[FatherCrixius]

I am of the opinion Fuck bonder.
In my opinion, Bonder wins fights on the grounds that it's a better version of whatever it is it's fighting. 

Youkai Balance
     >Ascended
     >DW
Shared Pain Cheese
     >Corner Seiryuu
     >10 Movement Kiting
     >DW
Shared Joy Cheese
     >BON GH
Statballing
     >Fight as one
     >Synchro Summon
     >Daisengan Cheese
Reswalling
    >DW SP
    >Two Souls Beyond
Conduct Skill Cheese
    >Spirits
Damage AMP
    >Hell Above
Kiting
    >Pinball Strike
    >Shift Dimension
    >Global Damage
    >Sangum Ruinam
    >Momentum Economy

Looking at ascended youkai as being distinct from the best youkai using class in the game feels objectively wrong. These things have one weakness, two of them at least, have no prospects of hitting anyone with evade, otherwise they're a statblock with HP and numbers comparable to players at a BASE level. A daisengen seiryuu has what, Eight to stats, furthered to fourteen if benefiting from synchro summon. In addition to 60 Damage to all people on the field / turn that ignores elemental resistance and m.armour. It also has a Six tile pull for 3m that does fuck off damage and applies LV30 Hunted. This is a seiryuu with no Non-Bonder stat bonuses.


And this is the unspirited damage said seiryuu dishes out / round.


It is completely 0 Commitment from me, and is solely countered by evade. With a spirit, this youkai will put out 242 x 2 + 387 Raw Conducts for 5 FP + Youkai maintenance. This is numbers creep. Parted Pain is virtually free. These stat boosts are entirely passive, and grant me a 400 Damage 3m 5FP skill in exchange for one spirit.

Suzaku is not as numerically fucked, but still unbalanced as shit. It benefits from all but daisengen, and ignores evasion with a +60 base hit and a free revive.

Byakko is more global damage with minimal upkeep, kept in place by it's Low fp pool, with a huge +14 Str buff for conduct cheese on it's roar. It lacks the overwhelming versatility of seiryuu though.

DW
Another fucky youkai here. DW bonded with shared pain is, while counterable, utmost cheese. Offering 75% DR to slash / pierce / blunt through shared pain, and a free resistance proc. Summoning removes your excorcism weakness too, provided you aren't running spirits, as does killing it, allowing you to straight up negate it's main weakness by toggling SP vs Excorcising non S/P/B weapon types. It's also a free silence with semi-reasonable inflict in a pinch.

Shared Pain Cheese
Corner Seiryuu from time immemorial offers it's 60 static damage with 5 movement / 3m kiting ability. There isn't much to say other than this is why everyone hates Shared Pain.

Statballing
Bonder has potentially the most statbuffs in the game, greater than even priest. Fight as one offers 20 Hit / Crit / Evade / C.E, Symbol of faith is +3 Wil + 3Fai, Synchro summon is +6 to all on ANY Summon, not limited to bonded youkai, allowing for a corny player to install Seiryuu + Summon an ascended but unbonded Suzaku / Byakko to benefit from all of the above buffs, installs passive +1 to all, and daisengan. Seiryuu then offers a casual 5 Defense and ten critical evade.

Shared Joy Cheese 
Shared Joy on a youkai such as Seiryuu is completely fucked. A high max HP player with Malmelo / PR High can heal a youkai for 500+, such as on a bon gho - My personal example. Priests detailed care is also a fucked interaction; Youkai benefit too much from players healing themselves, in a way that makes even GS priest blushed.

Reswalling
Resistance Walling is one of the most cancerous shit that Bonder has. Resistance walling mitigates damage dealt to you through shared pain, as does armour stacking, and cucks momentum if either of you are hit. Immunity through the Daisengan dragons installed is another option, but requires valuable youkai slots. Having 40% Fire resistance and watching your 'Weak to magic Seiryuu' get hit by a sear for 550 damage, mitigated to 165 through shared pain-- Of which you take 90 because of ele resistance and magic armour is more than a little bit scuffed, and mitigates a lot of weaknesses shared pain holds.

Damage Amp
Bonder overly benefits from damage amplification and high single hit damage -- Parted pain amplifying youkai damage and Hell above offering a free 10% akashic ontop of that. A class that exists with a free momentum economy + FREE Damage from Summoning does not NEED percentile bonuses. I understand it was done to create a sense of synergy within, but this is math. It does not alter ones playstyle, just amplifies the mechanical.

