djegu wrote: ↑Tue 9 Apr 2019 4:06 PM
I honestly don't understand people that say archer need more bow damage, on a daily basis i get hit by scout in the 600-800 area.
Although I understand that speccing higher than 35 in bow should be rewarding, for example going through the bubble of a caster.
Also putting them to the same detection range as sins won't affect sins much, we will still find them when they shoot someone.
Well, opening against someone who is temped, and buff potted, one of two things will happen about 70% of the time:
The most common situation is that they will just run away. Sure my crit shot will open for ~600ish (ranger, 52 mod bow, damage is virtually the same at 62...maybe would be 610 instead), and subsequent shots will hit for 300, but I'll get maybe 3 total shots in before they are out of range, then they will quickly heal up. 1 out of 10 times I can speed burst after them and finish it off, but usually they get far enough away to heal up, or if I burst after them they recover enough to smash me in melee, or I just get run over by someone else, because I revealed myself in order to do middling health pool damage while my enemy got away.
I have no ability to control my enemy while shooting them. So running away very frequently just cancels my entire bow line.
The above also doesn't take into consideration opposition that has charges, ablatives, heal procs, or evades/blocks any of my arrows. I had a "fight" yesterday where I caught an infil jumping an AFK level 50 BM (at a flag). I shot this guy 5 times, all normal shots for about 330. He evaded one. Didn't die. Ran out of range at 50% HP. I still did probably 1400-1500 damage with procs and damage add and he was at 50% hp. I didn't run after because he would have just slaughtered me.
That brings up the second most common scenario which is they run towards me after I start shooting. Taking the above scenario as an example, what would happen if he ran at me? let's be generous and say I got the crit shot opening (so it was 1 on 1). Because he closed distance, I would get at least one less shot (realistically, 2 less shots). Let's also be generous and say no evades, so I've done the same amount of damage. Well now I'm fighting an infiltrator starting at 50% HP. Unless I'm a shar/celt melee ranger (and doing about 20% less bow damage btw), I'm going to be smashed without getting lucky.
Throw in an evade or a block (this happens quite a bit tbh) and I've got nothing.
The only real scenario where I, as an archer, can take someone down entirely by bow and then stealth away, is if they are preoccupied, or un-temped/unprepared/startled/etc (whereas an assassin can jump just about anyone, lock them down during their initial attack, have a variety of tools to deal with a variety of situations, and then get away).
Every now and then I get a good fight in where I open with crit, and a couple normal shots and then try to fight someone down from their 30%. I still have to go through that plus IP most of the time, so it's quite a hell of a lot to handle.
So on a blank sheet of paper, bow damage looks fine. In practical terms, it's barely serviceable. This is why you see so many melee rangers out there, because unless you are looking to leech or pick off other fights, you aren't getting anywhere.
While I do love taking down stragglers, and catching people off guard, it certainly doesn't mean the class is balanced, or that archery is ok.
If archers had good group utility, this would be a different discussion. We wouldn't be talking about an explicitly solo/smallman class that has problems soloing/smallmaning with their primary class defining ability, we'd be talking about any other class that can group up trying to also solo.
Personally I think the core of the problem is that everyone is running around buffed, solo or not - regardless of the fact that these aren't as good as a buffer's buffs, they still distort the game. All the arguments of how much damage classes do, how much survivability they have on their own, these are all warped incredibly by the level of self buffage that is available. On top of that, there's a clear hierarchy of who is able to self buff more, depending on level of investment (*but no, it's not buffbots, because you don't have a second account).
The flip side of the scenarios I presented above are times when I've run into untemped, unbuffed - or very minimally self buffed - individuals. I jumped a rr2 infil yesterday from melee (pretty much my only option, if I'm running around stealthed and I see a stealthed enemy, is to jump in melee, I can't run away). After running through my heal pot, plus purge and IP, I managed to kill him with 20% hp left (in this scenario, I'm running 44 pierce, 24 cd, +14 to both). So yes, I a ranger with a high level of melee spec, beat a full health infil toe to toe...barely, after using every possible charge and timer I had on me.
That doesn't sound like good game balance. As a luri ranger, yes I should get slaughtered if caught toe to toe melee like that (or at least, be forced to and have a way to run away). But if I catch you with my bow (which is a lot harder to do), you should be just as screwed. And that isn't remotely the case.