Moonfire Adjustment Suggestions

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Gameplay Feedback
1

Context
The Moonfire Bow is a bit weak compared to elf Longbow, which kills a lot faster and works better when dealing with multiple specials in medium-length encounters and, oddly enough, in short intervals.

Elf Longbow and Moonfire both have the same aim-punch, which is inaccuracy from taking damage. They also both have 3 dodges and 1.0 (0% bonus) dodge distance. (For reference, Swift Bow has 6 dodges and 25% dodge distance. Masterwork Pistol, Brace of Pistols, and Griffon-foot all have 99 dodges and 25% dodge distance bonus.)

None of Kerillian’s ranged weapons fill the role that Brace of Pistols does for Saltzpyre: both quickly killing multiple specials at medium-to-close range with little room and allowing the player to stay in the thick of the action—at the cost of being less sustainable than his other special-killing ranged weapon, Crossbow.

Brace of Pistols fills this role in various ways, but for brevity, I’ll focus on its aim-punch. Aim-punch is the ranged weapon inaccuracy that occurs if the player is hit and tries to shoot. Brace of Pistols has lower aim-punch than most ranged weapons. This allows a player to shoot a ratling with Brace even after taking a stray bullet; in contrast, a weapon like Crossbow would be unable to shoot that ratling.

Moonfire Bow has been described as a fire-and-forget kind of weapon. I think this is an apt description, as Moonfire works well when there isn’t necessarily enough time to aim for a headshot.

Suggestions for Moonfire Bow:

  • Give the Moonfire Bow 1 extra dodge and 10% dodge distance. As a sidenote, Moonfire looks like it would weigh less than the elf Longbow, so this change wouldn’t be arbitrary.

  • Give Moonfire Bow the same aim-punch as Brace of Pistol.

These changes would make it a good-under pressure weapon, appealing to both new and old players alike, without treading on any other of her ranged weapons’ roles. The above suggestions would further let a player using Moonfire Bow stay right at the frontline, whereas with elf Longbow, a player wants a bit more space. As a last point, the extra dodge capability helps a player with Moonfire better survive specials while the fire damage does its work.

4 Likes
2

Damn i am so glad that at least one player in this forum has a good idea for the moonfirebow and recognizes the strength it already has and how to improve on it!

I am agreeing 100%. This would further increase melee close combat for shade or for melee orientated HM playstyle. Also this is the niche is see for this weapon!

2 Likes
3

I am using it because you can handle tough situation excellenct with it because, at least for me i can switch faster between melee and range weapon as with longbow and if you have good heatmanagement you can do a good hit-gun playstyle and have and still can kill 1-2 specials even if you have fragged a elite. I most often dont use it to kill elites but too frag them so i can onehit them in melee and hope for a hunter buff, while saving some energy for specials.
So it would be also nice if there would be a inherent 5% critchance modifier to improve this playstyle to get more value out of hunter. This wouldnt also rival the longbow because it still doesnt oneshot the specials but improves the playstyle we both describe.

1 Like
4

I believe this to be an inadequate measure of change, Moonbow would be better but the user count would not change much at all. This based on a few small but important points.

1. Moonbow has worse penetration than current javelins who in turn are worse than longbow, this makes Moonbow significantly worse when dealing with something so common as a special riding chaff.

  1. Moonbow needs to charge shots for max damage, meaning you need to fire significantly slower than BoP’s.

  2. Moonbow require stat investments like Javelins as well, though less, but also require headshots too and many targets will even then not die instantly or at times even, quickly at all.

  3. Moonbow does not stagger well.

  4. Moonbow does not reward skilled use for cata+, you might score headshot with a stacked build against say stormvermin and save some energy to shoot 1-2 more but most of the time you´ll have to melee kill half a dozen more anyhow. And then you cant shoot specials anyway if they do not appear later at which point it typically doesnt matter much. Javelins/longbow oneshot and/or refund ammo letting you keep going instead. BoP´s can also use conservative successfully to greatly extend ammo supplies.

