I'm a little confused about why this is an archery buff. My server still hasn't updated so I haven't had a chance to actually test it all myself (and finding a changelog for the patch has been difficult). So feel free to tell me if I made some stupid assumption that isn't in the patch.
One of my characters is a pure archer (meaning 21/21 with points in PD, Ath, WM and nothing else). Despite having a longbow, the 1 extra arrow to kill a random tincan was not worth the overall damage drop/drawspeed loss for me vs 80% of the other other players prepatch. So I just used rus bow all the time, the piercing changes don't really affect me much (it's nice but usually not worth the overall damage hit).
To me it seems like I now have -1 damage on bow, -1 damage on arrows, no jump draws (true?) and +2 missile speed.
This isn't just a subtle way of complaining, I would like someone to explain it. I just don't know why other archers are calling it a buff.
Is it because large scale games you don't need the mobility and are fighting lots of tin cans (I played some NA_crpg1 recently and its completely different to 15vs15 games)? or is it just the people who use lower tier bows that feel buffed because they now have a piercing option to use with horse archery/hybrid melee when they normally would never use jumpdraw anyway?
..or is there something I just don't understand like "the speed bonus from +2 missile speed compensates for the -2 overall damage, and jumpdraws are still in game"?
Thanks.
[Edit: and I agree indefinite jumpdraw kiting was stupid, but if you are an aggressive mobile archer (not just an archer who camps way up on some walkway) it was a vital part of normal (non-kiting) combat]