Meet the Archer and Crossbowwoman!

[Roran Hawkins]

I blame television, people probably imagine themselves (and want to be) like some lone romantic marksman like Legolas or Robin hood able to take down scores of people on their own with deadly accuracy from a mile away.

Then when they find out that they need to work in groups, kill horses, support their team they shout: OMG BUFF ARCHERY WHY AM I NOT LEGOLAND!!!1111one

 

and seeing melee barbarians getting shot 12043620545 times and still fighting on TV, and dying IG and screaming, WHY AM I DED OMGNERF OP ARCHERYARHGEARGHAREGH

while they shouldn't just walk around like: "oh it's raining" when getting shot at, and take cover, use shieldwalls, work in groups and protect their archers instead.

But since the devs favor the 2h/polearm helicopters and 2h pikes and polearm autostunlock spam, they like nerfed archery...

[Keshian]

I blame television, people probably imagine themselves (and want to be) like some lone romantic marksman like Legolas or Robin hood able to take down scores of people on their own with deadly accuracy from a mile away.

Then when they find out that they need to work in groups, kill horses, support their team they shout: OMG BUFF ARCHERY WHY AM I NOT LEGOLAND!!!1111one

 

You really don't get it.  The latest nerf (of at least 7 or 8 now) has made it so we can't support our team.  That's the main complaint, the class has been nullified.  we never asked to buff archery, just not to nerf an already baalnced class, because someone who runs in a  straight line in tin can outfit and expects to go 10-1 spamming is complaining.

[Fluffy_Muffin]

Tears will always fuel the change in crpg, happend to trowing, 2h, cav and now archery 

Throwing was overkill, after the patch there were like 5 throwers left in the game, the rest was balance, but if you shed enough tears who knows? Things may change 

[Bulzur]

(click to show/hide)

Im actually disgusted by this thread. Archers dont need a buff. Wpf is not essential to success in melee and archers dont have to be dedicated check this.

level 26
ength   18   
Agility   13   
Weapon proficiency
Available points: 0
One Handed   1   
Two Handed   1   
Polearm   4   
Archery   133   
Crossbow   1   
Throwing   1   
Skills
Available points: 1
Iron Flesh   6   
Power Strike   6   
Shield   0   
Athletics   4   
Riding   0   
Horse Archery   0   
Power Draw   6   
Power Throw   0   
Weapon Master   4   

At level 26 i have had unprecedented success with this char I play in AUS which has a skilled and wide range of players (every class is accounted for). All types of maps are used.

With 1wpf in 2H i get most of my kills with a heavy bastard sword i use the new Yumi and Tatar arrows. Although i am a competent swordsman having never played an archer before.

What is wrong with a balanced skill set. Its not all about shooting to kill. In a game in which armour is a staple i think its time people grew up and learnt to be versatile and that they cant shoot down every infantry man coming at them.

Hummm... you know that using a melee weapon with no wpf investment increases greatly the repair chance ?
You know you can't be considered a dedicated archer if you have other skills ?
You know one stack of arrows ONLY is like shooting during 2mins and then having to go in melee range ?

You know overall you would have add a way better success with a relatively similar build but with a crossbow and steel bolts ?


Also, the skillfull of all action for archer support was shooting into melee. This could separate good archers from wannabee rangers. But now, you have to be at melee range to support your teammate. Might as well use a melee weapon, like a longspear. You will even stun him longer.

[Tears of Destiny]

Tears will always fuel the change in crpg, happend to trowing, 2h, cav and now archery 

Good to hear that you think so highly of me!

[Remy]

Brilliant!

[Digglez]

haha nice work. love it

[Overdriven]

Support this thread.

Archer nerf was unnecessary. At least in the scale it was given. If you're gonna nerf archers so that it's hard to kill someone out right, then you have to add assists to the score board and count for the K/D. The past couple of big patches really have nerfed them hard. I played a dedicated archer way back when I first joined and it was really easy. But now it's just nerfed to crap. As usual, it seems a class has been nerfed hard without the people who did it actually knowing what they are doing. Or, being melee whiners themselves, can't handle a few arrows and just want to lolstab archers before they get killed.

Missile speed/drop on arrows is near enough the equivalent of throwing. That's just wrong. And I've seen throwing weapons travel faster than arrows. You telling me the draw weight of a longbow at 120 pounds minimum (the draw weight that real longbows held in those times, 40 pounds more than an Olympic bow) in reality is weaker than the throw of a persons arm? No bloody way. Makes no sense even as balance in game, seeing as lots of throwers take shields.

Stop touching classes that aren't broken. Leave them be.

[Keshian]

Support this thread.

Archer nerf was unnecessary. At least in the scale it was given. If you're gonna nerf archers so that it's hard to kill someone out right, then you have to add assists to the score board and count for the K/D. The past couple of big patches really have nerfed them hard. I played a dedicated archer way back when I first joined and it was really easy. But now it's just nerfed to crap. As usual, it seems a class has been nerfed hard without the people who did it actually knowing what they are doing. Or being melee whiners themselves, can't handle a few arrows and just want to lolstab archers before they get killed.

Otherwise don't touch it.

Plus they had already nerfed all cut bows (all bows except longbow) by changing the armor so that cut damage is far less effective.  So the additional shoot speed nerf OF 31%!!!! was crazy exorbitant.  All they should have done was decrease the pierce damage on longbows and everything would have been fine, keep shoot speed the same at its still a highly nerfed class from damage.

