how high it can get. On PvP gear however, it goes around 400 to 420k HP). Non-ranking TKs roughly have 110k HP, geared. Again, these are the luxuries of making it to the Top 10 which is no easy feat. Kill 100 monsters to get 1 point. Note: Not all monsters the Taekwon mission assigns to you work. For example, the current mission it gave you is Poring. You go out there and kill porings, but then when you check your progress, it still shows as 0%. Yes, this happens. TK rankers out there know exactly what I'm talking about. Also, not all monsters that the Taekwon Mission gives you are doable in the shortest time possible. Sometimes it makes you want to kill MVPs such as Bacsojin, Atroce, or mini-MVPs like Deviling, or Ghostring. And so what we do is go ahead and spam Taekwon Mission again to hopefully get a favorable monster that works and makes progress when you kill one and has a big amount of it in one map. There is a 1% chance (One Percent) of you getting another mission while the current mission you have is at zero. At the time of writing this, the Rank 10 in the current Taekwon Rankings is at 306 points. Considering all that stuff I've mentioned above, that must took over a week for this guy to take that 10th spot unless he's been at it for only 3 days but has done missions non-stop. After this significant decrease in damage output, you can not blame us, TK rankers who have worked real hard to get these luxuries, if we complain about this nerf. I mean, seriously? The moment a very limited number of Taekwons become relevant in the PvP scene, you make them shitty again. There can only be 10 Taekwons who can enjoy this one-of-a-kind luxury. They're unique in their own way. Honestly, I can accept the not so small, not so high HP decrease, but the terrible decrease in the damage output is just ridiculous. Taekwons are a melee class. They hit hard. Then wear Orc Lord armors. Frigg's Shield has reflect too. How hard can it be to counter TKs? Every single class out there can wear these reflect equipment! No need for exclusive counter skills or counter classes because we already have them in cards and basic equipment. The harder melee hitters hit, the more reflect damage they get. And oh boy, it is hard to smash 5 keyboard buttons at the same time (4 kicks, and 1 for seed). Where were we when Gunslingers literally used about two rapid hits of Full Buster, yes, two rapid hits literally to kill almost every class. Wear a ring and the weapon that boosts it and press one ability button and click an enemy and there you go. People complained in the forums about it. And then we immediately shift our attention and look at TKs. For them to hit rapidly we need to get to that Top 10, wear a ring and the weapon. Sacrificed an amount of time, to achieve this potential and then decrease it by a ton just because they can 'one hit' an 800k HP pally who by the way have a built-in reflect ability. Again, the HP decrease, is reasonable, but the damage, you guys need to re-evaluate. I think the reason why no one in the forums complained about TKs is because most of the people understand that these TKs (less than 10, theres still a few names in the rankings who are already inactive and they were names from years ago) deserve these legitimate bonuses. Finally, I see this post as some kind of propaganda against TKs because you, the GMs yourselves are looking for people who would want to complain about TKs being "OP" which is right after you decrease their DPS. Why? To justify your decisions? Sue me if you think I'm being too straightforward but I'm sorry, this is the only way you guys, hopefully, can hear about the sentiments of us TKs who feel like we're being rendered useless after the countless hours of struggle.

Yeah you're right. There shouldn't be any class that can completely disable one class. Because we can always find counters for classes with different gears. But that isn't the case for this one because we're talking about the Guardian ring itself, not the Gunslinger who uses it. Now the tables are turned apparently. It's the classes themselves who need to switch to counter a gear. And I'm not the one who said only Profs are the way to go for their spell breaking ability to disable this Guardian ring's impending doom.

With all due respect, we're not even talking about the cast time here anymore. Sure we can use that on them while casting but what we're currently pointing out in here is the out of this world damage. Rayray was right, we used to only use gears to counter different class skills, but to counter this particular one you're gonna give us this answer? A spell breaker Prof? Doesn't that spell overpowered to you? How many classes are there in this game? It used to be something like classes are not exactly counters to each other, and that is because they are balanced. They all deal almost the same average damage. And no class overpowered specifically only one class, and no class specifically shut down another. 1 GUARDIAN RING, to nullify it, you need EXACTLY and not just ANOTHER class, but ONLY a Professor. Where's the respect in all the other classes? You can't say "oh this is fine now" just by watching and observing it one time in an event or two. Besides, like what you guys said, this is still in beta. So I guess this is one thing u need to research more on.