Kiting
On top of youkai having 5 movement to double-move away from you, Pinball strike + Shift dimension + Conducts allow youkai to fucking book it, and summoners to mitigate a shit tonne of potential damage. This is only exaggerated by the youkai global / dot damage and shared pain, though I do believe it ought to be nerfed when option like Phase python should have a niche.

In summary, Bonder feels to be the sum total of three or four classes. Four classes worth of statboosts, with minimum commitment, with two kiting / Mobility skills on Pinball and Shift dimension,  Free damage with Free DR, and Up to three youkais passives. 

As to not throw a list of problems with no solutions 

• Shared Pain's damage type should be Akashic, armour ignoring.
  
• In addition to a range-based Shared pain DR nerf.
  
• Individual Youkai nerfs-- Seiryuu's pull effect / range and global damage to only take place if Seiryuu has used Hunters wind the previous turn.
  
• Diminished Stat boosts -- Fight as one can stay-- As for it's full effect one must be close to their youkai, But synchro Summon / Daisengan / Youkai stat boosts across the board ought to be nerfed.
  
• Synchro Summon should be applied to Bonded Summons only.
  
• Remove the damage amplification on Parted Pain.
  
• Reduce Pinball Strikes Max KB by 2, increased to five on a crit.
  

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated, as I stopped wanting to write this about halfway through.

[Autumn]

I generally agree that Bonder has a lot of power creep in its kit at its disposal, it is arguably one of the best classes in the game, aside the top dogs like Black Knight, Rune Mage, Verglas, it sits right up there vying for the best class in the game. I'll go over my own gripes in a more concise fashion after I address some that I agree with here.

DW

Another fucky youkai here. DW bonded with shared pain is, while counterable, utmost cheese. Offering 75% DR to slash / pierce / blunt through shared pain, and a free resistance proc. Summoning removes your excorcism weakness too, provided you aren't running spirits, as does killing it, allowing you to straight up negate it's main weakness by toggling SP vs Excorcising non S/P/B weapon types. It's also a free silence with semi-reasonable inflict in a pinch.

Shared pain with Drowned Woman is probably the most abusive this class can ever get, the resistance proc whenever you trigger shared pain on Drowned woman through the summoner is then transfered to the original owner, this makes it so that you don't have to deal with Drowned Woman's holy weakness while also receiving the benefit of having a resistance proc itself, my gripes on Shared Pain are brought up in another thread, but I agree very much so that Shared Pain's shared damage being Akashic fixes both this AND the aforementioned immunity issue with Chun/Hatsu and such.

Reswalling

Resistance Walling is one of the most cancerous shit that Bonder has. Resistance walling mitigates damage dealt to you through shared pain, as does armour stacking, and cucks momentum if either of you are hit. Immunity through the Daisengan dragons installed is another option, but requires valuable youkai slots. Having 40% Fire resistance and watching your 'Weak to magic Seiryuu' get hit by a sear for 550 damage, mitigated to 165 through shared pain-- Of which you take 90 because of ele resistance and magic armour is more than a little bit scuffed, and mitigates a lot of weaknesses shared pain holds.

The DR this class can obtain is actually the highest in the game, it outpaces Black Knight even with Bulwark with 1 ability, that summons effectively a wraithguard that can run around damaging people or kiting enemies. a flat 50% you now have to deal with, with not much for counterplay other than AoE, which makes it like you're dealing your normal damage instead? Very unengaging to play against. Meanwhile Black Knight follows it up with a 20% (under certain conditions) and a 15% DR from the front, sacrificing a hand slot to do so, making it roughly a 32% DR, just barely surpassing Wraithguard (which has its own counterplays)

Kiting

On top of youkai having 5 movement to double-move away from you, Pinball strike + Shift dimension + Conducts allow youkai to fucking book it, and summoners to mitigate a shit tonne of potential damage. This is only exaggerated by the youkai global / dot damage and shared pain, though I do believe it ought to be nerfed when option like Phase python should have a niche.

Bonder is extremely mobile, this is actually typically uncharacteristic for Summoner in general, I think that Pinball Strike might need a very slight range nerf, Pinball also is one of the easiest allowances of directional combat, while a sidecut or hanging have to sometimes deal with parries and most likely deal with ripostes, Pinball Strike allows you to simply move behind someone before you attack, the amount of control this ability has is far too much.

The control that pinball governs needs to be addressed somehow, its range is pretty far, and it allows the bonder a huge opportunity every turn, the cooldown on this ability needs to be increased so that it cannot be used as a get out of duelist or BK scenario free card every single turn. a 3 round cooldown sounds more than fair to me, also the Knockback should be reduced down quite a bit.

