They could even revert MB to it’s original stats, but nerf the friendly fire, and make the AoE effect happen whenever the arrow crits or lands a headshot too.
As far as I understood it back then, having a very powerful AOE with infinite ammo, 5 times every 10-ish seconds was what was so OP about it.
That and the fact it had a comparable damageprofile to the longbow…
I personally would be fine with having to hit headshots for the old damage since that would give it its old tick damage too.
Maybe getting the AOE on the fully charged headshot and/or crit could be fine but I don’t think so.
Either you have the AOE with its weaker damage for it to be an infinite ammo version of the hagbane or you take the AOE away and have it be a longbow that requires headshots but gets infinite ammo. I’d prefer the 2nd option over the 1st.
I think it would be fine, you would actually have to aim to get the explosion or get lucky with a random crit. Besides, the Moonfire AoE shots were cool and what made the MB so fun to use. Ever since it lost that animation, it’s really just a LB that has unlimited ammo yet ironically limited shots, it’s more accurate to say the Moonfire bow has finite ammo that passively recharges on depletion. Which is generally why the LB is superior.
The thing is, getting that powerful AoE on a simple headshot is too easy for how good it is imo. And there are talents that guarantee crits so it’s not even up to chance even if you can’t aim.
I really loved the AoE effect too but man is it a nightmare to balance.
The other “benefit” of not having the AoE is that the FF is nowhere near as bad.
In both of our cases the LB would still be better since you don’t have downtime as you said.
The problem with the “balance” argument is it often hinders fun. Fact is unbalanced things often are fun. The wunder weapons in CoD zombies is a perfect example. Are the weapons balanced? Nope, but man they were fun and why everyone wanted them.
I’m not advocating for the MB to be stupidly broken, but what I am saying is it being powerful, or even overpowered was what gave it its charm and what made it so much fun to use. Now its function is identical to the Longbow, that has rechargeable ammo. Especially if you remove the dots effect.
So what I want for the Moonfire bow is for it to get its identity back, because man is it a boring pick now. That said I doubt FS cares to make any changes to the bow. They nerfed it to the ground and are seemingly quite content with that. Now it’s only good for Cata/No pick up runs, it’s niche now.
Oh yeah absolutely it was a ton of fun also in part because it was too good.
There is absolutely a balance spot that can be hit where the weapon is fun and not too good.
Imho:
Current damages on non-headshots and -crits, old damage on headshots and crits and maybe the AoE on fully charged headshots and crits. Maybe the AoE would have to be weakend for targets not directly hit by the arrow but eh.
The way it is now is just “meh”. It’s painfully weak on Handmaiden and SoT, somewhat useable on waystalker and actually kinda ok on shade with the right build. It’s currently outclassed by almost everything and I feel like the cost for having infinite ammo is too high for how weak it is, especially with the cooldowns in place.
I completely agree. In fact I think that’s something we all agree on.
In my opinion I’m surprised how heavy they nerfed the bow because (to me) what was needed was obvious.
So pretending the bow had old stats, here’s the changes I would of made.
- Direct damage would remain unchanged.
- AoE damage greatly reduced. The dots will be enough to kill slave rats, but to other enemies it is chip damage.
- Critical shots will have the original aoe dots. (This too could be nerfed later if even that is too strong.
- Remove friendly fire entirely. (It’s a magic bow, the arrows could be magically attuned to harm foe but not friends. It’s magic after all!)
- Let the community have a Fortnight to experience the changes and make adjustments after the fortnight is over, when/if needed.
Well those are the changes I would make were it up to me, but I think your suggestion would work too. Generally speaking, all I want is for the Moonfire bow to get its identity back, then balance around that until you find the sweet spot.
Moonfirebow is fine how it is, why you should ever play longbow if the direct damage is the same like longbow but you have infinite ammo?
i play both and both have their spot at the moment.
Because you cannot fire more than 5 arrows quickly with the moonbow and it didn’t do the same amout (not that that’s what either of us were saying or asking for)
Fine how it is? Nah I’m sorry it’s just too weak and not particularly fun…
its perfectly fitting it just isnt a weapon for waystalker or sister, and thats fine. On handmaiden and shade it is fine and has its place.
It is more balanced now but i do also think it is boring, a special attack of some kind is deserved, like a super charged shot.
Or a little aoe explosion buff would be nice. I really miss that.
Excellent idea! I suggest something similar to bolt staff’s second charge, but instead of penetration, it makes a small Moonfire AOE explosion with more damage at the cost of most of your charge.
This would contest hagbane too much i guess. But what @Frostysir said - a little interesting weapon special like a super charged shot which takes mores to charge but deals more damage and consumes a huge amount of heat would be interesting indeed.
The Moonbow weakness shows whenever you’re dealing with a lot of specials all at once. You only have 5 shots at the maximum, then it needs to recharge, so if you’re playing a special deed where 4 of every special type are coming at you at a time, you’ll struggle to kill them, there’s always the chance you’ll miss the shot or not hit the head too. It is a rare situation on most legend runs but it happens. Happens all the time on cata. That’s where the LB shines, especially if you have a RV on the team, and that’s why people do pick the LB over the MB. The Jav has the same weakness, they both have a low ammo pool despite their infinite ammo status.
i dont have issues on cata with MB. In my opinion its the better choice on cata for handmaiden and shade. And on cata + more special deeds there i dont pick shade or handmaiden, but sister or waystalker and on these 2 careers moonbow is bad.
I don’t think so, not if it takes a decent chunk of your charge. The Hagbane is mainly a Waystalker weapon that can be fired repeatedly. Even still, I’d be happier with the double charge just to make the weapon interesting to play with, but I also miss the AOE puffs of fire.
double charge is indeed a nice mechanic i would appreciate. With the dot we have different opinions but thats fine 
Every time I read about how the moonfire bow is too weak, I have a question, have you seen the LMB on Sienna’s staff? It may be worth paying the attention of developers to really weak points. Personally, I enjoy using moonfire on Shade and see no reason to change it to something else.
Let me get this straight, you don’t want the MB to do similar damage to the LB because:
but then at the same time:
or:
you’re fine with this? What I’m understanding here is that you’re not actually against the MB doing similar damage to the LB but that the MB doesn’t use up enough charge for said similar damage?
I personally think that having 4 to 5 shot’s max and then going on cooldown is already plenty of a downside, especially if you have to hit headshots to actually do some kind of damage that makes any difference at all.
The other counterpoint to the “infinite ammo” property is that if you need to hit headshots for similar performance to the LB, why is having infinite ammo an issue? It’s not like if you hit headshots with the LB you have actual infinite ammo as well since you’re running conservative shooter or you’re using the weapon wrong.
Which one? I can’t really think of one that is “too weak” except the flamestorm staff but that’s just a bad weapon for sienna.
Yeah ofc you do, that’s the only class it’s actually ok on
For the other 3 it’s various levels of underwhealming and irrespective of the arguments surrounding it’s viability, it’s boring to play and outclassed. Asking for that to be changes is by no means asking for too much.