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I'm presuming we plan to remove the ramp-up mechanic.

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Remove the minor extra bonuses to STR and DEX: they break the model for little to no reason.

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8). Reduce the Damage Output / Cost ratio of guests. This will help to reduce the overall power of CHA and Mages (who benefit from summon guests)

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Ramp is something that is rather set in stone unless a more accurate and viable representation of a Ranged damage identity can be suggested to replace it. If that other suggestion isn't put forth and accepted from a novel approach that doesn't rely on any aspects that have already been rejected prior to this point the initially proposed model in this thread is going through.

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My reservations would come from how punishing it might be for newer players vs. those more experienced. While the new misc mentioned in the post sounds very nice in fixing the issue, newer players will generally have less access to accuracy-boosting items that more experienced and invested end game players do. So, depending on the numbers for the "punishment" for missing, a newer player against a particularly dodgy mob can feel heavily brought down by also having their damage lowered when they do land a hit. Given assumed accuracy is 85% (meaning assumed miss rate is 15%), the penalty for missing could be quite harsh if it's 5.66x as strong for being 5.66x less likely.

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Then there's the more minor issue of Moonwalker's Grace being not up to standards since the stat rework (should match Buffalot's Beach Bod and Arcane Amplification in terms of cost:boost ratio), and costing MP so it requires INT for a DEX build to use it.

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On the topic of initiative, it's still a strange feeling getting outsped by level 110 enemies while in an initiative armour just because they have a double mainstat as a leftover from when DEX was required for all accuracy. Is there any chance that'll be tweaked? Like removing initiative from DEX for monsters, or making the initiative formula use highest mainstat + LUK instead of a sum of all 3 STR/DEX/INT + LUK. Could also be interesting to have other stats negatively/less positively contribute to initiative for extra effects e.g. STR/END being slower but getting a bonus as a result.

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give rangers a small chance to repeat their attack. Not celerity, but something like Archer's Per My Last Arrow (when it was first released, I actually thought the staff were play-testing the mechanic for use in the stat revamp). It helps FO rangers by giving extra damage, and it helps FD rangers by letting them stack status effects. The chance can even ramp up with accuracy as was first suggested.

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Just tossing an idea -- perhaps instead of making DefLoss items affect MRM, have them be attached to a specific one at triple the value? That would make for better design space IMHO.

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That would require any items pertaining to ranger identity to be delayed, there isn't time for that.

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With regards to this, I strongly feel that a permanent quick cast BTH boost skill/spelll needs to be made available. Having one set of spells/skills available at new year’s is not enough for new players/characters, imo. If the premium status of the skill is an issue, then perhaps a premium clone could be made (eg a GGB clone, token clone vs a z token package clone), and an alternate version could be made for gold (example suggestions are that it’s turn consuming but more potent; vs a version that is more efficient/less powerful; vs a version that is potent but applies a debuff to player damage, etc).

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3. Add the SP idea to Ranged Damage, and forgo the idea from Melee damage
4. Add back in a + potency = to 5% Melee based on Dex (replaces the blocking)

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Lastly, I still believe bows (damage from a distance) and spears (longer than most weapons) should still provide for the initiative focus as was mentioned a while back

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Warrior Proposal:
1. Scrap the SP thing for Melee damage, it makes better sense used with Rangers
2. Instead, make FO warriors more defensive by giving them either a HP barrier when they use a Melee attack or they instead get the +5 blocking, or both.

The logical reality is, is A warrior is going to be fighting in close, in hand to hand combat, and they'll NEED to be hardier, and more resistant to being hit. Being able to parry some damage off IMO is a logical step considering there isn't a FD warrior style. So this makes them better defensively. The usage of barriers items in conjunction with the HP barrier based on Melee attacks could make for a very strong style, and it gives a little bit of spice to the warrior build that it needs. If you were to combine the effects that END give and this STR-based proposal you end up with a consistent damaging FO playstyle that can also kind of tank, too, and resist/heal . The STR/END marriage will be a better one than INT/END or DEX/END as Rangers and mages have better Defensive options for build spin-offs, where Warriors do not.

