FM skill inquiry

[KoldSoul]

Hello devs and whoever else takes the time to read this. I'm not here to express frustrations or rant or anything of the sort. I've done some research on the issue that I have found, but hope to get some further clarification or perhaps draw attention to the topic to encourage some changes. I've also been in discussion with the support team about this topic, and will be sharing the exchanges I've had with them. 

 

Let's start with one of those exchanges: 

 

So I would like to talk about the Force Master ability, Snowball S2T4.  Based on the skill description, it only says breaks defense. It does not say "Breaks defense, except for (insert class/skill here)".  Also, the effects the skill should cause, only work if the opponent/target is actively defending. For example, if a blade master is standing still and defending, snowball will knock his sword out of the way, apply freezing, and disable his defensive skills for 6 seconds. Conversely, if any opponent is not using defensive skills, and snowball successfully connects, it deals damage, but does none of the advertised on hit effects.  

 

I'm just trying to figure out why if in the skill description it says it cancels and disables defense, that any class can defend against it?  And if it hits successfully with no defense is present it does nothing?

 

So firstly, can we (the players) please get a clear definition of what constitutes a defensive skill?  Is counter a defensive skill? Parry?  These auras that block incoming attacks?  Frost armor, divine veil, petal storm?  They all appear to be defensive by definition, but how does the games code interpret them?  All of these defensive skills and more have the capacity to defend against a skill that clearly says it cancels defensive skills.  With the way the skill description is written, it should also cancel multiple defenses, if multiple are active (ex. Frost sheath + stationary divine veil) And even if the opponent is not actively defending, if the skill successfully connects, the on hit effects SHOULD still be applied. This seems like a pretty egregious flaw in game mechanics for a skill that is a hugely integral part of the force masters kit.

 

The only way that would be viable for snowball to be avoided or resisted would be through iframes. An iframe is a movement skill and not defensive by nature.  Other balancing methods for snowball would be a slightly increased cool down, 30 to 40 seconds, instead of 24.

 

So basically, snowball is an amazing skill that should give FMs a small window for damage, except there are a million conditions to avoid it, and only one where it actually works.  The fix is a longer CD, and iframes the only way to avoid its on hit effects. 

 

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this! Especially a dev! 

[N3ro]

 

Snowball works how they intended it to work, on every def skill. Spins and kfm cobra counter are offensive defence skills and no def once, you have a different skill tree for those. Projectile block shields don´t count either, or fm ice tab. I would not complain if they all did though, but you sure would when sins just walk up to you and block break because all your skills are actual blocks. Ofc you would not know as fms don´t have any real blocks, so you don´t ever get block broken by anything.

[Slyce]

Defensive skills are:
Block (BM), Counter (KFM), Decoy (SIN), Quell (WL), Stone Shield (DES) Seed Shroud (SUM), Blade Guard (BD) and Elbow Smash (SF)

 

Other skills are either offensive-defensive, projectile resistance or damage/cc resistance.

Offensive-defensive skills can be prevented (but not broken) by Frost Tornado

Projectile shields only protect against projectiles.

Damage resistance is total immunity and unbreakable.

[Avalyn]

You probably don't speak English as a first language so let's look at the description of snowball

Quote

 

Breaks Defense

Freezes enemy for 5 sec on breaking Defense

Disables Defense for 6 sec on breaking Defense

Increased projectile speed

Increases Defense by 10% on using Frost skills

 

Everything about snowball is indicated pretty clearly here. The key phrase to note is "on breaking defense."

 

Breaking defense implies 3 things:

1) The target is using a defense skill

2) You hit into them while the defense skill is active

3) Snowball will ignore the defense and land the damage

 

If the above 3 conditions are satisfied, the effects that happen "on breaking defense" will then be applied. This means that people "defend" against snowball by not defending (using their defense skills). If you hit them with it while they are not using a defense skill, only the other effects will be applied and they will still be unfrozen and able to defend.

 

 

The next part is you seem to have a misunderstanding about the 4 classes of skills that can be used to protect yourself in this game. I purposely avoided the word "defense" here because that's where your misunderstanding is.

 

1) Defense

Purely defensive. Does not do damage/attack your opponent if they did not hit into it. Protects you from anything except skills that pierce defense.

2) Offensive-Defensive

Does damage as a normal attack skill would regardless of whether your opponent hits you or not. Provides defensive effects at the same time, hence the name. ie. Blade dancer spin is offensive-defensive because it deals damage and will also increase their damage reduction or parry you depending which version they put points into.

3) (full) iframe

Resists absolutely anything. Doesn't matter what skill it is, you will resist while you are using these.

4) Selective iframe

As of right now these only exist for projectiles. They act as iframes for any skill that has the projectile property, while letting non-projectiles through.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "multiple defenses" but frost sheath is a full iframe and divine veil is a selective iframe which means snowball has absolutely no effect on either of them even if FM had defensive skills because snowball is considered a projectile.

Also, not only is HM Impact offensive-defensive, but it is also a selective iframe against projectiles. It is essentially the last thing that could be ever affected by snowball.

 

If you have trouble categorizing skills Slyce gave a good list of all the defense skills in the game and you can look at the properties on the skills highlighted in blue at the bottom of each skill description at bnstree.com.