Those new weapons, like Trollhammer, or Nuclear Fairy Bow, will still “diversify” your role if they get adjusted towards other weapons.
You might not know, but there is a community made rebalance for modded realm, which, if you read the patchnotes, seems to break the legs of both those range weapons. Still they see plenty of usage, because they are still doing their thing, just without being the jack of all trades, that needs no investment, no aiming, while nuking everything.
Adjusting a weapon, aka nerfing it, doesnt remove anything. It just grants breathing room for other weapons.
I didn’t use Trollhammer or Moonfire in my example for a reason. Sometimes a weapon is just overall too powerful, but sometimes others are just too weak even if you give them some “breathing room”.
It was just supposition as to how you could have come to the conclusion that most of the weapons in the game need a buff when that is patently false, don’t take it personally, it’s more an observation on a general trend than psychoanalysing you personally.
The rest of your response is just a wall of fake news. Sword and Shield has excellent CC, and very respectable single target damage with the double stab push attack combo. Sorry, this probably comes across as blunt and not terribly friendly. You’ve come in here with a laughable stance while being bizarrely overconfident in it. You’d probably get a much friendlier response and find people more willing to explain their full reasoning if you came in and weren’t immediately dismissing the opinions of people with multiple times your hours in the game.
I don’t know what to tell you man, maybe you can make sword and shield work against armor, but I find almost every other weapon is vastly better against armored opponents. Most anything kills Stormvermin in 3-4 hits to the head or less. I think in almost every situation I’d rather just have a single-handed sword, or for defense, mace, and shield.
This is one of those cases I was mentioning earlier where we are just having a completely different experience talking about the same weapon and we could all go on about whatever it is we experience individually. Once again I’d be more interested to see how Sword and Shield performs experimentally vs. most other weapons. I suspect you’ll find it lacking.
You can make all the claims you want about my stance on different weapons, doesn’t change my experience. You think I live on a different planet, tell me why with more than just claiming it’s laughable or bizarrely confident. At least we have the stats on individual weapons. Looking at the damage for the Sword and Shield it shows it’s pretty weak vs armored, and overall fairly low damage. Even the wiki lists its disadvantage as being bad against armored, and it’s advantage as being good against crowds. I find it’s not that great against armor, and just okay against crowds. That makes sense to me, and its biggest advantage is the shield, but that doesn’t compensate for its weaknesses in my estimation.
I didn’t even want to talk about the sword and shield; it was just an example to see if we could find common ground on something I imagined wasn’t so controversial to help make my point. I don’t see how you can expect me not to be dismissive of the opinions of other people; it’s fairly easy to do when they don’t elaborate with something that isn’t just a contradiction of my own experiences. Likewise, I don’t expect people to take what I say about anything in the game for granted, I would like to talk about the experiences within the context of something more concrete.
I was given the link to the data posted on Reddit. That’s at least something that forms a basis for whatever we want to share when it comes to our experiences in the game. We can’t find common ground if our experiences just don’t line up.
I feel I’ve just ended up taking the unpopular stance in a strong circlejerk (which seems to be how most online forums end up.)
I mean I agree these communities do tend towards circle jerk, but if you look around you’ll see there’s plenty of widely disputed topics amongst forum regulars. Some things, like Moonbow, tend to be points of agreement, I would argue simply because they’re so egregious almost anyone with enough time in the game will quickly come to a similar conclusion. Anyway this is an aside, so I won’t spend any longer on it. Couldn’t really let that snipe just slide either though.
Fair to point out I haven’t really engaged on the key points. As you can see, this thread is very long, and most of us who have been posting here since the start of the thread are just generally fatigued of the topic at this point. But let me try and more seriously engage on the main topic, Moonbow itself. Talk of other weapons like SnS is best left to threads where it’s less tangential.
First let me link you to @FrivolousWizard’s math for Moonbow dps much higher in this thread:
To be honest I find the estimate of how many targets you’re hitting at once with Moonbow way too generous, but even if we’re especialy miserly and cut that down to 30% of the value listed, the dps is still… well pretty remarkable honestly.