  5. Moonbow has the auto energy generation but lacks the still good melee damage of javelins that enable greater build freedom, like using dual swords/greatsword or even glaive + javs without losing out on boss damage.

  6. Sidenote, Moonbow monster damage appears to be very bad right now, i could be wrong about this.

  7. Minor detail, but javelins breaks chaff shields even if it doesnt refund ammo while moonbow bounces off and does recharge but leaves you to melee the shields.

All these together severe to ensure that just giving moonbow some dodge distance and stagger resistance would be unlike to cause any real difference in current users. The only ways to fix this, the situation of no real appealing use except pulling ambients, is to either buff it back up to have better penetration and damage or to rework it to have another functionality. Like a special attack super charged shot or make it so that it fires mini bursts of fire with a similar ammo capacity, letting it be the mini hagbane that all elves can use.

5

(Copying this here for those who haven’t seen the other thread)

On Cata 1, the charged shots of both Moonfire Bow and Elf Longbow hit 1 Marauder and do not cleave it and they both hit 2 clan rats. Javelin has the same cleave value as Moonfire, which 4.48 damage and stagger cleave.

6

Actually i suddenly realize that i am unsure if its a bug but…if you run enhanced power then longbow, unlike the other two apparently, does cleave marauders and up to 3 clanrats.:sweat_smile:

Stack that with a bleed build waystalker and suddenly the bow is extra potent letting you onetap 2 marauders or equivalent per shot, even if just a bodyshot.

…

As for javs vs moonbow, it was my bad, placebo from being able to keep throwing when headshotting. Imma edit above comment.

7

You’re right. It’s intended as far as I know. I believe Enhanced Power increases hero power.

Since a melee career is less likely to want to use Enhanced Power, the suggested changes would make Moonfire pair well with a melee-focused Handmaiden, Shade, or Sister of the Thorn.

(Handmaiden can get extra power, but with Asrai Alacrity, it means either pushing and not push attacking so that two shots have the extra cleave, or using a push attack and only have one shot with the extra cleave. Other than that, Handmaiden has Focused Spirit, which won’t be up when aim-punch is relevant, and Dance of Blades, which is I suspect is quite unpopular/rarely picked compared to Willow Stance.)

Further note: Brace of Pistols has the same cleave as Javelin and Moonfire.

8

But it is still faster than a longbow if you have to switch a lot between melee and range weapon as a melee orientated carrer/playtyle.

You still have some headshot breakpoints on specials, and you want to do energy management and not waste too much energy. Also when you fight a lot at close combat and get in tough situations you have to aim and switch faster, which is indeed challenging. If you just use moonfirebow as a backliner, yeah its boring and other weapons are way better.

if you go dual sword you will take javelin for dmg vs monster and for the stagger ability. But if you want to dance around enemies a lot the reload time of jav will decrease your overall damage because you are spending too much time to back off to reload. As a moonbow player you want to spent every second in melee :smiley: especially as shade, so you can make more use of blur.

It is bad thats why many players take Javelin if they have such crappy boss damage weapons like dual swords.

True but i dont use moonbow to kill chaff shields. And yeah that javelin breaks them but stops there, is an argument why i wouldnt care about increasing cleave of the javelin. Even prepatch you most often havent cleaved 10 enemies, maybe 4-5 until it was blocked by armour or shields.

the investment isnt that high if you want to hit the special breakpoints, only the hookrat is a higher investment. I run 10% power vs inf, 20% power vs skaven and then either power vs monster for the hookrat breakpoint or crithchance for hunter, i dont take enhanced power obviously as melee career.

1 Like
9

Rockdogy (Handmaiden, Concoction, crit dash) and I (Zealot, Flagellant’s Zeal) did, I believe, the world’s first and currently only Deathwish Onslaught Plus Cata 3 true duo. Rockdogy used Moonfire Bow and killed 162 specials. (Another note: kills with dot damage don’t count as ‘ranged kills’ in the scoreboard).

The full charge for Moonfire Bow occurs before the sound for it plays, which makes Moonfire’s full charge slightly faster than elf Longbow’s full charge.

