[Autumn]

Fleur was brought up in a recent topic, and whilist I don't think Fleur is a huge problem for letting a duelist do what duelist does best (Stay an action above their opponent for scoring critical hits) I do think that receiving ludicrous amounts of critical hit damage per round is rather unfair when facing anyone who isn't a duelist, try finding somebody who isn't a duelist or hexer nowadays, you won't find many.

I hear all the time that duelist is in a balanced situation because it needs to rely on hit and crit checks, because it's a damage class and not a tank class, but that's simply just not true, duelist has recieved so many defensive skills that it's off tank possibilities are achievable at a minor 25-30 defense, this includes skills such as Wraithguard, one vs one and the very well known Eviter.

And on the other hand there are capabilities in duelist that allow it to be one of the highest damage dealing physical classes in the game, stuff like absolute death, voltiger, crystal rose, (Old Ether Invititation), so it's no doubt that almost everyone chooses duelist at the moment, it's very versatile and while I like that in a class, the class is too versatile for pretty much anything else.

Unfortunately, I don't actually have many solutions to the problems I've stated, I've tried thinking it over several times and there's just not much you can do to balance duelist according to the other classes without losing it's identity at this point, a duelist should be strong in a one vs one, but they're super overwhelming to the point where you don't really run a physically based hit class without duelist anymore, classic class combos for hitting such as BK/Monk is gone in the wind because Ghost will provide even more defensive capability than BK, and give you more critical hit.

I've thought up a couple of things to maybe combat this but ultimately they came up just being a bit too complicated to see use.

Scoring a critical hit will do full critical damage, when you score a second critical hit it'll do only half that, and the third one who do a quarter (VA Skill Deadly Arms would make this 75% and then 50% critical damage instead)

So I'm raising up a discussion topic right now, does anyone else have concerns with duelist? Fleur specifically? Or is it just critical hits specifically? Maybe it's their defensive capabilities in just being able to off tank better than a BK? Or is duelist actually truly balanced? Discuss.

[Detective100]

I am not fond of writing this, but I do have an issue with fleur.

For starters, it is a skill that is almost too good for people that want to count on crits to not have, even if it doesn't make sense for you to be a duelist otherwise: Let's use a magic gunner for example that uses a rifle weapon.

Having the ability to gain +2m instead of 1m per crit allows the magic gunner to use three 3m skills/moves, allowing for more options in general, instead of being able to do only two 3m skill/moves.

I also have a second issue with it, and some people might bury me for it... The ability to gain even more momentum when you crit with a second weapon - That could be more debatable, I agree... But even if you'll need to be able to crit twice with both weapons, that sums up at 11m total if you get both crits - 5m after you land two critical attacks.

[Ranylyn]

Going off of Detective's issues, I think I might have the simplest suggestion:

Cap bonus momentum from crits (Not refunded momentum, soul rage, etc) at +2 per turn. A duelist gets it on one crit, while other classes can still attain it by critting with both weapons.

Still allows Fleur to be good at letting a duelist be a duelist without making duelist overly appealing for Fleur alone, if anyone with two weapons can theoretically attain it, while making it easiest for Duelist to continue using it in the face of enough critical evade to make double crits unlikely.

[Autumn]

Really though, that won't change much at all Ranylyn, it makes the (typically) dual-wielding class to not gain benefits from dual-wielding, whilist everything else would have to dual-wield to get the same momentum, also when you are critically hitting people with fleur, you're not doing much more than sharpening with the extra 2m gained from critically hitting with the second weapon, the most you'll do is Crane hop and double crit(which is a class synergy more than fleur being stupid) critically hitting twice with fleur isn't the problem here, I believe it is just fleur in general.

Another idea of mine that I didnt include was something really really out there, but is ultimately more fair to everyone.

Remove momentum gain from Critical hits completely, change Fleur's effect to a completely new one to balance this out.

[Egil]

" Remove momentum gain from Critical hits completely, change Fleur's effect to a completely new one to balance this out."

A solution like this would gut many DPS builds, and thus make the tank sustain meta even more prominent. I'd rather just see Fluer have a different etfect, such as making one's very first attack with a sword or spear ignore an enemy's armor, instead of a drastic, singular change like the one suggested.

[Rendar]

My main issue with Duelist is that Fleur is way to good. Anything that affects momentum, as a whole, if powerful. Hell, you can make the gap between turn momentum even more astoundingly huge if you use such weapons as a Ryeser, or even a tome to booksmack someone. Don't need to do much more than simply be faster and hit with the tome, but that's beside the point. Here's a, rather simple, interaction of how momentum works between a normal player and someone without fleur.

A FLEUR user who gets knocked down gets a whopping 4 momentum. This can be chained into ONE fleur crit to get 6 M. If they use an offhand weapon, they can do that again to get an (astounding) 8 momentum, despite being KD'd that turn. A normal person who crits will only be able to get the one crit, and then will have to use the 2m on something else, or simply let it be destroyed by turn ending.

Fleur lets a Duelist simply wield one weapon and get the benefits of hitting a crit chance with both main hand and offhand.. just from a 1 sp skill. It isn't even a main class skill.

