Archer Rangers...how do the stack up in RvR ?

Some are saying they are under powered. I would like to hear opinions please.

Tue 14 Aug 2018 5:55 PM by elflord

I'm very curious about feedback as well. My ranger is close to 40 and I'm loving it so far. However, I haven't been active in rvr yet. BGs have been dead. I'm hearing from rangers who reached 50 already, and the word is bow damage is about half of what it should be. I hope this isn't the case or if it is, will be addressed.

Tue 14 Aug 2018 7:40 PM by Quik

I can't speak of what archers think but I can say this...

My BM was level 40 in a leveling group outside DC.

It took 4 shots from a hunter before I even noticed I was being attacked. Barely did much dmg.

So either the hunter didn't know what he was doing, or bow dmg is in a bad place.

I know when I lvled my hunter I could kill a LOT faster using spear and I could chain kill yellows/ojs with pots going, yet when I tried going bow I took twice as long to kill the same mobs at the same level so I switched back.

Wed 15 Aug 2018 12:40 AM by Zansobar

elflord wrote: ↑
Tue 14 Aug 2018 5:55 PM
I'm very curious about feedback as well. My ranger is close to 40 and I'm loving it so far. However, I haven't been active in rvr yet. BGs have been dead. I'm hearing from rangers who reached 50 already, and the word is bow damage is about half of what it should be. I hope this isn't the case or if it is, will be addressed.

I don't think the damage is only half of what it should be. I am playing a 50 (archery focused) Ranger and so far on mobs it seems about right, but on players it does seem a bit low, maybe 25% or so low. But you have to remember, the damage we are all remembering from Live back in the day was when the Ranger was fully buffed (due to everyone running buffbots), with close to 400 dex. On this server since you will be not in a group and thus not fully buffed, I am only hitting around 325 dex and that is with max dex points at creation and aug dex 5, plus level 48 dex/qui buff from pathfinding and a 26 dex potion. The absolute highest dex I can get on this server will be just over 350 dex running a 75 dex/qui charge item and with aug dex 9. I do think there "may" be an issue where player Armor Factor might be too high as this will dramatically lower bow damage. I can't prove it, and i don't know how something that easy to check could slip through, but it feels like that might be an issue.

Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:49 AM by Shadanwolf

(sigh)Archers are 90% of what I play. So whether I stay on this shard hangs in the balance. I'm now 49.8 so will find out soon for myself. :-i

Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:59 AM by Zansobar

Shadanwolf wrote: ↑
Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:49 AM
(sigh)Archers are 90% of what I play. So whether I stay on this shard hangs in the balance. I'm now 49.8 so will find out soon for myself. :-i

Well, all I can say is archery feels better here than it did on Uthgard. It doesn't feel like it's quite all the way there but again, that may be just since archers will never be fully buffed here.

Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:39 PM by Horus

Looks like potions are going to be a much bigger thing here...That may affect our PF line and how we stack up with against other archers. Might be a situation where you really have cut back on PF points and bolster other skills and rely on Pots to be competitive. I disagree with the way potions are implemented here but it looks like the way things are going to be so take it or leave it...

I've come up against hunters and scouts a few times and lost every fight...

But currently I am bow and PF specced for ranged combat. If I get caught in a melee fight its lights out...

Wed 15 Aug 2018 11:09 PM by Shadanwolf

Horus wrote: ↑
Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:39 PM
Looks like potions are going to be a much bigger thing here...That may affect our PF line and how we stack up with against other archers. Might be a situation where you really have cut back on PF points and bolster other skills and rely on Pots to be competitive. I disagree with the way potions are implemented here but it looks like the way things are going to be so take it or leave it...

I've come up against hunters and scouts a few times and lost every fight...

But currently I am bow and PF specced for ranged combat. If I get caught in a melee fight its lights out...

How would you want to see potions changed ?

Wed 15 Aug 2018 11:48 PM by Quik

Having pots in general kills a lot of the usefulness of the PF line.

If scouts can have blue buffs up all the time and have almost the same buffs as a ranger and STILL have shield slam...not exactly on the fair side is it?

Thu 16 Aug 2018 2:05 AM by Zansobar

Quik wrote: ↑
Wed 15 Aug 2018 11:48 PM
Having pots in general kills a lot of the usefulness of the PF line.

If scouts can have blue buffs up all the time and have almost the same buffs as a ranger and STILL have shield slam...not exactly on the fair side is it?

