Suggestions to re-balance throwing.

[EponiCo]

Ah yes, why not make 1h swords unusable with shield because even Jack Sparrow has no shield.

[kinngrimm]

Said it before in other posts , i say it again, as a pure thrower in 4 generations on alt and hybrid thrower in 3 generations on main char, i know that they weren't really OP but their numbers increased after the small buff in .200 drasticly. With that patch also came the repair system, tincans often weren't tincans anymore and yes they got oneshoted by lances and Jarrids if they didn't have IF or at least a medium sized armor.

Reducing throwing accuracy while shield equipped  sounds reasonable, if he buts it on his back he would have less protection but more accuracy again.

2 Slots for anything above Javalins, but increase the ammunition.

The wpf requirements to actual use them seems way out of line for a nerf, but perhaps thinking of binding accuracy totally to wpf instead and PT only for damage increase would work. That way if someone wants higher accuracy he needs to go agi and does less damage, works with other classes too.

Heirlooming should also increase ammunition, i don't so much care about damage reduction, but being a thrower without something to throw sucks bigtime and there was really lots of joy when i could carry 1-2 more javallins with me when i reached my 4 generation.

[AlbaTiger]

Ah yes, why not make 1h swords unusable with shield because even Jack Sparrow has no shield.

See that was what people round my part of the world call a joke...but at the very least you could have countered my point with a character who DOES throw while using a shield rather than making a straw man.
 

[Thomek]

Was doing some throwing today..

Got 6PT and 111wpf in throwing on my main.

And 3 jarids pack a serious punch. I get almost as many kills as with my mw kata. The shurikens however are almost useless, and mostly for the lol-headshot you archer or general annoyance.

I'd say don't increase the stack on Jarids, they would be too powerful as a secondary wep, rather keep them at 3.

I'd say 2h+Thrower hybrid is still very powerful and viable as you don't sacrifice much (about 30 wpf and 6 skillpoints in PT  less than a pure 2h)

Buff the shurikens, a bit more accuracy would be cool so they became more of a headshot-skill type wep.

[22nd_King_Plazek]

Well with 3 power throw and 90wpf the three javelins I can choose to take assuming I want a melee weapon do not get nearly as many kills as my melee.
Mainly because even if I do get three hits against someone in quality armour it is highly likely that I still will not even kill them. Light and medium armour I may get one kill or two if one is a headshot.

This secondary weapon does not seem even slightly OP compared to if I took a crossbow.

I get more kills by spamming throwing daggers because they are actually accurate enough to hit someone in the head. But they are useless on horseback.

[AlbaTiger]

Yeah but Thomek were you picking your targets, going for wounded guys and people in light armour?

Against cans and horses they don't really do so much and like you say you are hybrid, when you run out of jarids you still pack a mw katana and the skills to use it, a dedicated thrower on the other hand will have 6 jarids, a 0 slot hammer and no stats to make that hammer any better.

You are right though that hybrid thrower is still pretty viable, which is almost funny considering that all these changes were made to stop hybrid throwers and all they did was destroy dedicated throwing and dent hybrids a little.

Assuming you don't take heavy armour so get hit by a wpf penalty, which as a ninja you certainly wouldn't, you can still take 5 or 6 points of PT, and the prof to use it even though you are main 2hander, or main 1h/shield.

I've seen a number of comments that these changes were mainly made to stop people with high level shields and really hard hitting throwing axes but as long as you wear medium/light armour you can still pack a good 1 slot shield, a good 1h weapon and 4 throwing axes that still hit pretty hard, and the stats to be pretty effective at all of them.

Rather so while dedicate throwers have a little bit more ammo they have no shield and are then left totally naked after losing their ammo, while these hybrids can still wade into the melee or protect themselves if they get targeted for being close enough to make a throw.

So not only did they totally murder dedicated throwing, but the changes failed to actually stop hybrid throwers, they weakened them a lot yes but they are still pretty effective and worse still far FAR better than dedicated throwing.

I just hope the devs don't read these last few posts and see it as a reason to depower throwing even more across the board rather than actually admitting they made a terrible mistake and need to actually focus on changes which reduce hybrid throwers WITHOUT destroying dedicated.

[Thomek]

- Yeah but Thomek were you picking your targets, going for wounded guys and people in light armour?
Yes, and no. I was surprised at the number of guys in armor I one-shotted (They may have been hurt before) , but I was also surprised when a guy in black samurai armor took two jarids still standing. Overall it was still surprisingly effective, 3 jarids granting me at least 1 kill every round. Not bad for a backup weapon. Carrying 12 of them like back in the day, was NOT fair, I see that now..

But that's the dilemma. I think the devs was never too annoyed by the dedicated throwers, but the hybrids.

How to make a dedicated thrower viable without making hybrids even better?

Anyway.. the whole discussion can be viewed as a whine from a class that was never meant to exist.. (AKA I refuse to wield a melee wep! I want to be pure thrower, why doesn't it work anymore??!!)

Anyway, I'm a supporter of the idea of a throwing class.. But it does give the devs a headache to balance it.

[AlbaTiger]

The same could be said for dedicated archers or xbows on the "I don't want to melee" front. Generally speaking I wasn't a full on thrower for a long time because I dropped a little (50) wpf into poles and a couple of points into power strike so that my backup weapon of choice (quarterstaff) would swing a little better, but I don't think wanting to be able to semi-defend yourself in melee is the same as hybrid really.