3 Likes
10

Its should not be faster for charged shots , same speed. Check armory. But does feels wonkier on longbow due to the zoom.

If you find yourself in high pressure needing to headshot then longbow is better, same/very similar draw speed, better damage, less investments and less prone to needing 2+ shots.

If you need shot headshot anyhow then this shouldnt be a problem? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

yah, but the argument that it caused too much problems below cata was too fair though.

Chaos elites/specials got some that i recall were interesting too …but i forgot the details, only recall testing and getting sad about it.

Using hunter too i would guess? I mean sure it works like a stat stick like so too, and you can kill 3-ish specials every 20 seconds on average and the buff up a fair lot if that is all you use it for. My view is on that is that such a use feels extremely limited though and it negatively affects user enjoyment to a great extent.

… That said, amazingly well done.

But really, both you and that friend of yours are far too skilled, and such a minor change would go unnoticed without such a level of skill most of the time. I can solo cata fairly comfortably but i would not be able to tell 8 outa 10 times.

Armory cites that they have the same time but it may be that moonbow is indeed a tiny bit quicker? I still do not think that letting it be the same except working a little bit better against rattlings and fire will be any consistently worthwhile help outside modded/some chaos wastes events though.

11

Thanks!

I’m not sure how Armory’s attack speed column works, but it’s not showing the actual speed of the attacks. For example, it shows both Swift Bow quick shots and elf Longbow full charge shots as having a speed of 0.2, and it shows Elf Longbow quick shots as having 0.65s, which would be slower if it were the actual speed.

Edit: I forgot clicking the stat explains it. The attack speed column is ‘The amount of time from after an attack starts until a follow-up attack can be executed.’ This is different from the time to draw and fire.

1 Like
12

Yeah this is the strongest argument and which i have read most often. But i think it depends on how you play as a backliner of course. But with the mobility and dodge of HM and the Blur of Shade i would argue that overall you are better off with Moonfirebow in this situation. But yeah it is very different playstyle and maybe a thing of personal preference. For example i have mixed horde in front of me and i am alone and 3 SVs choreographing their hits on me. I will dodge shoot 1 SV in the head stagger him while i dodge switch instantly back to melee block the incoming attack go in blur and finish the 2 other SVs off and the last SV will get another Moonfirebow in his head. Sure you can argue you can finish 2 of them faster with Longbow? But can you block, dodge and switch weapons that fast with longbow to feel comfortable with a longbow? Maybe. But imo longbow feels clunky in this situations. But if you have more time longbow is for sure the better weapon. But that is not what i am arguing on.

Yeah the follow up shot is equal to longbow, but the initial shot is pretty fast, and thats why i take this weapon for melee careers.

2 Likes
13

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh

well dang, that explains a lot, indeed, i couldnt quite shake the thought that longbow on the first charged shot was slower than what seemed indicated. Followup shots seemed right but not the first.

…Using waystalker too much and shooting consecutively most of the time blurred the impressions a lot.

This is probably the crux of it indeed, in a similar spot i´d never pull out a bow, i´d just dice all elites infront to bits then look for specials/elites further out. Especially on Shade with blur letting her onetap anything except CWs/flags.

I could possibly go into blur, drop aggro and shoot specials before resuming.

This was the point i failed to realize, so sure, if you are neck-deep in melee and a firerat/gunrat is on your case then certainly, the faster draw-speed of a built-up moonbow is a boon. I can see that point…but i still believe that longbow/javelins and their ability to keep going on headshots will ever make them more popular for general use, and more useful when staring down say a packmaster riding behind things from a distance.

Aimpunch and an extra dodge here or there would not affect this, or make it equal in use to BoP´s which can shoot more, also refund on headshots and if nothing else, feel significantly better to use, similar to how Javs also feel better than moonbow which lacks impact. Plus, BoP’s can gun down quite a lot even if it means burning ammo in an emergency.

