The State of the Musketeer

[Human]

Added in a sample Talent Tree and explanations 5/12

After making a couple posts about issues with the musketeer class, ive decided its time for a more comprehensive “State of the Musketeer” post.

In OG Orbus, the musketeer was the main (only) healing class. I used to joke that I was a dps musky (because thats not a thing) and I made posts about how i wanted more from musky in the way of damage/support, mostly because it just became boring to be a heal bot in dungeons and raids. There was no other option for heals though, so it made sense that those aspects of the the musky class were never fleshed out. In Reborn however, that is not the case.

Musketeer heals were nerfed in reborn, and other healing classes were added (Bard and Pally). Currently bard does more DPS and comparable, if not more heals than musky. The Musky class is teetering on obsolescence, with battle res being the only thing to justify it. It doesnt have to be this way. Lets make Muskies grea… We can fix musketeers.

I dont however want musky healing buffed back to what it used to be. With bard and pally heals around, i dont think we need a full healing class. I want to see muskies evolve into a deeper utility class, with room for different play styles to emerge. I believe this can be done by updating musky talents, changing the values of some abilities, and enhancing some of the lesser used orbs.

Talents (A philosophical and mechanical breakdown) -

You have your talent system designed so that at each tier you get to choose between two talents. This design would imply that you intended to have the player be able to have some level of customization over their classes style of play. A more dps oriented build vs a more healing oriented build for example.

I understand that when you initially created the talents, you didn’t exactly know how people would end up playing the class, and ultimately what the overall requirements for the class would be, so i get why they ultimately did not end up providing that ability to customize. Now that we have more data on how the class is played, and the requirements that need to be filled by it in parties and raids, I believe we can do a better job at creating two build paths that would allow for the initially intended level of customization. I believe the two paths should be split between a healing focus, and a support/utility focus, with the ability to mix between the two to fine tune your build for whatever is needed.

Currently i think you will find that 5 of the musky talents are used by almost no one, and some of the talents are so necessary that you really cant play the class without having them. I would like to see necessary talents like total recall, and empowered turret added as innate abilities of the class, and instead have talents that add modifications/enhancements to those, or other things.

• Improved Renew VS Improved Poison

This is probably the most balanced and straight forward of all the talents. Do you want more healing or more dps? Unfortunately in a dungeon party, you will be forced to be the healer, as having both a musky and a bard, would be overkill for healing, and highly limit your dps. The musky dps is so low that it cant be justified, You are pretty much forced to take improved renew in any party that isnt doing farm content. (i would like for this to not be the case)

• Improved Lifewell VS Speedy

The lifewell hasn’t really shined in Reborn the way it did in OG. It used to be necessary on several fights for group healing. I’ve only come across one instance in reborn that benefits from it (still not necessary though). Its now used to just supplement heals on anyone thats low (because of the overall healing nerf), and for battle res. Its actually not a great skill anymore (maybe this will change in raids)… but that said, Speedy is still much worse. If there were fights that required a group movement speed boost, and you could trigger the boost by destroying your turret. Then that might actually be a cool talent to have… but there just arnt fights that require that, and it only triggers off the natural end to your turret anyway, so timing it would be quite janky regardless. Right now it can get someone killed if they unexpectedly have their movement speed increased.

• Renewed Synergy Vs Total Recall

RS doesnt make a lot of sense. The cool down on renew is very short, and the cool down on cure wounds is comparatively long. Cure is your "oh shit" big heal, you save it until you need it. Renew is your bread and butter because its almost always up. It doesnt need to be refreshed by cure wounds, you can just use another renew orb (it will be back up in time) Also, renew will be refreshed by your empowered turret anyway. The other option Total Recall is a must have skill. Everyone is moving around for a lot of the fights, and the turret can easily be your main source of healing (and dps if that were a thing) But you have to be able to move it to follow around your party, otherwise its useless. You have to have Total Recall.

