1.54: Undocumented archer nerfs (Third time!)

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by Tesla Monkor

The fumble rate for archers is 10% -- highest in the game for anyone. Regardless of how good you are with it (I have Composite Bow skill at 65), I fumble 10%) of the time.

Yep they need to fix the fumbles, See Hidden fixed the real problem with archers (the invincible, unfindable sniper) so they should revert some of the other half-baked attempts.

 

[old.tuppe]

bolts have some serious trouble too.
if target is even close combat, launch bolt, use power but get message "target is in combat" crap and no hit.
bolts can block by shield, or part of bolt,
bolts damage lower resist + armour.
other spells is only resists.
and if belong in group dont even think use bolt, get that same target is in combat message too, even your friend is sitting only behind (buffbott).

hunters, crit shot can shoot only person who stand and dont even look whit bad eye other, if its in combat, or moving, changes automaticly to normal shot

 

[mid-sinister]

Only way to play a hunter nowadays is use a buffbot, otherwise your toast, anyone remember how powerful sinister/xanoo and others were back in the early daoc euro days, (yes they were purple con to most the snowdonia albs though)

A hunter fully buffed by a shaman that gives capped stats, with a 100% quality 16.5dps 5.0 speed (slowest bow in mid) (with 65 bow) can now get close to hitting as hard as the old unbuffed level 45 sinister with 50 skill in bow using a twilight bow (like 15 dps 4.4 speed 89% quality, thats if i use thrust arrows.

So thats about whats changed DAMAGE-WISE for the bow, a 300 str 300 dex level 50 archer with 65 in bow, using one of the VERY best crafted bows in the game can hit for about 100 less damage than that old level 45 with shitty stats and equitment, oh, thats also that we fire slower than we used to so that kinda lowers damage output over time with bow quite a lot.

I wont go into all the other nerfs that affected archers cos that guy posted a website with a nice viewing of them

http://daocscout.com/death_of_a_scout.html

 

[Tranquil-]

Originally posted by Fingoniel


Actually, bolts use the exact same code as critical shots now. (and are badly broken)
They don't have fumbles admittedly and ignore bladeturn but they're utterly utterly useless on anything other than cloth casters.
Don't forget the ritual-like mouse-clicking to fire a spell (ok so it's not 3 times per shot that annoys me as my merc, but can't think of any other way they could do it... maybe an auto-fire that means every time you shoot it reloads? every time you're ready to shoot it fires? moving breaks it? they have style queues now so why not arrow queues )

In return you get armour something very helpful
Grass ain't that green over here you know (and I'm sure it's not exactly lush over there too) just a trick of the light.

It's not about how it should be, it's about how it is. I don't mind the rituals when playing, but now when casters are beginning to complain about resists it seems to me to only be because it wasn't like that before. The point is, nuking and capping your DD's on each nuke is too powerful, that's why resists are a greater part of the game now.

Imagine a group with pbt, archers damage isn't even reduced, it's nullified when bt absorbs the hit. Independent of if the archer is acting like a cowardly sniper and stealthing after attack or if he's part of a group.

 

[Danya]

If you kill/cc the PBT class, pbt drops, archers and melee then get to hit for full, yay. If you kill the resist buffer resists are still up. This is a bad thing for casters IMO.

 

[Tranquil-]

Originally posted by Danyan
If you kill/cc the PBT class, pbt drops, archers and melee then get to hit for full, yay. If you kill the resist buffer resists are still up. This is a bad thing for casters IMO.

Another point that proves that Wardens are a better base for pbt than Theurgist is. Hib / Alb balance anyone?

It's a bad thing for casters yes, but they can still hit them.
Resist = Lower damage.
PBT = No damage.

And casters can ignore any form of BT anyway.

edit: And don't forget that archers still have some melee resists to fight.