“Edit”

At this point i believe that as long as Javelins keep their current abilities then the javs will always outpace Longbow for the comfort seeking majority who shoot less/do not wana care about missing a shot. A few people will use moonbow out of preference but i suspect they will be even fewer than the longbow users. And thus all three weapons will keep heavily overlapping while feeling kinda subpar(+constantly compared to eachother) unless reworks occur.

Except ironically i suppose, for Waystalker who previously had all the reasons to use those two with bloodshot but now only has one clear build for making Longbow superior left!:triumph:

2 Likes
14

I dont doubt it, it is comfy and easy to use. But the more things are around the the better can Moonbow can be in my opinion. Yeah it sounds strange because of the limited energy and the worse breakpoints compared to longbow, but add in my previous example of fighting a mixed horde a leech or an assassine. With moonfirebow you can kill him more easy without being hit by the mixed horde.

But yeah those things arent common on normal cata where most players feel comfy, and everything is dead within seconds. So the more reliable way to kill things is with range weapons is backlining and killing from a safe distance and there longbow is of course better.

I just wanted to show you that there is indeed a place for the current moonbow.

yeah but to be honest the mobility of shade and hm compensate this. BH and WH are way less mobile and therefore they need this. I dont see the need for Shade and HM and a shade or HM which guns down everything + being mobile like hell would be broken.

Also i want to add not every weapon has to be like a longbow if there is a playstyle which works fine. It is better to improve the weapon in the role it is put into. Thats why i like Velsix idea.

15

Javelin is slower than Moonfire Bow and Elf Longbow. It’s harsh of me to say, but in my experience, I’ve only ever seen players using Javelin to hard-backline and spam it.

In exchange for worse ammo efficiency and a long manual reload for the full magazine; using Conservative Shooter on BoP makes it worse at its role, as even though BoP’s aim-punch is lower than average, Conservative Shooter won’t work when aim-punched. Using Conservative Shooter on BoP helps it where Crossbow is better.

Sword & Dagger has higher armour, superarmour, berserker, and infantry dps than Javelin’s melee. It only loses vs monsters. Using Javelin to melee and sacrificing Swift Slaying makes sense when paired with Kerillian’s off-meta melee weapons; as for the ‘comfort seeking’ players you’ve mentioned, they will be using Sword & Dagger. Javelin will have generally worse thp generation than Kerillian’s melee weapons.

Moonfire Bow requires no particular stat investments. With a headshot and no properties, it 1 shots all specials except Cata 1 Packmasters, which Javelin requires more investments to 1-shot headshot at range.

  • Javelin needs 40%.
  • Moonfire Bow needs 30%. It needs no properties for Blightstormers and Leeches on Cata 1 (so we can still bring crit chance on Moonfire)

Since Cata+ was brought into this, Moonfire 2-shot headshots all specials on Cata 3 with just 10% power vs Skaven and no power-boosting talents. It will, with 1 full charge headshot+1 full charge bodyshot, kill Globadiers and Blightstormers. It will also kill them with 1 partially charged headshot+1 quick shot headshot. That’s a full max attack speed, max-crit-chance-in-properties build.

  • Elf Longbow needs 20% power to 1-shot headshot all specials on C3 at close range. It needs 3 full charge shots to bodyshot specials.

Hunter is a significant damage boost. It affects the ranged shot that crits as well as melee.

While not particularly helpful for its in-and-out of melee role, it’s worth mentioning that Moonfire Bow has no by damage drop-off at any range, unlike Javelin and elf Longbow. At long range on C3, Javelin takes 3 headshots to kill Leeches and Stormers, while Elf Longbow and Moonfire Bow both take 2 headshots.

On C3, With Moonfire Bow, Handmaiden can build for 40% crit chance without sacrificing any properties for melee. On C1, Handmaiden might sacrifice 5% attack speed or 5% crit chance.

Shade will, of course, 1-shot headshot all specials on Cata 1 with all but Swift Bow, thanks to Exquisite Huntress (Moonfire Bow’s dot damage is boosted by Huntress).