• Beacon of Light Vs Empowered Turret

Most of the time there is only one person taking damage in a fight (the tank) occasionally someone else will pull aggro or forget to dodge a skill shot causing them to take damage. A lot of these things are instant death at high levels for anyone other than the tank, but if you do manage to survive, the chance that you are going to be taking damage again soon is pretty slim, so you can rely on a turret or a renew to get back to full health over time. What im getting at is, as a healer you dont constantly have a bunch of people with low health that you are struggling to get back to full. You usually have a bunch of full health people and one person that needs healing. So the ability to heal other allies that have a renew on them, when you use a cure, is kinda worthless because those other people generally dont require the extra healing. The other option, Empowered Turret, is so good that you cant really pass it up. I dont have any numbers from the meters but id imagine that with the bonus from cure, and the constant refreshing of renew, that the turret is by far the main source of healing… and it never misses. Letting the turret do most of the general healing is a good thing, because it can free up the musky to do more important things like emergency heals, interrupts, decurses, and shields.

• All for One Vs One for All

With the healing nerfs to muskies, your turret plays a massive role in your healing. As such taking anything other than 14A in a dungeon type scenario where the musky is the only healer, would be a significant gimp to your overall ability to heal. In a raid scenario where there would likely be two healing classes, it is possible that A41 could be useful for a boss fight that has a phase where the tank would require a large amount of burst healing. However the cooldowns on both lifewell and cure wounds are pretty long, so it would have to be something that isnt required very often.

A note on the 14A supercharge ability - The way the health cost of this function works is not ideal at all. The problem is that when you toss down the turret it immediately starts healing you to recover the lost life, instead of important targets like the tank. You can toss it next to you (you kind of have to because the new physics on the turret make it impossible to throw it far) and then empower it with cure/renew to heal yourself up at the same time, but if you do this at the beginning of a fight you can pull healing aggro (healing aggro seems a little over tuned right now) You can get around this by not deploying your turret until later, or deploying it earlier before the enemies are pulled, but both of these options feel like more of an annoyance than a strategic solution to a problem. Truthfully the health cost seems entirely unnecessary, and feels more like a nuisance.

Massive Edit

Sample New Talent Tree with descriptions of the mindset behind them -

The actual values (percentages, damage & healing numbers) assigned to these talents will be what determines if they are viable/OP/broken/balanced. The additional damage from these talents would mostly be in the form of repetitive low damage ticks, and the increased healing would similarly be repetative low healing… more like increased regen. These would need to be played with to get them right, but, when tuned correctly, should allow for multiple different build paths and styles of play, for everything from leveling up, solo healing a group, supporting a group with minimal healing requirements, and potentially even allow for minor non elite mob off tanking.

This is obviously all speculation, as i dont know what type of scenarios raids will throw at us. I am basing most of these ideas off from what i saw in OG orbus. Most of the DPS related stuff is with raid groups in mind. With what is currently in the game, a shard group with a musky is taking them as a healer, and that is how it should stay. But i would like to see the musky be able to alter their build to optimize for when only .5 healers are required, or in raids for when 1.5 healers are required.

I made these sample talents, and descriptions of how they could be used so that the developers can get a better idea of the requirements of the class, how its been played, the types of things which could alter the play style, and what (I, at least think) is fun about it, from a person who has played musketeer since Tradu was the only end game content. Feel free to use them, or any criticism of them, to help in rethinking the musketeer and mechanics to throw at us.

Tier 1 -

If you are focused on healing, and your tank requires more direct and immediate attention from you, or if you need to be focusing on decursing and/or interrupting, you may want to prioritize Automate over Detonate so that you can spend less time redeploying and empowering your turret. However, if you are in a scenario where multiple people in the group are taking damage at the same time (not a lot of these currently) possibly from poisons or multiple enemy mobs, OR if your tank requires extra burst healing, it may be beneficial to take Detonate, in order to be able to strategically blow your turret up for an additional AOE burst heal. This tier is also situational for a DPS/Utility oriented build. You may want an increased duration turret, empowered with debuffs like poison and frost (fix frost) in order to have consistent CC, or damage on certain enemies (make damage turrets attack your last attacked target, if able) but, for maximized AOE damage/utility, you might prefer to be able to explode your turret more often, which could mean different things based on what its empowered with.

