This is going to be a somewhat tough one. The third wave of Nova is a fairly small wave that has been, unfortunately, criticized by many. Unlike the first and second wave, there was only one branch skill (one for each Warrior, Mage, Bowman, Thief and Pirate) and one skill for every class. And well, the branch skills are the ones that got the most backfire. However, as you probably should be aware of by now, is that from my point of view, there is definitely some use in both of the skills we've received - Body of Steel and Erda Shower.
I will also talk about a handful of other things at the bottom of this blogpost that I feel are worth mentioning (something about Erda Nova and the Hero changes during the Nova update), in a similar fashion to my second wave blogpost.
Anyway, let's get to it.
Body of Steel, also known as "Impenetrable Skin" or "Steadfast Core" in certain English dubs.
Okay, this has probably been the most disliked common Warrior skill of the three (the others being Aura Weapon and Blitz Shield in my case) so far. I can understand why, but let's get into the details of what this skill actually does first.
Body of Steel does two things. The main beef (pun intended) of this skill is giving you a buff. The other part is giving you a pair of passive stats, regardless if the buff is active or not.
Let's start with the passive stats first, as they are simple: you get 1 STR and 50 HP per level. That means 25 STR and 1250 HP at Level 25. Sounds pretty good - 1250 HP and a bit of STR is always nice to have, isn't it?
Have you ever crossed a situation like the GIF above? Ever since Magnus was introduced, newer generations of bosses started to ignore stance effects, back when stance was almost exclusively to warriors. Nowadays, because of that new feature in gameplay, stance has fortunately become common to a lot of different classes, streamlining and improving the flow of Maple's gameplay.
Also, during the same development period, newer bosses have also been starting to ignore dodge rates, defence and HP. Pretty much, if you don't have a reliable healing skill that you can use when necessary, you're going to have a tough life in the game. Unfortunately, Hero is among these classes. Despite being a guy who has been playing on his Hero for 10 years daily, I can't get rid of the frustration that even if I want to "git gud" and I get to that point, bosses like Hard Magnus is still pretty damn difficult as there is room for almost no error. And no, I am considering the fact that certain bosses are much more difficult in other versions. Hard Magnus isn't the only one that is dumbed down in Europe.
Anyway, the "ignore stance" feature has resulted in a somewhat amusing development: certain skills can now ignore the "ignore stance" thing. Body of Steel is among those skills! So, one of the things you get from buffing Body of Steel is "Superstance", which is the official term for this feature. And much easier to read. And for you Paladins out there - yes, you can share Superstance with Divine Echo.
Note: Superstance doesn't only prevent the forced knockback, it also gets rid of the immobilization that your character gets after getting hit. It does not get rid of Status Effects that are combined with forced knockback (i.e. a stun), though.
There is something important to note about having Superstance: it pretty much only works for anything monster related. So, reactors from Jump Quests and other similar objects still ignore as it has always been (see GIF above). Shame, no Kerning Jump Quest cheese for you, Rayque. Stupid stirges.
Though, Superstance on a Hero isn't a new thing. Since the Heroes of Maple update, our Level 150 Hyper Skill "Valhalla", gave Superstance when the buff is active. So one can argue, "but wait, you already have Superstance, so does this mean Body of Steel seems unnecessary to have?". Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Yes, Valhalla gives Superstance, but ever since 5th Job, Valhalla has been essential to be used consecutively with Sword of Burning Soul (Sobs) to keep up Enraged Raging Blow for mobbing-purposes for most of our time, which results Valhalla in being on cooldown pretty much at all times. When Sobs is on cooldown, you use Valhalla. When Valhalla's on cooldown, you use Sobs. Because of that, all the other good stuff Valhalla gives, is often wasted just to extend your hitboxes. 50 Weapon Attack, 30% Critical Rate, 100% Elemental Resistance and +100 Status Resistance is nothing to sneeze at. Although, Valhalla's duration is only 30 seconds, and its cooldown is 150. So it's not that you're going to have a lot of Superstance and the other stats at bosses when you need it.
So, Body of Steel helps with the fact that Valhalla is continuously on cooldown, by giving an extension of Superstance. Unfortunately, similarly to Valhalla, Body of Steel's duration is short. But we'll get back to that in a second. Although it's important to mention that casting Body of Steel is faster than Valhalla as its "you're stuck in an animation to show you're activating the buff" takes about half the time of Valhalla's, making it a bit easier to use in a pinch.
