Hello, thanks for all the positive feedback!
Some responses:
The most important is PD- your build is, ekhm, atypical (17?) and ineffective(imho).
The best/OP archers have a (absolute minimum) >+6 PD (exception is HA, but they are speed premium for damage).
My lvl 30 build is 18/21 this gen, so I am getting 6 PD. The thought came to me as I was close to hitting 30 and figured it might be useful to check the damage I am doing now, and then see how much it really changes when I go to 6 PD. I included the fact I had 17 strength because I saw a damage algorithm from Paul which made it appear that raw strength has a slight impact on arrow damage.
Using bodkin arrows though I think having 5 PD seems to be working just fine. It will be interested to see how much of a true change in average number of hits I will get when I hit 6 PD. I have a hunch that I might decrease the min/max numbers of hits it takes per kill, but I bet averages won't drop too terribly much.
What I've noticed is that Rus Bow and Longbow tends to 2hit while other bows are a lot less threatening.. Probably something to do with the PD requirements, too.
As I mentioned I am using MW Bodkins & MW Horn Bow, which does 1 damage more than a vanilla rus bow. So the averages I posted regarding hits -> kill will likely translate for most Rus Bow users, however of course someone with a MW Rus & Bodkins will do more damage. I can't see the average hits to kill for mid-heavy people going from 4 to 2, but I could see it being closer to 3, with the occasional 2 shot. Of course this is just speculation.
I appreciate the time you took to do this test and hats off to you for this...Thanks!
...Also u must realise most people are bothered by sheer ammount of ranged on the servers not individuals or individual damage, yes i can sucessfully dodge one archer shooting at me but 5 or more no way.
I agree, you'll have a hard time dodging 5 archers. But does that mean archery needs to be nerfed to make it possible for you to survive 5 archers shooting at you? I don't think so - since this is a team game that means there are 5 archers who are NOT shooting at 4 of your teammates. I don't think the game should be balanced around 1v1 paper scissors rock, but it does need to take that sort of balance into consideration. In melee 2 teammates who know what they are doing should take down any other melee player in probably 90%+ of all instances, provided they are working together effectively.
so basicly its not op that u can ~3~4 shot people with a hit and run build like yours, witch you will outrun most people with in archer gear. and now be a nice little archer and take 7+ pd like the moar dedicated real archers and see how u will rofl about,
The biggest complaints I've heard were from people claiming that bodkin arrows needed to be reverted to cut, and discussion that the lower tiered bows became too powerful with pierce damage. I started with the lowest possible PD needed for my bow, to see how much truth there was to these claims. You can see the results, which I think prove that a) a 15/24 hornbow archer can be effective, and b) a 15/24 hornbow archer will probably average between 3-5 hits to kill someone.
I think that longbow users are actually doing quite similar damage to what they were doing pre-bodkin patch, since they always had pierce. In fact I would be willing to bet that the highest PD longbowmen will only ever get their average down to something like 2-3 hits, but will have to sacrifice a bunch of accuracy to attain that. I think 2-4 hit average is a much more realistic total for someone with 7 or 8 PD and a MW longbow.
Also remember that while my build can "run 'n gun" I'm not going to be close to 100% accuracy per shot. It is probably honestly closer to something like 35-40% in the midst of battle with people moving around in these middle range type situations. So 3-4 hits will probably translate into 8 or 9 arrows. I don't think bodkins deserve a huge nerf, but perhaps a
very slight damage decrease for lower tier bows (followed by a longbow buff of some sort, and maybe a slight buff to non-bodkin arrows to make them more appealing) might not be a bad idea.
As an archer who runs around with a base 6PD (18 strength), Masterwork Bodkin arrows, Masterwork Longbow & 159 wpf I could quite happily help you with these tests if you wish. I am willing to jump onto a duel server and set up a similar distance and do a similar amount of tests.
I could probably collar Gisbert in to help as well, with his 7(?) PD, 173(?) wpf, Masterwork Longbow and Masterwork Bodkin arrows.
Also, on top of that, I am able to see specific hp levels (by percentage) due to being an admin and the "show player names cheat" so this could help give a more accurate representation of the exact damage each hit is doing, on average, at a specific distance, specific height, power draw, weapon prof etc etc. (I'm sure no one would mind the use of this in course of scientific experimentation that would benefit the community.)
From the top of my head, I have to say I do do a reasonable amount of damage, but most of my kills come from close range kiting of silly two handers. I normally kill medium armoured people (50 body armour) in three shots (unless they increase my speed bonus my jumping at me or running towards me/doing the idiot spin dance that we all know is completely ineffective)
So yes, in short, i'm quite happy to give a different view point on this as well.
That would be awesome! By all means if you wanted to do research I'd welcome the additional info (you could post it wherever of course, but if you added to this thread I could add it to OP data).
One thing I did not do was test with a standard set of body armor, just because it was easier to grab people at random and record what they were currently wearing & their STR/IF totals. Similarly I did not do enough (IMO) tests with more of the light-mid infantry, so my results are a bit weak there. Again if you decide to do testing you are free to test whatever you want since finding specific builds or armor ranges will be much more challenging to just pull from random people
But this testing should be quite easy to recreate as long as the ranges are kept similar, and the data from the subject is all recorded.