The +dex buff amounts from potions are +26 base potion and +39 spec potion. A ranger with Pathfinding will have +60 from the +48 dex/qui buff (you get 1.25 times the delve amount due to buff spec) and +26 base dex from potion. That is +65 dex vs +86 dex for a ranger, but the ranger also gets +9.4 dps damage add which the scout cannot get. The more apt comparision is if you can just use a ton of +75 dex/qui charge items as that will beat a PF specced ranger, however you will still not have the damage add without PF spec.

Thu 16 Aug 2018 2:13 AM by Zansobar

Shadanwolf wrote: ↑
Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:49 AM
(sigh)Archers are 90% of what I play. So whether I stay on this shard hangs in the balance. I'm now 49.8 so will find out soon for myself. :-i

I dug into it in much more detail last night and found a Weaponskill calculator that mimics what is used in game. The BIG issue for archers is going to be the lack of +dex buffs. Remember, Weaponskill adds a multiplier bonus to damage based on the WS vs the Armor factor of the target. Well it turns out that Dex impacts WS greatly and not being able to get to 400 dex (the soft cap for most stats) is going to greatly reduce damage relative to where it was in the 1.65 patch level if you used a buff bot. Targets' armor factors will be as high as they were back in the day of 1.65 live, but WS of archers will not be, so damage will be lower. From my rough calcs max damage of the highest RR archer (full bow spec) with absolute highest dex possible on this server (~355) will do around 27% less damage to a plate wearer and up to 36% less damage to a cloth wearer from not having 400 dex.

Thu 16 Aug 2018 1:40 PM by Horus

Shadanwolf wrote: ↑
Wed 15 Aug 2018 11:09 PM
Horus wrote: ↑
Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:39 PM
Looks like potions are going to be a much bigger thing here...That may affect our PF line and how we stack up with against other archers. Might be a situation where you really have cut back on PF points and bolster other skills and rely on Pots to be competitive. I disagree with the way potions are implemented here but it looks like the way things are going to be so take it or leave it...

I've come up against hunters and scouts a few times and lost every fight...

But currently I am bow and PF specced for ranged combat. If I get caught in a melee fight its lights out...

How would you want to see potions changed ?

I know it will never happen but i believe potions and buff charges should be removed from the game. Mind you I know this is a pipe dream. This is the only way to give buffing classes full value in the game...

In reality, I want whatever is going to keep the population high. If the population demands barrels and easy access to buff potions I will just work with it.

Needs of the whole > Desires of the few

I have been playing around adding on fights as I see them to test. If you are thinking you are going to snipe away solo against grouped enemies with healers/buffs you are in for a surprise. The DPS just is not there.

And assassins can see you from what seems to be a mile away....

The ranger role is going to be a bit limited...add on fights, find some buddies and /assist defend on keeps and hope you find a couple noobs willing to expose themselves, gank expers, or maybe find a friendly guild of non-metas that will let you run in their 8 man for fun.

Thu 16 Aug 2018 1:41 PM by Shadanwolf

Not good.

Thu 16 Aug 2018 1:55 PM by heardstheword

Horus wrote: ↑
Thu 16 Aug 2018 1:40 PM
And assassins can see you from what seems to be a mile away....

Unless you have less than 50 composite stealth, this is definitely not the case.

In DF I got the jump on a few rangers/scouts, but that was still rare since they were being detected basically on top of my and typically running in the opposite direction.

Thu 16 Aug 2018 2:07 PM by phixion

I personally wouldn't touch any of the Archers at this patch level, unless they get a significant buff.

I played a Scout on Live servers at this patch level and it was not fun. Don't make the mistake of thinking 50 Bow will produce any decent amount of damage, you are better off going lower bow and raising your Melee, otherwise if you do manage to ever get good damage on anyone with your bow, you will likely end up being destroyed in melee.

The class was utterly broken back then.

If you absolutely insist on playing an archer, go Hunter... At least you have spear and a pet for when you inevitably end up going toe to toe with someone.

Thu 16 Aug 2018 2:08 PM by Zansobar

Horus wrote: ↑
Thu 16 Aug 2018 1:40 PM
Shadanwolf wrote: ↑
Wed 15 Aug 2018 11:09 PM
Horus wrote: ↑
Wed 15 Aug 2018 1:39 PM
Looks like potions are going to be a much bigger thing here...That may affect our PF line and how we stack up with against other archers. Might be a situation where you really have cut back on PF points and bolster other skills and rely on Pots to be competitive. I disagree with the way potions are implemented here but it looks like the way things are going to be so take it or leave it...

I've come up against hunters and scouts a few times and lost every fight...

But currently I am bow and PF specced for ranged combat. If I get caught in a melee fight its lights out...

How would you want to see potions changed ?