***Warning: Lengthy explanation of me trying to make a point and voting for the reduction of the overall damage of Tracking because it seems like it's not going to be lowered.*** With or without cast time the damage is still way over the roof. Let's see... Why are these skills made to be in a forced neutral state (can't be converted to any element): Asura Strike, Acid Bomb, Martyr's Reckoning, Final Strike etc. It's because they naturally deal a great amount of damage and thank goodness for Ghostring and Raydric (let's face it, you put these on as default most of the time because those skills above are usually what you face in the battlefield) we can deal with all these with ease. But then here comes the Gunslinger which with its presence alone will make you want to switch to "counter gear" even before it shoots a bullet. 650% damage increase to a skill that already deals great damage even without ring benefits, and you can convert to another element by using another bullet property is not balanced at all. Some examples of skills that can be converted to another element for it to deal actual damage against GR + Raydrics: Cart Termination Mammonite Sonic Blow Bowling Bash None of these skills are comparable to Guardian Tracking in terms of current damage. It completely overshadows all of those by a great, great, margin. Okay time for scenarios: TEAM FIGHT: You face against a party with a Champion, a Bio, a Paladin, a Ninja, a Sniper (meh) and whatnot. Ah, you can deal with this, with your own team because it's the usual. But then comes a Guardian Gunslinger and joins the opposing team. You be like "oh shit switch to your 'counter' gear or else you surely will die from the GS". Doing so leaves you very vulnerable to the other classes trying to kill you and hoorah, you're dead from Acid Bomb or a not-even-full Asura Strike. Okay let's use Pneuma then. But you get nudged by magnum break. "Hey, I'm a melee hitter but i need to stay in this Pneuma to keep me safe. And please cast a pneuma for me (because i don't want to bother getting or using an accessory that triggers it... or maybe i do but thats way too much of a hassle to prevent ONLY ONE CLASS from killing you with one shot) so i can walk around very slowly and very carefully until I get to my target who by the way is constantly moving away." Yeah I was right. The presence of the current Guardian Gunslinger alone can ruin the match already without even firing that bullet yet. The only way I can see this thing becoming balanced is having the cast time and a damage that can only deal around 150 - 180 - 200k damage at maximum potential (Ship Captain, Thana, Provoke, x2, whateverthehellelseyoucanusetoincreaseitsdamage). Yes, because you need an actual team to win in a team fight, not only a Gunslinger who stands in one spot casting Tracking (and/or maybe a Paladin as a life support... so seriously, where's the strategy and teamwork here?) that currently can deal all the damage (over 300k damage) you will ever need to kill people in the average 210 - 240k HP pool. You get hit by a 150 - 200k damage Tracking from a lone Gunslinger and you're alright, you can seed and tank that. But during a team fight, you can get hit by other attacks like asura, and acid bomb, then the 150 - 200k damage Tracking should serve as a finisher and I think that's how it should be. A finisher skill on opponents who have already lost about 1/4 of their HP from your allies' attacks. Guardian Gunslinger players: "So that's it? We can't kill anymore (OHKO) and we now only need a team to do that?" Give me a break... this is how we lead to the next scenario: 1 ON 1 FIGHT: Now I'll step on the Gunslinger shoes to be fair with you. So, let's fight one on one. I cast Tracking against you and I'm using the Guardian ring with it. BLAM. That was one massive damage but you don't die. What do I do to kill you? I can't spam this Tracking skill at all because it needs to cast. Here you go, use this another skill called FULL BUSTER. See it as Tracking (Team Fights - because you need some people to protect you and make the first wave of damage to them while casting) and Full Buster (1vs1 Fights - because it's fast and you can manage to kill on your own). There are 3 different kinds of rings now. And different weapons. And that means you can switch depending on the situation. And don't tell me "Not everyone has the tokens to get all those different rings and weapons". Well that is completely your choice. These Guardian rings are pricey due to the difficulty of producing them, and yet more and more people are starting to get them in a heartbeat. With the state of things I'm pretty sure every Gunslinger out there will just get the Guardian rings because of this crazy overkill potential. There's no need anymore to use other classes because in a PK server, it's all about PVP, and the best way to make mindless killing right now is going for Guardian Gunslinger. But know this: There can never be something that wipes any class instantly in a game in just one press of a button. If there is, then you have a broken game overall. And for heaven's sake, we can't just say "find a counter to it" all the time because there is no counter to a skill that can surely and instantly kill you, not even pneuma which requires you to stand in one spot. And not all classes have the Pneuma skill at their disposal, and there's only one card that gives you this benefit but only if it procs while youre being hit by physical attacks. What is there to proc if you're not even alive at all. Is there a headgear out there that can give you the ability to cast Pneuma? Well fill us in, but I'm pretty sure not everyone is gonna be able to have it (especially if it's from Activity Tokens...). All this struggle, just to counter ONE class... jeebus. Lastly, yes, everyone can go GS Guardian Tracking build. And so I welcome everyone to World War Gunslinger, the RO where only "Gunslinger Lives Matter". Rant over.

You, sir, has just won the internet. Congratulations :O :th_heh:

"By taking a little extra time to track the target, you can guarantee a very powerful single shot. Tracking has a fixed cast time which is not affected by DEX, skills or effects and is interruptible." - RMS Bottom-line is: Tracking's cast time being reduced by 50% on the guardian ring and being affected by card combos (which basically removes THE cast time) was a no-brainer. The high damage is the reason why RO itself put a fixed cast time in it, and it definitely should stay that way. Put back the fixed cast time (which is 3 seconds by default at Lvl 10) before it unleashes that deadly bullet. I can care less about the damage as long as it levels evenly with the cast time. And I sure hope it DOESN'T become a pattern though of increasing and increasing average damage while max HP pools barely even get increased. *always consider that when you 'balance' things thank you...*