After 4 weeks of balance changes, there has been another balance patch this week on Black Desert Online KR. There were CC and defense effect changes made to some skills, and all characters received changes to their Black Spirit’s Rage skills.

There were variances to what KR players felt or thought about the defense and CC effect change. The majority of the opinions we gathered agreed that the new patch made the game even harder. Unwanted defense and CC effects were added to some skills, while CC was also removed from the skills players used the most.

The grab skills seemed to have become more important in PvP now that CC was removed from the main skills or limited to only PvE. There were also negative opinions towards certain classes due to the change made to Black Spirit’s Rage skills.

Meanwhile, there is positive feedback on the latest patch; some say they would need to wait and see now that all classes are placed in a similar situation due to the balance patch.

[Warrior]

▶ I’d lose more HP when I tried to refill it with Pulverize before but now I can use it without worrying too much.

▶ To be honest, Pulverize and Tempest were skills I wouldn’t use except when grinding so they should have Forward Guard.

▶ Grinding became much easier after today’s patch. How I couldn’t deal much damage due to last week’s CC resistance patch made on monsters came back to normal.

▶ Now it’s going to be only grab skills for Warriors.

▶ No Bound for Slashing the Dead or Grave Digging, and I’d be knocked down while using both Solar Flare or grab, and same for Frenzied Spear. There’s no skill I can use for diving in.

▶ Wow, they really nerfed him bad.

▶ Classes that used to deal fair damage like Dark Knight and Mystic got damage increased for their Black Spirit’s Rage skills, but didn’t Warrior get any buffs?

▶ They said they’d change his Black Spirit’s Rage skill to something like one deathblow but it turned out to be almost a nerf on Warrior.

▶ I think the Warrior’s current Black Spirit’s Rage skill is a more serious detriment than how the Super Armor buff was removed after Guard. I mean, you’d probably use it once every 15 minutes either in Red Battlefield or wars but you’d feel a huge difference.

[Ranger]

▶ They removed Forward Guard and left CC, and now they removed previous CC from PvP and left Forward Guard!

▶ Well, they did remove it for almost all other classes so I don’t think it’s that bad. Now it feels like how you can Stun and grab from a distance has become more important.

▶ Do they want us to use only Evasive Explosion Shot and Blasting Gust for CC now?

▶ Isn’t Ranger okay though? To be honest, I don’t know much since I don’t do PvP a whole lot but if CC was removed for all classes, you can finish off with Charging Wind when there’s a gap in equipment quality?

▶ But they removed Knockdown from Ranger’s Black Spirit’s Rage skill. It was good to use as a counter but now there’s nothing to replace it.

▶ I hope they rollback stamina consumption for Wind Step, I miss my old speedy play.

▶ I mean, they should at least give buffs to Ranger’s Awakening skills since they nerfed all her main skills and you can’t do anything but just poke from a distance. The cooldown for Wailing Wind or Tempest is 18 seconds and Nature’s Tremble 21 seconds, Regeneration 25 seconds. Shouldn’t they reduce the skill cooldown so we can at least enjoy using Awakening skills??

▶ I really wish they’d reduce the Awakening skill cooldown, like for real!

[Sorceress]

▶ They changed it so that Stun is only applied in PvE for Engulfing Shadow!! I am so enraged now.

▶ What do we do now that we don’t have Stun for Engulfing Shadow? I mean, I think I’d die while using Midnight Stinger.

▶ Even if other classes got CC removed from Rabam skills, they should have left Forward Guard for Violation!

▶ While they gave defense effects to initiating skills for other classes, they only gave one Forward Guard to Vile Plan, which practically no one uses.

▶ Give some defense effects to Violation, PLEASE.

▶ Give us a grab skill!!

▶ Dark Knight falls down in PvP tier ranking since it doesn’t have any grabs, and no Stun skills to use in combos.

▶ They should increase the Sorceress’ Accuracy. I mean, since there are no helpful skills we can use now, shouldn’t they?

[Berserker]

▶ CC removed from Slugfest and Devastation, Forward Guard removed from Feral Stampede, and can’t use grab continuously. Berserker practically ruined.

▶ Wow, they removed CC from all main skills! Although they did for other classes.

▶ Please reduce cooldown for Ancient Wave.

▶ Okay, here’s a quick review after a fight in 1vs1 PvP. First, there’s a huge difference between before and after the nerf on Slugfest. No CC effect so it’s hard to inflict all hits even if you managed to get a good first hit. You could stun your enemy with Slugfest then use the Devastation combo to finish off before when you had better gear but now you can’t.

