Is this a good idea though? Longbow wouldnt be affected much and hagbane spam builds can use a nerf but shortbow kinda tanks a hit for no reason? It needs that high ammo to be really good i think.
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Yes.
It was my main Weapon on him, and I didn’t have any issues. The only downside is being the last person standing, because of it’s mobility- like most other 2H Weapons on Careers without AS.
Two Power Talents + On-Kill Crit reset allow you to quite safely deal with Hordes. Stamina+ Chaos on the Billhook. The Power + Push-Attack combo spam, make it safe enough.
I’ve also won on Melee kills a few times using that build.
The main strength of them is their fast access to high Elite or Single Target damage, and it’s synergy with On-Kill reset for him.
A+F is still A+F. I’ve barely noticed a difference. You have to take the damage increase he gets from On-Kill into account though. Power stacking with it isn’t bad either, but I mainly run Assass with it.
Rapier is ok, but just feels like more of a survival weapon on him.
I’d rather have 15.5%/19.5%/22.5% Power, 30% DMGR and Melee damage increases.
The problem is that the initial shot is so difficult to land. It stops bouncing after the first bounce too, so there’s almost no chance of random hits.
As I mentioned in my example from Overwatch, the maps, projectile size, and enemy hitbox size all make it way too unreliable.
I’d rather see your split/shotgun build apply to headshots or Crits or something. Without having to bounce off of uneven walls, and objects that send the ricochet in the complete opposite direction.
OH.
oh I meant replacing the ricochet mechanic with a forking mechanic.
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Something like this exists in Heroes of Hammerwatch. When you hit an enemy, a second arrow starting from that enemy flies to a close-by enemy in direct line (not sure if there can be found video footage online). For Vermintide you would have to check though on penetration and damage of the second arrow to make it not completely overpowered.
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I’m not impressed by BH’s melee power. Blessed Combat gives 6 attacks stacked at max, so unless one constantly spams ranged the uptime for the boost is low. AnF heavies take up two of the stacks from Blessed Combat (and AnF is the weapon that would benefit the most from a raw power boost).
It’s push attack used to have 20% crit chance and Heavy Linesmen, which let its armour sliding cleave armour (can’t do it now on Legend/Cata). It got it’s dodge buffed which was great for it, but it’s horde dps is less now. The AnF does not deal with hordes effectively without stamina buffs (like Cast Away) or with power buffs (like Fiery Faith). You can make arguments for Blessed Combat but it’s for 6 attacks at most. Even when block cancelling to avoid L4 (Axe) for horde dps it’s still worse than SnD not block cancelling at least as far as safety goes.
Anything allows you to safely deal with hordes provided it has some cleave. The Billhook scales better with power than the Rapier but it’s still a headshot damage weapon and doesn’t go that far with power.
Crescendo is pretty bad. No one wants a BH on their team running out of ammo constantly, having to guess if they’ll have to let them get a kill. It’s an incomplete talent (no choice but Salvaged Ammo) that locks BH out of having any proper defense and results in weird gameplay choices for BH to make (like not killing specials to conserve his last shot).
Waystalker can use Blood Shot for most enemies. For melee Kerillian has higher mobility and safety (due to higher dodge distance and better, consistent cleave) except for damage reduction and static frontal blocking. Significantly less micro intensive than BH, and a better panic ult.
I score on average 750+ headshots per standard Cata game regardless of what weapon I’m using, even with Kerillian’s Greatsword. For all I know you have 5K hours and could top melee kills with almost any build under the right conditions.
Edit: I’ve actually topped melee kills with 1h Axe BH on a successful Cata run before. I think that says more about the other players in my team than the 1h Axe.
The Billhook performs better with thp on cleave than on kill. Thp on cleave is better as a defensive option for a career that specialises in killing elites at range. He doesn’t need thp from elites, he needs it from hordes which are what he’s weak against. With thp on cleave, the power boost talents become much better because of the melee cleave increase.
The power means very little for his ranged. The melee increases are nice but incredibly limited by being stack based instead of having a duration. For example:
Build: https://www.ranaldsgift.com/11/222122/40,4,3,6/19,3,5,7/3,2,1/1,4,2/2,7,1
So you fire 6 BoP shots pointlessly into a horde to get the talent buffs up + Hunter for melee horde breakpoints. Then you switch to melee and with a 100% headshot ratio score 6 kills without anything else getting them like a Sienna spamming ranged, to reload all of those shots (bear in mind that even with the Billhook you still can’t one shot headshot Marauders with either of the light attacks, so for Norscan hordes it’s often going to be 4 shots at best give or take some Fanatics, and the only thingy your lights bodyshot even at max power with Steel Crescendo is Skavenslaves). Funny thing is the ranged dps on this build is bad. BoP can’t cleave Marauders even at BH’s max possible power. Going for heavy attacks mid horde to kill Marauders with single target attacks is pretty dicey. I’ve picked random ranged weapon/charm properties because they vary from the single type of elites you want to be able to deal with. You can’t deal with SV, Bestigors and Maulers all effectively. It’s either armour or infantry.