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One possible idea for player DEX attack.

Player DEX attack bonus
Consider last attempted player DEX hit to monster for current player turn.

When player DEX attack miss monster / start of battle case
- 5 % damage bonus to DEX weapon attack.

When player DEX attack hit monster 1 time in a row
- 3 % damage bonus to DEX weapon attack.

When player DEX attack hit monster 2 times in a row
- 1 % damage bonus to DEX weapon attack.

When player DEX attack hit monster 3 times in a row
+ 1 % damage bonus to DEX weapon attack.

When player DEX attack hit monster 4 times in a row
+ 3 % damage bonus to DEX weapon attack.

When player DEX attack hit monster 5 times or more in a row
+ 5 % damage bonus to DEX weapon attack.

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While I don't know how possible this idea is or if it is even wanted or viable at all, but I might as well suggest it anyways. If the staff really are looking to give something to STR then I suggest giving STR a modifier to make much more stable damage ranges.

For example a weapon has a 16 to 48, it could possibly make the weapon go for 20 to 48 instead.

Why this idea? Well since the identity of warriors are stable consistent high damage per turn, then something that can help alleviate RNG from their attacks or give them much less lows and higher chances to do highs would be good. It won't make them have static damage ranges since I think that would just nullify the static damage range weapons, but something to make the weapons more stable or reach much higher damage ranges. Originally I thought of making the damage ranger much tighter and therefore much more consistent like making a 16 to 48 weapon with a STR modifier become and 20 to 36 damage range weapon. But people didn't seem too keen on the idea cause they said it would make warriors deal much less damage and make people not wanna play it.

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The idea was to replace what add-ons END was going to get, because I felt like END by itself was sort of OP. If you count how much HP's is considered to be "100% Melee" and then see how many more HP's, and thus Melee% END gives going from 0 END to 250 END , it's quite high TBH.

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For the concept of ranged damage scaling with accuracy, I suggest that it be a lean modifier that applies like this:

At the end of each turn, the player's ranged attack lean (in [Expected Hit Rate]/85 format) is multiplicatively increased if they were inaccurate and decreased if they were accurate. If the direction of the lean change matches the weapon's inherent lean then the change is multiplied by 1 plus double the lean's value, but if it's the opposite direction it'll be multiplied by 1 MINUS the lean's value.

Examples:

A weapon has a +10 lean - on turns where you're accurate your lean will reduce by 0.8*X%, on turns where you miss more than expected your lean will increase by 1.2*X%. The weapon's accurate base lean means it gets more accurate faster, but shifts to damage slower.

A weapon has a -15 lean - on turns where you're accurate your lean will reduce by 1.3*X%, on turns where you're accurate your lean will increase by 0.7*X%.the weapon's inaccurate lean means its damage ramps up faster, but it's slower to gain accuracy when missing.

I feel this suggestion achieves the goal of giving rangers damage as a reward for being accurate, while also allowing lean to have some more nuanced interactions / give some extra design space to ranged weapons.

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1. STR: "gets nothing." (Credits to Jeanne for this quote) More precisely, STR does not receive an additional 5% damage boost. This is the most reasonable answer, because the entire game is balanced around "Melee". Strength is intended to have the most stable and consistent damage output, with no additional effect and no penalties.


2. DEX: Ranged damage ramping should be removed. As a largely disliked mechanic, it clearly illustrates the problems with "balancing" the game around a defunct 20-turn model. If it is not too outrageous, DEX investment could modify pet damage from CHA at the cost of Ranged damage from DEX. In essence, at VStat DEX and 0 CHA, Ranged damage is assumed player damage at 100% Melee. However, at VStat DEX and VStat CHA, Pet damage is increased by 10% Melee to a value of 50% Melee per turn, while Ranged player damage is decreased proportionally by 10% Melee to a value of 90% Melee per turn. This effectively functions like a pseudo-damage lean that scales based on DEX and CHA investment (i.e. at VStat/2 DEX and VStat/2 CHA, you receive 10%+2.5% Melee per turn in pet damage from CHA, while Ranged damage from DEX is decreased by 2.5% Melee).


