Xbows next...?

[Smoothrich]

I still think most of the xbow whining is coming from 2h/pole heroes that run around with 2 free slots then complain when they get shot.

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Nothing like good ol non-biased balance talk from our competitive tier players

[Phew]

Nothing like good ol non-biased balance talk from our competitive tier players

I have like 50 xbow wpf, and only use the thing during my first life on siege defense on certain maps, to shoot down ladders etc. It's a waste of weight and reload time under any other circumstance. And I know I don't bother shooting at anyone with a shield.

We don't even play on the same servers, so I don't know why you feel like you can make assumptions about my playstyle based on my avatar.

I spend A LOT more time being shot at by xbows than shooting mine, which is why I feel qualified to support the use of shields as both a deterrent and a defense against crossbows. Used on my left arm or on my back, I'd say the shield mitigates xbows as a threat most of the time, unless I'm being stupid. And I use a heater, which isn't exactly ideal for catching projectiles.

[Smoothrich]

I have like 50 xbow wpf, and only use the thing during my first life on siege defense on certain maps, to shoot down ladders etc. It's a waste of weight and reload time under any other circumstance. And I know I don't bother shooting at anyone with a shield.

We don't even play on the same servers, so I don't know why you feel like you can make assumptions about my playstyle based on my avatar.

I spend A LOT more time being shot at by xbows than shooting mine, which is why I feel qualified to support the use of shields as both a deterrent and a defense against crossbows. Used on my left arm or on my back, I'd say the shield mitigates xbows as a threat most of the time, unless I'm being stupid. And I use a heater, which isn't exactly ideal for catching projectiles.

i dont need to make an assumption to know that you're a shit player who posts way too much on balance issues while having wrong opinions on literally every topic you post in. basically the NA kafein

[Phew]

basically the NA kafein

Aren't you lance cav with a shield? If so, when you're mounted you get about a 5x bigger forcefield than I do on foot, so if you are still being hit by bolts, then you don't have much room to call me out on my lack of skill.

I assume your issues lie with bolts killing your horse? Any xbow nerf would be a huge boon for cavalry such as yourself. Looks like we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black re: "good ol (sic) non-biased balance talk"

[Haze_The_Hobo]

Xbows suck on point basis atm..

[Moncho]

...

inb4 people complaining about the get a shield lol argument.

3.5 weight can also be taken from heavy-medium armours at a cost of 4-6 body and foot armour (saracen mail shirt vs banded armour, banded vs gotland), oh what a huge loss that cannot be in any possible way compensated, because obviously those 4-6 extra armour points are going to be more useful than a shield that prevents a projectile from hitting, duh. But yet again, some people seem to prefer madly moving their mouse around and using animations to modify their position.
Of course while your shield is up you will be slower, but afaik having them either on your hand or your back slows you the equivalent of those kg being elsewhere. And you do not need to keep it up all the time.
But hey, QQing on the forums gives results, so why on earth would anyone fucking adapt?

[Kafein]

inb4 people complaining about the get a shield lol argument.

3.5 weight can also be taken from heavy-medium armours at a cost of 4-6 body and foot armour (saracen mail shirt vs banded armour, banded vs gotland), oh what a huge loss that cannot be in any possible way compensated, because obviously those 4-6 extra armour points are going to be more useful than a shield that prevents a projectile from hitting, duh. But yet again, some people seem to prefer madly moving their mouse around and using animations to modify their position.
Of course while your shield is up you will be slower, but afaik having them either on your hand or your back slows you the equivalent of those kg being elsewhere. And you do not need to keep it up all the time.
But hey, QQing on the forums gives results, so why on earth would anyone fucking adapt?

Reality check : no, a shield on your back doesn't slow you down like heavier armor. The malus is actually huge. I bet you can even tell yourself if you try it.

Also given the utility of his posts I contemplated adding Smoothrich to my ignore list for a long time, and it is now done. Be proud to be comparable to oreshy. I'd advise others to do the same, a forum is meant for communication with people that are not insane, usually. Smoothrich's noise isn't exactly helping with that.

[San]

Can lead a horse to water...

Shields are as accessible as ever for any melee class. I think xbows would be fine without a skill, but it does fundamentally makes sense for it to have one.

Shield is better than the joke that is IF IMO. There is also a base reduction since the shield skill tweak, which helps 1-3 skill shields. There's also the option to drop the shield at any point.

[Pentecost]

Crossbows have a lot of issues, but the biggest problem they have is their internal balance.

