Own
Moderator
Shadowclone is the single most skill-less skill in Story Mode, which is funny because by contrast it's the one that requires the most skill in Arcade Mode.
In Story Mode you can rush right up to any any, scream #YOLO and pummel them down as fast as your finger can mash the button. If you take some damage it's usually fine. This teaches people that shielding is unnecessary and that death has no consequences, so #YOLO away.
In Arcade Mode, every single point of HP is precious. Getting near enemies unless you absolutely know how every one of them will behave isn't advised. #YOLOing an elite mob will likely kill you, or if you #YOLO a boss you're going to limp into the next level at 5% of your max HP and die shortly after. Generally in Arcade Mode you never want to have to attack enemies directly, but Skill/Spell them down for safety reasons.
So it's difficult to nerf or buff it in one mode without destroying it in the other. So, the problems of Shadowclone as I see it:
1. It's always on and it applies itself to every single attack as a constant damage boost. Cloud and Snowman both have this too, but they attack far less often.
2. The EP reduction doesn't matter because you have no reason to care about EP. Shadowclone is your most damage efficient skill for #YOLOing. You could make it take up 100% of the EP bar and people still wouldn't care.
3. Outside of boss battles, #YOLOing enemies is rewarded because you can kill them far faster than they can kill you, and one of them is going to drop a health orb when you dip down too low.
4. You never, ever have to stop. Every other skill you have to wait for your EP to regenerate before charging back in, giving the enemies or boss time to counterattack you, forcing you to defend and try not to take hits.
Based on that, I can think of a few ways to balance it, none I can say for sure are definitively better or worse than the other - assuming anyone thinks Shadowclone needs balancing at all. Maybe someone else can come up with something better?
1. Fatigue. Secret of Mana balanced Magic vs Combat by making it so you couldn't constantly melee attack without wearing yourself down, reducing the damage you dealt to enemies. Magic was powerful, but limited and expensive. Skills were powerful but slow and didn't fatigue you any more than a normal attack did. Maybe with Shadowclone on (or for basic attacks in general), you have a Fatigue meter of 100%. Every hit removes 5%(?) from it, and if you attack beyond that your attacks do 1 or no damage. You have to wait for it to recharge back up to 100% before you can resume #YOLOing.
2. Like 1, but as the 100% Fatigue bar lowers, your attack damage steadily declines. So you would likely lose 1-3% per swing instead of 5%, but your damage would steadily drop while bombarding enemies.
3. The DEF penalty. This idea was brought up a while back, but adding a DEF penalty doesn't fix Shadowclone because there is no damage or death penalty in Storymode. People will just get better gear and /respec into better talents to let them kill an enemy quicker. Reducing defense just turns it into even more of a race: "I bet I can damage them quicker than they can damage me."
4. Making Shadowclone a buff. It only sticks around for # seconds, giving you a window of time to charge in and burst the enemy with, then retreat and charge it back up. This one kind of interests me. It wouldn't be horrible, even if it had a slow charge time.
5. Changing the mechanics of Shadowclone. You charge Shadowclone, it's on and you can't toggle it off. It's locked off 20 of your EP? That stays locked off. Every swing of your sword with Shadowclone on removes 1 of that EP blockage. When the Shadowclone EP block is gone, Shadowclone toggles off. You can reapply / recharge it and get that number of Shadowclone swings back. I kinda like this one too. It slows people down, and slowing them down / forcing them to find a safe spot to recharge Shadowclone gives enemies a chance to counterattack.
6. Like 5, but Shadowclone doesn't block off set amounts of EP. You can charge it up as long as you like to gradually block off more and more EP. You want to run with Shadowclone for as long as possible? Build yourself up with +EP items and charge Shadowclone until you have a 0/150 EP bar, giving yourself 150 swings of it. I'm... not 100% sure about this one, since you can probably kill any boss in even 100 swings? It would slow down grinding, but if you're grinding in an area it means it's not a challenge to you to begin with. You can grind Pillar Mountains to a point where even Pumpkin Woods won't bother you.
I do think it's just about perfect in Arcade Mode, so any change would make me sad. But Shadowclone is the MVP of Story Mode. Maybe there would be a way to nerf it in Story without Arcade Mode, like Snowbuddy has an Arcade-specific nerf.