3. INT: Ideally we should move away from the current "balancing" around a defunct 20-turn model, however even under current assumptions Mages still receive an advantage over Warriors and Rangers with respects to versatility in damage output, since Mages are given 4 200% Melee turns that they can choose to use at any time—an option exclusive to Mages.

To address this, I suggest a rework of the way the MP resource functions in battle. Max MP should be subject to a turn-by-turn decay in order to further encourage the niche of burst damage for Mages. The Max MP tied to INT stat investment should decrease by 125% Melee per turn over the course of the first 4 turns. Since it is unreasonable for Mages to become weaker Warriors and Rangers by default after the first 4 turns assuming they do not use their MP, I suggest that Mages should receive an additional 125% Melee in MP that is paid for by a universal reduction in Pet damage by 6.25% Melee (assuming 0 CHA), scaling with INT investment. This makes it such that Max MP never falls below a reasonable threshold for Mages even without the use of INT drive items. A change like this should be accompanied by future changes to encourage mages away from skill-casting.

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1. Additional Bonuses: Additional stat bonuses may not be the worst idea. However, I feel that such bonuses should be a secondary consideration, seeing as they not only break assumed models but actually have very little impact on playstyles, as evidenced by the past year of STR's totally free 5% damage bonus simply being peanuts in comparison to the long-standing overperformance of Mages (which should be addressed through changes beyond stats). Below are my proposed suggestions:

1.1. STR: Free 5% Melee in Player BtH.

1.2. DEX: Free 5% Melee in damage reduction.

1.3. INT: Free 5% Melee in Spell BtH.

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2. Accuracy Changes: Several players have pointed out that currently dodgelash as a playstyle is problematic in principle, because mechanics which allow the player to achieve 100% probability of blocking and thus eliminating any possibility of being hit, allows the player to completely bypass normal gameplay considerations such as elements. As such, the most reasonable and straightforward solution that addresses this problem at a fundamental level, is to implement a cap to the probability of blocking (i.e. taking the maximum of the accuracy calculation and a certain set probability such as 5%, credits to this simple formula goes to Chaotic). This should ideally be implemented for both players and mobs, especially if high dodge bosses are planned in the future. In the long run, this will actually make dodgelash a more fun and interesting playstyle, since staying in the exact same set of equipment would no longer be optimal.

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3. Defensive Warrior: Several players have mentioned that a Warrior in FD armor cannot compete with Mages and Rangers due to the lack of 100-proc Melee weapons. My personal stance on this matter is that item support for 100-proc Melee (i.e. Whips and Flails) would be widely appreciated by players, and is not only thematically compatible but the most straight forward solution to remedying the issue of STR being the only Mainstat fundamentally denied a true FD playstyle.

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i) An overabundance of SP

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The suggestion of SP recovery cannot adequately satisfy these three conditions. Warrior already has access to the most efficient skills, so extra SP regeneration will already be less desirable. Moreover, we can’t provide a significant amount of extra SP because it's a build-agnostic resource. Giving Warriors a large extra chunk would unfairly disadvantage Mages and, more importantly, Rangers (who we’re also trying to provide with an identity). Equally, a small boost (e.g., 5%) isn’t going to provide anywhere near enough persuasive power to make Warrior an attractive-enough option. Too much and we break the model too severely, too little and we don’t achieve the intended effect.

