[EMS] Awake - 5th Job's seventh wave!

Another big update, another skill wave. What does Nexon have in store for us this time? Half a year worth of skill changes, two new skills and a 5th Job skill with the potentially highest target count in the game which also comes with one of the higher line counts that you'll currently find. Pretty good stuff, if you ask me.

For this particular blogpost, I'm going to scale a bit down on the skill changes compared to last time because it ended up being just way too much for me to keep track of. Not all of the skill changes we received are major, so they don't need a sizable wall of text. Plus, this month's pretty stuffed (complete with a poor sleep pattern) and thus I don't have a decent number of effective hours to work on anything. Recent days have felt too short, to be honest.

Anyway, that aside, let's get to it.

Table of Contents

A. Skill changes

The following skill changes were between Glory and Awake, most of which we got in a single update. Classic EMS. Arguably, almost every change has been a buff, with only one noticeable exception.

It's worth to mention that it seems Nexon is slowly getting rid of Hero's limited line count. Combo Death Fault received an increase in lines, but we won't receive that change until after the Awake update. There's also a major change to Enrage included in that upcoming update, which is worth its own blogpost. But that's for another time.

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1. Bunch of miscellaneous skill changes

Sword of Burning Soul and Spider in Mirror (and any future summons) can now charge your Soul Weapon. This change has been pretty significant, especially for Sobs. It feels like almost nobody talks about this.

Due to Hero's reliance on it to receive the benefits of enhanced Raging Blow, you'll always have Sobs out when possible. Because Sobs has a great hitbox and activates after almost every attack, you'll frequently defeat additional enemies with it. Great for maintaining a high kill count, but it was a detriment to (re)charging your Soul Weapon. 

Previously, any enemy killed with Sobs would be a waste. In context, if you were to use Sobs in a Lith Harbor Commerci Voyage, which holds about 340 enemies, you would only charge half of your Soul Weapon. Yeah uhm, that aint great. So of course, with the new change, you'll end up reaching max charge in no time. Good.

Combo Force has received a slight trade in its Hookshot function. Its hitbox has been reduced noticeably, but the precision of latching onto enemies and where you end up landing has been greatly improved. You can now anchor onto enemies behind you, and it's also possible to scoop enemies that are placed significantly below you. 

By itself these changes aren't really a great improvement because that hitbox reduction hits hard with Combo Hookshot's newfound struggle to latch onto enemies above you because of it (as the game prioritizes reaching enemies below you over enemies above), but in context with the introduction of Upper Charge and Leap Attack, it becomes somewhat of a fair trade.

Rage Uprising has been sped up and received a larger hitbox yet again. People still think this skill isn't fast enough? Anyway, its hitbox has become significantly larger than its animation. Notice how easy it is to hit enemies behind you, but also stuff in front.

Then, there are also these:

• War Leap now gives a stronger speed burst, which results in us jumping slightly further and higher.
• The hitboxes and attack speed for Slash Blast, Brandish and Brave Slash have been improved.
• Advanced Combo Attack's mastery now applies to Soul Driver! Great, I got a bit tired of seeing those unstable numbers.
• Erda Nova can no longer be fired if there are no targets in range. This means you can no longer use Erda Nova in thin air to drop your health so that you can activate Invincible Belief, but at least the painful experience of missing your bind no longer occurs...
• Combo Death Fault now shows an additional skill icon on the top right screen. This particular skill icon shows the duration of the invincibility frame. Useful for beginners, I guess?
• Blitz Shield will no longer automatically explode after 5 seconds. Basically, the shield goes to waste if you don't use it within 5 seconds. Seeing them remove this, instead of addressing the auto-explosion's unreliability, feels a bit lazy. Perhaps the auto-explosion was too good to be true? Or was the server strain too apparent? Either way, make sure to explode the shield if you want that extra damage and Combo Orbs.
• Supposedly, stuff as % HP Recovery should now work with skills that heal at certain intervals, but for some reason, this doesn't apply to Self Recovery. Dammit. What's up with that?

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2. Changes to Raging Blow

Default Raging Blow is slightly faster, but the most significant change is partially undoing a nerf that was done during the Beyond update. With the Heroes of Maple update in 2015, which was the update in KMS between Reboot's initial release and the nuke that is 5th Job, Raging Blow's line count went from 8 to 10 in response to the game's evolution towards "line creep". 