Tier 2 -

Currently you can only empower your turret with renew, cure, poison, and frost (which doesnt work correctly) based on which ones you choose to use, and the scenario, Accessorize could be useful for either a healing or a utility build. RT could also be used in either a utility oriented build, to lighten the load for a main healer. Or, in a main heals build for scenarios that require more AOE healing around a mob.

Tier 3 -

Protector would add another instant heal to our orbs, the only other one being cure, this could have a pretty big impact even if its small in comparison. BR would allow you to retain the utility of shield while running a damage oriented spec, but could also be used in a healing priority build if you were really trying to min/max.

Tier 4 -

RA creates AOE healing around a player taking damage This clearly falls into a healing priority build, but is quite situational as players would need to be close to take advantage of it. BC is for runs where you are trying to milk every last bit of DPS you can get out of a not very DPS’y musky.

Tier 5 -

Sniper is pretty straight forward. You already basically do this for rangers, but whether you are DPS or Heals, if you take the risky route, you should be rewarded… or fail miserably. It could be implemented similar to orbs for rangers; your autos and skills become X% stronger for every X meters away from the target that you are. KE will shine in groups where there are many debuffs on a mob, and you dont have any need for bigger heals (are not the primary healer).

Orbs -

Some people have suggested that muskies should have a 5th orb in their rotation, and i believe that could be part of a solution. It certainly would make the class more interesting to play being able to regularly use your neglected orbs such as ice/gravity/weakness. These orbs need to be tweaked in how they work though. With the significant nerf to healing i believe that the cooldown on most healing/protection abilities is now too long as well. The changes i would really like to see though are to the utility orbs.

• Renew - Could use a slight buff to the healing amount

• Cure - Im fine with the healing nerf on it, but it could use a cooldown reduction

• Lifewell - There currently is not much use for the type of healing that lifewell provides (aoe, over time) This could change in raids, but right now i mostly use it to supplement the healing of one person at a time because my other heals are not sufficient, and for battle res. Add a buff to people who are in it perhaps (armor/damage increase?)

• Shield - Seems a bit weak right now. Maybe buff it to block a certain percentage of damage for a set duration of time?

• Poison - I would love to see it get a damage buff

• Gravity - After discussing it further, i agree that the actual pull is not useful, and is often harmful, and should be removed. Having an interrupt is however, important and i believe it should be a larger part of playing musky. I propose a new ability for interrupting on musky An innate ability “explosive shot” where you hold down the trigger for ~2 seconds then release to fire an interrupting blow. This could immediately go a long way towards making musky play a larger role (without gimping the ability to heal) You could take it even farther and make it so you can load a separate orb into the charge shot ability (instead of actually having a 5th orb in rotation) to empower it with different abilities for different builds (decurse for example).

• Frost - Had some minor potential in leveling, but was pretty useless otherwise. I think this orb needs to be revamped. Maybe have it slow and add a damage modifying debuff to the mob (increased crit rate from party members?) To be useful in groups/raids. It could also create a frozen area on the ground which continues to slow and damage enemies for a set duration.

• Weakness - This orb is currently useless if you have a mage in the group, because its debuff does not stack with theirs, and they can keep them up by themselves. I propose that you change this orb from adding a flat damage increase debuff, to instead add a weak spot to the mobb which can be hit by the entire party, and last for a set duration during which it can be hit as many times as your party can in that time. For instance The orb could have a 5/6 second respawn and create a weak spot that lasts 3 seconds, for which anyone who hits it deals X% increased damage. This orb has the most potential to increase the fun factor for everyone. It would also increase the amount of skill required to do higher dps instead of just giving a flat damage increase to everyone. It would require skill and strategy for the musky to place the weak spot where it can be hit by the most people, and it would require skill by everyone to actually hit it. This is the type of skill requirement that people tend to find fun and rewarding. The rangers ive talked to really enjoy how that mechanic has been implemented for them, and i think everyone else would enjoy it too. Its much better than just firing shots into a giant blob, and adds an additional level of mastery to the classes. (make it a different color than the ranger weak spot)

• Decurse - The cooldown is way too long to rely on a musky to do this, as such this task is usually given to a mage. If its used by a musky it is generally as a back up. It should be the other way around. Mages should be decursing as back ups, support classes should be the main decursers. You could also make it do a small heal if a curse is removed.