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i). I believe Warrior should also have a distinct defensive identity. Mage and Ranger both have clear FO and FD playstyles, but Warrior lacks this due to the avoidance of 100-proc Melee weapons. Without them, Warrior cannot compete. I have attempted to produce a compromise so that Warriors can play defensively without the need for 100-proc Weapons
ii). I believe that, whilst all builds should be able to play offensively and defensively if they wish, Mages should be more offensive specialised (with their burst damage stored via MP), Rangers should be more defensive specialised (with their range of 100-proc weapons) and Warriors should have unparalleled versatility in switching between the two during combat. In this way, Warriors become a jack of all trades when it comes to playstyle, adding to their distinct identity of consistent damage.
iii). To make room for Warriors, we have to push Mages towards spells. This means solving the Mage identity crisis and pushing them away from the old skillcasting paradigm.
iv). I want spell-based skills to be able to compete with Weapon-based skills

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1). Fix Essence Orb: This fix will restrict SP regeneration and, if done correctly, will help to weaken Mage’s ability to fire off boosted skills whilst allowing Warrior and Ranger to continue without issue
2). If possible, remove the *4/3 bonus applied to Weapon-based skills. I however wish to go further than this and also include a /2 modifier on all Weapon-based skills, normalising any boosts applied to them relative to 100% Melee. This would curb the advantage Mages receive when skillcasting and also allow for Spell-based skills to compete. I recognise this is a substantial nerf, but one that should have corrected a long time ago
3). Improve gold-based Spellcaster and Spellcaster-lean support to incentivise mages switching away from weapon-based skills towards spells and spell-based skills.
4). Remove the minor extra bonuses to STR and DEX: they break the model for little to no reason. They don’t make Warrior or Ranger significantly more attractive.
5). Implement a mechanism for Warriors to play defensively: My suggestion for this would be that all Melee weapons deal *1 damage when in MD or FD armours. This allows Melee weapons to approximate the efficiency of 100-procs without taking their niche away. This doesn’t need to be implemented immediately so Ranger support can be better consolidated.
6). Implement the suggested fixes for Ranger as planned
7). Fix pet accuracy by making it independent from stats
8). Reduce the Damage Output / Cost ratio of guests. This will help to reduce the overall power of CHA and Mages (who benefit from summon guests)
9). Provide item support for Warrior and Ranger in these new identities e.g., STR-based healing

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This will hurt defensive beastbuilds a lot more than just mages. The latter will lose a few % off their boosters, while the former will be crippled in one of their main sources of damage/status/healing. Don't get me wrong, I acknowledge that the current situation is problematic, but I think the solution is slightly more complicated than making them inferior skills that demand an extra stat.

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I want to reduce this ratio because Guests currently provide 60% melee at a cost of ~22% Melee, which is extremely overpowered. Following my own rules above, I can't justify keeping things as they are because it breaks the model to the point where it distorts gameplay. However, this emphatically does not mean I wish to entirely fix it. Reducing it to equal input/output would be ridiculous and is likely to cause major upset within the community. Yes, any nerf to CHA will disproportionately hurt FD builds, but I'd argue that they have problems too (one of them being this!).

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Maybe you can follow this rule: One misc active or one guest active (not both options at the same time).

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Basically,
(A) Ranged damage gets an additional BtH lean that is independent of equipment, and starts at 0 at Turn 1 of every battle.
(B) If your Ranged (hits/attempt) is lower than 85% this turn, your Ranged damage lean increases. This mean your Ranged hits in the next turn become more accurate, at the cost of lowered damage.
(C) OTOH, if your Ranged (hits/attempt) is higher than 85% this turn, your Ranged damage lean decreases, therefore your Ranged hits in the next turn become less accurate, but more powerful.

