Javelin, throwing ax, Sienna’s staffs, SOT jedi staff, crank gun all have infinite ammo.
Other weapons are limited technically, but many builds have infinite ammo in the practice. I never run out of ammo with BH or WS.
Yes, the moon bow is strong. I would increase the cost of shots by 50% AND allow to use the trait that reduces heat accumulation by 20%. This would allow for more builds and dilemma over the trait.
No but it was rather to point out that the absurdity on legend won’t just suddenly end after jav/moonfire nerfs but really that is a other topic and debate on itself.
This is my real issue with the javelin. It’s ammo recharge is just stupid fast which, combined with its other traits, leads to pure spam by elf players. It’s just dumb overall imo.
I guess this is a big part of where we differ. How often do you realistically run out of ammo on sniper weapons even with a melee class? Unless for some reason you’re a melee class and the only person on your whole team sniping specials, in my experience it doesn’t happen. Like it or not ammo is rarely an actual restriction in this game when it comes to sniping the targets that actually matter (ie specials). So I just don’t think unlimited ammo on javelins is as big a factor as some are making out.
Sure the javelins have the luxury of letting you throw them at every single target in the map without running out of ammo, but I’m honestly not convinced that confers much benefit in reality. If you’re playing a ranged character chances are you could take any ranged weapon and spam it on every target without ammo concerns. If you’re playing a melee class, chances are you would deal with the majority of targets more effectively in melee than you would by hurling javelins repeatedly.
I think if you were to nerf the cleave, stagger, AND damage/useability of javelins you’d quickly reduce them to another throwing axes. A meme weapon that basically nobody ever runs for good reason.
I do think it’s worth mentioning that there are some outlier cases that can break 35%. Exec on GK for me regularly goes well above that, and my aim is pretty meh. I’ve had a few games where it neared 60%, though it was being used very sparingly there.
Outside of that sort of thing I 100% agree that 35%+ is way out of reach for your average cata pub. If you’re swinging constantly and getting well above 35% headshots you’re an outlier wrt headshot mechanics, I feel.
Never because Kerillian snipes everything anyway making my job as HS obsolete (Buff Huntsman HAH) so I don’t bother.
So sure, not running out of ammo here but then again, what’s the point in even expending it if teammates with faster weapons do it for me. Screw me for needing a headshot to reload faster am I right?
Benefit? People like shooting things as much as they do whacking them and in some cases enjoy shooting more. It’s just plain FUN for SOME make no mistake.
My anecdotal argument here is that it’s not necessarily ONLY about the reliability but the fact that it’s both FUN and RELIABLE to spam that Javelin wherever possible (and it’s got a melee so whopee). The Javelin asks the least from you as a player as you only need to ensure that you aim - hit - retrieve them for your next barrage with no hard cost other than lost time if missed.
To be fair to the other classes, while they can and will spam their ranged weapons almost as much, they can and will run out given the situations and circumstances that once again, can and will appear.
Hot take: Throwables shouldn’t be allowed to have conservative shooter.
depends on how you’re calculating
you could do light attacks only, count only the hits that do damage and that’d mean all your counted hits on an armoured target would be headshots. Or you could just aim so high up in the air that you’ll only ever headshot or miss and not count the misses.
if you do an aggregate of headshots per swing, including misses/swings that do no damage most players won’t get beyond 30%. Calculating this is iffy though because unless you’re calculating this only when actually attacking enemies then things like movetech or breaking barriers are gonna mess with it. Also I feel it goes without saying but I saw it earlier in the thread and am going to reiterate: the score screen won’t give you even a vaguely accurate idea of a player’s headshot ratio.
For the Briar Javelins:
And then done.
Well first off, javelin doesn’t just snipe specials, its used against everything, and no you can’t do that with other ranged weapons on melee careers without running out fairly quickly. Second of all, you bring up a good point regarding the lack of need to manage ammo. Basically Fatshark has managed to return the game to a ranged meta which was acknowledged to be a problem years ago. This game is supposed to be a melee-first game. Even for the ranged careers its supposed to be pretty evenly split between ranged and melee. With javelin, moonfire bow, along with certain talents and weapon traits, that balance has been completely ruined.
The Javelin discussion is indeed complicated by the fact that ammo management is far far to easy on each and every career. As such as general statement: outside of specific ranged careers the ammo recovery should be brought down somehow.