---

My own thoughts:

Bonder currently has the ascended youkai working for it to an egregious degree, this is mostly because Bonder enhances a singular youkai's potential by an absolute boatload, this further desensitizes the community's opinion towards ascended youkai as the likes of Ascended Seiryuu and Suzaku have devastating potential when parted pain is applied, halving their 27 per round maintenance costs.

This is a huge sway towards the power of these youkai, as now they have a damage amplification, reduced FP costs and benefit greatly from statwalling their opponents by just having upwards to +18 in all their stats, its absolutely just absurd the level of power these youkai can obtain on their own.

Additionally, bonder currently has such a strong basic attacking toolkit that it frequently draws the ire of physical builds, due to the overwhelming nature of the class just simply stat checking you through FAO, DR and Synchro Summon.

---

Addendum:

Its not wrong to express any distaste in the class itself, its not the most balanced class out there, I personally think it has bigger strengths that can be addressed more than the others, as I think that shared pain's effectiveness is way way too strong for any class to reasonably have in the current landscape in the game.

[Kazzy]

He's not wrong. Bonder is oppressive and I've been saying since I read it in detail that it feels like you could break it apart and give its parts to almost every other non-mage in the game and enhance them for it.

[Poruku]

I think ascended youkai are very oppressive, especially seiryuu. Global damage in general is kinda nuts. Pretty much every summoner uses seiryuu because it's so busted. Punishing winds is way too good, and hunter wind is way too good. Seiryuu is often used as a tactical tool to reposition people for combos. But he's also the strongest youkai. So it's not even a strategic choice for the pull usually, you just slap on seiryuu and benefit from 3 different things.

[adamkad1]

Yeah, its nutty how evade is so good against youkai (Like hell you are hitting any evokes that are not the autohit ones) but bonder just kinda laughs at that

[FatherCrixius]

Is this really a thread in all caps that calls every single skill a class has 'better than every other class'?

yes

[Reikou]

I'm nowhere near active enough to be able to provide proper feedback, but here's my 2 cents:

I've always considered DW a bit problematic and believe she should probably just have her passive changed to something else. Shes basically a screw you to both melee ( dmg resists ) and magic ( silence) for the cost of a single youkai slot.

If it's not like this already daisangen and similar passives shouldn't take effect if the required youkai are in inactive/sealed contracts.


Quick Edit: Maybe punishing winds should deal reduced damage based on the distance between the youkai and the target? Maybe even gut the whole pull mechanic if that's not enough, since his evoke is already pretty good as is in my opinion.

[Shujin]

Honestly a lot of the problems are already "Fixed" or rather bandaided if Seiryuus punishing winds were simply going through M.armor/Resistances+ A resists screwing his momentum.

I forgot what the other acsended youkai do, but this was something I thought already back then when Seiryuu acsension was first released. Being a Global damage thing should be good enough on its on, Seiryuu is still strong enough on his own.

[FatherCrixius]

Honestly a lot of the problems are already "Fixed" or rather bandaided if Seiryuus punishing winds were simply going through M.armor/Resistances+ A resists screwing his momentum.

I forgot what the other acsended youkai do, but this was something I thought already back then when Seiryuu acsension was first released. Being a Global damage thing should be good enough on its on, Seiryuu is still strong enough on his own.

That would make it weaker, but it still would not be out of Hitler tier.

Seiryuu's punishing wind's armour ignoring goes through what, 10~ M.Arm and loses 10 damage per round per person. That's not nothing, as in a 4 man team fight it'll go from 240 to 200 raw. It is still however, a seiryuu, with stats comparable to a player. It still has a 30% damage amp on it's main ability, a 5 tile pull with 6 range, 650 HP and unscaled stats. Stack on shared pain, and this thing has insane EHP ontop of player-relative damage. That's just the fucking youkai mind you, bonder itself can be oppressive using the weak youkai. Seiryuu is not the point of this thread however, it is the main abuser. I do not think a nerf as slight as this will limit bonder in any way, as bonder was still unreasonably strong before the ascended youkai came out, if unpopular.

I'm nowhere near active enough to be able to provide proper feedback, but here's my 2 cents:

I've always considered DW a bit problematic and believe she should probably just have her passive changed to something else. Shes basically a screw you to both melee ( dmg resists ) and magic ( silence) for the cost of a single youkai slot.

