[Swift Bow] A Buff

Even after its auto fire buff Swift Bow still struggles in to keep up even on WayStalker. Without changing its numbers I propose a utility buff similar to beam staff’s usage. Some examples below but all shouldn’t be implemented they would give too much utility, power and outshine other weapons. (Inspired by Mattie’s comment in wrong setting =p)

While holding down left click for light attacks if you right click unleashes a cone of five arrows in front of you.

Better at hordes without outshining Hagebane, better at boss in close range, and dumps arrows for the crazy high ammo stores of swiftbow.

While holding down left click during charged shots, after first shot unleashes a volley of 3 charge shots. Resets after usage

Would be a powerful barrage at cost of delayed, barrage not immediate and would require continual aim.

Add WS Serrated Arrow to Swift Bow

Add more cleave

Add built in barrage mechanic

Variable Damage boosts on closer range

Tweak Numbers

Faster weapon swap, faster charge attacks, Rapid fire charges?

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Swiftbow is fine. The only change I’d make is to take WS “serrated arrows” talent and make it baseline to the bow so other classes can use it, then replace the talent with something useful.

4 Likes

Fine on legend, trash on cata. Tried to take down any armoured elites or specials? Good luck.

Its not and elite nor armored killer imo.
Hagbow is designet as a horde clearing weapon, Long bow Vs elite and armored and the swiftbow as a medium of the two.

Think you guys are giving it too much credit, serrated arrows would be nice alternative but swift bow has always been joke bow even rapid fire wasn’t enough to bring it up to par.

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To be useful, it should have at least one thing at which it is good. Boost it boss and berserk damage. Nerf hagbane boss damage for 25% at least. Hag still doing too much. It staggers, aoe dmg, okay at killing specials, good monster damage, and on top of tgat 2/3 elven careers can replenish its low ammo package eaaily

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Very good point perhaps swift bow is just outshined by an OP weapon… it’s a flamethrower, sniper and boss killer combined with its only weakness being ammo but every elf class can work with even HM has 40% ammo to reserve for bosses, specials and minor horde usage.

Just weapon balancing ideas, when somethings too powerful you don’t need to be circle hunter, just compare the stats between games as i use different weapons and see the difference especially in monster damage.

If somethings OP its not fun for everyone.

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Cause there a just TOO many thing at which hag is good. And there are overall a FEW things at which they can compete.

So ONE to be preferred over OTHER at some point have to be BETTER at certain things, while WORSE at other. Thats so rediculous i have to say that.

monster damage
armour damage
infantry damage
special kill ability
ammo managment
stagger
range
utility

Those just few things that came to my mind in a few seconds. And currently swiftbow sucks ass at every single one compared to hagbane.

Things reserved by longbow are:

  • top armour damage
  • top special kill ability
  • top range
  • top ammo managment (as long as u can score HS)

Things reserved by hagbane are:

  • infantry damage
  • stagger
  • utility (shade poison talent)
  • utility (25% power with consecutive for shade ult)

Things reserved for swift are:

  • utility (25% power with consecutive)
  • utility (assasin arrow spam)
  • utility (berserk/monk burst damage)

As you can see swiftbow is pretty damn poor.

  • 50 ammo pool makes it harder for shade to replenish with that low “efficiency per arrow” makes hagbane/longbow more prefferable.

  • Low range as well as low amrour damage makes it unusable by HM cause it takes TOO long to kill specials, as for frontline career, totally dang. * On top of that, having to do triple the job (score 3 HS to stay equal at ammo with longbow) makes it very frustrating to use by HM, as her only way to conserve ammo is “conervative shooter”.

  • VERY RARE (due to low LMB cleave) bonuses of being able to spam for monks/berserks/assasins makes little excuse for being awful at many other thigs. * As well as the fact that 2/3 elven careers have burst F button).

  • Low cleave easily can make it worse than longbow on killing “line running horde”, which is just a joke.

So at this point of my analysis:
TIERS
L (longbow)
H (hagbane)
S (swiftbow)
3 is good
2 is ok
1 is bad

long range specials: L-3 H-1(2 for WS) S-1
medium range specials L-3 H-2 S-1
close range specials L-2 H-3 S-1

infantry L-1 H-3 S-2
armour L-3 H-2 S-1
monster L-2 H-3 S-1
stagger L-2 H-3 S-1
cleave L-3 H-2 S-1
utility L-1 H-3 S-2
ammo management L-3 H-2 S-1

TOTAL:
LONGBOW: 18/30
HAGBANE: 22/30 (23/30 for ws)
SUCKBOW: 11/30

Things left to compete:

  • monster damage
  • ammo mangment
  • stagger
  • cleave

At this point I hope it is obvious that HAGBANE is best elven bow for 2/3 careers in general for sure. Longbow can compete as special and armour killer, with high precision, and swiftbow just awful.