Ever since 5th Job came out, many of Hero's skills are kept at a relative low line count, where most skills have between 4 to 7 lines. Beyond dropped Raging Blow's line count back to 5 (excluding Hyper Skills), which is a line count for RB we haven't seen since its initial release with the Champions update 8 years ago. Funnily enough, EMS skipped the Champions (and Justice) update and combined it with the Tempest update as a three-in-one deal. Y'know, kinda like what happened to the Awake update.

Anyway, all variants of Raging Blow are now back to 8 lines, which was the short-lived line count for ERB that was introduced with the Reboot update. Of course, the damage per line went down to accommodate this change, which also takes the Reboot update's standard. Additional lines are always better. Good stuff.

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3. Changes to Advanced Final Attack

The changes made to Advanced Final Attack have been somewhat fair. In short, AFA's line count went from 2 to 3, but the skill damage has been also lowered a bit, pretty much like what happened to Raging Blow. However, AFA will no longer occur if the target enemy is defeated with the skill that activates AFA itself.

This particular change is a first. Ever since Final Attack was introduced with 2nd Job, both Final Attack and AFA would occur when it's activated, regardless if the enemy is defeated or not. Big Bang gave Final Attack its current "no delay" free damage, Jump introduced us to AFA to further improve its proc rate and damage. What this accumulated to in the long run is that you would be able to defeat one additional enemy for free (providing you do sufficient enough damage with it), each time it activates. This became way too good with the additional improvements made between Ark and Black, where using skills like Combo Death Fault would pretty much guarantee to hit anything somewhere in the map.

Unfortunately, all of that is no longer possible. AFA will now only focus on the enemy you hit with it, which both eliminates the ability to hit random nearby enemies or to hit anything other than your selected target at all. Sure, having AFA to lock on the enemy you're hitting helps with damage stability, but it's a shame they took out the whole mobility benefit. It's not all too bad though, as one could argue that UC/LA would definitely compensate for it.

All in all, that additional line is nice. Especially in context with our newest 5th Job skill...

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4. Changes to Incising (Puncture)

WHAT IS UP WITH ALL THESE PUNCTURE BUFFS? WHY DO WE KEEP BUFFING IT?

The original hitbox for Incising was in scale with (Enraged) Raging Blow. However, this was before Sobs/Valhalla enhanced Raging Blow, so at the time, Incising was pretty much superior to RB for mobility. Interestingly, Incising's damage output was also very similar to RB (half the line count but pretty much the same total damage dealt).

5th Job gave Hero a continuous set of extended RB hitboxes, in addition to more frequently usable AoE attacks (Blitz Shield, Erda Shower, CDF and Sword Illusion). This let Incising fall behind Hero's more recent skills, and that would've been completely fine if you ask me. However, it seems that Nexon disagreed on this as Incising is a finisher for Combo Attack, and thus it should at least be rewarding to spend Combo Orbs on it.

So, Incising went straight up overkill: its hitbox is almost doubled, it gains two additional base targets and it also receives one free line without adjusting the individual damage per line. Incising's pretty much like Shout - fully decked out, it should outperform Raging Blow in damage, but comes at the cost of Combo Orbs.

That new hitbox is so ridiculous, that at this rate, it might end up giving Marth's grab range a run for its money one day. Seeing a Incising buff about every year is starting to become a meme at this point...

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5. Changes to Aura Weapon

The changes made to Aura Weapon is probably one of the more significant buffs in terms of damage. Originally, AW's damage would copy the line count and a portion of the skill's damage that triggers it. 

There seems to have been a developer oversight in AW's skill damage in EMS that was never addressed or talked about. The damage calculation for AW was always 25 levels higher than it was supposed to be, which means Level 1 AW crescents in EMS would do identical damage to Level 25 AW in KMS (somewhere around 75% skill damage is copied), and Level 25 AW in EMS would be the damage for a theoretical Level 50 in KMS (100% damage copy), if that short-lived Tespia cap would've been implemented.

Either way, the copy has been dropped and AW now comes with its own independent line count and improved skill damage. The skill damage is really good - it feels in line with other 5th Job skills, and AW's damage feels like it does make a difference. The consistent line count and high damage is also quite beneficial when you would trigger Aura Weapon's crescents with attacks such as Panic, which usually is your opening move against targets with high HP.

