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Advancement Tests Need A Renewal
To take a break from constant life skill training, I decided I'd take any of my plethora of R1 skills and go Dan them, because why not? I started with Magic, because I genuinely love magic as a class, even if Lightning Rod seems to be the only good skill to use from it. It wasn't long before I realized how absurdly stupid these advancement tests are. My grievances are as follows:
-Crystals. Why are there crystals which take almost ten full seconds to destroy rather than switches like those found in dungeons? Or why don't they just have 1 hp? If they're going to continue to be as strong as they are, they need to award points for hitting them.
-Points themselves. Combat based skills need to be judged off of cumulative damage done, not 'points'. It took me a few runs before I realized it's wiser to fireball a singular enemy away from the bulk of mobs, rather than trying to kill them all at once. This doesn't even make sense. Who designed this and said "yeah, this is smart. I'm smart"?
-Boss. The boss for magic combat skills is a magic resistant golem. W h y? Why not a beefy version of a sprite, like from the wave previous (which is also a grievance - there shouldn't be multi-aggro mobs in a test for skills that take annoyingly long to charge)?
-Can't use my own gear. I still haven't been able to pass the firebolt test, yet I know if I could take in my chaincast wand it'd be done in a literal second, so why can't I? Why do I have to use the garbage provided equipment rather than my own? It doesn't make any sense.
Suggested solutions:
-1 HP crystals or a regular switch. Seriously.
-Cumulative damage is the grade qualifier, not arbitrary points that make no sense.
-A boss that doesn't completely shrug off your fireballs with it's mana deflector and immediately come pimp hand you until the test is over, because good luck charging full fireball or waiting for snapcast to recharge.
- Let me use my own gear.
Comments
The reason you aren't allowed to use your own gear and stats is because that essentially turns the test into a simple stat check or gear check. If I had the same gear, and the test only tracked damage done, some tests would be practically impossible if you only had the skills in that talent finished. Say you were doing the combat dan skills and only had the combat tab finished. You technically deserve the dan ranks if you know the ins and outs of each skill and have them all r1, but because you don't have the strength bonuses from ninja, puppet, hidden skills, carpentry, etc., suddenly you're not worthy of the dan ranks because your damage is low? It's a Combat skill dan test, not a Str test.
By administering the test in this RP-style, the test becomes just that - a test. How well do you truly know the nuances of the skill? How well do you know the enemies the test is pitting against you?
It seems like right now you're having trouble with the fireball test. As you know, destroying the crystals refreshes all cooldowns. If you've also noticed, the crystals themselves offer no points. That simply means that using fireball to destroy the crystals is a waste of time. Use a stronger, more efficient single target magic skill, like Fire/Ice bolt fusion, or even Thunder. If you're a smart cookie, you'll use thunder to destroy the crystal, and during the time you're waiting for the thunder to fall from the sky, you snap cast a fireball so snapcast is refreshed as soon as you use it, and you have a fireball ready for the wave's start.
Killing the Golem boss also refreshes cooldowns. Fireball is one of the harder magic skills to gain points with on this guy, but its by no means impossible. The idea is to full charge a fireball, launch it, snap a fireball, launch it before the first one hits, and pray that the golem dies. If it doesn't die right away, just kill it in a way that harkens back to the old days of G1 ciar dungeon - Firebolt Counter. Each time the boss dies and your cooldown refreshes, spellwalk away from the new golem while charging fireball, then snap another and repeat. You don't have to kill the golem with fireball. If you notice, each hit you get on the golem with fireball gives you 100 points. Just keep the fireballs rolling and its easy as pie.
Fair enough.
This is an RP mission - I could only have Fireball as my only skill, but my stats in the mission would still be excellent, and more than enough to deal great damage. The stats from talents are irrelevant inside.
The crystal's refreshing of skills isn't relevant, it's the time needed to destroy the crystal. Every second is valuable within an Advancement Test. If I'm going to be forced to spend ten to destroy it, I deserve to be award points for it. Otherwise, the crystal's hp should only be 1, so I can simply firebolt it once and start the next wave.
The full charge proceeded by snap cast isn't a bad solution, but the golem often immediately targets the player, and comes in to give a good whap, and ruin charging. At this point, getting fireballs off becomes much more challenging, regardless of running around with spell walk or not, as countering it with firebolt will more often than not just make it run in and hit you again. At least at that point, it'll use defense or windmill, and give time for a charge. All the same, it's a bad choice of a boss for a magic test.
That said, I think most of the issues you pointed out aren't really that big of a deal. I agree that the Golem was a terrible idea for a "bonus" monster, but the crystals really aren't that problematic. Firebolt+Icebolt fusion kills them in 1~2 hits most of the time, or you could just do 1 fusion bolt and then smash the crystal afterward. Using the double Snap Cast method that Nomnomnoms mentioned also helps greatly for the majority of the Magic Dan tests.
