Moonfire bow feedback

Guess if I really wanted to be arse here I would ask what kind of ranges we talking here but yeah that’s a scenario that could be problematic so I concede on that one.
Anyways I don’t think we fundamentally disagree on too many things here. Small tweaks to WS would surely be something worth looking into.

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Agreed. Did a TS attempt on a white weapon with it. It 1-2 shots most specials with no properties or traits on cata (I believe I only had chaos/inf equipped on a charm, but even in the wastes where I don’t have that, it’s a beast just at base). Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying it in that powertrip way, but no weapon should be that strong.

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I’ve done a Cata true solo with it and it’s definitely strong. Very easy 1 shot bodyshotting with a dot that isn’t too slow. The lack of interactions with several talents/a specific perk is a drawback, as is the limited burst, but on Handmaiden these limitations didn’t feel like an issue at all. It was slower at killing specials than the Longbow if headshotting, but the Moonfire was so much easier without an ammo cost + an aoe to make it safer to boot, and it’s not like you can really spam the Longbow for more than 5 shots in those situations anyway. Pulling back from a mixed horde with elites in it and spamming several shots into it was a very reliable and safe tactic, like Hagbane, but with no ammo cost. I did have trouble hitting Assassins with the aoe though sometimes, feels like it’s a little smaller than it looks.

A simple nerf to its damage to adjust some of its breakpoints, maybe requiring an extra property to do what it does now, would probably be enough. I don’t know the exact numbers, but on Cata with 10% Skaven + 10% Infantry on it and 10% Chaos on Charm it one shot bodyshot all specials, including Packmasters. Didn’t know what trait would work so I chose Barrage which probably did barely anything, even against the monsters.

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The reason I prefer it on HM is:

  • Body shot kills or really high damage on Specials/Elites
  • AoE on Hordes
  • No picking up ammo or reloading anything, lets you stay in melee longer, and means teammates can take ammo
  • Ease of use allows you to quick switch during melee and bodyshot Elite/Specials

Depending on how much you value the Horde clear of Moonbow, Longbow most likely does more USEFUL damage, as there’s no cooldown when spamming every roamer’s head, for instance.

I did. “Hag, Swift and Longbow still win out on WS”

Hag is still pretty cheesy.

This pretty much sums up my experience too. A really nice addition to Handmaiden though.

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The one thing i really value from a ranged weapon for a melee career in a pinch is being able to shoot down a special even if said special has a mook or two infront. Moonbow hits hella hard but a packmaster riding behind a monk is silly dangerous.

But not having to worry about ammo&that versatility on the other hand is also very, very good and thus i do concede that for HM it is likely the best.

My bad, read too quickly and missed it.

Oneshotting specials isnt really anything amazing though, most ranged careers, and even some melee, have access to weapons that do that easily.My biggest gripe with it is the weakness against monks and the associated danger of a special riding along with them. Or just behind any enemy really since it has no pen at all.

But since it does pack damage enough then having a weaknesses or a few is good so being weak against monks is fine, and it should be weaker against raiders and possibly specials like fire and gunrats.

But if such was applied, i do think it ought to have an AOE that matches the visuals better for right now it´s a bit smaller.

The AOE is definitely smaller than the visuals seem to suggest at times, if you put 5 marauders on a row before shooting the middle one then the outer 2 will not be hit. But i do agree that between the damage, versatility and ammo freedom it is very good(likely the best generally) for HM.

Only exception is if you have a huge phobia for monks or such but that´s about it.

As for nerfs…well the damage on some enemies is quite high for seemingly no reason such as the raider in particular. I would not touch the damage on assassins or packmasters as they can be hard enough to even access but it´d probably be good if it had weaknesses against say the raiders, zerker types and maybe,…firerats? Gunners too.

Gasrats&leeches&stormers i think it´d be fine for them taking a lot of fire damage.
,

I still really want better synergy for WS though! T_T

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I think it’s one of the best weapons to come with the DLC, the bodyshot breakpoints are extremely good even on cata, you get infinite ammo and you can roll barrage or hunter for a little extra power spike.

I’m ok with Waystalker not having crazy good synergies with it, she can complement hagbane and longbow well enough to be just fine without moonfire.

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The damage is good enough that the only time power boosts really come into play right now is against bosses i think, and a breakpoint against gasrats if i am not mistaken but you´d want the power vs against those anyway.

I wont ask for crazy good like 100% extra power storage but i´d still be happy with either enough energy for 1 extra charged arrow or 20% faster recharge.


That said it does need some damage tweaks&nerfs even if not major ones.

It’s in a good place, the drawbacks and the strengths keep it in line with roughly where it should be. Can we not start talking about arbitrary nerfs.

Sometimes it’s nice to have good things.

I guess? you at least get bloodshot as an option on WS

idk I feel like giving it more than what it’s already getting would put it over the top

Yeah, the weapon arguably does too much.

