@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

You can have the same weapon slotted in weapon palettes multiple times with different things slotted in, I suggested this to reduce your sub-palette clutter by having 1 of the weapon palette filled with your element changing techs while the other one mostly your PA.

Maybe but when the complaint is about mid-combat UI trouble against ever more deadly bosses is it really workable to use a JB PA, switch weapon, charge and use the tech, and switch back? Admittedly the first switch is easier because if you're using say Grand Wave the buttons change immediately, but even so.

Considering you start with an element and Megiverse counts for dark, you only need 4 slots. I've found the benefit of having those immediately available without a ton of fuss better than other uses for the subpalette, and that spares me having even more complexity than Bouncers already do.

This does raise another point though. Wouldn't it be great if the shift key/button just worked for subpalettes as well? I'm sure every class would appreciate 10 extra shift inputs and that would be a perfect use for elements.

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

Jetboots was the only weapon with double jump unless someone uses a double jump ring.

Good to have that confirmed. So yeah, what I'm getting at there is it's not so far to say only Bouncer has received improvements. The knowledge that Bouncer was once even more awkward than it is today just comes part and parcel of the game having been streamlined a whole, and doesn't mean that Bouncer is not too fussy for what it can offer now.

TLDR I'm not looking for different buttons to perform the same mid-combat multi-input sequence. I'm saying that sequence shouldn't be multi-input in the middle of combat in the first place when other classes (that tend to be better at fighting) don't have to deal with all that.

Sorry, I edited my previous post to add an example video.

Well of course if people have more input keys it would help, but this game is made 8 years ago for cross-platform and the UI hasn't really changed and probably won't until NGS which most jobs are probably getting reworked there anyways. I don't really see any large changes to classes coming with NGS on the horizon.

The way I see it is Bouncer excels at sustained damage. Sure it has PBF which is a lot of extra damage but the rest of the time your job is sustained damage. Bouncer in late game is not intended to be bursty, its intended to keep the damage coming consistently.

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

Sorry, I edited my previous post

I caught the edit, so no worries. Here's what caught my attention:

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

You need to clear up your clutter if you don't want to swap sub-palettes

Yeah, that's why I have my four element shifts on a sub-palette next to Megiverse. It means I don't have to switch weapon or sub-palettes for something I need to use in the heat of battle way too often to ever want to switch. You're explaining what I'm already doing.

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

this game is made 8 years ago for cross-platform and the UI hasn't really changed

What does that have to do with Bouncer? They streamlined scion classes. They stabilised the weapon type roles of other melee classes. Despite persistently eroding our support benefit they still actively demand Bouncer switches weapons every minute or significantly loses damage output. This isn't like Hero where they have the luxury of Hero Time's cooldown to switch at leisure during their attack cycles (and made that even easier with SGAs), Bouncer must switch NOW every minute or fall behind.

Yes a more powerful set of UI functions would allow players to better work around the deficiency themselves, but the ideal solution would be to just do what they've already done elsewhere and just streamline the class to bring it back up to speed at least when it comes to complexity (there'd still be the damage matter after that). There is so much they could do to rework the class to accomplish this within the game's existing structure.

UI and crossplatform is in reference to adding more input keys as consoles don't have have that many keys on the controller. Sure it is much convenient on kb/m but still need the game playable on a controller. UI like having the cross hotbar that FFXIV ARR has would increase input on a controller but that requires an overhaul of the UI - maybe in NGS. And yes 8 years, the UI has not changed on PSO2 - don't expect it now.

Screenshot from Sept 2012 - same old UI, but hey, they added graphic setting 6 with PS4 - this was back when it was only at 5

My first character, I deleted her eventually since I was a noob and messed up Mag (cost 50 excube to downlevel mag instead of the 5 now) and skill tree and rather just start over.

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

UI and crossplatform is in reference to adding more input keys

I honestly don't recall saying I wanted more input keys in this entire topic though. Bouncer having too much to do isn't solved by adding more ways to do it all, but by condensing the maintenance that is required to play the class well. I hope I've been consistent on this point.