That was the main attraction to thrower for me though, aside from going Javalry to take on horse archers, the fact that you weren't built for melee, but you had to be very tactically aware because you had to be so close to the melee to hit anything and even then often had to defend yourself against more powerful melee opponents. It was a challenge.

Really though the most hated hybrid thrower build seems to have been the Shielder/Thrower, and that would as I said before be balanced instantly by not making throwing possible with a shield out, straight away the person would have to open themselves up to any other missile weapon, and if rushed not be able to just bring up their shield instantly after a throw.

That sort of thing in combination with the wpf vs power throw system (though that needs toned down a little bit) would make sure that 2h/throwers would never be able to get to a very high power throw if they wanted to keep wpf in their 2hander high and that 1h/shield/throwers wouldn't be able to hide behind their shield much if they wanted to use their throwing weapon and would also hit their ability to fight back with the 1hander.

The wpf/PT system also prevents heavy armoured throwers, especially not heavy armoured hybrids. Again this wasn't an issue for you as a ninja, but as a 2h in light armour shooting is already there as your main counter, and if you had say an extra couple of jarids that wouldn't change the fact that an archer or xbow man could blow you away long before you got into jarid range.

I do get that balance is hard though especially once you factor in tactical aspects, but to me a build like that which emphasises tactics and awareness because of a large weakness is a good thing.

[Kafein]

I was over buffed, now it's over nerfed. Balanced.

More on the topic, they need a SMALL buff now. But please, no more throwing hell.

Your comic is very funny, but also completly one sided. You can draw EXACTLY the same (apart from what the nerfs were) for the exact opposite situation when v0.200 was out and a few weeks later. "Tincans" were whining out loud, and others were saying "That's your problem buddy". Now it happens to throwers, no big deal.

[EponiCo]

Really though the most hated hybrid thrower build seems to have been the Shielder/Thrower, and that would as I said before be balanced instantly by not making throwing possible with a shield out, straight away the person would have to open themselves up to any other missile weapon, and if rushed not be able to just bring up their shield instantly after a throw.

Well, you said it was a joke before, but now you say it again.
You know the reason you can use throwing with a shield in this game because many (if not practically all) throwers throughout history used shields (look up peltast for a start).
Why should the devs make realistic classes impossible just so they can balance made up classes?
Not that the full plated thrower who'd kill shields and players with one shot each and pulled 20 axes out of hammerspace wasn't also a problem in themselves.
Like Thomek I have no problem if someone loads out with only javelins and does moderately well, but it's certainly nothing to balance around.

[AlbaTiger]

That's fair enough to be honest, though if they were indeed the hybrid thrower that was being seen as a game breaker then realism goes out the window.

Cheap_Shot's idea of making a shield just reduce accuracy a lot is fine and one I would be happy with, I just worry that perhaps that won't be seen by some as enough of a change to warrant throwing getting some of its power back which is why I considered the option of out right dropping the ability to throw with a shield out.

Other factors, on both the realism and in game front would be the size and weight of the shields used by throwers.

Peltast are a great example of that as they were light skirmishers with smaller shields so they could close with more heavily armoured Hoplites, throw their javelins and then retreat if the enemy tried to engage them.

Meanwhile the problematic 1h/shield/thrower hybrids in this game often packed the heaviest shields, best 1 handers, good armour AND could throw at full power just with slightly fewer shots than a dedicated thrower who was next to naked by comparison in every other aspect.

I guess for me I just want dedicated throwing to be playable again that is my main concern, if after that there is room to look at variation in types of throwing build within that, such as skirmishers with light shields and armour, shieldless throwers with more ammo that need to rely on teamwork and team mates to protect them more...etc...then I would be very happy indeed.

[Kafein]

I think that using a shield when you throw something logically reduces your accuracy and your throwing power, thus a decrease in damage and shot speed. Furthermore, I think it's harder to pick up your next weapon to throw when you only have one hand available (assuming the weapon doesn't magically appear in your hand, ready to be thrown), thus a decrease in reload speed (speed rating).

For the exact values of these maluses, we can match the idea of shield maluses for polearms and 1/2h. Roughly between -25% and -35% speed and damage could be translated in roughly -15% shot speed, -20% damage, -15% reload speed and -10% accuracy for example.

[EponiCo]

Well, I am doing fine with throwing lance + 2* heavy axes or 3* heavy axes and shield (shield skill 3) now.
Only leveled on battle server and have 143 kills 116 deaths on lvl 24. I think that's decently playable, after that it only gets better. I don't hunt peasants (ofc when I see one and can afford it I kill, but just so often I help teammates kill dangerous players who enter the "you just threw an axe in my face" rage).

[AlbaTiger]

From my own testing I've come to the similar conclusion that heavy axes are still effective.

Of course they still suffer somewhat from the really low accuracy problem of all throwing, but compared to darts, javelins, jarids and spears they are still useable.

Dedicated thrower with 4 stacks of axes, or maybe 3 and a quarter staff, is very much playable (that was how I got the last million xp or so to reach 31 on my thrower after the latest patch), the only issues there are that axes have a slightly different role to the other throwing weapons.

The main difference being that they are totally useless for if you are mounted and trying to hunt down light cav like horse archers because of the very slow speed in the air axes have. While on foot Axes can cause some serious hurt to a horse coming straight at you, or indeed one that gets slowed while going past,  but if they are a little bit away and actually trying to evade then axes are very hard to hit with.

Just out of curiosity is that character a dedicated thrower Eponi?

[EponiCo]

Well, I have 6PS and 60 1h wpf to fight with the axes, I don't melee though as long as I can still throw or pick up throwing weapons.