On the topic of the Javelin, it is simply to good at everything once again. High stagger, insanely high cleave, insanely fast reload and high enough damage to bodyshot Stormvermin’s on Legend without much investment. It is simply to allrounder and to smooth. Not sure what Fatshark’s issue is on that front. It is like they have some smoothtalker in their team, just repeating this like a mantra. There is however zero wiggleroom anymore in the game to make any weapon any smoother/less sluggish. And Javelin (and Moonfire Bow) showcases nicely why.
If a weapon this strong is regularly used against non-elite roamers on Legend and Cataclysm then something is wrong. It is good and spammable against elites, roamers and hordes. The weapon would greatly benefit in terms of gameplay and balance if it was a bit more sluggish (a few weapons would but lets focus on Javelins for now). The stagger itself isn’t a problem actually if each Javelin becomes more of a decision. So I would say half its cleave and double its reload time. It is still an excellent weapon but has a bit more drawback as it should be for an actual unlimited ammo weapon.
Another interesting apporach would be what Velsix has mentioned:
Get away from the whole unlimited Javelins thing and make it a regular weapon with ammo count. Point in both cases is to decrease the spammability and actually spam we currently observe. Needless to say but Moonfire Bow has very similar issues.
I’m just using the numbers the analyser gives me, no idea how it calculates them lol. I agree for most weapons most players won’t break 30%, just that it’s not impossible for weapons you’re only pulling out when you can headshot with them to do so.
Problem is that it´s not easy or smooth to headshot a distant special with it, so you will end up bodyshotting them which should be particularly noticeable for something like distant gasrats/stormers.
Giving those two time to work can get really bad.
As for two shotting things, i mean, sure it runs on no ammo so it´s not going to cause any problems if you take your time with it but on the other hand it´s a fact that it´s just slower and worse than a well handled longbow if talking proper sniping. If talking general shooting then a comparison with swiftbow is probably better at which point it´d say the javs is generally better.
It´s a legit cata statement given that basically any horde will have elites or shields in it, and that´s part of why WS hagbane or just moonbow are so powerful, since they easily bypass such problems.
Below a certain distance i agree that it´s accurate enough to be good, but at longer ranges i do not think that´s the case anymore, you need to aim a fair bit above the target purely guessing which easily makes a mess.
I mean, they are two different weapons really so the comparison isnt quite right, Javelin has functions that longbow just cant fill while longbow just has all it´s cards stacked into sniping and easy 1hit headshots.
If one cant land those headshots then it´s not a question of “which is better” but instead its a thing that one should not use that bow at all. Kinda like how rapier without flense and only doing bodyshot heavies ( average crit chance) isnt really an amazing weapon either.
Its smooth enough until we start talking about distances such as the ones in against the grain. Which is not really standard kill distance on any sniping weapon. Even then its possible to hit most things for reliable 2 shot while not worrying about those missed shots.
About it being slower, I guess we have different feeling on how much slower it really is at that. In terms of just flat aiming/shooting times ye longbow is better but you also need to dedicate that extra millisecond to make sure you headshot, otherwise it looses really any advantage it has.
We are also ignoring lots of potential career influences here which would make headshotting useless anyways.
And now we moved from sniping packmaster from horde with jav/long to moonfire/hagbane?
If I were to answer the really semantic point that hordes might have shields,elites,monks, whatever, I would still prefer the 3x cleave/stagger value on javelin vs longbow.
At least javelin staggers whatever it hits, more than likely cleaves few more enemies and I’m not wasting ammo while doing it.
Seems reasonable, if the magazine size actually gives some real downtime. Otherwise you could give it something like 12 ammo and make it recharge 1 ammo every 5/8/10 seconds(Whatever sounds good).
Edit: And now I realize you talk about actual ammo usage, so disregard the former if so.
One-shot body shot all specials except Gas,Pack,Leech,Blightstormer using 4 power properties with javelin. Wich is the exact same situation with longbow btw(even with serrated shot). You can’t have max attack speed with either if you want to reach body-shot breakpoints. They both one-shot headshot every special.
So basicly javelins having infinite ammo is ridiculus. Compared to longbow it doesn’t have a charge time either so you can do max damage all the time.
Point is it basicly does the same thing as longbow without a charge time and you can perma stagger any elite. On top of that it’s melee attacks has one of the best boss DPS in the game as far as melee weapons go. Why wouldn’t you use javelins if you wanna go with a sniping weapon ? There is litearlly no reason whatsoever. They are just too good. Even on WS you can go for extra arrow for trueshot talent using javelins it basicly frees a talent for you because it has infinite ammo.