Meanwhile I've tracked down the source of the Photon Blades Fever extension: It comes from PSO2 Station! Plus #11, and is summarised by Bumped:

So basically this means a minor buff but more importantly that the longstanding issue of Bouncer's dependency on awkward mid-combat weapon switching is preserved without even any consideration for what this means for toggling Break Stance. Meanwhile Fighter simply gets a direct unconditional buff!

At least on JP, you will see some Bo no longer switch weapons all that much anymore. With the high weapon focus gain able to spam kestral type-0 when PBF is down or just having the ability to use Jetsweep every other PA makes either weapon have decent sustained damage much like Heroes that forgoes some of the weapon swaps just to play smoother using weapon of their choice based on the condition of the fight. PBF time extension is really a good buff, now PBF can be up half of the time rather than 45 sec for every 120 sec. Photon blade tech cancel is really a low effort high damage lazy gameplay.

And oh, fighter been in a pretty shitty spot - it's suppose to be a high risk high damage class but it was just high risk and the damage is easily overshadowed by scion classes at times. Twin dagger PA all potency up, knuckles PA except meteor strike potency up as well enhancing normal attack 3, double saber is just mostly range increase on normal and step attack - potency up on the whirlwind/kamaitachi

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

At least on JP, you will see some Bo no longer switch weapons all that much anymore.

Honestly to me this is just confirmation that the class' design has failed to keep up with the increased modern demand of control.

I suppose if they're going to allow one-weapon cheese to be more manageable than the intention of switching, the next thing for players to do is to cut the weapon type they're not using out of their SP use completely.

Soaring blades probably have it better there: With up to 54 SP basically requiring jet boots to have any use (including the entire Elemental Stance family and Tech. Power Up 1) a soaring blades only Bouncer is only 7 SP short of unlocking the entire skill tree so they'd only need to decide which skills probably between Sidestep Plus, Break Stance Critical and possibly Critical Field don't get a few points.

Jet boots on the other hand still have to consider Break Stance sometimes, and as there are only 17 SP that requires soaring blades to have any use they can't consider Tech. Power Up 1 and have to compromise much more probably between Melee Power Up 1 (4+), Sidestep Plus (making Dodge Auto-Field less accessible), Healing Bonus, Elemental / Break Stance Critical and possibly Critical Field.

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

And oh, fighter [snip] suppose to be a high risk high damage class but it was just high risk and the damage is easily overshadowed by scion classes at times.

You know I'm really starting to wonder why Fighter continues to be considered high risk. Whenever Overload Safeguard is up, even with lower HP Overload is basically a guaranteed extra life! My Fighter friends are saying it has dramatically reduced their KO rate and thanks to the arrival of accessible Vampire SGAs they don't even have to worry about being left on 1 HP and dependent on either escaping or needing other people to heal them anymore, so they can quickly get a second chance with Iron Will after the first one failed.

Meanwhile in order to try and fail to keep up with them, I'm having to give up Auto-Mate Half and Iron Will entirely. "But Bouncer has iframes!" Not when playing the piano to switch weapon types and toggle two overlapping sets of abilities while in the danger zone I don't. I guess it's no wonder players are starting to find ways to avoid that mess.

@Miraglyth Overload safeguard cancels your overload and adds time to the cooldown each time you activate it - and with lifesteal weapons, you are going over the cut-off for halfline and deadline buffs in no time and no overload = no crazy beat, no crazy heart. You need to stay in overload or you don't get the benefit from many skills

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

Overload safeguard cancels your overload and adds time to the cooldown [snip] no overload = no crazy bear, no crazy heart. You need to stay in overload or you don't get the benefit from many skills

I'm aware, but you know what cuts your damage output way more than being alive with temporarily reduced damage output, right?

And to make the obvious point, until the apparent new endgame of ignoring the class' design, Bouncer fighting with a weapon type whose boost is on cooldown is basically suffering the same consequence without needing to take lethal damage. It just happens to us every minute anyway.

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

and with lifesteal weapons, you are going over the cut-off for halfline and deadline buffs

I don't have enough first-hand experience with high-level Fi/Hu play to know if that involves voluntarily staying below 50% HP outside of Overload and with Iron Will on hand for just 100 MEL Pwr but if that's seriously considered an important decision they've got it way better than trying to decide every minute if it's worth risking straight up dying to avoid losing a 15%-160% damage bonus.