The only major drawback is the fact that AW no longer activates every 4 seconds. Fortunately the proposed 6 second cooldown was dropped shortly after and Nexon took the middle ground of a 5 second cooldown between shots, but in general the lower fire rate is noticeable because AW's consistency has never been perfect. In practice, the original never shot every 4 seconds consistently and you'll sometimes end up shooting it after 5 or 6 seconds - despite that the game shows you that AW is ready to be shot every 4 seconds with its indicative animation around your feet, firing the projectile is often at least one or two attacks later. This particular unreliability still remains with the 5 second cooldown, and that does mean you'll end up with a less total projectile count within the same skill duration. Missing a shot is even more punishing now, and that's just unfortunate.

Although regardless of the reduced fire rate, the improved damage more than makes up for it. I thought I would've disliked the change to AW a lot, but it ended up being "well, it's alright I guess". Makes me wonder if they slowed down the fire rate in order to reduce the server load.

And yes, they fixed the silly issue where prepared shots would be lost when you change maps. While it's great for stuff like Mu Lung Dojo, they really should've fixed it several years ago. That they only include this fix after reducing the fire rate feels a bit dirty. Anyway, hopefully more people will start seeing that AW's greatest strength is not the Final Damage or PDR reduction it provides, but the crescents that zoom across the map.

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B. New skills: Upper Charge & Leap Attack

Upper Charge and Leap Attack are two new non-5th Job skills that Hero received with our Awake update.

In case you missed it, I covered Upper Charge and Leap Attack in a separate blogpost last month.

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C. New 5th Job Skill: Sword Illusion

Eight years ago, when Aran received a skill called Combo Recharge to instantly refill his Combo Count, it started many discussions throughout the years whether Hero, the original Combo class, should receive a similar skill eventually. 

In context, this wasn't much of a necessity for Hero, as recharging Combo Orbs was no problem with guaranteed recharges only requiring a few attacks to max out. Consuming orbs was very sporadic, and you would only end up losing all orbs after Combo Attack ran out or to (re)apply Enrage. Hero was far more streamlined, effective and efficient compared to Aran's bloated number crunching that put far more emphasis on consumption in finishing moves, rather than providing stability or consistency. Combo Recharge was much needed for Aran to provide stability and consistency, which is why Hero never got such a skill to begin with. However, times have changed.

Combo Attack as a system saw many changes moving forward. Combo consumption rates went back and forth with Panic/Coma's full consumption to only consuming a few orbs. Panic became a necessity for optimized damage but it received a cooldown. Coma was deleted. Panic's cooldown was later removed, but came with a consumption penalty. Enrage went from no to 10 orb consumption, which later changed to only one. Shout became a Combo-consuming skill. Monster Magnet was replaced with Combo Force, which also saw many fundamental changes along the way. Incising was made, and its high consumption rate was reduced several times as it steadily became more important. Advanced Combo Attack would no longer guarantee Combo recharges, Combo Synergy was made to provide an alternative way of recharging orbs. Hyper Skills would help to improve the recharge efficiency, but not the recharge rate. Then, 5th Job came out. Combo Death Fault consumes six orbs, Combo Instinct would halve your recharge rate and also negate Combo Synergy's alternative. Ultimately, despite Hero remaining true to its original gameplay concept, it has changed in a particular nuance. Hero's stability in damage, consistency in performed actions and frequency of consuming Combo Orbs have taken a beating after so many years of skill changes. The vehicle that is Hero was sent to the local mechanic for repairs, but the mechanic returned the vehicle unaltered and left a toolbox in the trunk instead. Inside this toolbox you find a single tool with a sticky note attached to it. It reads: Sword Illusion.

Introducing Sword Illusion, Hero's newest signature skill. A multi-purposed attack that is there to fix many of Hero's current drawbacks, to provide much-needed stability and to hit things really, really hard. Its appearance is just a mere illusion - its true potential and strength is in the hands of its wielder.

For the sake of convenience, I'm coining the abbreviation "Swilo" for Sword Illusion. Why Swilo? There aren't many alternatives that are either already taken or those that don't type (or pronounce) as easy.

• SI is already taken up by Speed Infusion, SW is already occupied by both Sleepywood and Sweetwater.
• Something like "Swollu", or "Swillu" doesn't type as fast, and those feel like a tongue-twister to pronounce because of having an "U" after two "L". 
• "Swillo" has two L's, so it doesn't type as fast as "Swilo". It also doesn't sound as nice.
• Sword is too ambiguous, Illusion is an old Evan skill.

