Short: Buff Archery

[Sjinderson]

No Lusk. Just quite simply not true at all.
Regardless of all your beliefs of how archery classes perform whether correct or not does not matter as we will not be doing anything to the class.

 

[Bardregan]

Yes, but Battlerage only needs to get within 20 meters of us to use Shadowstep. Or Lasso. Or Tiger Strike. Or Behind Enemy lines. They have more gap closers than us. They have more speed boosts than us. They have more CC immunity than us. We only have a 7 meter deadzone to use.

Mages, who also have decent range, have more CCs and CC immunities than us. They also have some of the more powerful combos in the game, that would "tear up" someone using plate armor, except...

DRs don't use plate armor. DRs use leather. Which gives a mix of good resistance to both. But since they have stupidly high parry rates, and can block ranged attacks, you can see why it's a problem. A DR with weak armor can destroy the average player with good, high quality armor. If they have just a little bit of skill.

Charge has a cooldown of 12 seconds. It inflicts snare. It also has the shortest range, being 12 yards.
Lasso has a 24 second cooldown, and a 20 yard range.
Tiger strike's cooldown is 18 seconds, and has a 20 yard range.
Behind Enemy Lines, which stuns, has a range of 20 yards and a 21 second cooldown.

The thing is, this is 4 more gap closers than we have gap wideners. And they have all of our gap wideners, usually, too. And most people don't recommend taking Comet's Boon or Liberation so you can have Hearten and Inspiration; a gap widener and a shackle immunity skill, gone.

Fighting a DR is literally a game of cat and mouse for Archers; you're the mouse and they're a lion. It's to the point that their advantage is simply unfair, as ALL of their moves, baseline, combo into each other.

Mage's usually have a 20 meter range they work around. We have 7 meters on them, but they often take Auramancy too. That gives them good gap closers. They have better stuns and snares than us. They also have insulating lens, which grants increased stealth detection and armor, with damage absorption.

If, baseline, we had a 30 meter range on our attacks, that would give us a slight upper hand. We could teleport earlier. We could stealth earlier. We could reposition faster. We would have a bigger dead zone to work off of.

The thing is, a lot of people think we also move at the same speed when firing endless arrows. Nope, not true - if we're kiting you with Endless arrows, we're moving at an angle to maintain a higher movement speed than walking backwards. You will close the distance on us faster, unless if we have 35% higher base movement speed and you use no gap closers - and that point, you will never catch us. With amazing gear and the correct gems, you'll probably hit that number no problem. Windsong cloak, Archery move speed perk, an Assassin's Lunafrost, will all put you at 23% at the beginning of the game. With a upgraded cloak, this number increases slightly to around 25%. I don't believe it's in 3.0, but there's movement speed gems that grant 2% increased movement speed, when socketted into your boots. Five of them will net you 35%. With free runner on top, you're almost hitting mount speed - which is really, really hard to catch on foot.

But we don't have this ability again, until very, very late game. If we can even get it in 3.0.

Why do you think we out range melee classes? We have four, instant cast abilities to strike up to 27 meters. Endless Arrows, Puncturing Arrow, Poison Arrow, and Charged Bolt. They have four extra gap closers, and immunity to our CC WITH immunity to poison thrown on top when they're using free runner. And they have personal speed buffs on top of that, thanks to Reckless Charge. And they can initiate up to 40 yards away, while we're stuck at 27 meters maximum. That's right, when they cast Behind Enemy Lines, they close >20< meters in one move, allowing them to use Lasso or Tiger Strike for free. Or if they're closer, they can use Charge. But since it has NO minimum range, it's used after Tiger Strike usually.

It's like you don't even play the same game as us. Do... do you NOT understand how DRs work? They have several stuns that prevent all forms of CC break, deal massive damage, then they can disengage at any time until they're off cooldown and repeat as much as they like.

I don't really know what else you want me to say besides restating the fact that Archer's are at a disadvantage in a 1 versus 1 fight. Raid versus Raid is where they shine, and complaining that paper beats rock isn't going to get anybody anywhere.

 

[Kobby]

What would be the issue in just converting some of % scaling weapon damage of the abilities into base damage to allow people with lower gearscore to be more relevant? I think the numbers are fine, but a readjustment of the scaling would be much more appreciated than a raw damage increase.

