Penetrating shot broken - Phoenix Freeshard

Hi Team,

i am playing Scout and there is one big thing that disturbes me a bit.
Seems penetrating shot is not working at all. Doesnt matter which shot (crit, normal or quick) they all land in the bubble 100% of the time.

Considering this is one of the key mechanics on scout class (also on the others) this should be reviewed.

PA already goes through bubble and the same should work on a ranged based class.
Its very frustrating when you shoot the perfect shot and give up your position for nothing.

Please have a comment on this one.

Many thanks and keep up the good work.

Sat 16 Feb 2019 7:57 PM by

gruenesschaf

Penetrating shot is not supposed go through BT casted by the target, ie caster self bubble or in case of warden / theurgist / rm the pbt on himself. It only penetrates bubbles casted on other people.

Patch notes 1.62:
- Penetrating Arrow will never go through Bladeturns (both pulsing and single-target) on the character that cast the spell. This means that a Warden who casts a bladeturn on himself will never have his own personal bladeturn penetrated.

- Bladeturns cast on group/realm mates can be penetrated. So a Hero that has a pulsing bladeturn (or single target) on him from a friendly Warden can have that bladeturn penetrated.

Sat 16 Feb 2019 8:48 PM by Wulfen001

Even when i shoot on group bubble it is most likely not penetrating it.

In general Scouts seem a bit underperforming compared to their pendants of the other realms. Are there any plans of some finetunings?

Thansk for the quick answer!

Sun 17 Feb 2019 2:09 AM by Waygone

Wulfen001 wrote: ↑
Sat 16 Feb 2019 8:48 PM
Even when i shoot on group bubble it is most likely not penetrating it.

In general Scouts seem a bit underperforming compared to their pendants of the other realms. Are there any plans of some finetunings?

Thansk for the quick answer!

Unfortunately Wulf, this one of the class specific things that have consistently pointed to 1.65 as being the "way it was back then". The have adjusted things for alot of other classes/things that were not according to 1.65(Paladin,NF RAs, Wizzards etc..)
Unfortunately this is one of the things that has been written into 1.65 law that most likely won't change.
I see one of two scenarios. Either everyone quits playing archer and they finally see that the class is hardly played, or join a stealth zerg to get RPs. The way they are right now, other than leeching of zerg fights, getting REALLY good at kiting and drawing out fights( next to impossible because enemies either run away, or you get stomped by adds rather than them let themselves get kited to death), or joining a stealth group. None of those are desirable to me so I rolled Minstrel. Way more versatility and can be great in stealth group as well :-)
I sincerely hope they will make at least the balde turn penetration addition to penetrating arrow. I wouldn't mind that and possibly a higher bow spec making a little more difference for spec options

Sun 17 Feb 2019 5:51 AM by

gruenesschaf

I'm not saying we're not looking into it or that it's off the table, I'm just responding to the claim that it's broken / a bug.

Mon 18 Feb 2019 5:52 AM by skulllz

gruenesschaf wrote: ↑
Sun 17 Feb 2019 5:51 AM
I'm not saying we're not looking into it or that it's off the table, I'm just responding to the claim that it's broken / a bug.

not to highjack another thread, but any confirmation at all that archers in general (hunters and scouts, specifically, since rangers have strong melee viability) might be getting looked at into having slightly better survival tools to combat how they are entirely free rps to any sin (as well as most melee)? I made a separate thread on hunters, but to be fair scouts are lacking here, as well. OF abilities and RAs were mostly removed (fine), but instead of being given in return the NF MoS which has increased stealth detection for preparing against a sin.. that was not added in - only movement speed, so at this patch you have no stealth detection MoS / no camoflauge / no Physical Defense RA / no true sight active stealth finder RA on a timer / etc. etc. etc.