▶ You can’t use grab skills 5 times in a row like before; you can up to 2 times. Honestly, being able to grab 5 times in a row didn’t make any sense. As a Berserker player, it’s unfortunate but oh well, what can we do?

▶ Now if you want to kill your target, you must close in to grab. But defense effects were removed from main close attacks and Shake Off rolled back so it’s really hard to move close to your targets now.

[Tamer]

▶ Super Armor added to Full Moon, which I’ve been waiting so long for. Now I can finally grind in Hystria Ruins without getting CCed.

▶ It’s so hard to play since the meta keeps changing every week! And no CC!

▶ You could deal damage quite well when you used skill combos starting with Moonlight Strike - Legendary Beast Dance: Vermillion - Allround Spinner during grab cooldown.

▶ Well, other classes got their CC removed so Legendary Beast Dance is alright to use without skill lock.

▶ I tried doing PvP against several classes, and most were okay except the Mystic.

▶ I heard that there’s Forward Guard added to Flow: Soaring Strike but why can’t I see it in-game???

[Valkyrie]

▶ Super Armor on Hastiludium! Distance increased for Death Line Chase!

▶ Wow, I am so freaking happy that we got Super Armor added to Hastiludium.

▶ Nothing feels as good as getting Super Armor on Hastiludium. Oh, and the stamina consumption removed during the defensive stance.

▶ Death Line Chase got 1.5 times longer distance than before and motion delay decreased, and also got this sliding motion, which does have better usage now.

▶ More distance and speed for Death Line Chase, and super short cooldown, so I guess no worries for mobility on Valk.

▶ I can’t initiate since there’s no more CC on Purification and Hastiludium.

▶ I’m worried since Valk can’t initiate or use CC anymore but I guess it will be alright since it’s the same for other classes. At least I’m really satisfied with the mobility.

▶ Personally, I think Valk isn’t that great unless you have better gear. There’s no CC except Celestial Spear so you can’t counter when your target charges against you.

▶ Maybe no benefits in PvP but I don’t think it’s that bad since Valkyrie has both guard and grab skills.

▶ PvE better than before, but still not very good.

▶ No Super Armor for Celestial Spear now so why aren’t they giving us 100% critical hit on Black Spirit’s Rage skill??

▶ They say you can use the Black Spirit’s Rage skill to kill in one hit but nothing changed!!

[Musa]

▶ Why can’t they just remove stamina consumption from Counter Assassination? Just turn it into a guarding skill! What kind of character uses up 150 stamina every time it is hit??

▶ Why do we still have Counter Assassination when there’s no stun to it? You can’t even lock this skill!!

▶ Not having Forward Guard for Foul Play made a huge difference but now it’s back. Now it will be hard to use the Crust Crusher combo in 1vs1 PvP.

▶ The Musa is supposed to move forward towards your targets but you can’t knock them down with Below the Belt now! I mean they should at least let us bound enemies by giving us Super Armor on Fiery Angel.

▶ Projection should be changed so that it inflicts explosive damage rather than throwing energy forward. Small AoE so not very helpful even in PvE.

▶ Okay, I’m fine with the nerfs on Backflow, Crosscut, and Crust Crusher during Musa’s Soul. But why did Below the Belt have its Bound removed? That wasn’t even in the patch notes!

[Maehwa]

▶ Gives Super Armor but no CC to Petal Drill and Flow: December, no Super Armor for Moonrise, no Knockdown on Flow: Tip of an Iceberg. What CC are we supposed to use in PvP? What do they want the Maehwa to become? A class for only grinding?

▶ No Super Armor for Moonrise. So they want us to fight purely with attack damage.

▶ This is the biggest shock I’ve ever got playing BDO. No more fun in all skill combos now.

▶ No grab, no forward attack, Rabam nerfed. Defense efficiency is crappy, more stamina consumption, and it isn’t easy to use even Dragon Bite. The Maehwa was all about speed before, but now that she uses stamina to move forward, she doesn’t have any stamina left to run and gets killed.

▶ Pearl Abyss said they wanted to close the gaps between classes based on the grab skills but this just makes grab skills even more important now that we have to rely on pure attack damage with Super Armor.

▶ I don’t really understand why they put Super Armor but removed CC from Royal Rage. As for Petal Drill, yeah I get it since other classes got CC removed from their forward skills and instead got Super Armor. But I really want to know whose idea it was to remove Stun from Royal Rage. Royal Rage itself was made to counter enemies during Q guarding. But it’s now useless without CC!

▶ Royal Rage is now literally useless. Maybe except when you are using it for buffs.

[Wizard]

▶ Forward Guard got added to forward skills for other classes but not for Hellfire.