So, Swilo (pronounced "Swee-low", with the "wee" as in "Nintendo Wii") will have to do the job. Conveniently, it's also an abbreviation that can be pronounced in many relevant languages. I just don't want to type "Sword Illusion" every damn time it comes up in a conversation or blogpost.

Sword Illusion is a bit of an unusual type of skill. Most of Hero's skills tend to be traditional where you press the hotkey and you'd perform the skill. One of the few exceptions is Blitz Shield, where you have to prepare the attack ahead of time and manually explode it after. In that sense, Swilo's similar: you press the hotkey, but the attack appears later.

Casting Swilo summons a small cyclone that does a barrage of consecutive attacks for about three seconds. What sets this apart from something like stationary Sword of Burning Soul is that Swilo is not a summon, and it attacks seventeen times. And this particular trait makes it incredibly destructive when you consider that these seventeen attacks are all traditional attacks and thus can trigger virtually any eligible effects.

Long story short, Swilo can trigger Advanced Final Attack seventeen times, recharge Combo Attack seventeen times, activate Sword of Burning Soul continuously by itself, and each individual barrage can hit up to eight enemies. Swilo can activate Aura Weapon when you cast the skill, but the cyclone itself cannot. In total, Swilo can kill up to 136 mobs on its own (170 if decked out), land total of 73 lines in addition to up to 51 additional lines of AFA. Hearing so many AFA sound effects overlap is very satisfying. Feels very old school. Sword Illusion even takes cues from CDF's theme.

The best part about Swilo is that it's an independent "projectile", so it's not like a hold-down skill where your character is stuck in an animation. Using the skill is pretty safe and it's very practical. There are not many reasons to not have this skill out during bossing, which is also why maxing it out is worth the investment.

There aren't many skills out there that can burst this many lines and potentially defeat this many enemies at such consistent rate, low cooldown and no particular set-up. However, Swilo is somewhat different from strong-hitting moves such as Combo Death Fault and the first attack of Spider in Mirror in that it doesn't dump all of its lines onto enemies the moment you press that hotkey. The total line count from Swilo is dealt over that short span of three seconds, so while each barrage doesn't necessarily deal a lot of damage individually (i.e. damage is much lower than Raging Blow), it does make a difference in total. There is also a bit of a ramp-up effect: the last five barrages of Swilo are far stronger (one additional line and almost double the damage for each line). When these stronger attacks appear are indicated by the skill's itself: it's when the large sword appears inside the cyclone.

Going from 0 to 10 Combo Orbs has never been this easy...

Because Swilo's cyclone only appears about a second after casting, there is time to consume Combo Orbs by using skills such as Combo Death Fault, Panic or Incising, and immediately gain orbs back by overlapping with Sword Illusion. The seventeen attacks are spaced out in a span of three seconds, which is more than enough time reapply Panic/Incising on a boss, or to go from 0 to 10 Combo Orbs in an instant. This also makes Swilo perfect with CDF, as Swilo causes you to instantly return those spent orbs so that you can optimize the burst bonus that CDF provides. Combo Instinct's drawback of halving your recharge rate is also partially offset by Sword Illusion's sheer attack count.

For more traditional bosses that use Super Cast and/or Damage Reflect, there's always a very small chance to pierce through these buffs and deal damage. With Sword Illusion's ridiculous average 100+ line count, it's very likely that a couple of shots are lucky enough to pierce. While it's a niche, I do feel it's worth mentioning. Nothing is more boring than having to wait for these buffs to run out, so Swilo has certainly helped me there. Speaking of Damage Reflect, as is common with 5th Job skills, it does not activate DR, but it also does not ignore and bypass it.

So, Swilo allows you to continuously deal damage on a boss, recharge any lost Combo Orbs and remain on a safe distance. From my experience, many boss runs has benefited greatly from having Swilo around, whether to recharge orbs for CDF or to deal additional damage in general.

Though, the continuous barrage of small chip damage is one of two major drawbacks of Swilo itself. Be careful with using this skill at certain bosses, as the damage is dealt and calculated per barrage "real time". What you could hit with the full cyclone is ignored by the game, so only measure in "effective" damage. Unless you hit extremely hard (like, we're talking straight up overkill) with Swilo, you won't be able to skip phases for bosses such as (Chaos) Pierre and Akyrum. That is why using Combo Death Fault, Combo Instinct or Spider in Mirror's first hit are more effective for these type of approaches, because their "effective" damage is greater than what Swilo can perform in short notice.