 

[Danya]

BT = 1 hit per 6s max effect, no good against duel wielders or multiple attackers.
resists = gimp damage for all

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by Tranquil-


It's not about how it should be, it's about how it is. I don't mind the rituals when playing, but now when casters are beginning to complain about resists it seems to me to only be because it wasn't like that before. The point is, nuking and capping your DD's on each nuke is too powerful, that's why resists are a greater part of the game now.

Imagine a group with pbt, archers damage isn't even reduced, it's nullified when bt absorbs the hit. Independent of if the archer is acting like a cowardly sniper and stealthing after attack or if he's part of a group.

casters went out into RvR expecting to be able to go 'zap zap zap zap dead tank'
now they can't...

archers used to expect to go "twang twang, dead caster, twang twang, dead caster, /laugh /wave /run off into the distance"
now they can't...

tanks used to expect to go "/g damn mezzed!, /release" and don't do so quite so often anymore.

 

[Danya]

Originally posted by Fingoniel
casters went out into RvR expecting to be able to go 'zap zap zap zap dead tank'
now they can't...

archers used to expect to go "twang twang, dead caster, twang twang, dead caster, /laugh /wave /run off into the distance"
now they can't...

tanks used to expect to go "/g damn mezzed!, /release" and don't do so quite so often anymore.

The thing is, what can they do if they can't go "zap zap zap zap dead tank"? Other than spend lots of quality time checking out the grass.

 

[Tranquil-]

Originally posted by Danyan
BT = 1 hit per 6s max effect, no good against duel wielders or multiple attackers.
resists = gimp damage for all

Atleast casters can HIT them, take out their speed or whatever.
An archer needs to hit at exactly the beginning of the pulse to perhaps have a chance of getting through untill it refreshes. (Too bad they keep nerfing drawtimes.) Oh, and the next shot after that will be nullified again because of the bubble that's back up.

Originally posted by Danyan

The thing is, what can they do if they can't go "zap zap zap zap dead tank"? Other than spend lots of quality time checking out the grass.

The same as any other class that is currently twinning thumbs instead of killing.

Originally posted by Fingoniel


casters went out into RvR expecting to be able to go 'zap zap zap zap dead tank'
now they can't...

archers used to expect to go "twang twang, dead caster, twang twang, dead caster, /laugh /wave /run off into the distance"
now they can't...

tanks used to expect to go "/g damn mezzed!, /release" and don't do so quite so often anymore.

Again.. It's not about what we expect or what it should be, mate.. It's about how it is..

 

[Cowled]

Originally posted by Tranquil-
Again.. It's not about what we expect or what it should be, mate.. It's about how it is..

Exactly!

Changes in the rules are WRONG!

Tomorrow paladins can do 6000 dmg in one hit... so? What can u do about it? Yay.. roll paladins..

Next day it's sorcs which hit for 5000000000 dmg and paladin gets nerfed to -5000000000000 dmg Oo.

Sigh..

It's the endless nerf, let's hope some good game comes soon .. like World of Warcraft.. (atleast Blizzard int. knows what they are doing)

 

[old.chesnor]

Originally posted by Cowled


Changes in the rules are WRONG!

LOL.

Of course, archers were never overpowered back in beta. CC classes chain casting stun and mezz was never a stupid bug that didn't need fixing. Doublefrost never did too much dmg for too little end usage.

Nerfs happen in games like this. Rules change. Don't whine about that. You can whine because you have been nerfed too much, but you were overpowered once, and you did need nerfing. Just a shame Mythic have gone too far. My guess is, like me, they got owned so totally hard by archers when they were uber

 

[Tranquil-]

There was once a suggestion that perhaps an archer slept with some of the Dev's wives. I'm beginning to think that the whole US archer community had a fullout orgy with the all of the Dev's wives at the same time. I bet that some hib caster taped it and sent the tape to Sanya. <mumbles something about baseline stun>

<cough> Ignore that last comment will you

 

[Cowled]

Originally posted by old.chesnor


LOL.

Of course, archers were never overpowered back in beta. CC classes chain casting stun and mezz was never a stupid bug that didn't need fixing. Doublefrost never did too much dmg for too little end usage.