Youre still stuck on the part of switching weapons = risk dying. Is it because you are having to switch sub-palette also? It is why I been saying, clean up the sub-palette so you only need 1. Like the most recent video I linked, single sub-palette for both weapons - they switched weapons many times without problems using the weapon wheel scrolling which is slower than just hotkeying them with programmable mouse buttons.

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

Youre still stuck on the part of switching weapons = risk dying. Is it because you are having to switch sub-palette also?

No. Nor could it be: I've mentioned using and explained why a chat shortcut to do both of those at the same time is needed.

All this talk of extra mouse buttons and moving the awkward input maintenance to other methods is missing the point: I'm stuck on this repeated necessity because in order to maintain boosts Bouncer - and only Bouncer - needs to switch weapon and potentially subpalette (which can be combined into a shortcut), toggle one shared ability (which can't) and activate another weapon-specific boost ability (which also can't). Every minute. During this time you are (a) either in the danger zone or wasting time escaping it and (b) cannot attack or dodge.

As a class that is meant to spend all its time in the danger zone attacking and dodging.

It's a requirement that is fundamentally in opposition to the class' vision, and one that they made a demonstrably conscious effort to streamline but only for other classes.

haven't switched to Bo in awhile, tested it, with everything on 1 sub-palette - I do not feel any input cooldown after manually weapon swapping and I was immediately able to turn on/off break stance while activating rapid boost or pbf one after another. Yes it's 2 additional keys but is it really that bad? I temporary set it as 1-break stance, 2-rapid boost, 3-pbf just for the ease of testing and within the reach of wasd.

Only thing I waited on was the animation for weapon swapping as I tend to trigger weapon swapping during PAs and immediately fire off the skill and toggle break stance once the PA is done and weapon switches. Even without using PA for the switch, the skills were immediately responsive after weapon swapping.

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

I do not feel any input cooldown after manually weapon swapping

To be clear I don't mean all input cooldown. But when you either switch weapon or change subpalette, the game locks you out of doing either for about 1 second. It's easier to see if you try rapidly switching between two weapons, or between two sub-palettes, but they affect each other too.

I've made a quick video to help by demonstration: Link here.

To be clear once again: I'm not saying this is my problem. I'm saying it's why a chat shortcut to switch weapon and sub-palette at the same time is useful. Ideally this delay wouldn't exist (or at least be dramatically shorter) but that'd be a nice-to-have that wouldn't solve the real problem, which is:

@HarmlessSyan said in Would be nice to have a Serious Bouncer Buff:

I was immediately able to turn on/off break stance while activating rapid boost or pbf one after another. Yes it's 2 additional keys but is it really that bad?

It's bad enough to cause most of my Iron Will procs, as I mentioned before. It's "2 additional keys" on top of the ones you already need to press to change weapon (and sub-palette if you have things set up that way). Yes it might only take 0.5 seconds to input it all once you get the hang of it, but that's still 0.5 seconds you're not attacking or dodging in a danger zone. As soon as I switch over to Phantom sub this is going to be the biggest cause of my deaths.

I mean, are you really saying it doesn't take more time to press more keys? Of course it does. You can say you don't mind or that it doesn't take you much time while testing Bouncer in safe place, but my point is it shouldn't need this many key presses in the first place because no other class is forced by design to deal with this.

Your video is just clearly showing the delay from multiple palette switches that should be avoided - compressing the sub-palette to one will avoid this.

I'm not saying it doesn't take more time or effort but rather it is well within reasonable bounds and manageable. I have showed you example video of mother+deus fight with plenty of weapon swapping. There were times when they jetboots without rapid boost, or switching to soaring blades when PBF is down because it is more convenient for the situation especially during the mother part. For the deus part it is more traditional rotation swapping when skill going on cooldown. But they don't always swap immediately but rather time the swaps when boss is getting staggered or the dragon heads are repositioning and they can't hit the boss anyways - when ever it's convenient.

Arguing to play the class at 100% most optimal is just silly and feels like a deja vu with that guy arguing that hero can never get hit and need to constantly be weapon swapping.