At most, in addition to the first post’s suggestions, I could see Moonfire Bow having 1 to 2 more charged shot added to its bar, or the extra 2 dots of the full charge being added to the partial charge, which would make the full charge pointless I suppose.

1 Like
16

that is the main reason. And also the reason why i prefer moonbow over jav for melee playstyle.

that is what i meant with

If you have to reload or back off you sacrifice way too much damage, because the elf melee weapons are so strong. And you can already see it as HM, not to mention shade with blur.

1 Like
17

That isnt quite true, you need 10% power vs chaos + 10% power vs skaven + 10 power vs inf and full charged headshot + head-quickshot for leech/stormer and gasrat.

18

For Moonfire Bow, according to the breakpoint calc by VernonKun, on headshot, the arrow + full charge dot does 90.57 damage with no properties. Globadiers, Blightstormers, and Life Leeches have 90 hp. In my testing, Moonfire did not need properties for these specials.

1 Like
19

Maybe i am too used to partially charged shots + quickshot. I never trusted fully charged shot in the heat of a fight so if possible i am always adding a quickshot. But good to know i was certain that you need breakpoints for that.

1 Like
21

I believe that place to be entirely too niche to be used as a basis in an argument that the weapon is balanced for the game at large, fringe real high pressure cases in cata&up at best. Old javs were not insanely unbalanced for cata if one considers armor and shields present in pretty much every other horde wave and not all of them being conga lines but undoubtedly its still true that it´s a major problem in all other difficulties where those are not present.

There’s nothing harsh about it, i’ve seen some poor lost souls trying to make this work too…very unsuccessfully i might add. Heck, i tried myself on waystalker (for research purposes after patch) and i couldnt get it to work well either. It felt like a placeholder so i could easily get away with using a cooldown&loaded bow build.

On the other hand, you can shoot at longer distances worrying less about falloff as long as the aim stays true…and firerats/gunrats usually do not start disrupting instantly, they have animations they do first that let you bring out a volley first if nothing stops you…If stopped then the situation tends to be a bad to start with, like the “packmaster is inside an armored goat wave” bad.

Undeniably true, most elves, regardless of which career, use SnD. Most of her weapons are simply not anywhere near as good outside handmaiden/shade hands who also like it anyway. I have seen Waystalkers and SoT´s using dual swords&javelins a fair bit though, even if the waystalkers stopped after this latest patch in favor of old hagbane/swiftbow.

But i did try SoT and i found her quite good , the “cast for crits” + jav throws make for controllable elite/special pickoffs which was defo good enough for cata use.

And it doesnt do great with goat banner but same thing for javs, which on the other hand, does refund on headshots letting you keep going. And when i was talking about needing investments i meant at large, including elites that is, since i judged javs to be subpar largely on the premise of use against the common stormvermin.

Since you know, you can afford to shoot elites too when using javs, unlike moonbow where using more than 1-2 shots at a time is a big risk if anything is going on.

I meant it as cata&up to be clear.

But yes, moonbow does get more done with less properties but in my experience, and with many others i chatted with, the major issue with moonbow for modded/twitch content is that the amount of ammo is so severely limited. Should you face a situation needing to deal with say 5 stormers or 5 specials of any kind at a distance then you are helpless. You kill 4 then you gotta wait nearly 8 seconds before you can do anything about the last one. That´d be plenty of time for a disaster to finish cooking. And you cant shoot elites due to fear of not having energy for specials quite a lot.

And you got no answer at all for something so silly as a packmaster sitting behind just a few elites except hoping you can kill a few of them and that the rest wont stagger you with a dashing heavy at a bad time.

Javelins needing more investments and at times two throws? Not a major issue since you do not even have to manually reload with good aim + heavy stagger which thus rewards&empowers good use. This is why most elves still use javs over moonbow even if they are not actually good at it in practice. Because there is something to aspire to.

This would help undoubtedly but it feels like bandaid on the problem still, the bow would still not be as good to master/use as either longbow or javs and it would still not be unique or very interesting. Especially not below cata, majority of the game that is, were either of the other two can do a lot more simply due to limitations being weaker.