Charge or quick shot, the move does the same base damage. Which is the same as a long bow quick shot. Charge longbow body shot does slightly more damage. But, the headshot multiplier on moon is 1.7x rather than longbow’s +2.5x. Moon doesn’t apply multiple staggers scaling unlike the longbow it seems.

Against the Hagsbane it does 6 ticks of like ~10dmg on quick shot and 12 ticks on single target + AoE cloud for ~10dmg per tick. Compared to the hagsbane’s 4 ticks with the cloud DoT doing half has much as the body DoT. Its like I was using a build for 7.25 vs 3.25 (body vs cloud) dots.

So, not only are you hitting as hard as a long bow quick shot with a pretty hefty headshot multipler, your getting an AoE/DoT attack that does more damage than the hagsbane by quite a bit and combined into a single move that makes it super good at close or long range due to the immense damage you don’t need a zoom or headshot to make it work.

And all of the damage on the bow is pretty much ~50% as much damage hitting armor or headshot in the keep.

The only drawback to moonbow at all is the fact you can’t spam it as much. 4 charge shots, 6 quick shots. It takes like 5-6 seconds to fire the bow at all again after total depletion and takes ~18 seconds to fully recharge from empty.

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The bow itself could be tuned down if anything lol. Its synergies with WS could do to be tuned up a little though. Dead talent is fine but dead passive kinda hurts. It offers a cool opportunity to not take Kurnous with her but currently I feel like WS loses too much by taking it over other options.

Like I’m not asking for it to compete with hagbane on her, but WS could afford to get a little more energy with it and I don’t see how that’d be problematic as long as she didn’t get faster recharge she’d have to save longer to do bigger bursts, so it seems fair.

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Its a bit over the top that it takes 1 shot to kill a mauler/raider/helmet guy as i see it, and killing armored specials in 1 bodyshot is also…well.

But thats a matter of opinions.

Not like hagbane wouldnt still be better even then, i just want builds utilizing moonbow and any of the final talents that arent kurnous reward to be a bit better.

And yes i am well aware blood shot + loaded bow is bugged to silly OP but for later i mean.

Incorrect, the dot ticks for less on a light shot vs a aimed one… i think it was that it ticks 6 or 8 times on a light and 10 or 12 on a charged.

More like the drawbacks are thusly :

  1. No penetration
  2. Low energy pool for charged shots
  3. Much slower firing rate vs hagbane
  4. Does strangely low damage on monks
  5. The AOE and cleave are smaller than the visual effect.
  6. Stage 1 charged shots are hard to carefully aim without tipping into the more draining stage 2 shots.

Right? Hagbane is silly overpowered so moonbow should not be there but something minor would be nice even if its just a 20% bonus to something based of her otherwise 100% bonus ammo thing.

Moonbow doesnt benefit from the double range from WS without falloff either does it? Fairly sure it has no falloff to start with or its very low.

Good is different than “too good”. I’d be perfectly happy bringing Bsh breakpoints to be more work and having it reward headshots more.

I’m neutral on having it synergize well with Waystalker. Longbow (and now moonfire) was pretty much the only bow to work with handmaiden without being an ammo sink meme, so I don’t feel moonfire needs to have an obligation to work with WS, especially since WS can absolutely destroy with a hagbane (as others mentioned). But I won’t die on that hill.

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Dying there would be a terrible waste of your life so i am happy that you´ll hold on : P

The greatest reason i hope for a bit more synergy between WS and moonfire is because moonfire enables her to actually use the other two talents on her final row without it being either a high risk gamble or a meme. Its really liberating and precious even but at the present moonfire lags just a bit too much behind a good longbow or even an average hagbane to have that feel of confidence behind it.

Half of that is just my obsession with Piercing arrow talking though.

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There’s a reason people say “everything’s OP on legend”.

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Many people just confuse skill with “op weapons”.
Moreover Legend is the core difficulty

Legend being core has been a bogus idea for a long time now, there were no efforts to rebalance it despite all the powercreep that has gone down. Its so much that even lord class enemies like skarrik go down in as little as 7 seconds on cata.

A legend boss? Only one that lives longer is a troll due to needing time to stand up and lie down once or twice.

So yeah, there is not much skill left in legend if you actually got all your stuff maxed out, your gear and talents will let you bulldoze through must stuff with ease. Unless of course you go and gimp yourself.

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Is it really that bad on WS? I’ve seen some WSs on cata runs using Moonfire and they seemed perfectly fine and had done their role without any problem. Most of them used Piercing Shot btw.

I think it would be better to give it heat related traits as it should, rather than flat out giving it +100% heat bar on WS. If it does get +100% than I’ll have to wonder why Engi doesn’t get +50% on his Drake weapons.

Yes, the benefit of moonfire on WS is you can finally use piercing shot without serious ammo risk.

Having used it some more i also think 100% extra energy would be a terrible idea but i am not adverse to the idea of 20% more or so. Earlier i was thinking recharge rate could might be buffed in such a way but in hindsight that´s probably a bad idea.

Ikr, but i do want a tiny touch-up to make it be a bit morecompetitive with ol’ hagbane.

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