Nerfs happen in games like this. Rules change. Don't whine about that. You can whine because you have been nerfed too much, but you were overpowered once, and you did need nerfing. Just a shame Mythic have gone too far. My guess is, like me, they got owned so totally hard by archers when they were uber

It's ok to make small changes ... like more end use, but lame to implant more fumbles, miss, pbt, .. i can go on.

 

[Flimgoblin]

what's your firing time on your bow? can you not use faster bows than the longbow?

I know polearmsmen have problems with bladeturn - they can get round it by switching to a dagger though...

 

[old.chesnor]

Originally posted by Cowled


It's ok to make small changes ... like more end use, but lame to implant more fumbles, miss, pbt, .. i can go on.

PBT may be a lame change from your pov, but for cloth wearing (0% abs, 1/2 of tanks AF) casters, they really needed some protection from getting 1 shotted all day long. Without PBT archers could farm casters, and you know this to be true.

As for misses, sure you may miss lots. All classes miss though, as has been said in this thread. The benefit of missing at range is that you can still escape and restealth. Classes that miss lots in melee (especially classes who can't spec weapon, as unstyled attacks not only miss as much as styled, but get blocked and parried like mad) don't have that range to make an escape.

Just can;t help thinking alot of archers (especially scouts and rangers) whine not because they are gimps, but because they aren't uber anymore.....although Hunters have a right to whine, they are gimps

 

[Danya]

Originally posted by Tranquil-
Atleast casters can HIT them, take out their speed or whatever.
An archer needs to hit at exactly the beginning of the pulse to perhaps have a chance of getting through untill it refreshes. (Too bad they keep nerfing drawtimes.) Oh, and the next shot after that will be nullified again because of the bubble that's back up.

A bladeturned "hit" will break speed and other non-combat effects. You should be able to hit faster than once every 6 seconds (that's even assuming they have 6s pbt, not 8 or 10). And like I said, kill the pbt class, it drops for the group. Kill the resistance buffer they are still up.

 

[Tranquil-]

Originally posted by Danyan

A bladeturned "hit" will break speed and other non-combat effects. You should be able to hit faster than once every 6 seconds (that's even assuming they have 6s pbt, not 8 or 10). And like I said, kill the pbt class, it drops for the group. Kill the resistance buffer they are still up.

To be able to hit through pbt you need to hit the target JUST after the pulse has refreshed, giving you the time to hit the next shot. It's not possible for an attacker to know when the pulse has started and stopped so that's out of the question.
Let's say you hit and clear PBT on the first shot just after it has refreshed. The chance to actually do this is like finding the famous needle in the haystack, but that's another case.. Ok, so you hit on the followup. By the time you have knocked another arrow, drawn, and fired it, the pulse will most likely be up again which results in another miss. Miss, hit, miss, rince and repeat.(Not much of an asset to a group there..) Let's say you meet a hib group here.. Now the warden is not the first one to be attacked or the one with low hp, i.e like a Theurgist.. This is a best case scenario and is not an average... Misses on every shot against pbt is common. Combine that with fumbles and normal misses it doesn't look good.

With a Huntingbow at 4.0spd you can compete somewhat against it, but the lower drawtime effectively halves your damage done when you hit using one. That's almost like 50% resist ontop of the smaller meleeresists most ppl have.. and that's ontop of the everyother shot 100% resist the pbt is.

Resist buffs should drop, yes. But chose what you want. To hit for 10-50% less every nuke or to have a 100% resist every other shot while the shot you hit with does about 50% of the damage you can do. A hunting bow would be needed which does half the damage of a longbow. A longbows normal shot can somewhat be compared with a DD's damage. But some casters get the ability to debuff their own damagetype, so sometimes it's even better.

Originally posted by old.chesnor


PBT may be a lame change from your pov, but for cloth wearing (0% abs, 1/2 of tanks AF) casters, they really needed some protection from getting 1 shotted all day long. Without PBT archers could farm casters, and you know this to be true.