If it's not like this already daisangen and similar passives shouldn't take effect if the required youkai are in inactive/sealed contracts.


Quick Edit: Maybe punishing winds should deal reduced damage based on the distance between the youkai and the target? Maybe even gut the whole pull mechanic if that's not enough, since his evoke is already pretty good as is in my opinion.

Reikou

I've heard this opinion a lot. Drowned woman specifically has had the time old counterplay of light arrows adversity annihilator, but it's definitely a gimmicky win hard or get excorcised youkai. The largest issue I have with it is that when DW dies, you are no longer excorcism weak provided you aren't packing spirits or playing that one godawful race, allowing players to toggle off shared pain and lose the associated weakness for free. I will say in [CURRENT META] Dw is more effective to kite and deny momentum economy than to straight up tank due to the abundance of elemental damage on otherwise B/S/P classes, but again -> Shared pain kiting not very balanced.

I think ascended youkai are very oppressive, especially seiryuu. Global damage in general is kinda nuts. Pretty much every summoner uses seiryuu because it's so busted. Punishing winds is way too good, and hunter wind is way too good. Seiryuu is often used as a tactical tool to reposition people for combos. But he's also the strongest youkai. So it's not even a strategic choice for the pull usually, you just slap on seiryuu and benefit from 3 different things.

Poruku

1000%. Summoners already exist in this purgatory of 'I out-momentum you with non-stat scaling damage', Bonders just enable youkai a lot more at the expense of a smaller repertoire, and the point of this thread is to point out just how fucking well bonder is at enabling youkai. 

Seiryuu's pull is undeniably one of the gayest tools the class has, in conjunction with shift dimension and pinball strike, you can very easily hit someone with a 5 tile pull into two hunter winds, one Conduct for a casual 400+ Raw on a 0 investment setup, into a 7 - 8 tile pinball strike that now positions the enemy on the opposite side of the map from your Seiryuu. Why does bonder specifically deserve a nerf in this context? It shits out math on an already conceptually busted system.

For 3 Momentum and pittance FP per turn, you have effectively added another player / reposition tool / 50% DR / 20 Hit Crit CE Evade / +6 To all stats / 10% Damage Amp / Resistance Buff and or Wall / 400+ Damage Conduct Bot / Global Damage -- Even before you choose what youkai you want to pick. Seiryuu is so over represented because of it's innate damage amp, Pull, and High general stats through daisengan (Whereas youkai like A.Byakko and A.Suzaku are perceived as more gimmicky due to Byakko's low FP pool and squishiness or Suzaku's INCREDIBLY low FP pool and weak conducts) -- Combined with single youkai bonus being so overtuned in the forms of free summoner stats and hit buffs. These youkai then do a further 15% should you opt for parted pain-- and you should, as 50% FP efficiency will keep them out for double the time. 

That's not to say the other youkai are useless and that bonder is being carried by Seiryuu. Seir is strong, but it's flat out wrong to suggest so. You can make a bonder using any three youkai you want, you will still momentum economy people. You will still damage race with Izabes and Asrais, you will still tank with shared pain using the squishiest little motherfucker you can find. Seiryuu being so strong only makes it easy.

I'm going to be 100% honest here, there isn't going to be an easy or sleek fix to make bonder not obscenely strong in any context. All we can hope for is to not make it the meta, because picking any shit-tier class into the strongest thing around reads like a prison-story. 

I generally agree that Bonder has a lot of power creep in its kit at its disposal, it is arguably one of the best classes in the game, aside the top dogs like Black Knight, Rune Mage, Verglas, it sits right up there vying for the best class in the game. I'll go over my own gripes in a more concise fashion after I address some that I agree with here.

DW

Another fucky youkai here. DW bonded with shared pain is, while counterable, utmost cheese. Offering 75% DR to slash / pierce / blunt through shared pain, and a free resistance proc. Summoning removes your excorcism weakness too, provided you aren't running spirits, as does killing it, allowing you to straight up negate it's main weakness by toggling SP vs Excorcising non S/P/B weapon types. It's also a free silence with semi-reasonable inflict in a pinch.

Shared pain with Drowned Woman is probably the most abusive this class can ever get, the resistance proc whenever you trigger shared pain on Drowned woman through the summoner is then transfered to the original owner, this makes it so that you don't have to deal with Drowned Woman's holy weakness while also receiving the benefit of having a resistance proc itself, my gripes on Shared Pain are brought up in another thread, but I agree very much so that Shared Pain's shared damage being Akashic fixes both this AND the aforementioned immunity issue with Chun/Hatsu and such.