So, how about you guys? How do you think SC could be better balanced?
In Story Mode you can rush right up to any any, scream #YOLO and pummel them down as fast as your finger can mash the button. If you take some damage it's usually fine. This teaches people that shielding is unnecessary and that death has no consequences, so #YOLO away.
In Arcade Mode, every single point of HP is precious. Getting near enemies unless you absolutely know how every one of them will behave isn't advised. #YOLOing an elite mob will likely kill you, or if you #YOLO a boss you're going to limp into the next level at 5% of your max HP and die shortly after. Generally in Arcade Mode you never want to have to attack enemies directly, but Skill/Spell them down for safety reasons.
So it's difficult to nerf or buff it in one mode without destroying it in the other. So, the problems of Shadowclone as I see it:
1. It's always on and it applies itself to every single attack as a constant damage boost. Cloud and Snowman both have this too, but they attack far less often.
2. The EP reduction doesn't matter because you have no reason to care about EP. Shadowclone is your most damage efficient skill for #YOLOing. You could make it take up 100% of the EP bar and people still wouldn't care.
3. Outside of boss battles, #YOLOing enemies is rewarded because you can kill them far faster than they can kill you, and one of them is going to drop a health orb when you dip down too low.
4. You never, ever have to stop. Every other skill you have to wait for your EP to regenerate before charging back in, giving the enemies or boss time to counterattack you, forcing you to defend and try not to take hits.
Based on that, I can think of a few ways to balance it, none I can say for sure are definitively better or worse than the other - assuming anyone thinks Shadowclone needs balancing at all. Maybe someone else can come up with something better?
1. Fatigue. Secret of Mana balanced Magic vs Combat by making it so you couldn't constantly melee attack without wearing yourself down, reducing the damage you dealt to enemies. Magic was powerful, but limited and expensive. Skills were powerful but slow and didn't fatigue you any more than a normal attack did. Maybe with Shadowclone on (or for basic attacks in general), you have a Fatigue meter of 100%. Every hit removes 5%(?) from it, and if you attack beyond that your attacks do 1 or no damage. You have to wait for it to recharge back up to 100% before you can resume #YOLOing.
2. Like 1, but as the 100% Fatigue bar lowers, your attack damage steadily declines. So you would likely lose 1-3% per swing instead of 5%, but your damage would steadily drop while bombarding enemies.
3. The DEF penalty. This idea was brought up a while back, but adding a DEF penalty doesn't fix Shadowclone because there is no damage or death penalty in Storymode. People will just get better gear and /respec into better talents to let them kill an enemy quicker. Reducing defense just turns it into even more of a race: "I bet I can damage them quicker than they can damage me."
4. Making Shadowclone a buff. It only sticks around for # seconds, giving you a window of time to charge in and burst the enemy with, then retreat and charge it back up. This one kind of interests me. It wouldn't be horrible, even if it had a slow charge time.
5. Changing the mechanics of Shadowclone. You charge Shadowclone, it's on and you can't toggle it off. It's locked off 20 of your EP? That stays locked off. Every swing of your sword with Shadowclone on removes 1 of that EP blockage. When the Shadowclone EP block is gone, Shadowclone toggles off. You can reapply / recharge it and get that number of Shadowclone swings back. I kinda like this one too. It slows people down, and slowing them down / forcing them to find a safe spot to recharge Shadowclone gives enemies a chance to counterattack.
6. Like 5, but Shadowclone doesn't block off set amounts of EP. You can charge it up as long as you like to gradually block off more and more EP. You want to run with Shadowclone for as long as possible? Build yourself up with +EP items and charge Shadowclone until you have a 0/150 EP bar, giving yourself 150 swings of it. I'm... not 100% sure about this one, since you can probably kill any boss in even 100 swings? It would slow down grinding, but if you're grinding in an area it means it's not a challenge to you to begin with. You can grind Pillar Mountains to a point where even Pumpkin Woods won't bother you.
I do think it's just about perfect in Arcade Mode, so any change would make me sad. But Shadowclone is the MVP of Story Mode. Maybe there would be a way to nerf it in Story without Arcade Mode, like Snowbuddy has an Arcade-specific nerf.
So, how about you guys? How do you think SC could be better balanced?