As for misses, sure you may miss lots. All classes miss though, as has been said in this thread. The benefit of missing at range is that you can still escape and restealth. Classes that miss lots in melee (especially classes who can't spec weapon, as unstyled attacks not only miss as much as styled, but get blocked and parried like mad) don't have that range to make an escape.

Just can;t help thinking alot of archers (especially scouts and rangers) whine not because they are gimps, but because they aren't uber anymore.....although Hunters have a right to whine, they are gimps

Self BT was for caster protection, not PBT. It has to be possible to do some compromise, as it is now it's unbearable. And you know this to be true.

As for misses, everyone miss. It's just that archers misses/fumbles are on steroids.. It doesn't even need testing, perhaps the actual numbers do, but the number of misses/fumbles as an archer is insane if you have ever tried both. I fumble my bow 10 times before I fumble my melee.

And what benefit do we have because we have stealth? I thought the idea was us to group, not be solo snipers. Now when we whine you want us to use stealth, but not when it's you in the other end. And the chance to stay stealthed when knocking an arrow seems to have been brought even lower this patch, so several draws and restealths has to be done to be able to stay alive and hidden while aiming. Add that to PBT/fumbles, the ritual of shooting, having to buy arrows etc. and you can begin to look at the full picture.

Remember the bolts are mostly a solo tool to help them xp. As has been stated by Mythic.. Now, look at bolts as equal to crits and dd's are normalshots. Normalshots miss/fumble just as often as crits. Now look at bolts vs DD's, bolts do miss often, but how often do you miss a DD..? AND if you get the bolt in you can crit on it.. you can't do that with a Critshot. You can't Critshot a running target either. Even our normalshots have a 30-60%(depending on shieldspec, 30% is no spec) chance to get blocked against shieldwearers. Would be pretty mean if someone blocked your DD 30-60% of the time eh? Or what if you fumbled when trying to cast a DD?

Classes that don't have a weaponspec has other abilities and/or isn't meant to be full out offensive. They don't depend on frontloading of damage to be of any use.

Hunters are below par, yep. They need to be fixed, but an archery fix will benefit them too. I just think it's weird that a class like the hunter is forced to group. Hunters of all classes is the one that to me sounds like the one to solo. Hunters are another issue though..

If I could make a wishlist I wouldn't want us to break pbt and whatever. Perhaps just that a Critshot was downgraded to a normalshot when hitting PBT, or even half the damage of a normalshot. First of all I want reliability for the arrows I HAVE to buy. Reliability, reliability, reliability. When an archer is more reliable with his sidearm than with his main weapon something is wrong. What's the use of having him in group then?

 

[Brevis]

Well Chesnor, since my hunter range isnt so good, if I try to solo a caster, i get crit shot in the PBT, by the time i have fired the next shot (which most likely go to PBT too) I have the caster put a quickcasted mezz/root something and BAM, 3 nukes, im dead.
I rarely try to solo a caster anymore, i usually end up eating grass, even when using the fastest bow.

 

[old.chesnor]

Originally posted by Brevis
Well Chesnor, since my hunter range isnt so good, if I try to solo a caster, i get crit shot in the PBT, by the time i have fired the next shot (which most likely go to PBT too) I have the caster put a quickcasted mezz/root something and BAM, 3 nukes, im dead.
I rarely try to solo a caster anymore, i usually end up eating grass, even when using the fastest bow.

Well, don't try to solo casters then Seriously, how many classes CAN solo casters....eh...go on, please tell me.

 

[Brevis]

Well I would say any assassin class is
My point was that in the earlier days archers could prey on someone, casters/other archers etc, nowadays we, hunters, are prefferred (sp?) targets because we drop like a caster in bg hit by a Critblade

 

[DocWolfe]

the problem is casters cast self bt then pbt and the self bt remains. so when you fire the first time you miss, and when you fire the second time you miss again. by this time theres 3 or 4 tanks running at you and no time to fire again.