In context of Chaos Pierre, activating his split phase makes him invincible during the animation. This wastes any remaining hits left from Swilo, greatly reducing its effective line count and potential damage. Nevertheless, while the continuous effect is Swilo's greatest strength, it needs to be used with caution (or bind) under certain circumstances.

The other major drawback of Swilo is its relatively small hitbox: the seventeen attack barrage for three seconds are confined to a limited space, and these attacks must connect with enemies in order to get those additional skill effects. Enemies that die from a barrage will only get hit once, and any further barrages will seek out new targets, assuming there are any in range. One shot enemies with a single barrage means only one chance to recharge Combo Orbs, but this also means that you can kill up to 136 enemies as each barrage has a base target count of 8. Of course, each barrage can be further expanded with the Pipsqueak Luminous from Monster Life and Inner Ability.

While the hitbox of Sword Illusion isn't as large as one might expect from a valuable signature 5th Job skill, there is some flexibility to its placement that Sword of Burning Soul doesn't have. You can only place Sobs where you are located, and you can't use the skill in mid-air. Swilo is a much safer approach; the cyclone is placed in front of you. Additionally, Swilo can be used in mid-air, so you can use Swilo after Upper Charge to place the cyclone up high to deal with Magnus or Damien. Swilo only appearing about a second after you cast it has the advantage to trap enemies that spawn-in with a telegraphed location, such as Elite Monsters or Vellum. Just keep in mind though that Swilo's hitbox is pretty much "what you see is what you get". This isn't like RU or Incising's - Swilo's hitbox is very precise.

Although despite what the animation implies, there's a disjoint with the actual hit registration for Sword Illusion's final barrage. It only occurs shortly after the skill animation has ended, as seen in the GIF above.

Is there anything else left to talk about? Perhaps it's the short cooldown of 30 seconds. Having a cooldown of 30 seconds for a skill like Sword Illusion is ideal with respawning. Dying at a boss that includes respawns will forcefully respawn you after about half a minute. With Swilo's ability to attack seventeen times in such a short span of time, you can get instant 10 orbs AND Enrage before your Resistance Skill Link runs out. Cast Sword Illusion, activate Combo Attack's toggle and Enrage, and you're good to go. 

Sure, one could give the argument that Buff Freezers or the infamous Battleroid could allow you to maintain Combo Attack after respawning, but that's a band-aid solution that doesn't solve any root cause nor does it guarantee respawning with 10 orbs either.

Ryude's Ruling
"Does Ryude's Sword work with Sword Illusion?"

As one would expect, Ryude does work with Sword Illusion. The barrages are considered regular attacks, so that falls under Ryude's conditions. Each barrage has its own 70% chance of activating Ryude.

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Verdict

When Sword Illusion was initially revealed last Summer, I expected a skill like Hayato's Battoujutsu Zankou after watching videos from the KMST community. Press the skill hotkey once, and all of the damage plus Combo recharges are instantly applied. Having the skill in my hands now, I'm able to dissect the skill myself in order to figure out its exact properties and behavior. As you can imagine, Sword Illusion is indeed different from my initial expectations.

I do feel somewhat disappointed by how Sword Illusion works, but I do understand that it provides more potential benefits in its current form, stuff it wouldn't have if it behaved more like Battoujutsu Zankou. However, what hurts Swilo the most is how many attacks can become wasted when there are no targets left. This in practice makes Swilo's ability to fully recharge Combo Attack limited to a single, very specific condition: it demands enemies to have health in spades so that Swilo can artificially hit targets more often, which tends to be more often undesirable. That said, I do believe that Swilo would be a more fun skill to use if it is able to dump all of its excess lines onto the same target. 

Nevertheless, Sword Illusion is a pretty powerful attacking skill on its own right, and the unique properties it adds to Hero's toolkit makes it even greater. I believe that Sword Illusion has the potential to become more important as the game moves forward with it - imagine the potential this skill can have long-term. The ability to burst 17 individual attacks could be incredibly useful the moment Hero receives a drain skill, to recharge more Combo Orbs with Expert Combo Attack or any future passive status effects that comes at a low activation rate.

Speaking of the future, the Neo update started in KMS and came with a Level 300 expansion (additional 5th Job skill slots) and extended the damage cap to 150b. One might wonder if Expert Combo Attack's reveal is not too far away...

Anyway, that's it for today - I'll see you guys again next week!

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