Superstance isn't the only thing that the buff of Body of Steel gives! There are two other things that the buff does too. It gives 51 Status Resistance at Level 1, which caps at 75 at Level 25. It's more useful than it sounds at first though, as for frail classes like Hero, escaping Status Effects is the difference between dying and surviving. If you want to, you can stack it with Valhalla to reach over 275 Status Resistance if you really feel like it in tough spots, as that would chip off about 70% Status Effect duration. Definitely useful for bosses that bind you into a transformation, as an example.
The last boost Body of Steel gives as a buff is giving you Total Damage for each time you get hit, with 3% for each, with a maximum stack of 5 at Level 1, and 10 at Level 25. Total Damage is, pretty much, a direct range multiplier. Works well with Hero. The number of stacks are conveniently shown on the bottom right corner of the skill's icon on the top right of your screen. Y'know, the corner that shows the duration of each active skill you have at that time.
So, I always welcome more Total Damage, however... getting it on Body of Steel feels odd. Yes, it is most likely meant to function as a punishing return when an enemy is foolish enough to hit you, but there are a few things that makes Body of Steel a difficult skill to use in most environments:
- Unlike Combo Synergy that pretty much works with everything except for the HP loss in maps like Magnus' Throne Room or Aqua Road/El Nath, Body of Steel only works with "direct" damage from monsters and reactors. Miss and Guards do not count. This also means you can't exploit Poison to rack up stacks, and the fact that the % Total Damage does not take the same ruling as the Superstance effect, makes it a bit inconsistent.
- If you build on "Invincibility after getting hit" like I do, you're in tough luck. Because Body of Steel only works with "direct damage" from monsters and reactors, the amount of openings to receive a hit is not as efficient as you want it to be. Especially not if you're invincible for five seconds after getting hit, which to Hero, is such a game changer once you have and make use of it.
- Getting hit a lot of times during certain bosses, for instance, ones who rely on % HP attacks, might not seem the best idea unless you have some insane recovery skill to prevent yourself from taking too much damage. This emphasizes the fact that Body of Steel is probably a skill that has two major roles (either you burst, or you superstance), and is difficult to use for both scenario's.
What's even worse is that getting 10 stacks in just 35 seconds is pretty damn difficult without dying at dangerous bosses you don't want to keep alive for too long. With that short duration, getting 3% Total Damage for each stack feels underwhelming.
Body of Steel gives plenty of good stuff, but you can imagine it's hard to justify a valuable 5th Job core slot for Body of Steel. I never say no to a new skill, as I will keep using Body of Steel, but it really needs some work in a future revamp. Fortunately, almost all previous 5th Job skills have already been tweaked at least once to improve them as they are treated like any other Beginner to Hyper Skill, so there's still hope for Body of Steel. Stay optimistic about it, as skills that are often underused gets love when they need it.
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Erda Shower
Erda Shower - a rare example of a skill that isn't unnecessarily redubbed in every local version of the game. The "Erda" series of 5th Job skills have been pretty interesting. Every class has their own signature skills, and the Erda series closes the gaps between classes by giving useful features that your class might not have but others already did prior to 5th Job.
So, Erda Shower can be best described as "an ultimate skill for all". Not every class has an ultimate skill nowadays, so I guess it makes sense that this type of skill also got the treatment. A significant hitbox to hit 15 enemies, with a fair cooldown that wouldn't break any class that needs something like this so y'know, it wouldn't fully need to rely on it.
Erda Shower might seem like a boring skill at first, a pretty straightforward run of the mill skill - which it, well, honestly, kind of is. It does what it has to do, and it does it excellently.
In the past 10 years that I've been playing on my Hero daily, the community's opinion about the mobility of Hero has always been at two extremes. There has been years where Hero was judged as trash, until some foreign unknown Hero shows how to git gud, and then Hero becomes bandwagoned, ultimately to become a rare sight once more after several clever revamps that moves the spotlight to other warriors so people change their mains. It's a never ending repeating cycle, which kind of has become a part of Hero's life. One can argue "but isn't it weird that Nexon artificially prevents their spoonfed and beloved first-developed-class to become bandwagoned?". Perhaps it might be, from a Western point of view. But don't forget, culture is a thing, given the developers are from Korea. Pride doesn't always come in numbers. That said, Erda Shower is definitely an useful skill for Hero.
Hero has a good number of large hitbox skills, so one could rightfully ask "do we really need Erda Shower?" I would say it is. Yes, Hero has an excellent number of proper hitboxes to work with, including Shout, Rage Uprising, Combo Death Fault, Blitz Shield and Sengoku Secret Manual. However, all of these skills have their own fair share of cooldowns and hitbox types.