I also mentioned how lackluster the beastcraft line is for hunters, but I'd be happy with even the smallest of changes (a sprinting pet / instant cast str & con pet buff) and/or any of the stealth/absorb/detection abilities listed above, even if they also go to rangers

Thank you for any consideration

Mon 18 Feb 2019 7:43 AM by Cadebrennus

skulllz wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 5:52 AM
gruenesschaf wrote: ↑
Sun 17 Feb 2019 5:51 AM
I'm not saying we're not looking into it or that it's off the table, I'm just responding to the claim that it's broken / a bug.

not to highjack another thread, but any confirmation at all that archers in general (hunters and scouts, specifically, since rangers have strong melee viability) might be getting looked at into having slightly better survival tools to combat how they are entirely free rps to any sin (as well as most melee)? I made a separate thread on hunters, but to be fair scouts are lacking here, as well. OF abilities and RAs were mostly removed (fine), but instead of being given in return the NF MoS which has increased stealth detection for preparing against a sin.. that was not added in - only movement speed, so at this patch you have no stealth detection MoS / no camoflauge / no Physical Defense RA / no true sight active stealth finder RA on a timer / etc. etc. etc.

I also mentioned how lackluster the beastcraft line is for hunters, but I'd be happy with even the smallest of changes (a sprinting pet / instant cast str & con pet buff) and/or any of the stealth/absorb/detection abilities listed above, even if they also go to rangers

Thank you for any consideration

Rangers are not melee gods.

Hunter 2h = Ranger dual wielding. Was tested on beta by myself and others and confirmed. Hunter dog is just bonus damage on top of that.

Mon 18 Feb 2019 10:18 AM by jelzinga_EU

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 7:43 AM
Rangers are not melee gods.

Hunter 2h = Ranger dual wielding. Was tested on beta by myself and others and confirmed. Hunter dog is just bonus damage on top of that.

You keep saying this, and on a dummy it is probably true. In real-RvR where your enemies defense are most likely evade/block (e.g. often other stealth) there is a 25% discrepancy between those two, simply because of the fact CD/DW cuts for 25% in Shield/Evade. I typically see a 25-27% evade-rate with dualwield, meaning a hunter (who has slightly more WS) would see something along the lines of 40-42% evade-rate. That damage-loss is huge (guess what,... roughly 25%).

I'm not saying rangers are OP or even fine (the lack of having RA's like Avoid Pain, Physical Defense, True Sight, MoS hurts them just as well) but from the 3 archers the ranger is by far in the best state. Off-evade stun in both Pierce and Blades, positional side-stun, reasonable bow-speeds available and speccable damage-add which works great with both melee and range, it is by far in the best shape of the 3 archers.

To fix archery (for all 3 archers!) a few things need to be done, for example something like:

a) Make Penetrating Shot go for a certain % through self-casted BT
b) Make PD less effective / ineffective against archery
c) Better scaling of Archery-damage after speccing above 50/51 Composite
d) Better Archery speccing-options, e.g. a "Uninterruptable" Archery-Shot for 50% damage at 45 Archery to make them much more viable against casters.

All these things wouldn't do much vs assassins but would help vs casters (the intended target). The damage of archery against assassins is fine, the problem of archery is against casters with BT, PD it is barely delivering and even if it does is sub-par.

Mon 18 Feb 2019 11:37 AM by Bradekes

jelzinga_EU wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 10:18 AM
d) Better Archery speccing-options, e.g. a "Uninterruptable" Archery-Shot for 50% damage at 45 Archery to make them much more viable against casters.

This sentence worries me about your idea of the state of archery.... You just want to win all the time and that isnt fair... My casters dies to archers very easily already, they don't need free MoC for bowshots...

Everyone complaining about penetrating shot not making every caster a 2 shot kill really bothers me... If you want to play a class that two shots casters play an assassin, archers aren't in a bad spot.

The thing is, there is a lot of zerging which goes against how archers are set up for this game. Archers may need a leg up but nothing like your suggestions

Mon 18 Feb 2019 11:59 AM by Druth

Bradekes wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 11:37 AM
This sentence worries me about your idea of the state of archery.... You just want to win all the time and that isnt fair... My casters dies to archers very easily already, they don't need free MoC for bowshots...