Compare that to SnD, which can one shot Marauders with it’s cleave heavy attack with Assassin and a measly 20% power. BH is just less dps on anything but monsters and conga line Chaos Warriors.
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I disagree, but it’s kind of a pointless discussion.
The point I’m trying to make is that BH at least has interesting mechanics and some choice. Less so now that they’ve made On-Kill even better than it was before.
Even RV has more interesting mechanics than WS, at the minute.
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How do people find Drakira’s alacrity? 15% AS is a nice amount but 5 seconds seems kind of small considering you’ll probably be a decent distance from enemies when you’re getting your ranged headshots a good amount of the time. I can see it being nice for when you duck out of melee to quickly snipe a special before jumping back into the fray but haven’t heard many people talk about it so not sure what the general opinion of it is.
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It’s pretty much all I use.
For melee, it’s nice to get AS every so often, but it’s mostly for Longbow/Hagbane spam. You’re only limited by your ability to land headshots quickly at that point.
It makes Patrols and high Elite density scenarios pretty fun.
Obviously it increases Boss damage too.
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Oh yeah I completely forgot that attack speed affects bow fire rate too. Damn ok yeah can definitely see how useful that could be then.
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That’s fair. BH has good mechanical variety and complexity. Waystalker could be very interesting if done right. I’m just a little defensive when it comes to Saltz weapons because the only one that I think really needs changes is the Rapier (too safe imo, even if it’s supposed to be it’s insanely safe for soloing entire hordes).
Back on topic.
For Waystalker, I like the idea of dodge range increasing based on the number of enemies around the player. It’s great in the sense that it gives you dodge when you want it the most, and it makes heavy weapons like Glaive better on her. Mainstay is a weird one on a non-power stacking finesse/ranged career, replacing with Smiter makes sense (Mainstay could only really work with Glaive which would still want Smiter).
Adding default ammo regen seems fine. Running out of ammo is very un-Wood Elf. How much are we thinking, 20% or 30% or 40% etc, and would it be per special kill with the ult?
Handmaiden’s ult should count as a dodge and have a small radius increase for triggering Power from Pain and Bladedancer. Would be neat if Bladedancer made your weapons deal stacking bleed damage for 5s, though that would probably have to come at the cost of having dashing causing bleed to enemies you’ve dashed through.
Would anyone be opposed to an ult talent for Handmaiden that causes the nearest ally to be invisible for 2s instead of Handmaiden either replacing Gift of Ladrielle or one of the other two talents?
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She got something like 100-150% increased ammo as a passive instead of her old 50%. Drop it back down and simply increase swiftbows Base ammo to what it is currently.
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Aaaand they just added the king of FF.
They really need to change it so it either doesn’t go off or only goes off when you’re hit in melee, as random 1hp hitting AoE through walls is annoying too.
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When they took out Waystalker’s old ammo regen they only pigeon-holed her into Kurnous for ammo. I never really understood it. There are times when you might take other talents, but it’s her only ammo regen talent. She’s the only range career that needs to actually spec into it via talents.
- Ranger Vet has passive ammo drops.
- Engineer has regenerating minigun.
- Bounty Hunter has guaranteed crit and can proc scrounger.
- Huntsman has passive conservative shooter.
- Sienna doesn’t use ammo.
So all other ranged careers can spec talents however they want but still get ammo. I don’t understand people saying Waystalker is much better at getting ammo when they are all easy to get ammo for. I’ve never had issues with any of them. Which at that singular point, I’m appreciative of that consistency.
Fatshark said there should be another BBB coming up eventually that will handle the careers not touched upon by the first BBB. I’m hoping Waystalker gets some love.
I want to see changes to Isha’s Embrace, Ricochet, and Loaded Bow. I wouldn’t mind changes to some other existing stuff too if they got creative enough. Like she has Asrai Vigil, but has anyone ever really made use of that? Or do people even know/remember it exists? (The passive that allows her to zoom in with all bows)
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I’m actually waiting for a mod that removes the zoom altogether, to make flicking in close range easier.
Nowadays I play kurnous WS with any bow. I found that kurnous ammo regen is not that powerful than you said. I agree that problem is that ammo regen is tied to ult talent.
This means as special spawn increases, your ammo lacks. Same as pyromancer. Enemy increases but your resource is tied to time. WS has 100% ammo bonus. That enables much ammo pool, not only kurnous. Hagbane’s ammo still lacks even with kurnous reward because ammo reservation is small.
If i could choose between kurnous and huntsman’s shot crafter, I would pick shot crafter because I can use another ult talent.
So i say putting ammo regen away from ult.
I want to use ranged weapon through out whole game. Sometimes I have to use melee of course to kite and block or kill CWs. If situation lets, you can shoot swift or longbow for very long time right now. I think that’s cool and fun.
I know many people and Fatshark don’t like ranged combat that much. But it’s PVE game. Why would it hurts?
When I use longbow, I block elites attack and swap to headshot in close range. This kind of play is really fun to me, more than just melee things.