Archery

[DocDevil]

Hello,

I was playing Daoc years ago and just looked forward to Eden.

The fact that I like bow-classes brought me to trya ranger here.

Bad choice!

Archery feels so disappointing:
1. You need a target to put an arrow on your bow! Why?
2. 6s to 7s cast time for damage shots! Well a caster has 2,Xs to 3s with more damage. Rapid fire does nearly no damage.
3. With no arrow on the bow and 6s or 7s cast time every one is running out of range. It feels so disappointing and useless. Every caster does more damage.
4. CritShot does the same damage than pointblank shot and you have to do it while stealthed. And every bow damage to the target is halfed for 10 secs. Wow the only unique thing an archer has is nerfed to pointlessness.
5. There is no RA for the Ranger (other archery classes maybe too) which is unique except the RR5 ability. The Ranger has nothing. MCL and Raging Power Are you kidding me

Please give the archer classes a bit love! Or maybe somebody can explain the mechanics to me? I do not get the point

Thank you!

[Fin / Valar]

I've only seen the charplan but I had the same impression, that archery here is kinda... meh

I also loved playing the Hunter, back in time, and I think I will not try it again here.
Anyway, for general server health reasons.... the more the stealthers are under-performing the better it is, especially with long range stealthers and their awful one-shot one-kill assist train.

[Reignwolf]

I am playin ranger and archer classes need lots of love. Archery dmg is really low and slow at thidranki. My adviceİ If u wanna ply stealther, play ns-infil or sb. I rerolled an eld. Its much better with short casting times.

[guigoujr]

Same observation for me
Damage low and Cast Time vert long.
Critical shot do nothing more than another skill.
It s impossible to shoots 3 Time on a target with 5 or 7 sec of cast, target is always out of range

[Godfrey]

IMO archers are misconceived as being soloists. They are more of a tactical, more methodical, slower-paced group class play style, that allows players to engage on their own terms. Setting up in strategic locations and taking out reinforcements to zergs or stragglers, or solo'ers is basically what you are after. And to do that, you gotta be quick, which means 2-3+ archers shooting at one. The benefit is that you don't have to worry about zergs or grps etc, waiting for many people to buff or move out, but you are still reliant on being in a group to be "most effective". Once you're RR8,9,10+ and you can afford high Eagle Eye, Aug Dex ect can you be deadly solo.

Remember, casters are nearly useless in melee without the use of RA's (MOC etc..). If their QC+CC is resisted, most are dead 100%. Bow users still have a "chance" of killing their target after they come into close combat range from being shot at. This is why bows do not do caster damage. It would not make sense to be a caster at that point other than for CC-type casters. The other hand, stealthers get to fight on their "terms" or choosing most of the time, yet another reason why their dmg is not as high as a caster. If you are FORCING yourself in being a "BOW ONLY" archer then you are screwing yourself. They have melee specs for a reason/design. It's simply like a caster forcing themselves to only use one spec line out of all of their spell categories or a melee class who can use 1h/shield and 2h and never swapping between them. It's simply self-gimping.

Quickshot is not meant to be used to kill by itself strictly. Think of two archers together with a caster, one keeps quick shotting to prevent caster from casting or a healer from healing, while the other archer or class works on killing.... It's basically an endless interrupt.

If you're thinking back to the "old times", archers ALWAYS grouped. 2-3 scouts, ranger etc... Essentially they relied on one another and at the end of the day it's how/why stealth zergs became a thing. Only recently were they buffed to a point to where they could solo and do "Caster dmg" like on live now.

[Masakari]

Im on a Ranger in lvl 15-19 BG.
A Skald takes only 20% damage from Crit shot. You have to flee before you try a second shot

A Thane i tried...i got the second shot out, yes. But before i shot the second shot. He started casting on me
And his instant rupted me that i werent able to get a rupt on him again. So i died

A Runemaster i hit with Crit shot while he passed me by. He turned and shot a Bolt on me. Rupting my second shot, used Speed to get off from him for Stealth. He starting a cast, i stealthed. I started a fresh Shot on him. He turned and ran away. I left the fight with 15% hp from 1 Bolt
He left with 40% HP ^^

A Melee in Scales no words to say. I just cant kill him atm. The lifereg on this low level is higher than the damage i can deal every 6 seconds with an arrow

Only things that works are not so smart Casters to kill. Who keep staying on a place for some seconds. And when you start shooting them. Not moving and turning around to watch where the arrows come from. Those are the only Targets you can kill with a low Level Ranger. But those targets are really really rare

Other thing thats wondering me: Why i dont crit sitting enemies? I thought you have 100% Crit chance on sitting Targets?

[Dehth]

It is a bit ironic that new archery forces you into being a melee ranger even though it is spell based... but you could get by without melee in old archery which was melee based...

I do really hate new archery. I played Celestius and accepted it...it does a get a little better as you get higher levels but still frustrating (especially when you start getting those runs of misses)
Understand you are not going to ever shoot anyone down solo with bow even at 50+ archery.
So what do you do? "Add" my friends, Add, That is what you do..wait, see a fight. Add
It is the game you (especially sniper spec rangers) are forced to play. Unless you commit fully to a melee spec you are not going to beat any other class in melee....but then you might as well be a ns/infilt/sb IMO.
That or just run with a bg when they form and tag everything you can with rapid fire...get good at running catapults.

Scouts have it a little better as they have all the benefits of PF buffs + slam.

[Marcus]

If you think there is a bug with archery, then find the correct archery formulas and data from patch 1.9x to use and make a bug report. We are looking into this as well.

[pinkfl4ppy]

It is not worth rolling an archer toon - the cast time between shots and the damage is almost unplayable / laughable. Crit shot and power shotting green con casters for only maybe 20% dmg? and after first shot they run out of range so you just wasted 5-6s loading the second arrow lol. My toon has all good gear that is available with capped dex, str, quick, + archery etc., and it is like i am running around naked with a training bow.

I know at level 50 with max dex and cast speed archers are much much easier to play and get kills with but I do not ever remember being in thid and it being this bad.

[Lylinae]

Played 2 separate hunters level 24 up until the end of lv24 alpha phase, exclusively solo, sacrificing stealth on both in order to have high archery, sword, and 13 BC (blue pet):

- Valkyn full DEX, got to 700rp, rerolled Norseman due to fights mainly being in melee.
- Norseman full STR, got to 3000rp, stopped playing hunter, it's just not fun to lose even if you have the opening.

Archery damage is nowhere near anything viable at this level, regardless of official formula/patch note, it is just not fun playing an archer.
Leveling up through PvP is a pain.
Leveling up through PvE is a pain.

Casting time is the worst thing, a target either flees or reaches melee after CS => SS. you start casting PBS on someone rushing you but he'll interrupt it. You cannot CS => RF => SS a caster, he'll be far gone by then.

If we get i50 full gear beta, I will try again hunter to compare performance, but I do not expect a day and night difference.
If not, I believe that leveling a hunter to 50 is a huge time sink fun-killer bet just to see if it works.

A way to help archery to be fun/viable for lower levels would be to reduce the casting times the lower the skill level:
Crit shot I could be 2.0s.
Crit shot II could be 2.5s.
Crit shot III could be 3.0s.
And so on with other shots.

Meaning low level skills get buffed, but top level skills get their original casting speed, which would be reduced through higher DEX and ToA bonus.

A level 50 archer that decides to reduce points in archery in order to increase his melee efficiency would lose in archery damage, but catch up a bit in casting speed, making more diversified builds viable.

For now, I'll roll an Infiltrator