That’s only three of seven special types. The only noteworthy bodyshot breakpoint without sacrificing melee dps I can find from testing is on Ratlings/Warpfire Throwers. Javelin has to sacrifice power vs Chaos or Attack Speed on Charm to have the Packmaster 1 shot headshot consistently, which is relevant for Handmaiden and Shade. Enhanced Power can push things further but that’s sacrificing melee dps. The Longbow also has better headshot breakpoints on elites.
Staggering elites with ranged weapons is only relevant if the ranged weapon can stagger multiple at a time. Otherwise it doesn’t matter and is mainly an aesthetic issue, like how Chaos Warriors are not as fearsome as they should be. Single ambient elites aren’t dangerous, and we’re not going to melee them with the Javelin while fighting a horde.
The speed difference is fairly small, and Longbow quick arrows are still faster (and are helpful vs Assassins). Javelin does have a charge time. It doesn’t fire instantly.
Since you seem to be asking me directly I’ll give you my own answer based on my experiences.
Longbow has no real/important reload downtime. It’s very noticeable when under high pressure. It can continuously fire 20 arrows and do charged shot into quick shot quickly. It also has a pretty handy zoom. Not having to worry about reloading at all is good.
I don’t see any reason to use the Javelin if I’m headshotting, at least not on Handmaiden or Shade, unless I bring a melee weapon with lower than average monster dps (all of Kerillian’s meta melee weapons have good monster dps). On Shade, if I’m bodyshotting Volley is better (I don’t understand the Volley hate I see, it has great bodyshot breakpoints, decent reload time and a 15 size clip). Javelin only beats Volley on Ratling/Warpfire Thrower bodyshot breakpoints.
If the player is out of Javelins, switching from melee - reloading - firing takes longer than it does to switch from melee - charged Longbow arrow. I don’t have a particularly high ranged headshot percentage. In fact, that’s probably why I prefer Longbow, since if I’m not headshotting enough I’ll have to reload with Javelin.
If I’m under any pressure, last one alive, I prefer Longbow. Despite this, I’m still suggesting Javelin should be nerfed/changed as seen in a few posts above. Can I see how Javelin is better? Yeah, just not in ways that I personally find to be useful when it comes to level completion, mainly in ways that are good at annoying people, but I don’t like infinite free ammo gameplay and the kind of excessive kiting it can encourage, as well as recognising I don’t play Official Cata anymore so my perspective on it is warped, so I’m conceding somewhat to the statements of others.
In true solo, it’s not close. Longbow is better there. Of course, true solo isn’t relevant to balance, but someone was mentioning it before so just addressing that.
Does anyone know if there’s a speed difference between the Longbow’s and the Javelin’s projectiles?
Edit: Also remove the Mauler cleave. That’s too much.
Very scientific after effects frame counting makes me say longbow is about 20%-30% faster. If the games physics are even slightly smartly coded then the fact that javelin drops faster than longbows arrow should also be pretty good indication.
Edit: Now that I’m actually checking this more thoroughly, its really hard to determine when the projectile actually spawns, so depending on how I want to calculate this it could be even 40-50% slower but the projectile is definitely slower. 20-33% seems good median on the stuff I’ve been doing.
Pretty sure elf volley bow gets it’s bad rap because it’s absolutely awful on elites and the weapon swap delay after the burst is painful. It also doesn’t really take advantage of or feed back into any of Shade’s specialties like hagbane/moonbow can, so there’s just no real reason to take it.
It’s easy bodyshotting on specials and Shade is great at killing elites in melee. The biggest drawback I can see is the dodge count of 2.
I don’t know of any swap delay on the burst. It swaps instantly.
Edit: I need to do more testing. Edit 2: Did more and I couldn’t find a delay.
In my experience, the Repeater Crossbow isn’t bad, for sure, it’s just rather mediocre and doesn’t synergise with Shade well. The reload mismatch is annoying too, where you have to wait just a bit more for it to actually finish.
Is there any map that doesnt have a fair distance of really open spaces with long range attacks being a thing except the troll mine and the later two drachenfels ones.
On the other hand, it has a built in zoom that makes landing those shots easier, it does lose out in speed to a Bounty crossbow or a handgun but it´s still extremely quick in practiced hands.
SoT and her 100% crits is not something you´d see across the other careers, and even WS does not have bloodshot up and running all the time if shes taking a sniping role being the one picking off specials trying to flank the other members.
That cleave does not go through shields/armor so it effectively doesnt do anything against those. Damage is nice of course but you still end up with a live packmaster+horde in melee at the end of that line.
Same as the longbow.