I know it will never happen but i believe potions and buff charges should be removed from the game. Mind you I know this is a pipe dream. This is the only way to give buffing classes full value in the game...

In reality, I want whatever is going to keep the population high. If the population demands barrels and easy access to buff potions I will just work with it.

Needs of the whole > Desires of the few

I have been playing around adding on fights as I see them to test. If you are thinking you are going to snipe away solo against grouped enemies with healers/buffs you are in for a surprise. The DPS just is not there.

And assassins can see you from what seems to be a mile away....

The ranger role is going to be a bit limited...add on fights, find some buddies and /assist defend on keeps and hope you find a couple noobs willing to expose themselves, gank expers, or maybe find a friendly guild of non-metas that will let you run in their 8 man for fun.

You are going in the opposite direction in my opinion. You have to realize that because everyone knows how important buffs are in this game, virtually everyone that is in a group will be fully buffed. This means the weak self buffs that most self buffing classes get will not equalize this and thus those classes will need to have full buffs too to compete, which means in a group, not solo. The only solution is to give everyone (solo or grouped) access to the same level of buffage that groups currently have which is how it was back during live at 1.65 since most players that soloed ran buff bots.

Fri 17 Aug 2018 5:11 AM by Anasth

I ve said it in another post and i will say it again. Whats wrong with buffbots? I mean if you want the game as it was designed to be then remove buffpots. This way the self buffing spec lines will have a reason to exist, group players will be stronger than soloers cause they ll be buffed by their groupmates and solo will be more balanced. If that is not the case leave buffpots alone and allow buffbots. This way solo characters will be as strong as grouped chars, selfbuff speclines will be useless again but players will have the chance to be fully buffed. As i see it, in both cases buffpots are useless...the only reason to exisy is as a moneysink.

Fri 17 Aug 2018 5:41 AM by Cadebrennus

What most people (and probably the Phoenix staff) are forgetting is that archery at the 1.65 level was in a sorry state because of buffbots much earlier. As has been mentioned before, a few botted archers (mostly Scouts) were killing unbotted players regularly and with ease. Mythic nerfed archery heavily so that a botted archer had a challenging fight against an unbuffed opponent. Fast forward to 1.65 and everyone has bots and archers are still in the weakened state but no longer even with their opponents because everyone is boosted by bot use except for them.

The only solution is to find the prior patch to the original archer nerf, find the original damage code, and tweak 1.65 code to the original (pre-nerf) archer damage code, because it won't be only archers with buffs this time. As pointed out above, archers will be running with pot buffs whereas most of their grouped targets will potentially have full buffs, so buffing archery to pre-nerf levels will definitely not be unbalanced. If anything they'll still be underpowered versus anyone in a group but at least be better balanced solo.

Fri 17 Aug 2018 7:40 AM by Zansobar

One thing people may not be considering...on Phoenix (so far) archery shots never miss. Which is not how it was on Live back in 1.65. I don't know what the base archery miss chance was, but if it was 10% then the current state on Phoenix is archery is 11% stronger due to 0% chance of missing with an attack (90% expected damage vs 100% damage ~10/90 increase). I hope this is not going to be changed and was intentional to try and offset the weaker state of archers vs grouped classes (almost all the archer targets).

This being said, I think bow archers would be in a good spot if max buff for dexterity and quickness (+155) could be achieved via self buffs, either through a special archer only potion or via self buffs. Perhaps it is a self buff that comes from speccing high in the bow line so even Scouts can get it. I think if archers could hit the 400 dex softcap that the resulting weaponskill would allow bow archers to do decent damage. They would still lose virtually every fight against an assassin but they would have some use in keep defense and maybe small man group fighting.

Fri 17 Aug 2018 1:36 PM by Horus

Zansobar wrote: ↑
Fri 17 Aug 2018 7:40 AM
One thing people may not be considering...on Phoenix (so far) archery shots never miss. ...

I have seen my arrows blocked and evaded quite frequently though

Fri 17 Aug 2018 2:09 PM by Cadebrennus

True, once you buy/craft the top tier arrows they rarely miss (not counting evade/block). However, no other ranged damage in game can be completely negated (Engage) with only 7 levels of speccing into a skill line (Shield). I think it's a fair trade-off.

Fri 17 Aug 2018 4:19 PM by Zansobar

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Fri 17 Aug 2018 2:09 PM
True, once you buy/craft the top tier arrows they rarely miss (not counting evade/block). However, no other ranged damage in game can be completely negated (Engage) with only 7 levels of speccing into a skill line (Shield). I think it's a fair trade-off.

