Usefulness of Skills

[The Legendary Joe]

RO is a pretty well built game, but there a few things here and there that make me go "What the crap? How is this supposed to be useful?"

The main thing bothering me right now is How is Star Gladiator's Union supposed to be helpful? I mean, yeah, you ignore defense and flee, but it eats up your HP so fast it's pretty much Suicidal. It's even worse if you try to use it against players, especially since they don't have anything really in the way of Burst damage, and the fact if your HP drops below 20% when attacking players, you die instantly.

Especially with gears and what not that has been implemented since they've been around, it feels like way too big a drawback considering that it can only be used when you have a soul Link

[hachigatsu30]

Like how Slow Poison is useful? I mean come on, there are green pots or even Detoxify for that.

I've never had a Star Glad, but I've heard that Union is how you farm DG ghosts with it. And I think I've seen a few people killing it very fast the damage numbers showed like a bunch of Water Balls hitting Scaraba Queen (watch people confuse over how I'm comparing Union with Water Ball). Well, I'm not sure if they spam healing items like there's no tomorrow or what, but Union is somewhat useful that way.

[The Legendary Joe]

Well, I used to take slow poison to nameless parties way back in the day. People tend to overlook that poison blocks natural HP/SP regen. And since poison is pretty crap DoT damage, most people don't really care too much to cure it much. And people didn't always include SP batteries here either. I used slow poison because it kept our crappy wizzies (why were they even getting hit in the first place? How did such a squishy char survive getting hit with the slaughters off of a dozen necromancers? it's still a mystery!) SP full since it re-enables SP recov. I guess it could be used to reduce items used at dolomedes as well.

Also on that detox matter; Sadly, most leveling parties from the day didn't really bother to bring thief classes much. Knights and Crusader classes worked better as lures due to their naturally high movement speeds with pecos and the Highest HP pool of all the classes. Most rogues were neglected as Banshee killers because "Snipers do a better Job", or weren't geared up to Storm gust crap. Assassins pretty much stuck in solo-land. Sonic blow doesn't deal enough damage, grimtooth kind of ruined by boss monsters and demons, and even if they weren't, the hide would cause the mobs to target someone else. Double dagger would kinda suck too, since Storm gusts would move things everywhere. Thieves were pretty much shafted by a lot of the older parties =/

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Keep in mind with union up, Heat would be eating 2% of the SG's total health for each and every one of those hits, unless they have an absurd amount of HP, no source of healing's going to be able to keep up, especially if they got aggro on more than one boss monster.

[sheam]

Hm.. I can't speak for anything Taikwon related. I thoroughly know little to nothing about that complicated mess..

But regarding skills, I will say that some were created and designed around intentions that were never fully realized in the meta.

For example, Fireball and Arrow Shower. These are two very obsolete skills (today) that, at one time, were considered fairly useful. Don't get it wrong! They CAN be very useful given the right circumstances (as they are 1st class aoe skills other than lvl 3 Magnum Break aka Blast Clip.)

To be direct.. x. x !? Fireball and Arrow Shower were originally created for big parties of 1st classes in mobby places. Think .. Orc Dungeon levels 1 and 2. Payon caves 3. These were places were like.. if there were 80+ people on the map? And they were roaming in a small circle? The mob spawns were near instant. You'd end up fighting over dealing damage and stuff right. These AoE's helped provide "damage dealt" to the mobs. Especially arrow shower.

So. Kinda sorta look at it like that?

Like joe pointed out, some skills CAN have their uses. Slow Poison DID HAVE a LEGITIMATE reason to be used given the circumstances.. otherwise he'd have not used it. (lulz) Joe is exceptionally good at RO. To define how: Players who take on more responsbility tend to end up becoming good at games. He was thinking, hm.. What can I do to bring more to the table? Joe isn't casual. He has fun playing on a higher level of skill. xD More people can learn from him tbh. He's a pimp.

Analyzing and brainstorming how to apply these skills can and will create new strategies.

Though, dunno if it was intended or not, I'd rather not have any skills be changed. Re-Balancing is..

._.

A nightmare sometimes. xD !

[The Legendary Joe]

I just like going into things with at least a half baked plan. The Flee and Def ignore of union seem like valuable tools for places like DG for the ghosts and excorcist ladies, but with that HP loss Per hit of Heat, I'm not sure if any healing's gonna be able to keep up with it.

I'm just wondering if there's someone who's had some success with Union on heRO.

I still find fireball useful for mages who know how to Vertical Firewall and mob with it. When I first started on heRO, my 2nd guild leader used to mob up ALL of the Mi Gaos in Louyang with firewall/fireball. Was crazy fast in the days before ninja/gunners were on hero.

Like joe pointed out, some skills CAN have their uses. Slow Poison DID HAVE a LEGITIMATE reason to be used given the circumstances.. otherwise he'd have not used it. (lulz)

To be fair, I wouldn't have even tested it on heRO if it weren't for another dead High Rate RO server where they modded it so it cured Bleeding too. It doesn't get much use, but it's still in my toolbelt because of it.