[Paul]

You telling me the draw weight of a longbow at 120 pounds minimum (the draw weight that real longbows held in those times, 40 pounds more than an Olympic bow) in reality is weaker than the throw of a persons arm? No bloody way.

Yes, I'm telling you that. Modern bows use modern materials and light arrows that allow them to reach speeds above 100 m/s even with a relatively low draw weight. Historic longbows with battle arrows shot at 60 m/s (like the crpg mundane longbow at minimum PD), which is already a rather high value. Most tests I saw with historic longbows managed to reach about 170fps(54 m/s). The reason why they had so much draw weight is because they had to shot heavy arrows to defeat armor.

Increasing the draw weight of a one material wooden bow like the long bow doesn't automaticly increase the arrow speed endlessly - even if with lowering the arrow weight. It seems to be limited by "spring speed" of the wooden bow. In fact I read about a draw weight "sweet spot" of about 140 pound for the longbow. After that performance (v0) doesn't increase much. If there really were longbows with 200 pound in use (which I doubt) then their job were to shoot heavy, possibly armor defeating arrows while they weren't able to shoot the lighter arrows of their lower draw weight cousins a lot faster.

One possible exception are historic composite bows. With light flight arrows rather high shot speeds of above 70 m/s should be possible. However with with heavy battle arrows their v0 and thus range is limited as well. Maybe in the future with WSE we might give the option to choose between lighter flight arrows (more speed, less friction), heavier battle arrows(slower, more friction) or hybrids.

[Dezilagel]

If you're gonna nerf archers so that it's hard to kill someone out right...

I giggled.

I'm a horrible person 

[Tomas_of_Miles]

I have been an avid user/abuser of the crossbow for a while now. I have a x1 Arbalest at the moment, had a x3 one before heirloom rerole, but transferred that to my light crossbow for cavalry use. The arbalest is balanced unloomed, as the reload speed really makes you pause for thought to where you are shooting. I think it is part of the crossbow's role to pierce heavy armours and pick off tanks and other long range high value targets. However, I do agree that the rate at which you pick off targets with a crossbow is too high. Leave the damage of the arbalest, if you have to do something to it, make the RELOAD SPEED slower (note: NOT the missile speed). Also do this with the lower tier crossbows (except the hunting crossbow). I haven't played a high level archer for ages so I'm not qualified to tell archers what their class needs, but I thought archery was more of a suppression weapon, the main advantage being the reload speed.

Longbow vs heavy armour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3997HZuWjk
I suppose they wouldn't have padding under their helmet though!

A few valid points we can apply to balance between the two?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g-0-RK3cjk
Being a crossbowman is apparently very expensive (already implemented) and a very specialised skill. Perhaps attach it to weapon master skills?
The crossbow is deadlier at close range, but the longbow fires further.
Oh wait, this is a normal crossbow! More akin to the light-heavy than the arbalest. The arbalest is a HEAVY SLOW siege weapon. Would a weight increase be a logical change?

Anyone think the crossbow is too slow? I think at least arbalest reloading should be nerfed. The damage should stay.

[Bobthehero]

Longbow vs heavy armour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3997HZuWjk
I suppose they wouldn't have padding under their helmet though!

They had padding and mail and even an extra round top helmet called a secret helmet.
They had mail between the plate and the padding as well.

[Rumblood]

Yes, I'm telling you that. Modern bows use modern materials and light arrows that allow them to reach speeds above 100 m/s even with a relatively low draw weight. Historic longbows with battle arrows shot at 60 m/s (like the crpg mundane longbow at minimum PD), which is already a rather high value. Most tests I saw with historic longbows managed to reach about 170fps(54 m/s). The reason why they had so much draw weight is because they had to shot heavy arrows to defeat armor.

Increasing the draw weight of a one material wooden bow like the long bow doesn't automaticly increase the arrow speed endlessly - even if with lowering the arrow weight. It seems to be limited by "spring speed" of the wooden bow. In fact I read about a draw weight "sweet spot" of about 140 pound for the longbow. After that performance (v0) doesn't increase much. If there really were longbows with 200 pound in use (which I doubt) then their job were to shoot heavy, possibly armor defeating arrows while they weren't able to shoot the lighter arrows of their lower draw weight cousins a lot faster.

One possible exception are historic composite bows. With light flight arrows rather high shot speeds of above 70 m/s should be possible. However with with heavy battle arrows their v0 and thus range is limited as well. Maybe in the future with WSE we might give the option to choose between lighter flight arrows (more speed, less friction), heavier battle arrows(slower, more friction) or hybrids.

Really, the psuedo-realism crap you are inventing post-patch to give some type of justification to DaveUKR's biased rantings is just old, old, old. We don't see you applying the same crappy justification to cavalry speeds, and other game mechanics, so don't bother here, especially when you contradict yourself in doing it.
Here's a challenge, why don't you point out to us those historical arrows that were "cut" damage? Every arrow I've ever seen is a piercing arrow. Soooo....since you are so tied to realism in archery now, you are COMPELLED to return piercing damage to ALL bows.

[Razzen]

Maybe its time that there FINALLY should be done something with the overpowered crossbows, which like 50% of the players have right now and they dont even need to waste any skill points or anything for using it and be good.