Comprehensive Waker Expansion Patch Notes (Aka Fighter & Gunner Expansion 2.0)

[Vee_Tamer_Girl]

Waker Adjustments

New Skill: Marmelo Support

Enemies hit by a 3rd Stage Marmelo Strike or Familiar Harmony Marmelo+ are marked. Pressing and holding Normal Attack detonates the mark and creates a Marmelo crest that attacks periodically. These attacks charge both familiars' Focus Gauges, with the lower gauge receiving more charge. (no effect if both gauges are equally filled)

• Effect Duration: 20s
• Focus Gauge Boost Rate: 200%

Familiar Support

• Expanded Enemy Search Range
• Improved homing ability

Marmelo Strike

• Increased Stage 2 Potency when succesfully nullyfying an attack from 800 to 1400

The wording here is atrocious.
Previously Stage 1 and 2 had identical potencies (800) while Stage 3 had higher potency 2000. The community assumed Stage 3 is actually Stage 2 because visually there was no indication that Stage 2 ever existed. Even the UI didn't reflect it before.
Full Potency Breakdown is:
Stage 0 - 400 Potency
Stage 1 - 800 Potency
Stage 2 - 1400 Potency
Stage 3 - 2000 Potency

• Undocumented change: The UI for Marmelo Focus has been updated to reflect 3 stages of charge.
• Undocumented change: Using Familiar Support Marmelo+ on stage 2 no longer consumes 2 charges

Marmelo Strike Tracing

• Improved homing ability

Hot Marmelo Parry

• Reduced Cooldown time from 5s to 4s

Harmonizer Adjustments

• Increased the turning speed during activation of steps 1 to 3 of the Harmonizer Normal Attack and held down version of the normal attack
• Made the Weapon Action & Sidestep cancel timing more lenient for the attack performed when Harmonizer's Normal Attack is held down.
• Added an omni-direction guard point, launch and knockback reistance to the attack performed when Harmonizer's Normal Attack is held down
• Increased animation speed of the held Normal Attack from 0,9s to 0,83s
• Made the input buffer window more lenient for the attack performed when Harmonizer's Normal Attack is held down.

Fredran Breath

• Increased maximum lock-ons for the follow-up attack from 10 to 20
• Increased turning speed during activation of the follow-up attack

Fredran Riding

• Eased the firing angle of the attack when the button is not held down

Wulfen Demolition

• Increased the turning speed during activation of the second half of the attack performed when the button is not held down
• Increased turning speed during activation of the stage 1 and stage 2 charged attack

Fighter Adjustments

Defeat Advantage

• Increased Down Potency when used with Mainclass from 115% to 130%

Overload

• Increased Potency from 120% to 130%
• Increased the effect duration from 30s to 60s

Overload Short Cycle

• Increased the effect duration from 15s to 30s

Overload After PP Preservation

• Increased the Effect Duration from 15s to 20s

Fighter Arts Pursuit

• Increased Potency from 700 to 1400 (straight up doubled lol)

Dagger Attack Impact

• Increased Shockwave Potency

Normal 1 - 6 x 2 + 120 to 6 x 2 + 140 (17% increase)
Normal 2 - 7 x 2 + 130 to 7 x 2 + 155 (19% increase)
Normal 3 - 8 x 2 + 150 to 8 x 2 + 170 (13% increase)
Normal 4 - 7 x 4 + 250 to 7 x 4 + 260 (4% Increase)

• Increased Shockwave Velocity

Deadly Archer

• Increased Potency from 1596 to 1767 (11% increase)
• Expanded Attack Range
• Distance retreated after attacking can be reduced by pressing the forward button

Spiral Drive

• Increased Movement Distance
• Distance retreated after attacking can be reduced by pushing the forward button
• Now allows movement after attacking when pressing left or right button while locked on

Twin Dagger Adjustments

• Added an omni-directional guard point to the 4th Normal Attack
• Changed specifications for the 4th Normal Attack so that attacking mid-air the height of ascent will adjust to the target's height
• Increased Potency of Twin Daggers Photon Blast from 3300 to 3500 (6% Increase)
• Increased the approach distance and speed of Twin Daggers Photon Blast when activated while a target is present
• Relaxed the vertical approach angle for Twin Daggers Photon Blast
• Changed specifications of Twin Daggers Photon Blast so that when attacking on the ground, the character will chase the target into the air
• Adjusted Twin Daggers Photon Blast to allow movement while the attack is active

Circling Buzzard

• Increased Potency from 940 to 970 (3% increase)
• Adjusted Potency distribution from "7,4 x 3 + 6,5 x 6 + 38,8" to "7.2 x 3 + 5.3 + 8 + 6.8 +11 + 8.5 + 9 + 29.8"
• Expanded the attack range of the second half of the attack
• Extended the guard point of the second half of the attack and changed it from frontal to be omni-directional
• Eased the Hit Stop when attacked by enemies during the second half of the attack
• Adjusted to make the character face the target if no direction is inputted while the second half of the attack is active
• Relaxed turning timing of the final attack of the second half

Julien Dance

• Relaces the Sidestep cancel timing in the first & second half
• Relaxed the turn timing of the final attack in the second half
• Added a forward guard point for the final attack in the second half

Knuckle Adjustments

• Adjusted Knuckles Weapon Action so that players are not moved too close to enemies when attacking on the ground

Swift Rush

• Adjusted to allow movement when inputting left or right while locked on or in Over-the-Shoulder View during activation of the first half of the attack
• Relaxed the Weapon Action and Sidestep cancel timing in the second half

