DarkKarma, i think you'll see that dedicated range will be fine. The melee hybrids of them will suffer a little bit. We'll see ho wit plays out... If they have an heirloom and character re-stat then everything will be fine and nobody will get royally screwed for heirlooming completely non compatible weapons as of the patch.
Heirlooming was meant to be RARE and SPECIAL (dixit chadz, and I approve that). I think that instead of giving the heirloom tokens back, many will be "stolen" again.
See now I don't buy that for a second. This is going to hurt alot ofdedicated hybrid players such myself. I can respect that they wanted to cut down the major issue of hybrids, (mainly with crossbows and their not so steep wpf requirements) But come on, I mean, as far as i'm concerned this is going to seriously destroy alot of hybrids and dedicated crossbowmen as well.
I'll be forced to just using a bloody one hander or extremely low end polearm, I mean, as a crossbowman, I can count on going into melee the vast majority of time. I may not be a melee force, but I can at least hold my own. I can't run around and kite guys in a Loki-esque style and , continually hit my targets while on the move. Once I miss and i'm being pursued, i'm going to HAVE to melee assuming I don't 1 hit him or have about 30 feet to work with. My melee capabilities are going to be hit VERY hard with this patch(not to mention the item I heirloomed for the soul purpose of going with my bow is now effectively useless as far as that is concerned. Simply steepening ranged wpf requirements for xbows would seem to be alot simpler. Better yet, why not make it dependant on powerdraw like bows? It would seriously cut back on the amount of hybrid users as well as not screw over the dedicated crossbowmen out there.
A similar skill steepening could be done for throwing so that it's not as practical. I mean, I get it, right now it's not a mater of "should I hybrid" rather than "why shouldn't I hybrid?" But come on, we're not all lance tankmen fighters that can balance out two melee weapons and still have 60 wpf in crossbow and be effective.
All in all, this seems like an extremely short sighted fix.
I guess xbowers and archers only able to use
bloody one-handers or low end polearms is balanced, as it is the case in Native for most factions. A simple short sword can be a deadly weapon in the correct hands, and is the greatest choice for those really roleplaying an archer/crossbowman.
And, WTF is happening, are they actually releasing "patch notes" ??? And it seems they have wrote it BEFORE the patch release ??? Can someone write a link to that wonderful thread ?