The problem is that when people want to portray their weaknesses they setup worst case scenarios, and vs casters ALL stealthers are fighting Bonedancer and Sorcs (with moc up).

It's the equivalent as me arguing that stealthers have PA, speed 6, invisibility, 2000 range, sos, mez, stun, aoe mez, vanish, poison, pets etc etc etc... depending on which argument I want to make.

They say stealthers should be caster bane, and casters be tank bane, and tanks kill stealthers. But tanks can't find or catch stealthers, so unless they come up with more options to find stealthers, any buff to any stealther class, without nerfing another, will just be a downwards slope towards more stealth zergs.

Archers needs a buff, but it's vs. assassins, not vs. visibles.

And the argument that archery above 51 comp is worthless seems to be taken as above 51 should be buffed, but could just as well mean below 52 should be nerfed.

Mon 18 Feb 2019 12:29 PM by jelzinga_EU

Bradekes wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 11:37 AM
jelzinga_EU wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 10:18 AM
d) Better Archery speccing-options, e.g. a "Uninterruptable" Archery-Shot for 50% damage at 45 Archery to make them much more viable against casters.

This sentence worries me about your idea of the state of archery.... You just want to win all the time and that isnt fair... My casters dies to archers very easily already, they don't need free MoC for bowshots...

Everyone complaining about penetrating shot not making every caster a 2 shot kill really bothers me... If you want to play a class that two shots casters play an assassin, archers aren't in a bad spot.

The thing is, there is a lot of zerging which goes against how archers are set up for this game. Archers may need a leg up but nothing like your suggestions

This would be one of the suggestions and it would only be uninterruptable for ranged attacks, not melee attacks and come with a 50% penalty to damage. I'm not saying implement them all, but it was a list of suggestions.

I've played archers during pretty much all era's, old frontiers, new frontiers, new archery system and the like. If there is 1 thing which I remembered clearly: Range and Archery was not your friend to fight a caster. The problem was always you would loose interrupt war with quickcast and then you had no way to close the gap fast enough to avoid dying. So in the end you had no reliably way to kill casters with ranged, tanks could spec 7 in Shield to get Engage and you couldn't see other stealthers from range, often leaving your Archery as wasted points. These are suggestions to make Archery at least work vs. your primary target (casters).

You have to look at the long-term too: When casters get higher PD (best defensive option vs enemy tanks, assassins and archers at the same time) a typical crit-shot will not exceed the 400-450 damage on a caster. A regular shot will be half of that. That and BT being a guaranteed miss means such a caster will take 15+ seconds to kill - enough to either send pet, quickcast CC/Nearsight or run out of range.

Should caster die by default to an archer? No, but it shouldn't be a guaranteed win for the caster either. All casters have the tools to win such a fight with either a pet, nearsight, long-range CC or instant interrupts. Casters are, contrary to archers, very wanted in groups the least you can do is make an archer have the upper hand in a 1vs1 scenario. Once casters figure out at higher RR they can get Concentration and/or MOC and PD they will rarely die to an archer, giving the archer no more viable targets. That is already how it is currently, but it will only get worse at higher RR on this server.

Mon 18 Feb 2019 3:40 PM by Horus

jelzinga_EU wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 10:18 AM
Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 7:43 AM
Rangers are not melee gods.

Hunter 2h = Ranger dual wielding. Was tested on beta by myself and others and confirmed. Hunter dog is just bonus damage on top of that.

You keep saying this, and on a dummy it is probably true. In real-RvR where your enemies defense are most likely evade/block (e.g. often other stealth) there is a 25% discrepancy between those two, simply because of the fact CD/DW cuts for 25% in Shield/Evade. I typically see a 25-27% evade-rate with dualwield, meaning a hunter (who has slightly more WS) would see something along the lines of 40-42% evade-rate. That damage-loss is huge (guess what,... roughly 25%).