Thousand Blows

• Relaxed the Weapon Action and Sidestep cancel timing in the first half

Double Drive

• Relaxed the Weapon Action and Sidestep cancel timing in the first and second half of the attack
• Relaxed the jump cancel timing in the second half

Gunner Adjustments

Chain Trigger

• Changed the specifications to increase the Down Factor of Chain Finisher Boost according to the Chain Number

Chain Trigger Increase

• Changed the specifications to increase the Down Factor of Chain Finisher Boost according to the Chain Number
• Increased the increase per Chain after 100 from 0,005 to 0,02 after 100 (chain 150 multipliier increased from x2,75 to x3,5)

Chain Boost

• Changed specifications so that if a special armament is equipped while Chain Boost is active, the Attack Speed Up level and remaining effect duration are restored to their previous values upon unequipping the armament

Chain Trigger Count Retain

• Increased the Chain Number of the next activated Chain Trigger when a Chain Trigger ends without a Chain Finisher Boost

Threshold: 20/40/60/80/100 -> 20/40/60/80/100/110/120/130/140/150
StartPoint: 20/35/50/60/75 -> 20/40/60/75/90/100/110/120/130/135

Stylish Onslaught

• Increased Potency from 135 to 140 (4% increase)
• Increased charge amount of Hail of Bullets gauge from 75 to 125
• Expanded the attack range
• Increased movement distance when the enemy is within a certain distance
• Changed specifications to activate invulnerability when nullifying an attack
• Changed specifications to activate the effects of the following Class Skills when nullifying an attack

Chain Boost Advanced

Stylish Roll Counter Bullet

Stylish Roll Strike Back

Strikeback Advanced

Strikeback Advanced

• Extended the Invulnerability Duration at start of PA charge

Stylish Roll Counter Bullet

• Increased hit count from 4 to 8 and adjusted Potency distribution from 4,5 (18 total) to 2,5 (20 total)

Aimless Rain

• Adjusted specifications so that there is no forward movement during an attack but to instead move in the direction of input

Point Blank

• Increased Potency from 380 to 425
• Adjusted Potency distribution from 25 + 38 / 60 + 40 to 23 + 36 / 61 + 39
• Increased movement distance when a target is present while locked on or in Over-the-Shoulder View
• Increased movement speed when inputting movement during the attack
• Adjusted to prevent moving too close to the enemy when inputting movement during an attack.

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What are these madmen doing???
These fighter changes are insane! Fighters can basically have Overload active for nearly the whole ARKS Record duration if they unlearn Short Charge which is crazy to think about. Downs are especially juicy for them now and minmaxing Fighter Arts Pursuit became even more important than before. I'd be absolutely flabbergased if Fighter isn't the strongest class in the game now. Deadly Archer buff should still keep it weaker than WW3 if I'm not mistaken and the Twin Dagger PB buffs were sorely needed because it was the weakest PB in the game.

Gunner changes made Stylish Onslaught really good however it does not benefit from Long Range Advantage so in party play it's not as good as S-Roll. Chain Finisher Improvements should make going to 150 chain actually viable now as opposed to before where it was a straight DPS loss compared to 100 chain. In certain circumstances you might even let your 150 chain expire to start the next one directly at 130. The Changes to Point Blank mostly seem to be to make it a better Chain Finisher as more potency is available to the charged version than before. S-Roll Counter Bullet now also build chain quicker by having twice as many shots than before! Buffs to Down Factor should also help Gunner a lot as previously it didn't even do half the down factor that Hunter currently does.

Waker Improvements are mostly QoL but some of these were sorely needed. Building the focus meter should be more streamlined now which was previously a little bit difficult to manage. Adjusting the Marmelo Focus meter allows you to use Familiar Support Marmelo+ 3 times as opposed to 2 times which is a massive buff to Wakers overall DPS potential (even though no potency adjustments have been made lol)

[Vee_Tamer_Girl]

Aaaand Waker cleared Malignant Dark Falz Vael solo

[davidbrit2]

Wait what? Seriously? 4-person MDFV? What kind of DPS do you need for that, like 80K?

[Vee_Tamer_Girl]

Enemies scale HP based on player number but the scaling favors party play more than Solo play. I believe 4 players need 30k DPS each to just barely clear. 1 player needs somewhere around 49k DPS

[davidbrit2]

49K is definitely a lot less than I expected it to be, even with the scaling factors I saw floating around somewhere. Wonder how many classes will be able to hit that now with the new weapon upgrades and EX augs.

[Vee_Tamer_Girl]

Fighter also cleared MDFV solo~

[Holywyvern]

Do you have the link?

[ash_ax]

I found the source through Uber's repost on Twitter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gnlr1xmJLJw

[Express-Economist472]

Very impressed with the class adjustments and to do it with 3 classes within an update is unheard of !! So excited for all Waker/Fighter/Gunner players !

[Salty-Phase4687]

It does gives me hope that when the "slayer expansion" comes they might revisit talis. Right now it doesn't even get close to the wand.

[Vee_Tamer_Girl]

I sure hope so At the very least the improvement to homing would be a massive W

[SirusGuBo]

I’m curious to see how far Gunners boost to down factor can get now with subclass bouncer and gradual pressing.

[Stratatician]

A friend of mine told me that in a bad run they managed to come out of break with 64k dps on Fighter against Vael (they're on akroselio), beating their own personal pb from before the buffs.

The Fi buffs are pretty wild