 

[Bastrii]

What would be the issue in just converting some of % scaling weapon damage of the abilities into base damage to allow people with lower gearscore to be more relevant? I think the numbers are fine, but a readjustment of the scaling would be much more appreciated than a raw damage increase.

It's more so that 90% of the damage comes from Endless Arrows. Endless Arrows is bad like Rapid Strike is bad - it hits fast, but it hits weak. Therefore, when armor cuts out something like 50% of your damage, you deal poor burst damage. So you can't pressure opponents. Basically, to win a duel as a Primeval, you have to survive anywhere from 12-24 seconds without being stunned or CC'd, in order to deal enough damage to kill your opponent. All while avoiding your opponents spells and abilities.

Against a Darkrunner, this is impossible. Against something like a mage, it's feasable. All you have to do is avoid their frigid track with a good use on Freerunner, and you're home free.

But the problem is, Archery (can) beat Mage, Mage (can) beat Melee, but, Melee beats everyone.

Which rounds back to the main problem here. Why am I complaining about damage? Why not just nerf Darkrunner?

Well that's not going to happen. The easiest solution is more damage, or base line armor penetration (like Battlerage has, for some reason). the more complicated one is to give Archery a kit buff. The best solution is to nerf Battlerage (Shadowplay isn't the problem) to be in line with the self combos and movement of the game.

90% of the reason why Battlerage is SO OP is because they have Behind Enemy Lines and a TON of stuns, built in to Battlerage. Behind Enemy Lines is the >absolute best< movement skill in the game, able to shed CC, deal damage, and close 20 YARDS in ONE global cooldown. Even if you stayed exactly 27 yards away from a battlerage the whole match, if they cast Behind Enemy Lines >once<, they catch you.

Our slows mean nothing. Reckless charge shortens the duration of slow and makes Battlerage Movement Abilities grant 40% movement speed for three seconds.

They also have a Shackle found in Shadowsmite, too - which doesn't do anything against mages, but ruins us. And they can shed shackle themselves.

Every time I post in a thread, I just complain about Darkrunners - but I have valid points. How come the squishy ranged class has >piss poor< range and mobility compared to a melee class? How come we have moves built into our tree that force us to stand still, when our greatest weakness is standing still? How come all of our damage comes from one rapid fire, low damage move? Why do people think our movement needs a nerf, when it clearly needs a buff? Why does our skill tree prioritize movement speed, yet give us no options to work with that really help our high-movement class? How come all of our power moves are on a long cooldown, have a cast time, and are >still< piss poor? How come these powerful moves have nearly NO bonus damage combos? How come 32% of our damage comes from a 30 minute self buff and a Rank 10 Passive, when other classes only get maybe >one< talent to increase their damage? Why does our ability have to be a skill, instead of baked into one our other passives?
Why does battlerage have >twice< the snare effects that we do? And three times the movement? I understand that they're supposed to get in close - but we're supposed to stay far away. And all of their cooldowns can reset every three seconds, by parrying one ranged attack. So even if we DID stay far away, they have nearly infinite use of Behind Enemy Lines to work with.

I want the ability to fight back on some level. Something other than, "they used Behind Enemy Lines, I'm probably dead as my cooldowns for teleport, back drop, comet's boon, mirror teleport, shadowstep, stealth, are just simply too high to outrun them, even if I'm running the directly away from them."

The thing is, I simply find it impossible to get within 27 meters of ANY Darkrunner without IMMEDIATELY being hit from Tigerstrike, or Shadowstep+Leech. Because they also have Freerunner. They have all of our movement abilities, and THEN some on top of those. And all of their abilities are actually useful.

I play on this server with hopes that I'll get an official response on this topic. It'll never happen, but I hope.

 

[Sjinderson]

You have already had a response. We are not making changes to the classes system. That's the answer.

 

[Bastrii]

You have already had a response. We are not making changes to the classes system. That's the answer.

Sji, are you a developer, or a forum moderator? May I have the reason why we can't have class balance changes? You don't have to tell us "it's not in the spirit of the game" if you are simply unable to change the code around it. Can you link me a thread explaining the exact details for this "no", if its been answered before?