Ultimate Ability-

Its fine, but kinda boring. I honestly rarely use it, opting instead to save it for a last resort cure wounds or lifewell (for res). Its up really infrequently. It might be more fun if it made it so your next shot fired all your orbs at once (without affecting their cooldowns) and dealt increased damage or healing or something. Its minor compared to everything else with the class though.

I would also like to re-emphasize that the turret is now too hard to throw far. It feels much heavier than it used to, and this is a detriment to playing the class. Please return turret physics to the way they were in OG Orbus.

I apologize for being so brief. If anyone would like me to flesh out any of the details better in a longer post, or wants a really good smores recipe, please let me know.

[Metris_Marshmallow]

Fully agree on these points, specially the lack of talent-choices, and thanks to make the post half-a-guide for them!

I wonder if we could have an orb that only interrupts (not pulls all together) plus a 5th slots or any ability to consistently interrupt. Right now gravity is fine on bosses but it’s hardly useful on trash where you only run into situations like “Let’s first all target the Stafrager!” - Musky Gravity Orb: WOMP - produces 16-limbed ball of something - “ok never mind, AoE them…”

Same with lifewell, the one and only reason I sacrifice a slot for it at many times is not to use it, but to have it available for one single rez, this seems a bit much. The slots should be used for orbs we actually play with, not for very special rare abilities which perhaps could be triggered otherwise.

I do 20% of the highest dmg-dealers-damage with poison btw, sometimes even place #3 if I don’t need lifewell. That doesn’t seem too bad and yet it’s sure far from the class being useful as a dps.

[Human]

I definitely agree about the damage output being very lackluster. It doesn’t have to be on par with rangers and mages, but it would be really nice to have it feel like it actually matters.

[Human]

I wonder if we could have an orb that only interrupts (not pulls all together) plus a 5th slots or any ability to consistently interrupt. Right now gravity is fine on bosses but it’s hardly useful on trash where you only run into situations like “Let’s first all target the Stafrager!” - Musky Gravity Orb: WOMP - produces 16-limbed ball of something - “ok never mind, AoE them…”

Yeah thats a really good point about the pull actually being a hindrance sometimes.

[Unrivalled_Super_Hot]

While I did not tank as much as many of my guild mates I can say from my experience the bard felt much better for healing with the addition of having “smart” targeting (you cannot miss). I can see people using muskies but thinking of leveling a bard just to be able to heal better and it feels wrong. Again this is based on my experience which may or may not have captured the reality of the situation but I am going to share it anyway.

[Rickness_Voidwalker]

I think part of the reason lifewell feels bad in reborn is because you have to dodge bolts and have pools go under your feet, this makes stacking up in a group a bad choice so most people are spread out now instead

Very good post though!

[Riley_D]

Thanks for the detailed feedback and also for the suggestions on ways it can be improved, always helpful. As I had already been discussing in the other thread that was talking about end-game content and tanking/healing, I definitely feel like we need to make some changes to healing overall, and particularly the Musketeer, so we’ll be taking all of this under advisement for sure.

[Human]

To clarify, because it has been brought up to me… I am not looking for a Nerf to Bard in any way. Doing so would not be a good solution imo.

[Axile_Salamandra]

One thing that really needs to be taken care of is healing turret empowered with poison. It doesn’t always prioritize healing over DPS. There’s a lot of things that really need to be reworked and adjusted with MSK, but this is at least one minor thing that would be great to have looked at more immediately.

[Human]

Agreed. It does appear to have gotten less smart.