This GIF pretty much shows why Erda Shower is a good thing to use for Hero. Its hitbox is distinct and not like any other. The higher the Job Advancement, the larger the maps become. So, having plenty of wide hitboxes can make a difference. Erda Shower's main use, at least for Hero, is to be used when the other AoE's is at a cooldown. Pretty straightforward. Oh, and unlike most ultimate attacks, Erda Shower actually feels smooth and fast responsive.
Keep in mind when comparing Erda Shower with any of our other skills, Erda Shower is really one of the few ultimates for Hero that can charge Combo Orbs and also work instantly without a set up. Shout and Combo Death Fault consumes Combo Orbs, Sengoku Secret Manual's cooldown is too long, while Blitz Shield requires set up. Which makes Erda Shower significant enough, as Rage Uprising is the only other skill that can be instantly used. You can't use the skill in mid air and it doesn't trigger skills as Sword of Burning Soul and Aura Weapon, obviously.
The damage of Erda Shower is not too shabby either. It starts at Level 1 with 6 lines of 465% damage each, which is pretty standard and not too game breaking. At Level 25, it has 825% damage. That is pretty good, given this is an all class skill and that it has 6 lines. It won't get to that thousand % damage per line like some ultimates do, as these often have just about half the amount of lines in comparison or are exclusive to classes with permanent low range so it needs to be that high. I do sometimes use Erda Shower as a quick finisher on bosses, given the skill damage is high, even for Hero standards.
Erda Shower's cooldown is at 45 seconds. This isn't such a bad thing as most ultimates are between 30 and 60 seconds. However, what is interesting about its cooldown is that for every enemy you hit with the skill, it reduces the skill's cooldown by one second for each enemy you've hit. It doesn't instantly deduct this, as the enemies that are hit returns a homing blue orb that travels to you - similarly to how Demon Slayer and the Soul Weapon works. Once that blue orb makes contact with your character, it deducts said second from the cooldown (just check the GIFs above). Well, it's just a fancy aesthetic thing I guess.
If there is one drawback for Erda Shower if I had to name one, is that the skill consumes 3000 HP at all levels. 3000 HP is quite a lot for certain classes, and in Hero's case, it works against using Blitz Shield, as the 3000 HP would instantly remove Blitz Shield if you prepared before you would fire Erda Shower. So if you're planning to use Blitz Shield as an AoE, just make sure you keep an eye on Erda Shower's cooldown so you wouldn't mess up the timing.
Erda Shower - a rare example of a skill that isn't unnecessarily redubbed in every local version of the game. The "Erda" series of 5th Job skills have been pretty interesting. Every class has their own signature skills, and the Erda series closes the gaps between classes by giving useful features that your class might not have but others already did prior to 5th Job.
So, Erda Shower can be best described as "an ultimate skill for all". Not every class has an ultimate skill nowadays, so I guess it makes sense that this type of skill also got the treatment. A significant hitbox to hit 15 enemies, with a fair cooldown that wouldn't break any class that needs something like this so y'know, it wouldn't fully need to rely on it.
Erda Shower might seem like a boring skill at first, a pretty straightforward run of the mill skill - which it, well, honestly, kind of is. It does what it has to do, and it does it excellently.
In the past 10 years that I've been playing on my Hero daily, the community's opinion about the mobility of Hero has always been at two extremes. There has been years where Hero was judged as trash, until some foreign unknown Hero shows how to git gud, and then Hero becomes bandwagoned, ultimately to become a rare sight once more after several clever revamps that moves the spotlight to other warriors so people change their mains. It's a never ending repeating cycle, which kind of has become a part of Hero's life. One can argue "but isn't it weird that Nexon artificially prevents their spoonfed and beloved first-developed-class to become bandwagoned?". Perhaps it might be, from a Western point of view. But don't forget, culture is a thing, given the developers are from Korea. Pride doesn't always come in numbers. That said, Erda Shower is definitely an useful skill for Hero.
Hero has a good number of large hitbox skills, so one could rightfully ask "do we really need Erda Shower?" I would say it is. Yes, Hero has an excellent number of proper hitboxes to work with, including Shout, Rage Uprising, Combo Death Fault, Blitz Shield and Sengoku Secret Manual. However, all of these skills have their own fair share of cooldowns and hitbox types.
Keep in mind when comparing Erda Shower with any of our other skills, Erda Shower is really one of the few ultimates for Hero that can charge Combo Orbs and also work instantly without a set up. Shout and Combo Death Fault consumes Combo Orbs, Sengoku Secret Manual's cooldown is too long, while Blitz Shield requires set up. Which makes Erda Shower significant enough, as Rage Uprising is the only other skill that can be instantly used. You can't use the skill in mid air and it doesn't trigger skills as Sword of Burning Soul and Aura Weapon, obviously.
