The Mana World Forums

Since the new ASPD implementation, betsanc speed penalty significantly reduced betsanc usage. Here are some proposal of items that would cancel such penalty when equipped. To give several options to the players betsanc will stay active when equipping or unequipping the item, only the speed penalty gets canceled or reactivated.

The list only contains weapons and shield so the already powerful upmarmu assassins will not get more power.

1) Wand & Wooden staff
So mages can enjoy more protection while casting spells at their normal speed except upmarmu.

2) Scarab armlet
Here we want to promote collaboration between warriors wearing the armlet and powerful mages. Warriors can swap between "armlet and no speed penalty" and "usual shield for best defense but endure the speed penalty" depending on the situation and without canceling the betsanc spell.

3) Imperial bow & Kid book
Improve survivability of imperial archers and trolls.

Sounds good, but not sure if it is possible ─ I assume however we could add a new bonus like bNoKnockback for this though, which is a flag (can only be set to ON) and when set status.c (or tmwa equivalent) skips the penalty. But I don't know if this would actually work.

The knockback is only a minor inconvenience for players who go into melee. A no-knockback bonus will not help mages, archers and trolls.

As far as I'm aware, betsanc has never slowed actual magic attacks down, though it would slow down physical attacks like the staff and wand when used in a physical manner. Am I wrong? Don't rely on M+ attack delay. It is ignored for magic, I believe.

It used to be ignored for magic. Now even conc. potions work for magic. Did not broke the game balance as I thought, but betsanc speed penalty is now an issue.

Some also discussed changing the penalty to something else, too.

jesusalva wrote: ↑06 Jan 2023, 13:29

Some also discussed changing the penalty to something else, too.

I could've guessed that since agi is the most universally useful stats in the game. I would disregard those comments, but is it possible to have a revert on the betsanc penalty, while allowing con pots to increase speed a bit?

jesusalva wrote: ↑06 Jan 2023, 13:29

Some also discussed changing the penalty to something else, too.

Please consider changing the penalty to crit-rate and/or accuracy instead of aspd. That should sufficiently penalise non-mages, but mages will be ok.

Not sure if it's possible to penalise only physical attack damage, but that would probably be ideal.

Mages don't have the defense advantage of warriors or the walking speed advantage that speed archers have, making it harder to survive mobs without betsanc

asuratva wrote: ↑16 Jan 2023, 03:01

Please consider changing the penalty to crit-rate and/or accuracy instead of aspd.

I sneered at this at first, but it's actually a great idea. Most ppl use betsanc to run through the bad places. It solves many issues and still puts a penalty on attacks. I do like it. The speed penalty is harder to justify in reality. Maybe the shield blurs our view a bit instead of slowing us down.
Only thing I can think of that could cause a loophole problem is upmarmu as usual. Something needs to be done about that one anyway though.

PS. HoraK says the issue is upmarmu+Overlord. I say upmarmu itself is broken, although Overlord is broken too XD

Yes, upmarmu is the issue here. we're trying to change game even more by conserving this OP spell. Attack upmarmu as I said in IRC. It is the only big issue ATM. As I said in IRC, I would love to see brawler skill made better to include def bonuses and am ok with speeding it up a bit more than speed skill too. Bare fists are supposed to be the fastest weapon. We can make Brawlers faster than setzer without using upmarmu. If Brawling is made that much better, we can lower def and some bonuses of the assassin suit to compensate which allows for more types of brawlers to exist other than all becoming upmarmu assassins although the evade benefits of the assassin suit will still make it very tempting.

My 2 cents

EDIT: I forgot to mention that upmarmu need only be a for sure hit that is powerful so that brawlers can hit all mobs. This keeps them powerful but no need to constantly drink beer for lesser mobs. I think brawler would be my favourite class if we ever fix the darn thing. We go from one extreme to another.