It's nice to see that a lot of people are giving support to throwers, even begrudgingly. I appreciate it.
- throwing got nerfed into oblivion, the only thing what is usable at all are the war darts in the opinion of lots of throwers i have spoken to.
A lot of people actually missed this, but wardarts were reduced to 4 per stack in the most recent patch.
Playing as a dedicated thrower for so long, I know what a difficult playstyle it really is. I don't think it was ever truly overpowered, when compared to crossbowing, as well as considering the risk vs reward, but the damage buff was warranted. It seems common consensus that the nerfs to throwing went beyond reasonable to the extreme however.
As a long time dedicated thrower, please hear me out. You have to be very careful how you balance throwing. It is in a tricky position and if done incorrectly will just cause more problems and never get fixed. What really started all the hate was throwing getting very popular after archer nerfs. It wasn't a problem when throwers were rare, but when people realized they could grab a bunch of throwing weapons and huck them around cheap as pies and do damage, it got way out of hand. No one wants that to happen again. I don't want that to happen again since it will just bring more hate towards my playstyle, which I believe could have a legitimate position in regular gameplay. These are the changes I believe would make it fair again, without letting it get out of control. Some nerf, some buff.
Lower the very high wpf requirement - It is too much. Currently, the more wpf you invest in being a better thrower, the worse your overall build becomes. The requirements for the higher levels of powerthrow are so high that reaching them effectively handicaps the build making dedicated throwers impossible. You need to be able to have points in a secondary weapon to scavenge from the ground once you run out of things to throw. This is currently impossible if you want to be a dedicated thrower and have the highest level of throwing. What happens is you run out of throwing weapons, and then run around unarmed while people scream at you and request you be banned for unarmed leaching. This is annoying.
Increase the amount of powerthrow needed for throwing weapons - This would make it require more of a point investment to add throwing to a build, without eliminating the possibility altogether like the wpf hike did. Making hybrids more expensive this way wouldn't punish dedicated throwers like the wpf increase did.
Increase accuracy - Either by amount of wpf, amount of powerthrow, quality of the weapons, or a mix. It doesn't matter, as long as accuracy is increased. Aiming is currently like gambling since the reticule is very wide, even for a dedicated thrower.
Stack size; very small increase + heirloom increase - I don't feel these need to be raised by much. Certainly the higher quality throwing weapons like spears jarrids and lances have become useless at such low amounts. For instance, you can throw 1.5 jarrids per slot. While I feel that they could be increased just a little bit, and certainly I believe 100% that heirlooming them should increase the stack size again, I don't feel they should be returned to the amount you could have before. The reduced stacks encourage more patience and timing, and only skilled throwers remain effective at it. The current amounts are a little too low however. Especially on the 80-100 man servers.
Leave speed, distance, damage, and slot amounts as is. - Naturally bolts and arrows should fly much faster, throwing requires heavier timing to connect with targets. Distance might seem too poor right now, but that's just the way it is. If you want range, pick up a crossbow. They cost nearly nothing to add to a build and have plenty of range and punch. You get used to the range after a while. Damage has already been reduced a lot to the point where people don't complain about it anymore, and at higher levels of powerthrow it is better, reduced stack size unbalanced this a little however, but I enjoy the playstyle enough to look past that disadvantage. Slot size, while many people complain about, I feel was actually the smartest change. If the idea was to cut down on the sheer amount of people making throwing hybrids, then job well done. It never felt right to be able to carry a ton of throwing weapons and then just whip out a 2h sword at will. There were also far too many ?/thrower hybrids and it got old pretty fast. Archery being good again as well as the slot increase and the low requirements for crossbows eliminated this, not the wpf hike. Well, that, and the brutal overnerfing. That stopped it right up too if you want to get technical.
The proper thrower playstyle should be "start with nothing but throwing weapons, throw all or half, scavenge weapon from ground to defend yourself with. Hunt for stray throwing weapons. Survive." It's a
very difficult, but very rewarding playstyle which is a natural counter to heavy cav, and cocky plates. Their natural enemies are shield users, who ruin all but the most skilled throwers. I'm very in favour of the idea that tactics should be used by teams to win. The more complicated the game of rock paper scissors gets, the more rewarding and enjoyable it will overall become.
The tl;dr: Lower wpf requirement(buff), increase powerthrow requirement(nerf), increase accuracy(buff), small stack size increase particularly for heirlooms(slight buff).
Poll