▶ No Forward Guard for Hellfire, Stiffness removed from Aqua Jail Explosion, and damage nerfed on Black Spirit’s Rage skill. What do they want us to do during PvP then??

▶ I’ve used Aqua Jail Explosion two times on my target but it barely dealt damage!!

▶ Black Spirit’s Rage got nerfed, Blizzard, healing on Rabam skill nerfed, Protected Area nerfed, Aqua Jail Explosion and Cataclysm nerfed. I think it’s time for me to quit BDO.

▶ I don’t care about other things getting nerfed, but I just hope the Wizard can actually do something in group PvP.

▶ The PvP damage for the Wizard is too low; I wouldn’t use it unless in group PvP.

▶ I think it’s more about Wizard pouring out some pre-Awakening skills then dying in PvP now.

▶ There’s literally nothing I can do without Black Spirit’s Rage fully charged in group PvP. With the damage I’m dealing, I can’t win against others using the fairy’s skill that consumes potions automatically.

[Witch]

▶ The Witch wasn’t any fun before but what are we supposed to do in PvP now that they applied the same CC change to both classes that can attack after casting a skill and the ones that can attack instantly without casting??

▶ I got knocked down after getting hit and grabbed. Then kept getting hit after some CC. Knocked down twice then got killed because I had no CC in 1vs1.

▶ Witch = sandbag. They brought back defense effects to other class forward skills!

▶ Wouldn’t this make the Witch the bottom of PvP tier list? Bad mobility, slow skill cast, and even no grab!

▶ I think all we have left is looking forward to the patch on the Witch’s summoning in later updates...

▶ I think there’s a problem with skills that inflicts many hits. I thought there was something wrong with accuracy but then it seems to be about skills that have many hits.

▶ Is there a bug in Flow skills? Because using the Awakening flow skills won’t deal damage! I’ve been grinding using only pre-Awakening skills like Absolute and Rabam skills because of that.

▶ I didn’t notice it before when I was grinding monsters in groups but there is a huge gap between the number of hits between the pre-Awakening and Awakening skills when you are killing something like a boss monster.

[Kunoichi]

▶ First of all, Halo change is almost like a bug fix and the CC got removed. But still, I guess you could see the whole change as a buff for the Kunoichi.

▶ You can’t use Heart Snatch and Assassin’s Trail as counter skills now. I guess you can only use it for dealing damage or for escaping...

▶ Lethal Spin Spree, one of the main skills, got nerfed so much. You can’t use CC now so it’s only for damage dealing. At least they gave Super Armor to Wrath again.

▶ They added Super Guard to forward skills for so many classes but why not the Kunoichi?? Why no Super Armor on Lunar Dash??

▶ Well, at least other classes got nerfed as well. I guess I’ll do some PvP with each of them to know more.

▶ Is it just me or is there anyone else that can’t use a CC skill after using grab? I think I used it just fine yesterday but why not now?

▶ I think the pre-Awakening grab skill has a bug. The target would stand up too quickly after using the grab skill.

[Ninja]

▶ They nerfed Katana Shower! What do they want us to use now?

▶ They did take Katana Shower from us but they did that for the CC from other classes so everything’s fine.

▶ I had been using Decapitation well before but now it’s useless.

▶ What’s wrong with Murderous Intent?? Stiffness not working well on III but works for I~II.

▶ I don’t really get the update. Since they’ve been nerfing Awakening skills, I guess they do the same thing for pre-Awakening skills. After that, PvP will be all about gear gaps.

▶I think BDO was okay until the patch the week before. I thought the Ninja would turn out to be great in group PvP because of floating in Katana Shower, but it turned out to be not true at all.

▶ Is anyone using the Black Spirit’s Rage skill? There’s no use balancing the Black Spirit’s Rage skills and adding Super Armor; Blade Spin with the Black Spirit’s Rage is just locked and this means you can’t use Drastic Measure with Black Spirt’s Rage too!

[Dark Knight]

▶ Isn’t Hallucination Gap supposed to be a counter skill? Stiffness got removed!

▶ I guess I will have to use Seed of Catastrophe and pre-Awakening skills for Stiffness or Stun on Dark Knight.

▶ I think it’s okay since you can use Spirit Hunt - Wheel of Fortune - Lunacy of Vedir as forward skills. It is unfortunate that Stun got removed from Spirit Legacy but it’s still got Forward Guard.

▶ There aren’t skills to go around enemy’s back and kill them so it’s going to be much harder to PvP against Warriors or Valkyries.

▶ It’s now harder to fight against classes with grab skills since there’s no Stun on Spirit Legacy. They’d just rather get hit once as they move forward to kill me.

