General Forums

[Loraelis]

Larian, I popped over here to talk more about your proposed bow changes so I could get away from the VNs. There are a few things I really think need clearing up....


1) Penetrating Arrow already does go throogh personal BTs. I've seen it happen on multiple occasions. There was a huge freakin' fight over this over that the catacombs boards not too long ago and I just know I'm probably going to end up flamed by some one that "knows" it doesn't, but I'm not gonna keep quiet about it anymore. I mention it because of the number of people saying we need "someway to penetrate personal BTs." Reread what Mythic has said on this:

"- 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."

This is what every single person that contradicts me is usually going on. A self-bladeturn is neither pulsing, nor single target. That would be like saying our Pathfinding buffs are single target. They're not, if they were we'd be able to cast them on realm mates. They are self-only. Self-only bladeturns are not even mentioned in those notes. Either I'm right about this, or a lot of solo casters that I've hit run around with a BT that someone else cast on them.

2) The way that Bow works is the same way anything else works. If you look at CAP damage and naively assume 100% damage on every shot and no misses then a low specced ANYTHING would work good. An Armsman with 50 Shield and 49 Parry and 12 to Crossbows, Crush, Slash, Thrust, Polearm and Two-handed would be the most versatile thing in the whole game and NOTHING would be able to take it down in melee with that kinda of defense! Fact is, that neither damage variance nor to-hit rates work in such a way as to make this really viable. Do melee rangers get off decent shots with their bows once in a while? Yeah, but that Armsman would get the occasional huge smack in too. It doesn't make up for how often they'd miss, or be parried, or be evaded, or hit for about half their potential.

3) If you add every one of the suggestions made up, not counting the ones that include brittleguards, you'd end up with a high bow-specced archer that is much more effective... at hitting brittleguards.




...

Honestly Larian, what you're suggesting would do nothing to stem the tide of melee rangers. Would it effect their abilitiy to leach RPs off a siege? Yeah, but that's about it and not many of them do that anyway. Hell, a lot of them don't even EVER equip their bow. Xora, for example. has 2 CON based legendaries (that he hunted high and low for) in his template... he's not going to be swapping around and lose 56 con worth of hits. Melee ranger don't generally roll to use their bows. They roll to kill assassins >period<. Truth be told, that's all they're really good at. An assassin can kill visibles more easily. Hell, if IP+Purge and/or various other toys aren't up then an assassin can own a melee ranger pretty easily too! My point is that most of these guys simply don't want to be snipers. There's nothing you can do to encourage them to go higher bow. If you nerf their bow they'll make do without it, many already do. Iif you nerf their melee they'll just stop playing rangers altogether.
_________________
Loraelis, Percival/Gareth

[Loraelis]

What could be done to get high bow specs back where they should be? I'm sorry to say this Larian, but I believe the answer is nothing. They have already refused to consider the Bowmaster idea repeatedly, and that's really the only viable place I could see adding the ability to do SOMETHING about brittleguards. I don't really see mucking about with bow mechanics to be such a great idea, especially since we have to consider how it impacts the ARS servers. What the heck do ARS rangers get out of an ability that pierces BGs at 50 Bow?

Honestly Larian... we're in a really tough place on the normal servers. A really sad one. We really need help to make sniper viable, and Mythic has already turned down pretty much every good idea I've ever heard. :cry:You're current suggestions aren't necessarily bad, but all they amount to is a boast that won't be enough for snipers and a minor nerf (that will nonetheless generate much whining) to some melee rangers

(lousey message length limit)

*edited to remove obviously screwed previous assumptions about the futures of ARS servers*
_________________
Loraelis, Percival/Gareth

[Loraelis]

I just spent some time testing it out with a /leveled Menty on Pend.

PA definitely does go throw a casters bladeturns, and it most definitely does not do so often enough.


_________________
Loraelis, Percival/Gareth

[LarianLeQuella]

Thanks for the post and screenshot. Your last post sums up something that I think is vital (as well as not bypassing the 40000000000 brittleguards. :p
_________________


Larian LeQuella, Sidhe 50 Ranger of Guinivere
Armyn ab Treanid

[Kilkenny]

Interesting.

I think 50 bow should bypass brittle pets and always punch through the BT's you show as currently being bypassable.
_________________
Kilkenny of Igraine
Celt Blades Ranger

[Loraelis]

I don't know about "always" go through, but I'd like to see a HUGE boost to how often it goes through.

Tthe funny thing is that the one that went through was actually the first shot I took. Of course, the next how ever many I shot trying to get it to happen again for like 45 minutes never did. It does go through, but I think the fact that so many people are under the impression that it doesn't work at all is a good indication of how rarely it does so.

I'd like to see it scale with spec... maybe something like this:

PAI : 10% chance of penetration
PAII: 15% chance
PAIII: 20% chance

Those numbers are quite obviously (at least in my experience) all quite higher than the chance now. Actually, with the way Mythic's bell curve generator works, 10/20/30 might be better numbers to shoot for. With their RNG, I could just see 15% still never going off.
_________________
Loraelis, Percival/Gareth