Hell, if we look at a certain class (Rogue) and their main class skill Dagger dance. It's almost identical to Fleur. However it requires 2 hit checks, 2 crit checks, AND requires you to dual wield daggers to give the +2 momentum at the cost of performing 2 hits for 3M (with one severely lower in damage). This is counterable by simply.. Using Cripple Arm to get rid of their off-hand dagger. Using something that gives yourself retaliation damage.. etc.

Fleur there is no 'counter' to that that's reliable besides "pray to RNG gods that your BK priest with 50 FAI/LUC/BK/Boneheart can not get crit. I'm on board with either reworking FLEUR as a whole, or simply limiting crits to only give +2 momentum at maximum a turn. Which won't actually solve anything, but hey. It's somewhat of a start.

[Autumn]

" Remove momentum gain from Critical hits completely, change Fleur's effect to a completely new one to balance this out."

A solution like this would gut many DPS builds, and thus make the tank sustain meta even more prominent. I'd rather just see Fluer have a different etfect, such as making one's very first attack with a sword or spear ignore an enemy's armor, instead of a drastic, singular change like the one suggested.

Exactly, this is my issue, I don't want to completely gut a class simply because it's main gimmick is too powerful, duelist has always just been there, and there's not much you can do numbers wise to balance Fleur because simply put, it is a very simple but very VERY effective skill, the balance discussion is up more so for gaining an opinion on what makes Duelist so powerful in it's own right and fleur seems to be raised up a lot.

My main issue with Duelist is that Fleur is way to good. Anything that affects momentum, as a whole, if powerful. Hell, you can make the gap between turn momentum even more astoundingly huge if you use such weapons as a Ryeser, or even a tome to booksmack someone. Don't need to do much more than simply be faster and hit with the tome, but that's beside the point. Here's a, rather simple, interaction of how momentum works between a normal player and someone without fleur.

A FLEUR user who gets knocked down gets a whopping 4 momentum. This can be chained into ONE fleur crit to get 6 M. If they use an offhand weapon, they can do that again to get an (astounding) 8 momentum, despite being KD'd that turn. A normal person who crits will only be able to get the one crit, and then will have to use the 2m on something else, or simply let it be destroyed by turn ending.

Fleur lets a Duelist simply wield one weapon and get the benefits of hitting a crit chance with both main hand and offhand.. just from a 1 sp skill. It isn't even a main class skill.

Hell, if we look at a certain class (Rogue) and their main class skill Dagger dance. It's almost identical to Fleur. However it requires 2 hit checks, 2 crit checks, AND requires you to dual wield daggers to give the +2 momentum at the cost of performing 2 hits for 3M (with one severely lower in damage). This is counterable by simply.. Using Cripple Arm to get rid of their off-hand dagger. Using something that gives yourself retaliation damage.. etc.

Fleur there is no 'counter' to that that's reliable besides "pray to RNG gods that your BK priest with 50 FAI/LUC/BK/Boneheart can not get crit. I'm on board with either reworking FLEUR as a whole, or simply limiting crits to only give +2 momentum at maximum a turn. Which won't actually solve anything, but hey. It's somewhat of a start.

I guess we've come to a consensus on the problem about Duelist, and that is Fleur, but how can you balance +1 more momentum per crit? Simply reworking the skill seems to be the best option, I'd be more down for a suggestion that removes the +1m and instead, as Egil suggested, makes you ignore enemy armor on critical hit(and maybe, only maybe on the first time you do critically hit), this would encourage duelists to dual wield even more so I believe, as critically hitting with both weapons lets you take an additional action.

I've gone over this with a few people but main classing duelist is already the go-to, I don't think slapping on 'main class only' to fleur would help the problem presented with it either, I truly believe it needs a bit of a rework since the introduction of being able to gain momentum off of both of your weapon's critical hits.

(Fleur)The first critical hit per round will always ignore enemy armor.

Alternatively I thought up another thing whilst going to the store.

(Fleur)A flowery style adopted by duelists alike, when you land a critical hit you will mark your target, and when you score another critical hit with any duelist skill, you will deal wind damage equal to your wind ATK.

Various ideas just being thrown out there, for anyone who likes them.

[Rendar]

I could see it possibly being able to perform a 2nd hit (at 25% power) if you critically hit, once every turn. Make it not work with Dagger Dance and you've got the ability to still slice someone up, but it's less effective and still gives a decent amount of bonus for providing yourself with a critical hit. Iunno though.

[Autumn]

I suppose that with dagger dance, leaving a mark akin to crystal blade would be sort of OP, if it does occur, it should only occur once per round.

[Exxy]

Considering I don't feel like writing a massive response while getting ready for work:

"Crit-fluers" rely on a mechanic that's heavily abused right now due to being able to stack Faith for Crit Evade and to reap the benefits of Devotion AND Blessed (which is being changed in the next batch of GR, so you can argue this is now a mute point).

That said, I rather us not destroy an entire off-branch of meta without much of an actual need (but that's just me).

Things like Voltiger, Dagger Dance and others could receive some form of rebalance in terms of how they all interact; Fluer should not be a scapegoat.

EDIT: Made a slight edit after looking at Dev's new post in regards to Devotion in the GR Talent Update.