Here's an example:
You're equipping an armour that hits 3 times with a normal attack, plus a Ranged 0-proc Spear with -5 BtH lean. Assume you face a normal opponent, and all other factors are being controlled.
Turn 1: You got lucky and scored all 3 hits. 3/3 hits/attempt = 100% accuracy this turn, which is higher than 85%. The game gives you a further -5 BtH lean to Ranged attacks next round, to a total of -10.
Turn 2: Your luck still holds. All 3 attacks hit. Hits/attempts = 100% > 85% accuracy. The opponent takes more damage than in Turn 1 - the -10 BtH lean resulted in you dealing more damage, and you get another -5 BtH lean stacked, so now you end up with -15 BtH lean to future Ranged attacks.
Turn 3: Your luck has finally caught up with you, and you only hit 1 attack out of 3. Hits/attempts = 33% < 85% accuracy. Your Ranged BtH lean now shifts by +5, so the next turn your Ranged attacks will have -10 BtH lean.

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Well, you did say I might be onto something, Dreiko, so I might as well try posting this, and gauge the reaction from the forum community.

I am here to put forth an alternative Ranged damage identity proposal. Instead of an accuracy-based, damage-ramp mechanic, I propose a (somewhat-accuracy-based) lean-shifting mechanic.

Basically,
(A) Ranged damage gets an additional BtH lean that is independent of equipment, and starts at 0 at Turn 1 of every battle.
(B) If your Ranged (hits/attempt) is lower than 85% this turn, your Ranged damage lean increases. This mean your Ranged hits in the next turn become more accurate, at the cost of lowered damage.
(C) OTOH, if your Ranged (hits/attempt) is higher than 85% this turn, your Ranged damage lean decreases, therefore your Ranged hits in the next turn become less accurate, but more powerful.

Here's an example:
You're equipping an armour that hits 3 times with a normal attack, plus a Ranged 0-proc Spear with -5 BtH lean. Assume you face a normal opponent, and all other factors are being controlled.
Turn 1: You got lucky and scored all 3 hits. 3/3 hits/attempt = 100% accuracy this turn, which is higher than 85%. The game gives you a further -5 BtH lean to Ranged attacks next round, to a total of -10.
Turn 2: Your luck still holds. All 3 attacks hit. Hits/attempts = 100% > 85% accuracy. The opponent takes more damage than in Turn 1 - the -10 BtH lean resulted in you dealing more damage, and you get another -5 BtH lean stacked, so now you end up with -15 BtH lean to future Ranged attacks.
Turn 3: Your luck has finally caught up with you, and you only hit 1 attack out of 3. Hits/attempts = 33% < 85% accuracy. Your Ranged BtH lean now shifts by +5, so the next turn your Ranged attacks will have -10 BtH lean.

Why 85% accuracy? Because by game design, players are supposed to have 85% accuracy against monsters. This is why more accurate weapons will end up having less damage than less accurate weapons, all other factors being equal - but I'm sure y'all know this ;)

The proposal above aims to counter whatever potential Ranged damage penalties imposed by missing attacks in an accuracy-based damage-ramp mechanic. It also aims to remove the soft constraints placed on Ranged equipment design and acquisiton - there's no need for devs to focus on making Ranged weapons with accurate leans, nor for players to use accurate-lean Ranged gear in order to ramp efficiently in an accuracy-based damage-ramp mechanic. Give us a -20 lean Ranged throwing axe please :D

"But what about FD Rangers?"
"And what if Rangers use Autohit weapons? Will they end up getting free damage ramping?"
I'll admit the proposal above is not fully fleshed out. Among other things, I'm considering additional elements that allow the final version of this proposal to skew Ranged BtH lean towards accuracy if you wear FD armour, so that FD Rangers have a higher chance at inflicting on-hit status effects by ramping accuracy, as well as not allowing Autohit Ranged attacks to skew the lean. But still, here's the basic structure of the proposal - have at it!

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1. The game isn't ready for that yet. All builds rely on this resource and many of the best SP healing items currently are either seasonal, premium or a combination of both. We don't have enough good, free and permanently accessible SP healing items for all builds currently. Nerfing EO without providing more alternatives first is just going to make every single player's life more difficult.