I think what I'm saying is all those other things (evade, block, engage) were true on Live at the 1.65 patch level, but there you also had another layer of flat out miss chance. On Phoenix that chance is removed which improves average damage over time for bow archers relative to 1.65 Live. Again all this being said I think THE absolute core of the reason bow archers are underpowered at the moment is the lack of ability to get full (+155) dex buffs while solo.

Sat 18 Aug 2018 1:23 AM by Cadebrennus

Zansobar wrote: ↑
Fri 17 Aug 2018 4:19 PM
Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Fri 17 Aug 2018 2:09 PM
True, once you buy/craft the top tier arrows they rarely miss (not counting evade/block). However, no other ranged damage in game can be completely negated (Engage) with only 7 levels of speccing into a skill line (Shield). I think it's a fair trade-off.

I think what I'm saying is all those other things (evade, block, engage) were true on Live at the 1.65 patch level, but there you also had another layer of flat out miss chance. On Phoenix that chance is removed which improves average damage over time for bow archers relative to 1.65 Live. Again all this being said I think THE absolute core of the reason bow archers are underpowered at the moment is the lack of ability to get full (+155) dex buffs while solo.

Agreed. The easiest way to fix this (as mentioned before) is to find out what the actual archery damage code was pre-nerf (sometime before 1.65) and bring archery back up to that level. With pot buffs it should be evened out because the original archery damage was coded for unbuffed archer Vs unbuffed target (not counting PF and BC).

Archers will still be short on the full quick buff with this solution but honestly, almost no soloer is going to have capped 250 Quickness anyways.

Sat 18 Aug 2018 7:21 PM by Zansobar

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Sat 18 Aug 2018 1:23 AM
Zansobar wrote: ↑
Fri 17 Aug 2018 4:19 PM
Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Fri 17 Aug 2018 2:09 PM
True, once you buy/craft the top tier arrows they rarely miss (not counting evade/block). However, no other ranged damage in game can be completely negated (Engage) with only 7 levels of speccing into a skill line (Shield). I think it's a fair trade-off.

I think what I'm saying is all those other things (evade, block, engage) were true on Live at the 1.65 patch level, but there you also had another layer of flat out miss chance. On Phoenix that chance is removed which improves average damage over time for bow archers relative to 1.65 Live. Again all this being said I think THE absolute core of the reason bow archers are underpowered at the moment is the lack of ability to get full (+155) dex buffs while solo.

Agreed. The easiest way to fix this (as mentioned before) is to find out what the actual archery damage code was pre-nerf (sometime before 1.65) and bring archery back up to that level. With pot buffs it should be evened out because the original archery damage was coded for unbuffed archer Vs unbuffed target (not counting PF and BC).

Archers will still be short on the full quick buff with this solution but honestly, almost no soloer is going to have capped 250 Quickness anyways.

I don't recall Mythic changing the archery code in 2001 at launch, they did change it when they made archery like magic but that was around 2006 I think. The only things Mythic fixed with archery (from my memory) back at release was Scouts had some sort of bug where their damage cap was too high if i recall. Also the bug of being able to restealth after firing an arrow before the arrow hit the target.

Anwyay, from my testing/calculations the current archery implementation is pretty spot on, but the problem is the lack of buffs (dex specificially) for archers due to the no buff bot server rule. This weakness in the bow archer class and the lack of physical defense RA to generate enough melee archers, will lead to fewer archers playing the game. Since archers are probably the primary target for assassins in this game at this time, since visibles know not to be roaming without a group, this means less reason to roll an assassin and thus fewer assassins. With a reduced stealth presence, the game becomes way too much about 8v8 fully buffed groups. Again the devs have stated they want to cater to all play styles, but the no buff bot rule (which I believe is only done to keep everyone from having multiple accounts and putting too much stress on the server and NOT because the devs don't believe in buffs), has an inordinate negative impact on archers and will lead to much fewer of the soloers/stealthers and thus increase the 8v8 or zerg playstyle. There needs to be a way to get full buffs (at least dex) for archers.

What I am proposing - but I know most probably won't agree with this - is that for each spec point (they spend, not composite) in Bow an Archer specs - they get a +1 Dex that counts against the buff cap. So at spec 50 they gain +50 innate Dex that counts against the buff cap. This way if an Archer uses a +75 Dex/Qui charge item and a base Dex potion (+26 Dex) they get +101 Dex and with the +50 innate Dex from bow spec they will have +151 Dex from buffs. The cap is +155 Dex from buffs.

This would put Bow Archers back up to where they should be damage-wise, but it wouldn't buff melee archers much since you have to spend spec points into Bow to gain the +Dex.

