You are right. We will increase the damage of archery looms again.
I know you're trying to be funny but i meant the bonus from PD. Xbows shouldnt expect bonus damage just because archers do, archers get the damage from sacrificing points from other parts of their build. The loom changes for archery were a good change except for the fact that a bunch of other stats were buffed at the same time for some bows. Plus it resulted in a huge boom in archers on the servers as a random STF was suddenly doing as much damage as someone who spent 6 loom points into his class.
Balancing around looms should be a last ditch effort to control the amount and strength of ranged though. Its a super lazy way to do it with other real options available and it gives too much power to guys with money, and takes power away from guys that are new to the game and will be at a disadvantage anyway. A real way to limit ranged would be to increase their disadvantages while still rewarding skilled use of the class. Make them rely on teamwork more, make each shot count more, make strong counters to the classes or make people sacrifice other things in their build to use ranged effectively. Archers already have a bunch of these elements that xbows should have.
I do think people should be rewarded a bit for getting looms though. It adds a dimension to the game that some people need to keep an incentive to play. I would still give a couple extra points of damage to archers for looms, but reduce base damage on unloomed gear to compensate. +1 damage on arrows and +1 damage on the bow would be fine. Same for xbows and same for weapons but you only have 3 stats so i'd do for eg a swinging weapon +1 swing, +1 stab, then +1 speed. TBH this could be done in a few ways.