The attempt to discourage everyone from being 2h/Crossbow just resulted in many of the people who had those types of builds becoming 1h/Arbalest instead. Not much of an improvement for anyone on the receiving end of things. It doesn't help matters that there is little reason to bring anything other than an Arbalest or Heavy Crossbow right now if you are a crossbowman, and I hope the balancers plan on addressing this in the future. If all crossbows other than the Hunting Crossbow are going to remain 2 slot, then there should at least be real tradeoffs involved in deciding which one to use; I personally would recommend reviewing the scaling on their strength requirements or reload speeds.

[Moncho]

Reality check : no, a shield on your back doesn't slow you down like heavier armor. The malus is actually huge. I bet you can even tell yourself if you try it.

Also given the utility of his posts I contemplated adding Smoothrich to my ignore list for a long time, and it is now done. Be proud to be comparable to oreshy. I'd advise others to do the same, a forum is meant for communication with people that are not insane, usually. Smoothrich's noise isn't exactly helping with that.

Reality check: A second shield on your back is devastating, but just one is not. And WaltF4 carried out some testing that can be seen here:

My testing suggests that the engine uses a single, total weight for the running speed calculations. This weight includes all items your character has on them: worn, sheathed, or unsheathed. Holding a weapon further reduces running speed based on the weapon length and weight. Holding a shield does not change running speed relative to wearing that shield, unless your character is holding one shield while wearing another shield; in which case, there is an enormous reduction in running speed.

Only armor weight appears to matter for attack speeds. Holding a shield does not change the time taken to complete an attack. However, the delay between blocking an attack and beginning your own attack may be different if you block with a weapon compared to a shield. I would assume that the difference depends on the weights and speeds of both the attacking and blocking weapons and the shield.

Holding a single shield was found to increase run time by the same amount as adding the weight of the shield as armor or carried weight. However, holding one shield while wearing another on your back was found increased the run time as if the character was carrying significantly more weight then they actual were. For example, the run time for a 27 agility and 9 athletics character carrying 15 weight of items including one held shield and one worn shield was equal to that of the same character carrying 60 weight of items.

I know how much a shield weighs you down, I have only ever played 1 gen where I did not use a shield in one form of another. Whether 2h/pole or even ranged, I almost always had a shield (heavy round or knightly heater, which weigh considerably more than a 2-3 shield skill one) for moving around, and it is definitely not that bad. I find the difference quite minor, but hey, maybe you have a better perception. A pike for example slows you down far more than a shield (weapon length).

[Kafein]

Reality check: A second shield on your back is devastating, but just one is not. And WaltF4 carried out some testing that can be seen here:I know how much a shield weighs you down, I have only ever played 1 gen where I did not use a shield in one form of another. Whether 2h/pole or even ranged, I almost always had a shield (heavy round or knightly heater, which weigh considerably more than a 2-3 shield skill one) for moving around, and it is definitely not that bad. I find the difference quite minor, but hey, maybe you have a better perception. A pike for example slows you down far more than a shield (weapon length).

I know about those tests, and they are quite old aren't they? Maybe we should ask cmp.

In any case, a shield is only really useful when you block with it, especially low level shields that won't do much as passive armor.

[Moncho]

If you want, we can go on EU3 one with a shield and one with an armour weight difference being that of the shield and test it, but my internet is shit this week so I cannot do it at this time. And afaik the running mechanics have not changed other than for the length of weapons held.

[Grumbs]

I think people would feel a lot better about xbows with some of the "cheesiness" removed.

Holding a shot forever with no downside
Running and gunning at short/medium range
Fast projectiles with hardly any dip / small amount of target leading
They can be used with low xbow proficiency and have no other skill sink
Having a shield makes it so you can last a long time in melee even with minimal melee skills
Dropping the xbow before a melee fight completely removes the negative element of the added weight
Armour does not impact a xbows stats anywhere near enough.
High damage with minimal player input/from safety
Instant turning without losing accuracy
0/1 slot weapons are very good even without a shield

The mix of crappy fps game mechanics and good melee ability/low skill sink should be fixed

[Prpavi]

to me holding shots and turning while reloading even moving in the later stage of the reload combined with high athletics and good kiting ability makes this class really broken for me. This is the main reason I support adding a skill to sink skill points in or upping the requirement to 18 just to disable 15/24 builds being so efficient.

[Macbeth3]

to me holding shots and turning while reloading even moving in the later stage of the reload combined with high athletics and good kiting ability makes this class really broken for me. This is the main reason I support adding a skill to sink skill points in or upping the requirement to 18 just to disable 15/24 builds being so efficient.

Only wanted to talk about the "turning while reloading" thing.
if that would be removed, it woudn't matter because you can just hold down the tilde-key to look around

I would even be fine to making arbalest having more then 15 strenght requirement.