Sat 18 Aug 2018 7:59 PM by Cadebrennus

There was a patch that flat out reduced archery damage pre-SI but I'm not sure which one it was. This is separate from the patch that changed archery from a ranged "melee" attack to a spell attack with physical damage. The main reason for this is most of the original programmers had left at that point and the developers that were left who wanted to update archery couldn't figure out the original code (which also included height aka Z axis bonuses and penalties). The new programmers could only make sense of the spell code so they ported it to archers, making them less useful in keep defense.

Sat 18 Aug 2018 8:32 PM by Zansobar

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Sat 18 Aug 2018 7:59 PM
There was a patch that flat out reduced archery damage pre-SI but I'm not sure which one it was. This is separate from the patch that changed archery from a ranged "melee" attack to a spell attack with physical damage. The main reason for this is most of the original programmers had left at that point and the developers that were left who wanted to update archery couldn't figure out the original code (which also included height aka Z axis bonuses and penalties). The new programmers could only make sense of the spell code so they ported it to archers, making them less useful in keep defense.

Interesting I did not know that, but I quit DAOC several times during that time period and came back several times too

.

Sat 18 Aug 2018 11:23 PM by Ganaka

I believe bow damage was reduced 1 or 2 patches after casters were given personal bladeturn. It was a vicious one-two punch at the time.

Sun 19 Aug 2018 4:37 AM by Anasth

If they dont want server stress due to dual logging which sounds reasonable, the solution is allready given: buff merchants. Money sink, soloers happy, healers neglecting buff speclines which in turn offers better healing/utility specs. In the case they buff archers dex directly, there might be some imbalancing issues due to high thrust/pierce WS...not sure but it should.

Sun 19 Aug 2018 2:41 PM by Zansobar

Anasth wrote: ↑
Sun 19 Aug 2018 4:37 AM
If they dont want server stress due to dual logging which sounds reasonable, the solution is allready given: buff merchants. Money sink, soloers happy, healers neglecting buff speclines which in turn offers better healing/utility specs. In the case they buff archers dex directly, there might be some imbalancing issues due to high thrust/pierce WS...not sure but it should.

They could make it so you only get the +dex from speccing in bow (my suggestion above) while you are wielding a bow...then it would have no impact on melee.

Mon 3 Sep 2018 8:23 PM by Roadblawk

I noticed that the archery damage at 50 was lower then i thought also, hope they fix this soon.

Mon 3 Sep 2018 8:38 PM by Cadebrennus

Ganaka wrote: ↑
Sat 18 Aug 2018 11:23 PM
I believe bow damage was reduced 1 or 2 patches after casters were given personal bladeturn. It was a vicious one-two punch at the time.

This was in response to Scouts running (some of the very first) buffbots whereas casters (even in a group) didn't have full buffs. The insane damage of buffed vs unbuffed led to an incredible amount of whines until Archer bow damage was severely nerfed. This led to buffed Archer bow damage being balanced with unbuffed targets.

After that point when an unbuffed Archer shot an unbuffed enemy the Archer was at a severe disadvantage. When a buffed Archer shot a buffed enemy the Archer was again at a severe disadvantage. Archery damage wasn't boosted back to even a fraction of its old values until years (decade?) later.

Mon 3 Sep 2018 8:56 PM by Shadanwolf

Well.......... I'm glad I asked the question. Not happy at all with what I'm learning.Not happy at all.Archers are what I play :-(

Wed 5 Sep 2018 5:37 PM by Cadebrennus

Shadanwolf wrote: ↑
Mon 3 Sep 2018 8:56 PM
Well.......... I'm glad I asked the question. Not happy at all with what I'm learning.Not happy at all.Archers are what I play :-(

Archery damage isn't bad on this server, it just isn't great. At least it's not as bad as it is currently on live.

One of the positives is that it's a lot easier to run a hybrid spec on a classic server than it is on live. That's because with classic archery it's purely a weapon spec with its particular rules about damage variance. On live it's a spell spec with hard numbers tied to spec points (like spellcasting). In addition there's still the excellent coding work that determines range bonuses and penalties for height (or lack thereof) to your target, whereas on live it's a flat distance to your target (like spellcasting) so no shooting targets from tall towers/walls there.

Best thing you can do is test it out for yourself, duel your friends, get into some RvR (or battlegrounds) and test some specs. I know it isn't RvR but I respected full archery and high PF last night to PvE with my Warden/Valewalker (he was testing both) buddy and we could chain reds/purples with some endo pots (pow pots would have made it even faster).