Reswalling

Resistance Walling is one of the most cancerous shit that Bonder has. Resistance walling mitigates damage dealt to you through shared pain, as does armour stacking, and cucks momentum if either of you are hit. Immunity through the Daisengan dragons installed is another option, but requires valuable youkai slots. Having 40% Fire resistance and watching your 'Weak to magic Seiryuu' get hit by a sear for 550 damage, mitigated to 165 through shared pain-- Of which you take 90 because of ele resistance and magic armour is more than a little bit scuffed, and mitigates a lot of weaknesses shared pain holds.

The DR this class can obtain is actually the highest in the game, it outpaces Black Knight even with Bulwark with 1 ability, that summons effectively a wraithguard that can run around damaging people or kiting enemies. a flat 50% you now have to deal with, with not much for counterplay other than AoE, which makes it like you're dealing your normal damage instead? Very unengaging to play against. Meanwhile Black Knight follows it up with a 20% (under certain conditions) and a 15% DR from the front, sacrificing a hand slot to do so, making it roughly a 32% DR, just barely surpassing Wraithguard (which has its own counterplays)

Kiting

On top of youkai having 5 movement to double-move away from you, Pinball strike + Shift dimension + Conducts allow youkai to fucking book it, and summoners to mitigate a shit tonne of potential damage. This is only exaggerated by the youkai global / dot damage and shared pain, though I do believe it ought to be nerfed when option like Phase python should have a niche.

Bonder is extremely mobile, this is actually typically uncharacteristic for Summoner in general, I think that Pinball Strike might need a very slight range nerf, Pinball also is one of the easiest allowances of directional combat, while a sidecut or hanging have to sometimes deal with parries and most likely deal with ripostes, Pinball Strike allows you to simply move behind someone before you attack, the amount of control this ability has is far too much.

The control that pinball governs needs to be addressed somehow, its range is pretty far, and it allows the bonder a huge opportunity every turn, the cooldown on this ability needs to be increased so that it cannot be used as a get out of duelist or BK scenario free card every single turn. a 3 round cooldown sounds more than fair to me, also the Knockback should be reduced down quite a bit.

---

My own thoughts:

Bonder currently has the ascended youkai working for it to an egregious degree, this is mostly because Bonder enhances a singular youkai's potential by an absolute boatload, this further desensitizes the community's opinion towards ascended youkai as the likes of Ascended Seiryuu and Suzaku have devastating potential when parted pain is applied, halving their 27 per round maintenance costs.

This is a huge sway towards the power of these youkai, as now they have a damage amplification, reduced FP costs and benefit greatly from statwalling their opponents by just having upwards to +18 in all their stats, its absolutely just absurd the level of power these youkai can obtain on their own.

Additionally, bonder currently has such a strong basic attacking toolkit that it frequently draws the ire of physical builds, due to the overwhelming nature of the class just simply stat checking you through FAO, DR and Synchro Summon.

---

Addendum:

Its not wrong to express any distaste in the class itself, its not the most balanced class out there, I personally think it has bigger strengths that can be addressed more than the others, as I think that shared pain's effectiveness is way way too strong for any class to reasonably have in the current landscape in the game.

Autumn

I agree with the majority of the sentiments here, and you've worded it significantly better than me flinging shit at the walls and asserting 'it's just x but better' but I think the absolute worst aspect of the class is how it draws from everything, ignoring the weaknesses attributed to summoners (FP Costs, Mobility, etcetera) But makes no sacrifices to it's utility, damage output, or any other characteristic strength that summoner is supposed to uphold. This is an RP Game mary sue class, and while it has some forms of counterplay it's ability to sit others down and stat check them into the pavement is not fun to fight, acknowledge, or work around-- And unfortunately it is current meta. I don't think it's realistic to bring everything else up to bonders standard, or even base summoners standard for that matter, so bonder needs to lose something. I'm going to be honest, in the time I've played since making this thread, I do not know what they need. Nerfs on everything feels like a start.

[sadbot]

Finally somebody says it, and breaks it down too. Hard agree.

I think bonder as a class is strong, but nothing too wild for the most part. I think most of the blame lies with youkai in conjunction with bonder, and the frankly ridiculous benefits you can gain from just having a seiryuu sitting on the field or installing many of them for 3m. Pretty much every point has already been mentioned previously, so all I'll say is that I totally agree with the points made in the original post and the spitballed ideas for fixing things as well.