▶ The 1st Rabam skill used to be a counter skill since Wrath of Vedir had Super Armor & Bound but now I think it would be less used than Shadow Strike.

▶ The 2nd Rabam skill doesn’t deal much damage so I guess it’s not worth using both skills.

▶ I don’t think Pearl Abyss was thinking properly when they added Super Armor and removed Stiffness from Spirit Hunt. I mean, the Dark Knight already has low defense so taking Stiffness out of her forward skill and giving her Super Armor is basically telling her to get hit until she dies.

▶ We are not asking for both Stiffness AND Super Armor for Spirit Hunt. Just leave Stiffness on Spirit Hunt and give Super Armor to Twilight Dash.

[Striker]

▶ Having no more CC is a huge thing. I mean everyone got nerfed but all of the Stuns from Echo Spirit and Rampaging Predator, and Knockdown from Skull Crusher were removed!

▶ No more Stun for Echo Spirit and it even deals low damage! Is there any reason to use it?

▶ They should have either left Stun as it is on Echo Spirit or increased its damage. What are they thinking?

▶ I can’t use Skull Crusher and Skull Hammer in a skill combo because Knockdown was removed from them.

▶ Well, at least Rampaging Predator is activated much quicker now. But it won’t be used as much as before as a forward skill since it doesn’t have CC anymore.

▶ That’s true, you can actually see how much quicker Rampaging Predator is activated now. It’s like having a 10 kg bag full of sand on each of your legs and then taking them off.

▶ With CC removed from Perfect Blow and Iron Fist Fury, you can now decide which one to use strategically. Both have similar damage although Perfect Blow deals just the slightest bit more, but you won’t miss with Iron Fist Fury so it’s worth investing skill points.

▶ But still, I think it will be alright if they could only change the Skull Hammer cooldown and Echo Spirit damage.

▶ They promised us they’d be turning Black Spirit’s Rage into something you can use to kill in one hit but instead, we got something we can barely use for getting aggro with a wide AoE.

[Mystic]

▶ Wow! Sea Burial with Super Armor!

▶Thank you so much, Pearl Abyss, for adding Super Armor to Sea Burial.

▶ They left Stun and Invincibility on the last hit of Wolf’s Frenzy.

▶ I think the nerf isn’t that big since the Mystic still has Invincibility left for Wolf’s Frenzy.

▶The Mystic became better in PvP now. You can use Double Flash to move closer then use Sea Burial, Mass Destruction, Wolf’s Frenzy, and Dragon’s Rip, then use Twisted Collision carefully, then chain to Rage Hammer - Scissor Kick - Sea Burial.

▶ It’s true that the Mystic is better because of Super Armor on Sea Burial but you still have to give up on dealing damage when you fight with it.

▶ Well, CC got removed from Infinite Fortitude and Dragon’s Rip in PvP but since CC isn’t important on both skills I guess it’s alright.

▶ I can’t really say much about Black Spirit’s Rage absorption but it did get better. I was able to keep the attack speed buffs turned on almost all the time in grinding areas where many monsters like Aakman or below are located.

[Lahn]

▶ They finally fixed Pendulum Kick! I mean, it was a skill that used up 100% of the Black Spirit’s Rage but I’d be knocked down whenever I used it so it wasn’t much helpful.

▶ I like how we got Super Armor on Sinister Strike.

▶ No more falling down when using Sinister Striker while grinding. It feels so good!

▶ Well, using Sinister Strike in PvP? I mean, you need to bound your target first to use the skill to down smash so I don’t think having Super Armor means anything.

▶ I mean, no knockback on Piercing Heart but I guess it’s alright since it’s not a skill you would use solely for knockback.

▶ Both [Cymbidium + Fragrant Stigma] and [Cymbidium + Morning Dew] weren’t skills I used so I guess the Lahn wasn’t influenced that much.

▶ No knockdown on Descent but I guess I could replace it with Dance of Death.

▶ I think this patch was okay overall for the Lahn.

▶ I mean the Lahn didn’t get anything buffed but since other classes were nerfed so much in comparison, it seems the Lahn is so much better.

▶ I mean, it’s worth playing the Lahn if you have good gear now. There are also cases where the Lahn with high HP recovery becomes even better.

▶ Lahn was better at absorbing Black Spirit’s Rage than other classes were but it is unfortunate that it became balanced overall.

▶ It’s still hard to grind in Sherekhan’s Grave. All you got was Super Armor added to a skill with an 18-second long cooldown, so getting stunned and stiffened is a huge threat.

▲ CC and Invincibility remain on the last hit of Wolf’s Frenzy.

▲ Super Armor was added to Sinister Strike.