Wed 5 Sep 2018 10:30 PM by Shadanwolf

Taking a break.

Mon 10 Sep 2018 6:18 PM by Thinal

The more I play, the more I think 27 is the magic spec for archery. Get the highest crit shot, modestly lower damage versus a 50 spec with a significantly lower spec point investment. The utility of the penetrating arrow and rapid fire styles seems dubious, especially penetrating arrow.

I'm still not far enough in to know if the class is worth playing at all. A lack of True Sight has removed a lot of the benefit to playing an archer. The assassin might have had the advantage in see hidden versus true sight / camo, but without them I'm guaranteed to be seen first instead of merely likely to be seen first. On the other hand, I prefer using a ranger against straggler visibles over a nightshade due to ranged opener over a positional opener, especially when everybody has speed.

Mon 10 Sep 2018 7:17 PM by Cadebrennus

I would say that 35 bow is the lowest anyone would want to go to even have a snowball's chance in hell at winning a range war against a caster or casting hybrid. Without Rapid Fire an archer is simply going to be out-cast by a Spellcaster and just end up dead.

Tue 11 Sep 2018 5:55 PM by Thinal

I see your point, but that's a lotta specs from 27 to 35. Meanwhile, the lack of True Sight means I'll always have to fight other stealthers in melee range, and it's painful to pull out any more from melee capabilities.

And that's how I arrived at 27. I have at least as much incentive to make it lower as I do to make it higher. Meanwhile, I carry a 4.0 speed bow and hope for the best.

Tue 11 Sep 2018 8:54 PM by Cadebrennus

Thinal wrote: ↑
Tue 11 Sep 2018 5:55 PM
I see your point, but that's a lotta specs from 27 to 35. Meanwhile, the lack of True Sight means I'll always have to fight other stealthers in melee range, and it's painful to pull out any more from melee capabilities.

And that's how I arrived at 27. I have at least as much incentive to make it lower as I do to make it higher. Meanwhile, I carry a 4.0 speed bow and hope for the best.

I see what you mean about the spec points but even with approximately 200 quickness (considering potion buffs and template) a 4.0 speed bow will get you an actual draw time of no faster than 2.5 seconds which is a full second slower than the caster cap speed. Even as a Melee Ranger I still feel forced to spec a minimum of 35 bow in order to not be insta-gibbed by a caster when I'm not in melee range. Sad, but it's a fact that you will have to deal with when under 35 Archery. If Rapid Fire was available at a lower spec I would definitely stop at the lower spec without a second thought. I'm not trying to change your mind, I just want you to know what you're up against and wish you the best of luck.

Wed 12 Sep 2018 3:09 AM by Zansobar

Does Rapid Fire make you immune from interruption or something? I'm not sure I understand how faster bow shots will keep a caster from interrupting you once he quickcasts his spell.

Wed 12 Sep 2018 3:13 AM by Zansobar

Thinal wrote: ↑
Tue 11 Sep 2018 5:55 PM
I see your point, but that's a lotta specs from 27 to 35. Meanwhile, the lack of True Sight means I'll always have to fight other stealthers in melee range, and it's painful to pull out any more from melee capabilities.

And that's how I arrived at 27. I have at least as much incentive to make it lower as I do to make it higher. Meanwhile, I carry a 4.0 speed bow and hope for the best.

I'm trying to understand how you believe an archer is going to win in melee against any assassin? To me building a melee archer is a dead end on this server as the assassins will always have better vision than you and better melee ability than you and have a golf bag full of poisoned weapons. Without the full buffs that buffbots used to provide you will be running (most likely) with much lower hp and be taken out EXTREMELY fast no matter how you spec if an assassin catches you in melee. Because of this I choose to only play the sniper game and try to extricate myself from any melee situations - but each to their own, I'm just curious how you think you can go toe to toe with an assassin and win in melee without physical defense or full buffs.

Wed 12 Sep 2018 7:04 AM by Cadebrennus

Zansobar wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Sep 2018 3:09 AM
Does Rapid Fire make you immune from interruption or something? I'm not sure I understand how faster bow shots will keep a caster from interrupting you once he quickcasts his spell.

It doesn't but if you can get the caster when their quick cast timer is down (every 30 seconds if I remember correctly) then you have a chance. DD charges are excellent for another interrupt to re-set the fight allowing an Archer a chance to gain the upper hand again. In the interrupt wars however, Hunters definitely have the strongest abilities of any of the Archers by far.