[Axile_Salamandra]

Also, I dig the idea of making weakness more unique as Human suggested to create weak points. But at least in the meantime, can we make MSK weakness stack with mage debuff?

[Axile_Salamandra]

What I believe is that Musketeer needs to be resource (such as MP) and cooldown based, instead of just 100% CD based. That sounds like it’s asking a lot at this point to make such a radical change, I know. But hear me out for a bit here:

In OG, the two biggest limiting factors to how combat could be designed was Warrior shield refresh timer, and Musketeer heals being completely cooldown based.

Now there’s more variables to deal with considering different group compositions, with two healers and two tanks per role. And while yes, I am suggesting another variable with MP based Musketeer ability usage, I think it also could leave more room to dealing with less variables at once because of it.

I think that if we were given a resource based casting for basically everything except Lifewell, it would alleviate a large part of the MSK’s inherent weaknesses. On it’s own, and stacked against the bard. Warrior and Musketeer combo? This could equate to more room for healer DPS/utility. Whereas Paladin/Musketeer combo would essentially be rendered the inverse: Less healer DPS and more tank DPS, as PLD require more healing.

I’m not saying MP costs, total MP, and MP regeneration wouldn’t be a challenge to properly balance in relation to our counterpart, the Bard. But I believe it would leave a lot more room for dealing with the problems we face without having to nerf or drastically change other aspects of the game in response. We would be dealing with the Musketeer more on it’s own to address it’s shortcomings and uniqueness by comparison to the Bard.

The reason I leave Lifewell as only CD based still is because for all that it can do, it would be incredibly difficult to assign an appropriate amount of MP to use it. As much as I rail on cooldown timers being limiting factors for combat design in this game, leaving some structure to frame CD timings around can be good as well.

Just, not too many. The second thing serious MMO fights center around after base mechanics, is cooldown timings in my opinion. Timings which need to be met alone and/or synergized to meet healing, mitigation, and DPS checks.

It’s just that Orbus doesn’t have a huge number of abilities to tailor fights around. So when we base fights off cooldown timers in general there’s only a few options to go on, and it can get super repetitive. Or unreasonably difficult to manage at specific breaking points while comparing different group compositions, as we’re experiencing with high level shards with Deep Wounds currently.

In Lifewell’s case, it has predominantly been very mechanic specific in it’s most meta uses, and I think it’s appropriate to leave the punishing aspect of resurrecting someone vs being able to use it for an intended mechanic.

So leaving a timer only and no MP cost on Lifewell isn’t terrible in my opinion, as it’s not only super hard to justify how much MP it should cost to use/rez, but also how to leave that in a balanced place for all levels of playing once you assign that MP cost. It would either become too trivial with higher levels of gear, or leave too many constraints on how much we could burst heal if it was a fixed percentage of MP that was used when did it.

The same line of thought about balance at all skill levels also gives an MP based Musketeer merit too, in my opinion.

It would be more forgiving for newer players not to wipe at the cost of missing a single shot, open opportunities for more utility/DPS focused MSK for groups at higher levels of play, and give more room to deal with things like poison and deep wounds simultaneously in high level situations.

I believe if we could burst heal in larger quantities, at the cost of depleting a resource, things wouldn’t change a whole lot on specifically on “how many Cure Wounds per fight” we would use in total.

By contrast, it would change how frequently an ability like Cure Wounds could be used in succession to deal with mechanics piling up. Less choosing tank vs DPS for death, and more “how can I best optimize spliting heals or contributing to higher DPS” to get through these situations cleaner.

In the case of longer fights, higher level shards, and the upcoming raids, it would also give another layer of complexity to dealing with MP management. Which is a strong way of implementing it’s limitations, and would pave the way for MP restoration potions to increase MSK usefulness vs bard: for a price.

In more casual settings, I would imagine it’s implementation as being given the freedom to miss a shot or two at any specific time without dire consequences, if you choose to go full heals. Which at lower levels of play, is a reasonable assumption to make that you would go more heal intensive even when it isn’t required for survival.