 

[Tranquil-]

PBT clears Self BT.

 

[Blood]

Originally posted by old.chesnor


Well, don't try to solo casters then Seriously, how many classes CAN solo casters....eh...go on, please tell me.

Archers/rouges were specifically designed as mage killers.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by old.Docwolfe
the problem is casters cast self bt then pbt and the self bt remains. so when you fire the first time you miss, and when you fire the second time you miss again. by this time theres 3 or 4 tanks running at you and no time to fire again.

not true...

you cast self bt.
theurgist casts pbt

theurgist dies, I have no BT (despite not being hit once)

PBT is just as annoying to a tank as an archer - whoever said 'switching to a faster bow is like having resistances' - that's EXACTLY what an armsman does switching from pole to dagger.

PBT is superb against slow single weapons - it's pretty naff against more than one attacker, or fast weapons. (group with another scout one use hunting bows, the other longbow )

 

[Tranquil-]

Originally posted by Fingoniel


not true...

you cast self bt.
theurgist casts pbt

theurgist dies, I have no BT (despite not being hit once)

PBT is just as annoying to a tank as an archer - whoever said 'switching to a faster bow is like having resistances' - that's EXACTLY what an armsman does switching from pole to dagger.

PBT is superb against slow single weapons - it's pretty naff against more than one attacker, or fast weapons. (group with another scout one use hunting bows, the other longbow )

The problem is that the tanks CAN kill them after they have switched to a dagger. They just continue to hit and interrupt while /sticked. An archer can continue to hit, but as soon as I get a QC on me I'm interrupted and the caster can start to cast ranged attacks on me because he has lower casttime. If they aren't going to attack, they can just run out of range too. Not very easy to do that with a tank /sticked to you is it?

 

[Tafaya Anathas]

I had put 27 days of playing to level my scout to 50. This is the only reason for not deleting it.

 

[Tranquil-]

Just had to post this one

Hahaha this quote by sanya is a classic:

"No feelings, no "this one time at band camp" stories (i.e., I got one shotted on the frontier - useless data without levels of participants, armor stats, buff data, spec levels, etc). Tell me exactly what situation a hunter is completely unable to cope with. Show me patterns over time, not one shot tests that tell me nothing. And I will pass it on, and ask that we take another look at hunters in X situation at Y level with ABC specs" -Sanya

This is classic, one of the reasons archers were nerfed so heavily in the first place was because of an email a low lvl cleric sent to sanya that she posted to justify all the nerfs. "hi I am lvl 43 cleric and I was sitting down one time and got killed by a lvl 50 archer in 3 hits before I could even stand up, I dont think this is right." because we all know that email by that cleric was just bursting with facts and evidence and patterns to support his claim. /rolls eyes. Sanya proves once again she is a hypocrit and a tool.

 

[Meatballs]

Originally posted by Brevis
Well Chesnor, since my hunter range isnt so good, if I try to solo a caster, i get crit shot in the PBT, by the time i have fired the next shot (which most likely go to PBT too) I have the caster put a quickcasted mezz/root something and BAM, 3 nukes, im dead.
I rarely try to solo a caster anymore, i usually end up eating grass, even when using the fastest bow.

Hunters have a range of over 1500 right? so outta root/rezz range.

You dont auto target someone if they break a bladeturn, they have to do damage to you. Also if caster have someone else targetted it wont autotarget you when you do do damage.

I reckon all hunters can get at least 2 shots off after 1st (nulified bladeturn) shot, before caster has sighted you, got in range to root/nuke you.

I find as soon as you see that bladeturn going, running and sprinting in a direction you hope the hunter isn't is the best way to stay alive, getting just outta range. You dont have time to check which way arrow is sticking in you

 

[-dewey-]

the problem with range is that if you go to maximum range all the caster has to do is take a step back or run away and you can't always be at max range because people tend to move around alot in RvR. Also nearsight's range is longer than any bow so caster with ns can just qc that.