I continue to reply because "no" doesn't explain why some small changes can't occur. If there is a way to feasibly balance the private server to be more fair to players who don't play Darkrunner, or who want to experiment, why can't we at least give it a try?

Or can I at LEAST get an ETA on 3.5, where Archery is >slightly< better? A year? Six months? Something.

I don't want to spend every day arguing on the forums if I could have a better answer than "no". Is there an official thread on the topic? Is there something I could have missed?

There are no pinned messages telling me that "we wont be changing classes", nor any rules set for this section of the forum.

 

[Sjinderson]

3.5 is not in any time frame of arriving. Staff are working on creating custom content right now.
Correct there are no pinned messages regarding it. However never have we done any changes towards classes and have stated any changes to classes would be incredibly small to not affect the gameplay of archeage.
We chose not to, we don't need to give reason to why, though I will give just a few simple reasons.
This thread is not productive of changing the class, it is just complaining that either you want the class stronger because other classes are better or saying the class is fine or strong. It's a continuing loop that nobody wins.
The high gear players will call the class strong, the low gears call it weak. Why? Simply because archery is based on scallings not raw damage and the entire class is built on that. Changing archery to be completely balanced in every aspect is just impossible.
From personal experience of the class I personally find your perspective only valid for the low gear levels or those of high ping.
Now opinions aside making changes to archery, buffing the class isn't going to change anything. You're still going to die instantly, then people want more buffs. But at the same time everyone experienced and somewhat geared now becomes a huge threat because they can gun you down in just seconds.
Now we have to either buff everything else or nerf archery again. or you adjust the class to use raw numbers. But now the class has no scalling and has a gear threshold that going past doesn't make you stronger.
Through the entire gear system of archeage there will always be the one skill set weak.
There is no win, win.
Archeage to be simple is rock, paper, scissors.
I can kill mages of over 1k gs higher than me. But may struggle against dr's 1k gs lower than me.
arguably archery is not only the most ping dependent class but also the most skill heavy.

Just to go over everything brief this entire forum post doesn't do ananything but show that people will complain because one class isn't as good as another. Thats Archeage. No amount of balancing will ever stop one class being better than overs. You say archery has bad damage. Then why are many of the high gearscore players playing it.
Archery is not a class you just start and go, now you're killing everything. Archery is more like a gradient. You get past the margin and now you're better than other classes. Now no amount of balancing can fix that because archeage uses a gear based system.
To make archery a more equal class it would take something like 4.5. a whole entirely new skill system reworked to put everything on a more equal footing.
Now this is something we won't do with our custom content. At least not yet if it ever changes in the future.
To create a new system would mean a lot of effort going into designing, creating, animating, texturing, network syncing, ect. I don't know if we have the capability right now to achieve that at this point.

Those are just short and few reasons. The rest I won't get into because it doesn't solve anything

 

[Spartanz]

Thanks Sji.

That's something I've been trying to explain about AA's class system, specifically Archery. a GREAT primeval can definitely find success in 1v1 pvp. Kooncoon(?) proves this. A talented Prime + good gear = a deadly force. A celest buff, divine bow Primeval, likely isnt. Divine buff + epic bow+ would be. Again playing on the idea that you know how to properly create gap, and use it. Not just "Well i have 3 gap makers and they have 4 gap closers, Uising stealth midfight, slows, speed buffs, roots, leech ect.

While I admit needing 100k+ in gear to make archery even somewhat viable sucks, Archery if initially strong, would run over every mmo in the world. Archery MUST be gear/skill reliant, or it would just be too strong.

 

[Cetra]

Have had full Mythic gear twice on live as an Archer and I can tell you, Archer doesn't become too viable until T6 Epic+ and really you want to get your hands on at least a Legendary. I'm over 7k and the honest truth is that the class has always needed changes. Skills like Deadeye should not require a class that is "mobile" to stand still, snipe and concussive casts are too long, damage is slightly too low. The only way to get around this is to go EbonSong in Raids for better cast times, cast times I think you should get on Primevil too. Both specs are fun to play, Prim is more of a duel/mobile/cc spec, Ebonsong is pure Raid/support and high DPS output if you have players protecting you but you lose pretty much all escape/mobility for it. Even as a high geared Archer, they're still nothing in comparison to high GS DRs or Mages however as it has been said, when you get T6 Epic, or Legendary + you start to actually feel the power behind how lethal and archer can be, unfortunately it's a very expensive class and high skill ceiling class to play.