Now this gets to my real issue with Moonbow. Not that it allows a ranged class to output this kind of ranged DPS (they already mostly do that), but that it allows already strong melee classes like HM and Shade to output this kind of ranged DPS, while still getting all the benefits of a melee kit. Some will argue that if you’re an absolute headshot god, you can do similarly or better with a Conservative Shooter longbow, but I think that’s an unconvincing defence personally. Firstly, even if we assume such a godly consistency of ranged headshots is reasonable, you still can’t discount the extra time and care needed for each shot to guarantee a headshot. For 0 investment, on Cata, you can freely body shot any special and the vast majority of elites with basically no time or effort, and they are guaranteed dead within the next few seconds. Most likely they were staggered by the initial shot, then recovered from staggering only to die before being able to make any significant action.
To top this all off if you manage your energy well you can get a ridiculous amount of general damage, as outlined by the post I linked above. The only reason you’d really need to stockpile all your energy is when you’re the only person on your team special sniping, which hey it happens, but it’s probably not a situation the game should be balanced around.
Moonbow is significantly overpowered compared to what is accessible by melee classes otherwise. The question of whether or not other weapons are too weak is best left for a different thread. Start one yourself is that is a topic you want to delve into.
I agree with almost everything said about the Moonfire bow, but I think a smaller change in damage closer to 15% less, is more appropriate, then just boost some of the other ranged weapons so that comparatively, they’re better at taking down specials quickly. Really, in many cases like these, I think it’s more that, by comparison to things like Moonfire that perform exceedingly well at taking down specials and elites quickly, many weapons are weaker that need a buff (maybe nothing quite so strong, but to be a bit better), but that’s a topic for another thread.
You´d have to cut out about 90-100 damage from the 170-180 bodyshot damage to make it stop oneshotting the bulkiest normal enemies on bodyshots, and even then it´d still kill the majority of them and leave these guys alive with a few health each.
That’s because essentially from about 2 people I keep reading, “my experience is different, I have a lot of experience, take my word for it”, so I respond about the same.
I think the topic of other things possibly being underpowered is derailing this thread, so I’ll start a new topic on it. We have about 5 or 6 people here who disagree with me, that should be enough to get things started.
It’s honestly kinda tricky to balance with just damage changes. How do you get it in a place where it’s not just lazy body shot longbow + bonus AoE, or low skill floor but inferior longbow + bonus AoE. I don’t know how much room for a unique identity there is within its current design space. If we’re gonna go with just number tweaks, I’d be more inclined to tinker with energy consumption/regen rate. At least burst damage with lower consistent DPS is kind of an identity that can have a niche, but it’s still gonna be incredibly hard to balance across WS vs melee classes.
So I guess my question then is, is Moonbow’s current shtick fundamentally balanceable? If not what role could it fill instead that could be kept in line without being made irrelevant?
Yes, I forgot to add that with the 15% damage decrease, as I’ve said, I think you can spam charged shots too often. I think 3 charged shots max is good, with slower regen, and of course, I also think you can sometimes balance OP weapons by making others a bit better.
This, I’d agree with. Most of Killian’s ranged and melee weapons are fairly strong. It’s just the Moonfire bow and Javelins that stand out to me. In Legend and Cata, I’d say the swift bow is not so great, almost useless in Cata. If you use it on Champion, it is way better than every other bow, it can one-shot elites.
Is the fact that its unlimited ammo not a factor anymore? Sure it does not need to be in the range of bardins flame pistols damage wise but even if it was really similar or little bit worse compared to longbow in terms of damage, I would still see a use for it.
Its still aoe and ammunition you never have to care for.
Longbow was already considered one of the best ranged weapons in the game before javelin/moonfire was introduced, while hagbane can still be problematic with WS. Swiftbow is also completly workable in legend while being bit trollish on cata.
So in context of this, why on earth do you think the others need to be buffed? Its clearly 2 outliers that are easier to balance by just tweaking them down a notch.
I’ll cover this more in another topic, but Killian isn’t the best example since most of her stuff is fairly effective. I wouldn’t use the swift-bow in legend over any of her other ranged weapons unless you’re playing Waystalker, but even still, there are better options.
