[Snake]

Sonic Shell really needs Silence back on it, even if it's through a status infliction chance and 2 rounds duration. Mages have been running rampart, magic has absurd scaling on the spells and finally why did that get changed when no one complained about it?

My small plead's to change the High Charge of Sonic Shell to be Silence instead of Knockdown. Then move KD to somewhere else in the kit, I don't know. But we gunners need an edge here, man. Not only we'll have to basic hit people with the stinkiest weapon in this videogame for basic hitting or even critting, but also there are a lot of ways to shut down gunners. Mages love to do that too by spamming blinds, or just completely overpowering you, DPS wise.

This is just how absurd magic and magic damage is nowadays.

[SolAndLuna]

Small problem with this - moving the knockdown to any tier is a quick way to make it even easier for Magic Gunners to knock people to the ground every other turn. If Silence was added as a High Charge effect, I say the knockdown would have to be removed entirely.

I will note, though - people did complain about silence. I couldn't tell you how many, but they absolutely did.

Sonic Shell was pretty oppressive against anyone that tried to do a purely magic reliant build, and even some of the less magic reliant builds would regularly have a manageable situation become an impossible one because someone had an on-demand 3 momentum Silence move that can't fail outside of a mage somehow successfully dodging a person that has 300+ hit, potentially multiple times in a row. Even if it's a wind mage with Blind, most mages will have a hard time doing that, especially if the Magic Gunner uses Overcharge. Easy ways to disable all spells is why things like Silent Prayer and Whispering Cant were even created, and while those are there, that doesn't account for other magic classes like Tactician or Ranger. You can use a Screaming Tome or a Heron Feather, but the Heron Feather requires an accessory slot and didn't even remotely stop some forms of silence, while the Screaming Tome either requires you to use two weapons at once or instead switch to the Screaming Tome, activate Screamer and then switch back. A full turn and/or some HP, just to be able to do something again.

Freely accessible silence isn't really a good thing to have, as things go, unless silence itself is changed or they were made difficult to use. Perhaps disabling some number of random spells would work better for this in particular?

[FatherCrixius]

Silence as a whole kinda dead rn ngl

[Senna]

Senna term: I called this a while back and I knew this was going to happen. Removing almost all viable silence options instead of toning down some of them as well as adding new items/support onto super bursty magic classes. You'll find yourself playing the game on a timer. Who burst who down firstly or who can max resist on who first. It's hard because people can merely build a tank/will, get that trait that lets you use your star sign element to convert your will into the given element attack and get away with just standing still, buff themselves up, and hit with overpowered spells off the rip. Whereas no one can really do much about it. Get too close? You'll be in range. Run away? You'll still be in their range. You have silence options? And you're not a hexer? You have to do a great effort to slow them down but that won't stop them.

That's not even mentioning all the bonuses mage has been getting; from hitting someone to reduce elemental resistance by -10%, to a new element to custom tomes with powerful spells, to reducing magic defense. This list goes on.

Simpler terms: I knew mage would have gotten out of hand prior as I've predicted it. As mentioned, the nerf towards silence was a bit too much. Mages currently have far too many tools at their disposal, which is increasing over time. With the lack of viable silence options, they're able to get by unpunished while possessing some of the highest burst damage in the game. Due to this, they’re currently difficult to handle.

[Snake]

I've said move knockdown to something else like Flame Shell or whatever on High Charge, or a specific knockdown skill for guns that require an aimed shot, or the enemy to be afflicted with Cripple Leg/Arm. Get it?

A bit of creativity is the way to go here.

But I believe that silence is -really- needed back in Magic Gunner. Don't forget the one million and one counters to it we naturally have, beyond the fact of the appeal for 'making it a status infliction' to its return.

[K Peculier]

I really liked the role that single-shot magic gunners played before in shutting down mages if they didn't have an answer to avoiding the basic attack shot. Silence has more or less been severely taken down a bunch of notches for every other application but I think it can be given back to sonic shell again due to how much damage a magic user can blast out in a short time with its main counter rival quite literally taken out the equation.

The knockdown effect for sonic shell could likely be moved to another bullet overcharge effect less used like magnet/bright shell to promote magic gunners the option of having to be flexible in what status effect to apply.

[Senna]

I'd say move it the knockdown effect to Magnet shells honestly. That fits a bit more.

[Snake]

Yeah, agreed with the two posts above.

Magnet Shell's high charge effect is a tad underwhelming anyway, and outdone by Vamp Shell.

This is the kind of compromise I was after, too! The fact that tank mages are just so overbearing to face right now due to the lack of silence. And also it's not like dodge mages cannot grab Spellthief and be virtually untouchable due to the immense amount of Evade buffs that class can grant at once, yeah?

Every little bit helps. Dev pls!

[Moku203]

I know it's been said a few times above, but I'm going to go ahead and agree that KD would fit way better on Magnet than on Sonic, as in it creates a gravity well that yanks someone to the ground, rather than a burst of sound that pushs them all down as it currently is.

[Autumn]

Separating Sonic Shell's Knockdown and re-gifting it silence is not at all a bad idea given that the most oppressive factor of Sonic Shell is simply how overloaded it is having both, on top of this it has a lvl 48/54 hesitation with a single shot gun at max rank/spirited max rank. I would like to see Sonic Shell's knockdown moved in favor of giving it back it's silence, perhaps tie the silence to a status check to make sure Magic Gunners are up to snuff on their infliction check rate and not just cheese-lording someone.