Bluu
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All of these changes are very good and welcome additions! The change to unempowered Energy is absolutely very welcome and quite handy too, considering your tendency to overcap MP at times when pFire is active. The base skills being better overall is a good change as well, as it now does not necessitate the use of Protosouls to make those skills worth using at all - they just fit into your standard gameplay loop a lot better. The class is definitely more... fleshed out now.
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Flesh of Fire:
- Empowered: Cooldown reduced to 3 from 4
This is, however, a terrible change. The class shouldn't be made easier to play because people are unwilling to learn how to optimize it. The original Empowered Flesh of Fire was a high-risk high-reward button that paid off really well if you used it carefully and planned well-ahead. The new version takes away the complexity and allows you to get away with hitting the nuke early. Players who struggled to manage their health under pFire or did not wish to play so tightly could just... not empower the skill.
Another concern of this is that Fleshweaver can actually speedrun fights (thereby ignoring mechanics) faster by 1-2 turns per fight and with much more safety now. As the changes to the class' native healing skills make them heal a flat value of HP (affected by Health Res) as opposed to a percentage of your total HP, it is now even more viable to run an even more unorthodox INT/WIS build with just enough END to allow you to safely fire off a pImmolation whenever it's convenient to do so. This allows you to have both: a high damage output and a large total mana barrier, exacerbated by how easily the mana barrier fills up under pImmolation and how little damage (sometimes 0) damage you will be taking to your actual HP bar in most fights.
I remember that the developer once complained about spending lots of time coming up with cool, unique boss mechanics, only for the players to be like "what mechanics" because Doomknight killed Odessa in 6 turns. This is actively detrimental to the developer's design intent. Don't get me wrong, I love watching or doing quick clears with big nukes and optimal play, but there's a limit beyond which something is just ridiculously busted and therefore boring - which is the case with CDE and DBE fwiw, but that's a separate issue.
Now, onto the important bit: why I think the above post by @TFS is dishonest.
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Don't get me wrong, Soul's Edge is something you were not really going to activate in the first place if you were using the class correctly, but I dislike how the approach to nerfing this was just to introduce an element of hit roll RNG that wasn't an issue before - stacking -20 when you have +200 and bosses average at 43 just introduces an unnecessary element of frustration.
Soul's Edge was something you could intentionally abuse against bosses that couldn't effectively deplete your mana barrier by staying at 1 HP and clicking the HP cost skills. The only real downside to this was that it would get rid of Overwhelming Hunger if that was active on you, but nothing was stopping you from just staying at 1 HP after hitting Dual Immolation and stalling for several turns, unless the boss could deal enough damage to kill you, at which point you would use eAegis to shield the 3 turns of the stacked debuff.
You have +200 MPM from Ice + 111 MPM from BiS gear, which equals 311 MPM. 43 Bonus cannot hit over 194 MPM, meaning that you can build up to six stacks of the current Soul's Edge with relative safety and then use eIce on turns where the average 43 Bonus enemy does not gain Bonus buffs to get rid of 3/4ths of the penalty. This isn't even to mention eLight, which is a -80 Bonus and Crit debuff for four turns, giving you an effective 391 MPM, meaning that you can now stack up to 10 stacks of Soul's Edge if you really wanted to abuse this feature. It will never work out this cleanly in practice, but the fact that this is the theoretical maximum goes to show that this is a genuinely non-existent penalty for playing poorly.
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I'm also not sure that low HP camping was something that was even super viable in the first place, and the duration increase to 4 turns to ensure that you'll still have at least 1 unshielded turn to get smacked is already a pretty substantial downside to attempting it.
The guy that beat SSEX in 30 turns with Fleshweaver (record number of turns btw) stayed at 1 HP for 10 turns and stacked up to -70 All/MPM/BPD to skip past Darkon's first and second phases.
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My initial reaction is that I dislike this because it's a nerf to full WIS, which is a fun and unique build.
The full WIS build still has 1900 MP's worth of a Mana Barrier to build up. You just gain 40 less MP per skill with that build, which is offset by clicking Darkness to reduce the enemy's damage. This does not increase dependence on Flesh of Fire in shorter battles because Erupt Horror already gives you 400 MP to work with on the first turn, and Flesh of Fire is literally the class' bread-and-butter in longer battles.
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I'm not sure what the point of this one is? It's an extremely minor change that doesn't really affect too much, but it's also something that didn't really need to be changed and all this does is potentially disturb the class's already-great flow state.
It is a 400% nuke that gives you +100 Bonus and +200 Crit for three turns, including the turn you use it. Additionally, it generates 400 MP, which is more than half a protosoul. It already does a lot more than the average class autocrit whilst having a very short cooldown even after the nerf.
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I understand that this strictly makes the class better, but I kind of dislike it. I thought it was fun and unique that Fleshweaver had to be 'aggressive' and use either +Bonus or Cage in order to heal. While that design element is still on Water, taking it off of Nature reduces it.
This makes 0 practical difference whilst only serving to bloat tooltip text. At worst, you would Bonus stack, use Dragon Scout, or time Flesh of Nature such that it's used shortly after Erupt Horror (Erupt -> pImmolation -> pNature works for instance) so that all your hits connect, and just reset the fight if they don't connect.
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This is also something that strictly improves the class, but as with Nature I think making it less tricky to use also makes the class less fun.
I agree with you, but aren't you the guy that said that Jaania EX requires tricky play during the fourth phase to avoid going below her execution threshold? You can just fire off a pImmolation from <33% HP the turn after she uses the 25% nuke and kill her. So I'm not exactly sure what "tricky" strategies you were using before.
These changes are great, but the pFire change should be reverted to maintain the complexity of the class' original design and prevent it from being too strong and fast.
< Message edited by Bluu -- 9/5/2026 8:15:40 >
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