Devs already said they're not going to make changes, we all know classes are a mess in this game and anyone that can do anything about it has pretty much said "nope we're not doing it" and threw their hands in the air. Don't expect too much from such an old game on a P server just enjoy it for what it is while it lasts. That said, there is a specific way or two to gear an archer if you have the time, patience and resources that they will hit like a truck.

 

[Lusk]

Bows need buffs... doens't the class itself

 

[Cetra]

Bows need buffs... doens't the class itself

That could be a solution however at this point I think it's too late to worry about stuff like this anymore with this game, lets not even get started on where the economy and "Active" player population count is headed.

 

[Lusk]

Buffs on Bow's dmgs will help low gear players...

 

[Jesswii]

Aren't archers one of the best classes to have in water combat because of range? I always thought that was one of bonuses since they had such far range and it's such a pain to be swimming around as a melee even with swim buffs.

 

[Scapegoat]

Archery is 100% fine.

Melee should always do more damage than ranged. Why? Because ranged is the safe option. What you lack in killing power, you make up for in mobility.

If ranged did as much damage as melee, why would anyone play melee?

 

[Lusk]

Archery is 100% fine.

Melee should always do more damage than ranged. Why? Because ranged is the safe option. What you lack in killing power, you make up for in mobility.

If ranged did as much damage as melee, why would anyone play melee?

Mages do more dmg as melee, why anyone still playing melee?

 

[Scapegoat]

Mages do more dmg as melee, why anyone still playing melee?

They should do more damage than melee - they're even less mobile, and have less defenses against non-magic damage.

 

[Over]

Hmmm, what about adding movespeed to the archery tree or dual wield buff? If they say the damage is fine but the job is to kite, just buff the move speed + 20% for archery to outrun the gap closers.

Edit: The 20% is just a rando number, could be higher or lower. I think base movespeed is 5.8 m/s

Edit 2: Maybe add movespeed reduction to plate and add movespeed to leather buffs.

 

[Scapegoat]

excuse me but what ? archers safe against melee ? have you ever compared the gap closers between a DR & primeval ?

Drs & primevals share them in auramancy and shadowplay, but archery gives none besides a movementspeed passive that makes no noticable difference, aswell as snare(that you can bondbreak free from, aswell as a buggy delayed boneyard, whereas battlerage gets charge, tigerstrike, behind enemy lines (2 which conflict snare making an archer unable to move and that he has no CC break for) in addition, throw dagger inflicts a heavy slow that archers cant remove, and on top of that, the passives in BR grant heavy movementspeed upon usage of most skills aswell as entire skilltree resets (which includes bondbreaker) after parrying which WILL happen.

How can anyone say archers are safe against a melee class such as DRs?
if anything, they should be the one's doing less damage as they are always on target and put out constant damage

That's the reason people play DR, because it limits the amount of counterplay an opponent has. Archers aren't meant to be safe against specific groupings of skill trees - ranged damage is safer than melee damage as a whole. What you're arguing isn't buff archers, it's nerf battlerage, and I agree that battlerage is too mobile.

 

[Scapegoat]

that's total bullshit you literally said archers are safe and now you say the exact opposite.
ranged isn't safe at all with the teleports auramancy grants (that almost any meta class uses) aswell as all the gliders mounts whatever can be used to close gaps in open pvp. mages have far range too and anything that is too slow to get to you is a tanky class that you do no reasonable damage to and is only a waste of mana

At no point did I say archers are safe.
I said ranged damage is safe.

Archers can also take auramancy and have teleports. They can also glide away. Every option for closing gaps can also be used to create them.

 

[Scapegoat]

1.9K CRIT charged bolt on cloth
1.0K uncrit holy bolt on leather

sorry whoever claims that archery is balanced, especially in arena should just straight up shut up because it's a blatant lie

I'm not sure what you're getting at or why you're comparing the two. Holy bolt is a spell with a cast time. Charged bolt is a skill with no cast time. They're not comparable at all.