At higher levels, the damage output or DPS checks in bosses could be tweaked to coincide with what our MP refresh allows for. Or vice versa, opening another avenue to keep a level playing field with Bards without directly affecting either classes’ potencies or the innate mitigation on either tank.

[Human]

Its not that i have anything against mana pool based classes. I play support/magey classes that have mana pools is most games… But i think you might be underestimating how mechanically intense of a change that would be to implement well. For instance… if you cant modify your mana regen somehow, you are now just up against a global cooldown, instead of an individual skill based cooldown. So you would need to create pots/affixes to gear to do that, but still all that would really do is make your global cd shorter. The other point of giving people a second chance if they miss kinda takes the skill out of the VR component of the class, and instead relies more heavily on managing cooldowns (mana pool)

The leveling process should be what introduces a new player to the skills and gives them time to get better at them. End game should heavily reward people who can hit the shot. If they have enough free mana to try again when they miss, that means they would have excess if they can hit them the first time… and then what do you do? Wait? Ever hit a cure across the room on boss 5? (im sure you have) People who can regularly do that need to be able to shine as masters of their class, they shouldnt have the same success rate as people who get it on the second shot.

I know its more complicated than that. These are just some initial thoughts i had reading it LMK what you think… Im working on a detailed talent tree edit which i think addresses some of these issues. Will post soon.

[Axile_Salamandra]

Oh for sure, I couldn’t tell you what the numbers required for MP costs and refresh would need to be. I guess the point of it was to say, we could have the ability to deal with more things in more ways. Because right now we really don’t. You can lower Cure Wounds timer, and it should be lower. But you’ll have to nerf it to a degree as well, or lower damage done by certain things. And now we’re just looking at everything else but the MSK.

I do have a fondness for making super long snipes and needing to position my turret so I both buff it with cure wounds while simultaneously curing the tank, for example. I don’t think something like this would retract from the skill required to play, as those with the skill could contribute much higher dps to the fight, or utility to the group, as a result of not missing their heals or blowing their MP trying. Provided we had more in our toolkit to buff party members or debuff mobs, I suppose. It feels like we’re struggling with relevance right now in general, on every front.

And it just plain feels bad to sit there on an orb like cure wounds forever because it’s CD is super long and who knows when something like deep wounds will proc next? There’s so much we can’t do anything about, by nature of only being CD based. The requirement for healing and/or DPS checks would be your limiting factor for how much you can or can’t miss at any given time. Which would be tighter and tighter the higher level shards or higher tier of raids you’re in.

I just don’t see a whole lot of ways MSK can be fixed without new abilities or a new way to use our current abilities. I’m not foolish enough to think I could make it happen with this post, just suggesting it’s worth considering as opposed to trying to tailor everything else to fit what we’re currently capable of.

Because we certainly seem to be the odd ones out right now, and I find myself annoyed by things like how much I have to just hold onto Cure Wounds, and how useless shield orb is compared to OG. Everything is so situationally based for us. While Reborn isn’t as strict as OG was with that, now we’re suffering from how we operated when it was. I’m still all for giving us a CD to AoE orbs at will again, or potentially adding a slight heal to shield orb.

The class itself needs some work right now and I’m trying to help convey that idea. I held that thought about MP based for a super long time over it being a radical sounding change, but since Scoundrel is resource based I thought it was at least worth throwing out there. I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say about talents though! Because something needs to happen here.

[Human]

I see what your doing Axile. Dont you try and out post me. I’ve got 24 edits so far, and im not afraid to make it 25. I’ve got at least 3 more pages of technical musky info, plus an erotic musky fan fiction… theres orbs flying EVERYWHERE… im not afraid to whip it out if need be. Edit - just read that back… i was referring to whipping out the fan fiction…in case there was any confusion there.

Just read through what you wrote again. I think we are pretty much on the same page, with the same goals. Im really curious about a mana based system, and im not against it necessarily, but im having a hard time imagining what exactly that would be like.

