i was thinking, with all this throwing spam around, why not show the archers some love?
my idea is to give archers a secondary mode, which causes them to hold their bow horizontally rather than vertically. along with that it would add a bonus to firing speed and accuracy while moving, but decrease overall accuracy, arrow speed and damage. maybe an added effect would be to remove the crosshair, since they're not really "aiming" anymore but rather firing from the hip. but then again there are ways to get around not having a crosshair. hell, a desperate player could just take a marker and draw one onto their monitor. for balance reasons this ability could only be exclusive to the lighter bows. or maybe add a PD requirement, depending on the bow.
on a serious note regarding my first line however, i dont mean this to be a band-aid solution in response to the lolfest that throwing is right now. rather i think archers deserve it because generally a player needs to make archery their main focus in order to be effective, as opposed to crossbowers who only need the strength, which compliments melee anyway, and the wpf. were an archer to recieve these changes, it would help with their medium-close range ability, while still forcing them to engage or run at melee distance. it would also make sense in a siege scenario, because when the enemy is pouring across the siege ramp, you just want to loose as many arrows as possible rather than actually aim them. and on top of that it would improve their ability to suppress and put pressure on the enemy, which is one of the archers niches anyway.
some would argue that this would just add to an archers already great kiting ability and make them an even greater pain in the ass. but really, every build has their weakness. if you're getting kited, then grab a shield or some athletics! also, more arrows would glance due to the decreased damage, and the archer still has to face you, so even the heaviest tin can could still catch up to the backpeddaling archer.
i'll admit, im not an archer myself, but after fighting with and against them, i think theses changes would make sense. i might be a bit biased because i myself have decent atheltics and carry a shield, so i think some input from the 2Hers and polearm users would be good. no doubt it would need a good deal of balancing, and the animations would take some work, but i think it'd be worth it.