I'm not saying rangers are OP or even fine (the lack of having RA's like Avoid Pain, Physical Defense, True Sight, MoS hurts them just as well) but from the 3 archers the ranger is by far in the best state. Off-evade stun in both Pierce and Blades, positional side-stun, reasonable bow-speeds available and speccable damage-add which works great with both melee and range, it is by far in the best shape of the 3 archers.

To fix archery (for all 3 archers!) a few things need to be done, for example something like:

a) Make Penetrating Shot go for a certain % through self-casted BT
b) Make PD less effective / ineffective against archery
c) Better scaling of Archery-damage after speccing above 50/51 Composite
d) Better Archery speccing-options, e.g. a "Uninterruptable" Archery-Shot for 50% damage at 45 Archery to make them much more viable against casters.

All these things wouldn't do much vs assassins but would help vs casters (the intended target). The damage of archery against assassins is fine, the problem of archery is against casters with BT, PD it is barely delivering and even if it does is sub-par.

Do you have any real work experience? I do as a Ranger..I can tell you that hunters will out melee a ranger every time.. EVERY time. The stun last maybe 3 sec IF you get it off. Pet + 2H means equal leveled hunter vs ranger hunter wins EVERY time by a large margin. I've seen it, I've experienced it. Scouts are the same,,,shield spec + master of blocking = slam + impossible to hit. Quite spreading lies about Rangers. They are by far to lowest on the food chain in terms of melee in the real world current state of Phoenix.

BTW Penetrating shot is not broken. It working the way it is designed.

Mon 18 Feb 2019 6:00 PM by Cadebrennus

jelzinga_EU wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 10:18 AM
Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 7:43 AM
Rangers are not melee gods.

Hunter 2h = Ranger dual wielding. Was tested on beta by myself and others and confirmed. Hunter dog is just bonus damage on top of that.

You keep saying this, and on a dummy it is probably true. In real-RvR where your enemies defense are most likely evade/block (e.g. often other stealth) there is a 25% discrepancy between those two, simply because of the fact CD/DW cuts for 25% in Shield/Evade. I typically see a 25-27% evade-rate with dualwield, meaning a hunter (who has slightly more WS) would see something along the lines of 40-42% evade-rate. That damage-loss is huge (guess what,... roughly 25%).

I'm not saying rangers are OP or even fine (the lack of having RA's like Avoid Pain, Physical Defense, True Sight, MoS hurts them just as well) but from the 3 archers the ranger is by far in the best state. Off-evade stun in both Pierce and Blades, positional side-stun, reasonable bow-speeds available and speccable damage-add which works great with both melee and range, it is by far in the best shape of the 3 archers.

To fix archery (for all 3 archers!) a few things need to be done, for example something like:

a) Make Penetrating Shot go for a certain % through self-casted BT
b) Make PD less effective / ineffective against archery
c) Better scaling of Archery-damage after speccing above 50/51 Composite
d) Better Archery speccing-options, e.g. a "Uninterruptable" Archery-Shot for 50% damage at 45 Archery to make them much more viable against casters.

All these things wouldn't do much vs assassins but would help vs casters (the intended target). The damage of archery against assassins is fine, the problem of archery is against casters with BT, PD it is barely delivering and even if it does is sub-par.

I played a Ranger and a Hunter during the PvP event. The Hunter killed targets in pure melee faster than the Ranger did.

Tue 19 Feb 2019 4:07 AM by Isavyr

Cadebrennus wrote: ↑
Mon 18 Feb 2019 6:00 PM
I played a Ranger and a Hunter during the PvP event. The Hunter killed targets in pure melee faster than the Ranger did.

This seems like a problem. It looks like Ranger's aren't getting value from their spec. Comparing minimum melee specs between hunter and ranger: a 37/37 CD/Pierce Ranger will spend slightly more points than the hunter's 39 spear/32 beastmaster (gives max wolf summon), while having lower melee damage output, and lower versatility.