Wed 12 Sep 2018 2:45 PM by poisonclover

rapid fire with no flight time on arrows... working as intended apparently

Thu 13 Sep 2018 1:53 AM by Thinal

Zansobar wrote: ↑
Wed 12 Sep 2018 3:13 AM
Thinal wrote: ↑
Tue 11 Sep 2018 5:55 PM
I see your point, but that's a lotta specs from 27 to 35. Meanwhile, the lack of True Sight means I'll always have to fight other stealthers in melee range, and it's painful to pull out any more from melee capabilities.

And that's how I arrived at 27. I have at least as much incentive to make it lower as I do to make it higher. Meanwhile, I carry a 4.0 speed bow and hope for the best.

I'm trying to understand how you believe an archer is going to win in melee against any assassin? To me building a melee archer is a dead end on this server as the assassins will always have better vision than you and better melee ability than you and have a golf bag full of poisoned weapons. Without the full buffs that buffbots used to provide you will be running (most likely) with much lower hp and be taken out EXTREMELY fast no matter how you spec if an assassin catches you in melee. Because of this I choose to only play the sniper game and try to extricate myself from any melee situations - but each to their own, I'm just curious how you think you can go toe to toe with an assassin and win in melee without physical defense or full buffs.

Pretty simple... I didn't say anything about assassins. You did. I said other stealthers. That also includes hunters, scouts, and minstrels (though I don't relish fights with minnies either).

Thu 13 Sep 2018 2:26 AM by Zansobar

Thinal wrote: ↑
Mon 10 Sep 2018 6:18 PM
The more I play, the more I think 27 is the magic spec for archery. Get the highest crit shot, modestly lower damage versus a 50 spec with a significantly lower spec point investment. The utility of the penetrating arrow and rapid fire styles seems dubious, especially penetrating arrow.

I'm still not far enough in to know if the class is worth playing at all. A lack of True Sight has removed a lot of the benefit to playing an archer. The assassin might have had the advantage in see hidden versus true sight / camo, but without them I'm guaranteed to be seen first instead of merely likely to be seen first. On the other hand, I prefer using a ranger against straggler visibles over a nightshade due to ranged opener over a positional opener, especially when everybody has speed.

Well at 27 bow spec (+11 from items) vs a 50 bow spec (+11 from items) archer you should be doing almost 30% less damage with the bow due to less than full spec (including items) variance and the lower weapon skill. I guess it depends what weapon you think you will be using the majority of the time.

Thu 13 Sep 2018 6:04 AM by Thinal

Zansobar wrote: ↑
Thu 13 Sep 2018 2:26 AM
Well at 27 bow spec (+11 from items) vs a 50 bow spec (+11 from items) archer you should be doing almost 30% less damage with the bow due to less than full spec (including items) variance and the lower weapon skill. I guess it depends what weapon you think you will be using the majority of the time.

This makes my point for me, but I'm going to have to decline such an easy strawman you're handing me. 50 bow spec is entirely unreasonable and easily dismissable with that little benefit for that extreme of a cost. 35 spec to get the first rapid fire is a lot harder to dismiss. I could see myself deciding later that maybe I really do need more than 27 spec in bow, and it could be 35, maybe even by some unimaginable stroke 45 if I fell in love with rapid fire, but it's not going to be 50.

Wed 26 Sep 2018 3:32 PM by Ginorm

Been bouncing around classic servers and this is definitely a common issue around the 1.65 patch. Think most of the bits and pieces of game history have been talked about at this point. My recollection is that before Mages had a self Bladeturn they were getting one shot by stealthed Archers. Personally, while I think for the Archer it was highly satisfying and it was what they could bring to the table different from other classes, to the many mage classes it turned them off from RvR. Thus started the largest of nerf hammers that I can recall. In short succession self BT was given to mages and archer damage was nerfed heavily. Even before the changes that made them physical magic damage characters with no utility, that's the playstlyle they has been shoehorned into once those changes were put into effect. Welcome to 1.65.

If there was one failing they had with the class system from it's original design it's that although it had diverse gameplay options, some of those options ended up not being "competitive" viable. Or in the best of intents to balance the game it ended up pushing out a class or function from the meta enough it was no longer needed. Archer I feel always got the worst of that, because they never recovered from those initial set of nerfs, as they never had an identity, a thing that made them provide something unique.

My heart goes out to the Archer enthusiast, and I hope that this issue gets solved for you, I've always been a hybrid player, and we all know those classes sometimes don't have the greatest rep either. However, short of going back to pre-nerfed damage which I'm not quite sure if that's a viable option for overall game health, i have no idea how to fix the problem.