On the cure wounds cooldown reduction - The main reason I want a shorter cd is deep wounds and poison. Its not so much that i want to be able to use it on the same person multiple times in short succession, but rather that i want to be able to use it at all, and know that someone isnt going to die because they got deep wounds/poison right after, because my hots have no chance of keeping them up. Id also like to be able to take decurse and be able to share that responsibility… deep wounds really needs to be nerfed.

Honestly id really like to be doing more. The fights in Reborn are a lot less intensive for muskies than OG was. Remember the squiddy fight before we were all geared? Moving backwards in a circle while the tank pulled the boss around, having to time heals and shields perfectly to sync with tank busters and the warriors shield breaking. It was intense, and it required communication, precision, and EDM beats provided by J so that we could focus. You had to be good because there was little room for error. Where are those fights in Reborn? Where did the EDM beats go? I feel those issue have a lot less to do with musky changes though, and a lot more to do with the fight mechanics.

I feel that if we have more ways to heal/protect, as a whole, with musky, bard, and pally, than we can have more complex fight mechanics, and different types of damage that require different types of healing… mechanics that being able to cast a spell more, or making a spell stronger, wont be able to get around.

I want fights that are puzzles. Like: One group has to stand over there, and the other has to stand out of line of sight, but they both require massive aoe healing, and its a dps check so you cant have two full healers. Figure it out.

What i dont want is: In order to survive this phase you have to shield, renew, lifewell, cure, and then hope your turret can keep the tank alive.

None of my thoughts are for or against a mana based system though. Im sure it could be great. Id like to try it.

An achievement should be given to anyone who reads this entire post and comments.

[Axile_Salamandra]

Ha, sorry man. I can take it all down if you think it’s inappropriate since it’s so far out there it falls on being nothing more than a big distraction. I had to try and slip it on the forums somday though, and I have a hard time seeing the solution we getting being a swath of new abilities or significant changes to our existing as a way of fixing us. I surely wouldn’t mind though, and I’m hoping to hear more from the devs about what’s being considered.

At the end of the day the only thing I fundamentally disagree with you on is the choice of level 5 talent. I choose enhanced poison since the renew CD is shorter than the duration as is to begin with. So, one shouldn’t ever have to let it drop off, even without the talent. But you know you’re still my OG hero on the Musketeer bud!

[Axile_Salamandra]

I couldn’t agree more. We need fight mechanics that really require MSKs to be implemented. Another thought I’ve always had was that we need more party wide damage or mechanics that would make use of our AoE orb ability. But not taking empowered turret is just asinine. And I surely wouldn’t want that ability to be taken away. I think a new ability that allows us to AoE orbs again is something that should, and could be, in the realm or being granted.

We just needs mechanics to compliment that.

[Human]

I choose enhanced poison since the renew CD is shorter than the duration as is to begin with

Ha! Fair enough.

I can take it all down if you think it’s inappropriate

No, i dont think its inappropriate. Its totally on topic. I hope all this leads to some progress

[Human]

I think a new ability that allows us to AoE orbs again

Technician tree, Tier 1 - Detonate? Could be part of that… blow it up with shield orb or something… is that what you mean?

And yes, i agree. More party wide damage.

[Axile_Salamandra]

One of the challenges with granting us abilities is a means to activate them.

For this, it couldn’t just default to shooting the turret because how would it differentiate from empowering vs AoE?

Maybe a specific action? Like cocking a hammer on your gun? Honestly I would prefer that and the orb AoEs from wherever it lands. It would already have to be on a cooldown timer and couldn’t break your turret by doing it, so might as well just have it be activated by an action and from where it lands.

Another thing to note about this is that it helps bring us back on par with Bards as well since they can innately heal all around them. And it does it in a way that is still unique to us. I would dig it.

With both healers having a means of group heals, and in a way like this, it would create a good way for BRD and MSK to be a heal combo in raids. Bard group HoT ticking, Musketeer AoE Cure Wounds or Shield.

Lots of good opportunities to work mechanics on that, like specific positioning of party members while raid wide damage goes out.