The scout will have to invest more points into their melee, and gain more utility (slam), deal less damage to a sponge target, but will be more competitive in a melee duel due to their defense (more logical situation than sponge--the archer would prefer to shoot than melee if nobody is attacking them).

Tue 19 Feb 2019 4:15 AM by Quik

I can confirm Hunters are MUCH more viable then Rangers in almost every situation.

I wanted to make a Ranger work really bad but I could never get him competitive so I gave up.

Hunter is a lot more fun but it still needs help, Ranger though, he needs a LOT of help.

Tue 19 Feb 2019 4:38 AM by skulllz

absolute delusion going on to those that think dual wield is not far superior to 2h at this patch level. should berserkers all spec full 2h then? it's better to penetrate defenses / you get twice the proc chance on a server with very low hps / rangers get side and back snares and evade stun and side stun while the hunter gets either ONLY a back stun -or- ONLY an evade stun depending what they spec. BTW, those specs are at 25 and below on any of the 3 ranger lines and only at 39 on either hunter melee spec. the dog is pure dog sh*t (no pun intended) - it adds one unstyled 70 dmg swing on the first initial run through and then never hits again due to base run speed if you are a kiter/archer, or maybe hits another 2-3 times if you full melee... this dmg is even less than the equivalent from self dmg add rangers get and the slightly higher str buff than the potion.

I can no longer be nice about this, but ultimately all of your "rvr experience" is so obviously biased (yes, I actually have played all archetypes in both this server and in real life OF - hunter is by far the most well-known gimped pile of garbage).

The more we debate and argue instead of come up with suggestions for how to improve all archery (stealthing in general, even, if you desire) the less incentive a Dev has to take any of us serious since we're already undercutting each other's abilities (or blowing them out of proportion). At least the one guy came up with suggestions, even if I personally don't find much trouble fighting casters, currently, only sins / melee rangers and some hybrid tanks.

Tue 19 Feb 2019 5:29 AM by AngelRose

skulllz wrote: ↑
Tue 19 Feb 2019 4:38 AM
absolute delusion going on to those that think dual wield is not far superior to 2h at this patch level. should berserkers all spec full 2h then? it's better to penetrate defenses / you get twice the proc chance on a server with very low hps / rangers get side and back snares and evade stun and side stun while the hunter gets either ONLY a back stun -or- ONLY an evade stun depending what they spec. BTW, those specs are at 25 and below on any of the 3 ranger lines and only at 39 on either hunter melee spec. the dog is pure dog sh*t (no pun intended) - it adds one unstyled 70 dmg swing on the first initial run through and then never hits again due to base run speed if you are a kiter/archer, or maybe hits another 2-3 times if you full melee... this dmg is even less than the equivalent from self dmg add rangers get and the slightly higher str buff than the potion.

I can no longer be nice about this, but ultimately all of your "rvr experience" is so obviously biased (yes, I actually have played all archetypes in both this server and in real life OF - hunter is by far the most well-known gimped pile of garbage).

The more we debate and argue instead of come up with suggestions for how to improve all archery (stealthing in general, even, if you desire) the less incentive a Dev has to take any of us serious since we're already undercutting each other's abilities (or blowing them out of proportion). At least the one guy came up with suggestions, even if I personally don't find much trouble fighting casters, currently, only sins / melee rangers and some hybrid tanks.

I read all your posts about Hunters. I think you have made some excellent points. I think only people who play rangers as their main class would think rangers are gimped...it is actually amusing to read.

But...lets stay on point. No reason to get off topic. The dog is shit. It is so slow, it is basically useless besides a minor damage add. Still learning this server, but I think it is the slowest pet of any pet class. Is there a reason for the dog to be so slow?

Tue 19 Feb 2019 6:01 AM by Ardri

I actually think archers are okay. Not great, but not worthless. If they were to get a change/buff i think the bow damage should scale accordingly with bow spec which would make 50 bow actually giving a lot more bow damage and being viable. That and making crit shot break self bubble would make them very good.