Wed 26 Sep 2018 7:35 PM by Cadebrennus

Ginorm wrote: ↑
Wed 26 Sep 2018 3:32 PM
Been bouncing around classic servers and this is definitely a common issue around the 1.65 patch. Think most of the bits and pieces of game history have been talked about at this point. My recollection is that before Mages had a self Bladeturn they were getting one shot by stealthed Archers. Personally, while I think for the Archer it was highly satisfying and it was what they could bring to the table different from other classes, to the many mage classes it turned them off from RvR. Thus started the largest of nerf hammers that I can recall. In short succession self BT was given to mages and archer damage was nerfed heavily. Even before the changes that made them physical magic damage characters with no utility, that's the playstlyle they has been shoehorned into once those changes were put into effect. Welcome to 1.65.

If there was one failing they had with the class system from it's original design it's that although it had diverse gameplay options, some of those options ended up not being "competitive" viable. Or in the best of intents to balance the game it ended up pushing out a class or function from the meta enough it was no longer needed. Archer I feel always got the worst of that, because they never recovered from those initial set of nerfs, as they never had an identity, a thing that made them provide something unique.

My heart goes out to the Archer enthusiast, and I hope that this issue gets solved for you, I've always been a hybrid player, and we all know those classes sometimes don't have the greatest rep either. However, short of going back to pre-nerfed damage which I'm not quite sure if that's a viable option for overall game health, i have no idea how to fix the problem.

Pre-nerf damage (and the one-shotting of casters) was from the days before /face was even in the game. What happened was that a few Scouts (and maybe one Ranger) figured out the buffbot thing first.

So, you had buffed Archers one-shotting unbuffed casters and everyone screamed bloody murder. Mythic, instead of realising that it was purely due to the disparity of buffed vs unbuffed, decided to nerf Archer damage so that buffed Archer damage vs unbuffed targets in cloth was balanced.

Then everyone discovered buffbots and now Archer damage was at a severe disadvantage against anyone who had a buffbot.

After this the Archers who had options (and the imagination to do so) began to spec differently than pure Archery. Hunters used dog and spear more, Scouts became even more reliant on the shield, and Rangers went further into melee than Archers did before. The weakness of a solo Archer vs another solo target is what started the dreaded stealth zerg.

However speccing outside of the "normal" spec for Archers is what caused the second massive nerf to Archers, this time by Broadsword. In August of 2016 they ninja-nerfed Archer melee by 30% (confirmed with multiple testers) because a few of us (and in particular, me) were boosting melee to the maximum levels allowed by the templates and even sacrificing Archery and Stealth in both template and specs. We were doing this because Broadsword kept nerfing Archery further and finally a lot of players left live post-August 2016, because every time you kicked a Broadsword developer's character's ass you knew a nerf was incoming to your class. It was like clockwork.

So those are the two big nerfs to Archers. One that happened pre 1.65 and one that happened August 2016.

I think to truly get a baseline on where Archers should stand damage-wise is to boost Archery damage back to pre-nerf levels, test it in beta (because everyone will be pot-buffed, so even ground) and then make adjustments from there.

Wed 26 Sep 2018 8:04 PM by Waygone

Agree 100%
As of right now, speccing high in bow has absolutely no advantage due to low archery damage. You literally have to shoot a caster 3 or more times,without a crit, to have a CHANCE at killing them. If you crit, and/or they aren't capped resists, it can make this a different scenario.
Seems like it wouldn't be a bad idea to boost bow damage by making higher spec in bow give some advantage to open up more interesting spec possibilities. Like previous poster said, you can test and adjust down if necessary.

Edit: for instance, why not give critshot 9 and 10 and a more reliable penetrating arrow on up to 50 bow?

Thu 27 Sep 2018 1:08 AM by Shadanwolf

Thanks for the thoughtful posts. Hopefully archery ends up a viable profession.It has been what I enjoy most.

Thu 27 Sep 2018 6:46 PM by florin

look at todays patch notes -

- archer damage table has been corrected (were all 1 or 2 above what they should be) archer damage was too high!?
It was too high, archer should all have damage table 22, they had 23, 24 and 25 prior to this.

Thu 27 Sep 2018 6:52 PM by colechar

I read the patch notes as: melee damage from archers was too high (but bow/ranged damage is not affected). I just hit 50 yesterday so I don't have any data points to compare.

Thu 27 Sep 2018 7:22 PM by florin

colechar wrote: ↑
Thu 27 Sep 2018 6:52 PM
I read the patch notes as: melee damage from archers was too high (but bow/ranged damage is not affected). I just hit 50 yesterday so I don't have any data points to compare.

looks like its bow damage
https://playphoenix.online/viewtopic.php?f=38&p=13195#p13195