And even just bringing it up in monster damage will not help, it needs more to be added.
All thoughts and ideas are around CATACLYSM difficulty, no legend plebs allowed

4 Likes

This again, Quickkill? At this point I think it’s less about someone else actually being bad and you projecting onto them about how you’re afraid your favorite classes will get nerfed for being too powerful. @mr_sp1ce has never, even once, cared about green circles. Moreover, this isn’t about just nerfing, it’s us talking about the balancing point for Swift-Bow.

In other news: Swift Bow is weird because the niche it fills isn’t one that carries any one feature to the extremes. It’s hard to balance because it’ll never outshine Longbow in armor damage/sniping (by design), never outshine Hagbane for crowd control/AoE (by design), and it’ll never shut-down bosses like the Shade X-Bow (by design).

It’s meant to be a catch-all but it’s terribly difficult to balance a catch-all in a game like this. There’s a reason Axe & Falchion was so powerful on Saltzpyre for so long and it was because it wasn’t just good in one area; it was quite good in every area. Go too powerful on the Swift-Bow and it’ll be the obvious take for everything, too weak and there’s no reason not to take a specialist weapon instead.

I think adding serrated arrows to it by default would certainly provide it a power spike, but it’s hard to say if that’ll be too much or not without first seeing what the talent replacement would be.

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Im jealous to make a meme swift bow build for ws and still run for half green circles at least tonight, we were fooling around previously with a friend about it, doing crit build, taking huntsman and whc for crit buffs and counting for how many second you can spam lbm until you run out of ammo (able to use ult). There were like 1:26 second run. That was pre auto fire patchh for swiftbow

Maybe we shall make it community challenge? :thinking:

2 Likes

Main discussion problem as I see is that hagbane is already catch-all weapon.
Longbow covers armour and specials, hagbane covers everything else, theres just no room for swiftbow. And even small nuances are all against swiftbow

If it could make quick aimed snap shots I’d love it, a high mobility quick reaction ranged weapon. Even if it took 2 headshots to kill a special, if you can snap them off quick enough that’d be good. Sadly, it’s aimed shots take as long as the longbow, while being half as powerful, so there’s no reason to take it.

I just dont see how 2 headshots can be quicher than one, sorry mate. Game already fast-paced. For somthing quicker you have to add AP, cause aiming for head is something beyond cata quickplay skill level. To be honest that type of reaction I have seen once on DWONS run, and that was pershing-god scoring 180 turn headshot on pouncing assassin with brace of pistols at medium range. At this level of play, you can benefit from a stick in your hand

This isn’t the first time you said this and you really need to stop. No one here is advocating for nerfs because they’re not “getting green circles”, in fact, it’s the opposite, people here generally want to nerf things that they themselves use and see that it’s too strong. This whole green circle thing needs to stop now, because never have I ever seen anyone advocate to strive for green circles, and it’s mostly just people screaming how green circles don’t matter.

5 Likes

I don’t approve certain reasonings like “who want a nerf it’s because he can’t reach green circles”… But it’s pretty sad that into a thread called “A BUFF” you guys start again to talk about nerf.

Fatshark did already many nerf… Now they should focus themself on some buff.

My personal opinion.

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Read my post again, there is just no other way

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Both are necessary for good balance. The issue is that swiftbow just doesn’t have any niche it’s good in while hagbane exists as it currently does. Unless you buff it to the point it’s ridiculously broken I don’t think that’s likely to change without hagbane being toned down somehow.

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I’m not saying we must not see any nerf for years… I’m talking about priorities. I would start buffing Swift Bow and only later see if Hagbane is still stronger.

I would increase Swift Bow armor and infantry damage, and penetration; but I would nerf its precision just a little. In this way:

  • Longbow would remain the strongest option vs elites and specials thanks its great synergy with Bloodshot and the capacity to score headshots;

  • Swift Bow would become stronger than Hagbane vs elites and specials. Moreover it would become stronger also vs ambients and open hordes.

  • Hagbane would remain the best option vs corridor hordes and to stagger.

I’ve had fun with memebow.

But if the consensus here is that swiftbow is bad because other bow is good then… take away the big stagger on hagbane charged shot?