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3. I think the bonuses can be kept. Bump them up or rework them to make it more attractive (what we're currently doing)

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8. No, guests needs to be worth using for their cost as opposed to spending SP on a Skill for example. I think they're in a good place currently because you simply can't do both without a significant amount of resource regeneration (which balances itself out because you're sacrificing damage to achieve that)

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I'm suggesting the Esssence Orb nerf now because I want to explicitly take advantage of current circumstances. Right now, Essence Orb is a keystone for Skillcaster Mage dominance. It enables Mages to regenerate an entire SP bar with ease, removing any disadvantage from additional Magic SP costs. This is also extremely problematic for Warrior/Ranger builds (albeit to a slightly lesser extent) and substantially distorts gameplay.

My aim with Essence Orb is to reduce how much SP it can provide per turn to around 300-350SP (for level 150). This removes the insane regeneration potential, whilst also allowing Warriors/Rangers to regularly produce boosted Weapon-based skills, since (with elecomp) they cost much less than this. Mages, meanwhile, will find it much harder to sustain boosted weapon-based skills since their SP costs are higher. Doing this would disincentivise Mage Skillcasting without making it anywhere near impossible.

Adding a large number of high SP regenerating items to replace Essence Orb would kill the benefit I seek to gain.

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To reiterate, I take no issue with breaking game assumptions so long as the follow the three criteria I set in my original post. I explicitly wish to remove these bonuses because they break the mathematical balance model for no real reason. Their sole purpose is to provide the player with a minor additional buff that, ultimately, is nowhere near enough to balance the scales between Warrior/Ranger and Mage attractiveness. This doesn't mean I'm against buffing Warrior/Ranger (some of my other points explicitly do this), I just think we should be more careful with how we do it.

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Unfortunately, as much as I like your ideas, I don't think they're the solution here:

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Mage burst damage makes them a shoe-in for an offensive specialisation. Nothing we do with Warrior or Ranger identity is going to bridge that gap

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We value consistency, but it doesn't have the x factor that spells possess. My solution was to reframe it so that "Stable Damage" means stability regardless of playstyle (FO/FD). This opens up a niche where Warrior can switch between the two using the same weapons and still deal damage consistently.

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Once again, I don't dislike a Warrior-based blocking armour [...] but the difference here is Blocking isn't already a part of Warrior identity

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That's, uh, a somewhat problematic take, because:
a) nothing proposed thus far has bridged the gap to mage's defensive potential either,
b) saying that mage is better, and will always be better, and there's nothing we can do about it, is pretty much a conversation killer. It does not invite any further discussion or consideration.

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Except they'll do 1.25x damage in FO armors and 1x damage in FD. The only way to keep the damage consistent between the two is using 100-proc weapons.

Even dismissing that, there's still the fact that it's exactly the same thing rangers do. Your proposal is meant to compensate for 100-proc ranged weapons and the lack of 100-proc melee ones, right? But to continue that analogy, giving every melee weapon 1x damage in FD armors is equivalent to giving every spear a 100-proc mode - which is a ridiculous amount of work, and removes much of the diversity in weapon inventories in addition to what few differences there remain between investing in Str and Dex.

No "x factor", much less one on the same level as spells.

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I was under the impression that there's no defensive warrior identity? Isn't that exactly what we're trying to make?

Blocking is not part of any build's identity, but if we're trying to create something new and distinct in defensive warrior, it's one of the few options remaining that are not used by any other build. It'd be a pity not to explore it further.

Abandon fear! Boldly go where no man has gone before!

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Basically I don't think the MP bar's the problem here as much as the regeneration.

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It's not the same workload as giving every spear a 100-proc mode either. It's true that suggestions like this can be labour labour intensive (and unfeasible) if you have to change each item individually. Since I'm applying the effect to all melee weapons though, it can be done much more easily.

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Rangers can compete in FD and FO

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I'm inherently averse to turning any agnostic mechanic into a build specific one to begin with (though I could potentially still be convinced), but this one is particularly impractical.

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If Player attack AND attack type == Ranged:
    
damage *= max(min((100 + Attacker Value - Defender Value) /100, 1.25),1)