Lets break this down... These 'spectacular' skills won't show until the 90 cap and the 300 mastery limit will still be around to plague us. Lets see what the situation for that ends up being.
A pure str bow [because I won't consider anything else at this time], will have 90 fire [I assume you want the max fire passive, which you get at the 90 cap] and 90 pacheon. This leaves you with 120 masteries left. I assume you don't want to be a slow ass, so you'll stick probably around 60~70 into lightning [mind you, capping lightning out at the 90 cap would give you 77% increased movement.] So that leaves you with 50~60 mastery points. Your options now are to allocate them into ice, heuksai, or dump them all into light. If you dump them all into light, you'll have 30 remaining, and wherever you stick the remaining 30 won't benefit you at all. Dump 50~60 into ice and you'll get a measely physical defense increase that probably isn't worth it. Stick them into spear and enjoy 7xx~1078 extra hp. Conclusion... You won't have the same amount hp as a glaiver or int spear. [Remember; new skills = new passives. Our hp passive will now go to lvl 9]
Alright, now that we have set that asside, I'll assume the common build for damn near anything will be 90 weapon, 90 light, 90 fire. People will probably be creative to try and fit ice into the equation but who cares. Either way, you'll gimp yourself in either speed, physical damage increase, or damage that the mastery level itself yields you. [Remember... each increase in mastery lvl = 1% damage increase on a skill used from that tree.] Yeah... gg Joymax, the cookie cutter build system is only starting to show up more and more... We might not have the same stat distribution but atleast we'll all be using the same bloody masteries.
Anyways... lets get a bit closer to breaking down the PVP.
What I've gathered up until this point is that the skill percentage didn't go up; only the actual damage did. ie... 123~345 (300%) => 345 ~ 678 (300%) kinda've a thing. Since our defense from gear will also increase significantly + we can add more str and hp to our gear, I'll say that this crappy increase in damage will do jackshit. Assumption => other than the affect the new books will yield, we can assume damage output relative to our hp to be fairly equivalent to that of the current cap. [If the skill percentage damage did increase, please correct me.]
So, seeing that the pvp will not radically change relative to the current cap, lets see what we can do looking at what 'extra' things we will get from the new books that might drastically revolutionize pvp and the current balances that are set up [ie... in 1 vs 1, pure str glaiver fairs best, assuming fairly similar gear.]
BLADER: Gains an extra stab. Oh yay, bladers can now stab you 4 times. Oh noes! The damage is still shitty, so don't expect them to start dropping other builds like flies. On the other hand, their passive now also gives them 10% increased block when maxed. Conclusion: Bladers still can't kill in pvp, and they'll be even more annoying to kill.
GLAIVER: Gains more hp from the passive [no idea on the numbers yet]. Gains another sss like skill and another GSM. The glaiver will now probably switch from SSS, SST, and GSM to new SSS, SSS, and new GSM. What do we get out of this? Glaivers will stun you more, and glaivers will have even more hp. So, much like the current cap, they'll still be a bitch to kill if they are decently geared [garm set +4, full blues].
INT: with S/S, the int will have to give up both heuksai and ice. This will drop their survivability quite significantly. On the other hand, they gain more block and another stab like the bladers. In the end, they'll probably perform as they do at this cap with the chance of dropping easier to a crit. With a spear, see glaiver minus the survivability. [Although an int hybrid spear + hp passive might actually rise to the top as it would set a fairly big difference between hps compared to a pure int S/S. But we'll have to see.]
Alright, now that we have summed up the 3/4 most common builds, lets move on to bow and how they'll fare in pvp against the other builds.
We have seen that the bow gains a knockback like skill and a stunning skill. It also seems that the timing on the strongbow stun skill has decreased, but it appears to do less damage than berserker and the new antidevil.
A str bows biggest issue in pvp at this cap and the last was that stun, knockback, and knockdown barely allowed it to get off any skills and that they were amazingly vulnerable to attacks while letting off their own. How does having a knockback skill and stun like skill change this all? None really... Against a blader, you will still not be able to kill him nor visa versa. Against a glaiver, you might end up stalemating the fight [much like this cap because of the XL-pots] simply because you both pot out your damage while the other is being stunned/knocked back, although the fact that the glaiver's skills are faster, it might be that you would still end up getting raped... Against a pure int S/S, the fight would probably turn a bit more in your favor as you wouldn't be kd'd as much and they have to give up physical defense and hp. A fight like that would probably turn out into a 50/50 fight depending on whose side luck favors. Against a hybrid/spear int, pray for quick and frequent crits, or suffer the same problem as you would with a glaiver.
CONCLUSION [READ THIS IF YOU HATE READING TOO MUCH]
Nothing will change in pvp.
That's my 2 cent ranting.
EDIT: Fixed some spelling errors
2ndEDIT: for your info
Quote:
ice passive 132 phy def
Heuksal passive 2896 hp
Fire passive 9 % phy attack
Latest addition
) and its a few mins long puff with short cooldown.