The damage of Erda Shower is not too shabby either. It starts at Level 1 with 6 lines of 465% damage each, which is pretty standard and not too game breaking. At Level 25, it has 825% damage. That is pretty good, given this is an all class skill and that it has 6 lines. It won't get to that thousand % damage per line like some ultimates do, as these often have just about half the amount of lines in comparison or are exclusive to classes with permanent low range so it needs to be that high. I do sometimes use Erda Shower as a quick finisher on bosses, given the skill damage is high, even for Hero standards.
Erda Shower's cooldown is at 45 seconds. This isn't such a bad thing as most ultimates are between 30 and 60 seconds. However, what is interesting about its cooldown is that for every enemy you hit with the skill, it reduces the skill's cooldown by one second for each enemy you've hit. It doesn't instantly deduct this, as the enemies that are hit returns a homing blue orb that travels to you - similarly to how Demon Slayer and the Soul Weapon works. Once that blue orb makes contact with your character, it deducts said second from the cooldown (just check the GIFs above). Well, it's just a fancy aesthetic thing I guess.
If there is one drawback for Erda Shower if I had to name one, is that the skill consumes 3000 HP at all levels. 3000 HP is quite a lot for certain classes, and in Hero's case, it works against using Blitz Shield, as the 3000 HP would instantly remove Blitz Shield if you prepared before you would fire Erda Shower. So if you're planning to use Blitz Shield as an AoE, just make sure you keep an eye on Erda Shower's cooldown so you wouldn't mess up the timing.
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Other changes
I haven't really talked about Erda Nova much on my blog, as you guys probably have noticed from the previous 5th Job related blogposts. There isn't much to talk about it, aside from a few fairly minor things (homing attack, late speed priority, applies to Chance Attack, charges Combo Orbs). Anyway, here's one thing that I thought is worth mentioning: despite Erda Nova being a single target skill, it is not programmed as a skill such as Hurricane, so it can be expanded to hit up to three enemies with the Inner Ability upgrade and Pipsqueak Luminous from Monster Life. But let's be honest: this definitely is going to be patched now that Nexon has read this blogpost.
And yes, I know the Nova update came with the changes for Enrage and Puncture. The Enrage one is as expected, given Enrage was adjusted back then to be less broken with a 10-line Enraged Raging Blow and Hero's ridiculous critical damage multipliers to keep your damage below the old damage cap of 50.000.000 - but now that the damage cap was raised to infinity (or, eventually will once 10b becomes too common), ERB was returned to 6 lines so Enrage was adjusted to accommodate this change. Although the Adventure Critical Ring got hit hard (give or take, as you probably know, I run four Adventure Rings on my Hero simultaneously), I guess I got more Critical Damage in return. Anyway, the Adventure Critical Ring changes are uncertain for now, as Nexon is currently looking at a possible reasoning / middle ground with the community's feedback. We'll see what happens soon enough.
As you probably know, the Puncture dedicated blogpost will be released later this month. This particular one will require a lot of my time though, more than any of the previous 5th Job blogposts have. I just can't put it all in here without exploding this blogpost's length. This is a blogpost about 5th Job's third wave, after all.
I haven't really talked about Erda Nova much on my blog, as you guys probably have noticed from the previous 5th Job related blogposts. There isn't much to talk about it, aside from a few fairly minor things (homing attack, late speed priority, applies to Chance Attack, charges Combo Orbs). Anyway, here's one thing that I thought is worth mentioning: despite Erda Nova being a single target skill, it is not programmed as a skill such as Hurricane, so it can be expanded to hit up to three enemies with the Inner Ability upgrade and Pipsqueak Luminous from Monster Life. But let's be honest: this definitely is going to be patched now that Nexon has read this blogpost.
And yes, I know the Nova update came with the changes for Enrage and Puncture. The Enrage one is as expected, given Enrage was adjusted back then to be less broken with a 10-line Enraged Raging Blow and Hero's ridiculous critical damage multipliers to keep your damage below the old damage cap of 50.000.000 - but now that the damage cap was raised to infinity (or, eventually will once 10b becomes too common), ERB was returned to 6 lines so Enrage was adjusted to accommodate this change. Although the Adventure Critical Ring got hit hard (give or take, as you probably know, I run four Adventure Rings on my Hero simultaneously), I guess I got more Critical Damage in return. Anyway, the Adventure Critical Ring changes are uncertain for now, as Nexon is currently looking at a possible reasoning / middle ground with the community's feedback. We'll see what happens soon enough.
As you probably know, the Puncture dedicated blogpost will be released later this month. This particular one will require a lot of my time though, more than any of the previous 5th Job blogposts have. I just can't put it all in here without exploding this blogpost's length. This is a blogpost about 5th Job's third wave, after all.