There is so much to agree with within that post. So, I’ll start with this one. The argument never convinced me either because as you said, you can’t compare the need for headshotting skill- and timewise needed for Longbow to come close to the same results of unmotivated bodyshotting of Moonfire Bow. If someone is able to reliably headshot specials and elites every 2 seconds then I am impressed. If someone bodyshots specials and elites every 2 seconds then I am annoyed. Sure, Moonfire Bow has a slight delay in damage but there are very few enemies in the game which can make something out of these seconds.
Another argument which didn’t convince me either. The official realm has rarely situations where this much pressure is actually existing. Maybe a few instance in Chaos Wastes. But the balance should never be centered around: How to make a weapon that a single player can cover the job of the whole team.
Yea, this is a thing to consider. I do not think that the solution should be in tying the DoT more to headshots. It will get more similar to Longbow then. I am not even sure if a total damage nerf is required. I think there should be other solutions be pursued. The following is mainly centered around charged shots as uncharged and half-charged may need indeed some damage nerfs. For the charged shots what annoys me the most though is the spammability. Weapons this strong should not be spammable (looking at you Javelin). As such most solutions from my side center somehow around to reduce the spamming of the weapon. Right out of my head, I would consider a few options which could work (obviously tweaking needed to find the mediocre middle ground every weapon should have).
Option 1: The solution I already suggested in the past. Slow down the application time of the DoT significantly. Speaking by a factor of three or more. Like this, the bow becomes less desirable to be used in close and middel quarters. The bow would best be used for enemies farer away, making it more a look-out weapon, to be used in a more tactical manner and harder to aim as enemies appear smaller in the distance. Would also still be feasible in close-quarter in high density situations where the DoT supports the melee play but does not outright replace it (because faster and higher). It would still work well against hordes and elites but would lose ground as special killer as they have means of reaching player from range or fast.
Option 2: Make it more similar in the ammo department than actual ammo weapons to reward tactical choices. This means: Leave the damage as it is for charged shots, increase the energy bar to allow up to 15 consecutive charged shots but reduce the energy recovery significantly so that the energy equivalent of 1 charged shot needs 1 minute to recharge. With a playtime of 25 minutes for a map this would result in a maximum of 40 charged shots. This would give you an unlimited ammo weapon but would punish spam while also ensuring that you can use the bow in high pressure situations but would have to stay low afterwards. With proper adjustment of the uncharged shots (in terms of damage of energy consumption), you could even create a weapon which blends Swiftbow and Longbow in one as uncharged shots against hordes would need less energy. So you have like 40 Charged shots or 100 uncharged shots. Runs risk of players being overly conservative with when to shoot due to the long recharge time. But I think that is not that huge of a problem. Obviously, “ammo” can be adapted if necessary. Mostly to lower numbers because 40 shots are already a lot.
Option 3: While holding the Moonfire bow in the hands the player movement is slowed down by 50 % or more. Does that sound heavy-handed and unfun? Yes, that is within design. The weapon is strong like really broken strong. And this is okay against priority targets. But the spam is annoying. So if you spam a lot, you will fall back and expose yourself to higher risk for getting hit. It will make the player focus on the actual important targets. This way the weapon will become like a ballista. A slow but devastating weapon. You still get all the bonuses like now, just that you can’t gun and run with the bow anymore. Makes the choice when to use also more tactical instead of “always”.
There are other solutions which could work too. But I think these are options which could work without touching the total damage of the charged shots. I think Option 2 sounds the most interesting for me at the moment.
the issue is that moonfire bow even kills maulers and stormvermins on cata with 1 arrow with infinite ammo. But in my opinion it should still be an allrounder weapon because its a bless for every handmaiden and shade player. One suggestion would be to decrease the dot damage and buff the initial impact damage so you are still capable to delete the specials but you cant onehit sv and mauler anymore. But to be honest for base game cata that wouldnt change anything. There arent enough elites , so you can almost in every situation just fire a second arrow. Thats why this discussion seems a bit senseless to me XD. And to be honest, i really enjoy an allrounder bow on my handmaiden even he is indeed slighty broken. But nerfing its damage further than my suggestion would end with a crap bow because at the point where moonbow isnt an allrounder anymore every other bow is better due to it’s capability to spam arrows as much as you want ( no downtime bar).