I don't remember the specifics of the Fireball Dan test, but if I'm recalling correctly, it actually is far more beneficial to attack multiple enemies at once, as you do get a point bonus at the end of the test that scales based on the total amount of damage you've done. As far as the Golem goes, if you don't want to try spamming Fireball on it and running with Spellwalk, you could always hit it with Snap Cast Fireball, then spam Fusion Bolt (Fire+Ice for decent damage and knocking the Golem back repeatedly) to kill the Golem to reset Snap Cast's cooldown instantly. I had to do the same thing for Lightning Rod's test, though I was obviously waiting on its cooldown rather than Snap Cast's.
As far as your suggestions go, I'm in strong disagreement. Judging test applicants by their damage output would be gatekeeping new to mid-level players to the content. I'm not saying the point system we have is perfect, because it definitely isn't, especially when you take the more "difficult" tests into consideration (Magnum Shot and Charge come to mind), but I would much rather have this point system than a system entirely dependent on your damage output.
Secondly, the crystals' whole purpose is to give you an idea of which element the enemies you're spawning have. If the crystals get killed before they even have a chance to charge their spell, many people would be struggling with the test until someone informed them to wait and watch what bolt they cast- Which is something that already happened when the Advancement Test renewal was implemented. That said, I do think that appropriately colored orbs or making the crystals reward points would be fine- Especially given that the crystals can attack you if you get too close to them after attacking them. They're an enemy just like everything else, so it's strange that they don't reward you with anything other than the cooldown reset.
I've lost count of how many times I'm attempted Defense Dan 3... still don't have it. So much gold wasted. Even if you do everything "right", getting 12k points is still too reliant on luck (instead of skill) on the enemy AI working in your favor.
Either lowered point requirements, or new enemy AI written JUST for the Dan tests (as Gaea suggested), so it's more reliant on skill than luck.
The magic dans on the other hand are in the middling to hard ground. They have a lot more rules about them besides the normal "attack with this, maybe attack with this but more". On that note you can strategize by selecting which element of the normal mobs gets spawned so you can maximize your damage output on them that way. For my advice on magic dans (besides healing), beeline for the golems. Each hit counts for 100 points so you'll earn a good chunk the more time you have with them. Counter, def and windmill great skills to use when you get charged. For lightning bolt I countered when the golem ran up to attack and charged bolt while it was flying back, I alternated with def and used wm to throw it back like counter.
Of course none of this compares to the complete and utter hell that is human mag dan 3. This skill is so RNG reliant that you'd think that you've got and angered some ancient all powerful deity in a past life. First, you need to roll if your skill hits, then you roll against the mob's luck to see if they dodge you hit, next your roll your damage, and then if you get a crit. Basically you'll most likely waste half your shots, WHICH MEANS YOU GET NOTHING. And when you really REALLY need that last shot to count, it'll miss, you'll hit the end time, and your attempt for the day ends in complete and UTTER FAILURE.
You're are wrong. It is possible, and it is not stupid. All it requires is a bit of research and (do NOT be surprised) some skill and mob AI basic knowledge.
Lightning Rod
Fireball
Ice Spear
Thunder
Firebolt
Icebolt
Lightning Bolt
Even if you can't do it perfectly, with a perfect connection, next to the servers, these videos prove you can get way more points than the requirements needed.
Good luck with healing.
Yeah I heard healing is a nightmare.
They really ought to adjust for the whole 1.5 second cooldown thing. It is basically a middle finger to humans to design a test that Elves can barely pass, on top of critical hit RNG.
OT: Healing is basically trying to keep an animal alive as it fights another. Fair enough, but one gets additional points if they heal said animal at low health, which are necessary to pass. Cue two minutes of a chick and a bear staring down each other with defense and or counter perma-loaded because that is how mob AI works, and well...
It is not an examination of anything. Anyone can keep the chick alive. It is blindly rolling the die, hoping the bear wounds the chick to an health threshhold where one can get the points they need by healing. It is very much dependent on the AIs working in a way that allows you to pass, and goes beyond player controlled elements.
It requires about as much skill as it does to draw the hottest items from the Gachapon, and those who say "It is easy" are morons who got lucky.
I don't understand why Korea or Japan did not fix this, since this seems like an issue beyond latency, but a problem inherent to the game itself. Do Korean and Japanese players love being angry, or is there a way to circumvent it that is somehow not discovered over here in NA?
As a dan 3 all magic skills holder, the worse is healing, mostly cause RNG, then lightning rod. Because....... well RNG as well... All the other skills are actually testing you or your internet connection.
healing is easy, you can do it without even looking at the screen the whole time switch to no wand, if chick is under 75% hp then heal it.sure rng in it sucks but it's not stressful, or even hard. Just annoying.
If you heal it too much the bear dies too quickly. Gotta damage boost the bear. Can't look away!
Anything annoying is stressful.