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So, the third wave by itself...
Let's be honest. It's tough, underwhelming, and needs some work. Either the skills are good and just needs a few tweaks to go from good to awesome, or we need more core slots to afford luxuries like these. I would honestly prefer the former. It just feels disappointing after we got the first and second wave, regardless how much I hate to admit it. These new skills aren't just quite there yet. But we can't have it all, I guess. It would've happened sooner or later, and one day we'll stop having waves as Nexon can't keep releasing 5th Job skills forever... Either way, I will keep and keep using these skills, regardless of what the "general opinion" about it is.
While the Nova update is officially the third wave, it just feels like most of the attention went to developing Cadena and Illium instead. Which is not a bad thing and understandable, by the way! I often call this wave the "2,5th" wave, despite I know better. Anyway, something that does concern me is that Illium has three official signature 5th Job skills while all of us only has two. I know Illium does not have a category shared skill such as Nova/KoC/Adventures does as Illium's of his own unique race, but neither do classes like Zero, Beast Tamer or Kinesis - and those only have two signature skills each.
The beef I have with that particular situation is a similar past that was called Hyper Skills. Most people would've forgotten it by now, but Hyper Skills weren't originally released for all Adventures, KoC or Resistance - only a handful of classes had them. And it took them almost a full year to release the remaining skills. I'm not just talking about the 150/170/200 Active Hyper Skills. I'm also talking about the lack of Enhancements and the old Hyper Stat system. Literally, you had no access to the Hyper Skill interface on your main while certain other classes had it for a year, while yours wasn't even confirmed to happen in KMST at all. The last thing I want is to see something like this being repeated. Eh well, probably I'm just making a fuss out of something insignificant. I just hope this doesn't stay like that and that you can understand my concern.
As of the time of writing, similarly to Beyond, we don't know anything about the next wave yet. I still keep the hope that Nexon would do the passive wave soon that would introduce passive, reliable skills to the 5th Job skill tree. Although keep in mind that the development of 5th Job skills are at least a half year ahead of time, so what the fourth wave would become is already set in stone by now and is just being kept under wraps until the next big update is revealed. Oh well, just don't forget that 5th Job is still fairly young, and there will be overhauls and revamps and the likes as always happened with any Job Advancement and Hyper Skill prior.
That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!
Let's be honest. It's tough, underwhelming, and needs some work. Either the skills are good and just needs a few tweaks to go from good to awesome, or we need more core slots to afford luxuries like these. I would honestly prefer the former. It just feels disappointing after we got the first and second wave, regardless how much I hate to admit it. These new skills aren't just quite there yet. But we can't have it all, I guess. It would've happened sooner or later, and one day we'll stop having waves as Nexon can't keep releasing 5th Job skills forever... Either way, I will keep and keep using these skills, regardless of what the "general opinion" about it is.
While the Nova update is officially the third wave, it just feels like most of the attention went to developing Cadena and Illium instead. Which is not a bad thing and understandable, by the way! I often call this wave the "2,5th" wave, despite I know better. Anyway, something that does concern me is that Illium has three official signature 5th Job skills while all of us only has two. I know Illium does not have a category shared skill such as Nova/KoC/Adventures does as Illium's of his own unique race, but neither do classes like Zero, Beast Tamer or Kinesis - and those only have two signature skills each.
The beef I have with that particular situation is a similar past that was called Hyper Skills. Most people would've forgotten it by now, but Hyper Skills weren't originally released for all Adventures, KoC or Resistance - only a handful of classes had them. And it took them almost a full year to release the remaining skills. I'm not just talking about the 150/170/200 Active Hyper Skills. I'm also talking about the lack of Enhancements and the old Hyper Stat system. Literally, you had no access to the Hyper Skill interface on your main while certain other classes had it for a year, while yours wasn't even confirmed to happen in KMST at all. The last thing I want is to see something like this being repeated. Eh well, probably I'm just making a fuss out of something insignificant. I just hope this doesn't stay like that and that you can understand my concern.
As of the time of writing, similarly to Beyond, we don't know anything about the next wave yet. I still keep the hope that Nexon would do the passive wave soon that would introduce passive, reliable skills to the 5th Job skill tree. Although keep in mind that the development of 5th Job skills are at least a half year ahead of time, so what the fourth wave would become is already set in stone by now and is just being kept under wraps until the next big update is revealed. Oh well, just don't forget that 5th Job is still fairly young, and there will be overhauls and revamps and the likes as always happened with any Job Advancement and Hyper Skill prior.
That's it for today - I'll see you guys again next post!
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