Special Attack for Archery (with a poll)

Oh that is a strange way... why didn't they just apply poison to the bow and the bow take additional damage when poisoned? Also, you could fail applying poison to the bow, that system you could have more rags in your pack or something.

Anyways, range is not that great.. maybe there where you are only on foot but on mount you can be off screen chugging a pot (the downside to range is you are that much closer to escape!!). DP swordsman vs DP archer would = DP swordsman win. You can only rely on the bandage to cure you as the archer, the swordsman can chug the pot instantly. What if you couldn't get to DP with archery, just greater poison?

We must also consider that archers are specifically not in hit range of their opponent so dropping bow to hit some pot is not as critical as it would be for a melee fighter.

I agree that poison archery is likely too insane to even consider, however tempting the thought may be.

It is critical as it really hampers your offense when you can only rely on bandages, once you drop your bow they have 5~ sec grace period to heal.

Melee can stay on you chugging pots and dealing damage.

This is how I see the current situation: Archery is supposed to be balanced. The drawbacks of archery (firing rate, 2-H weapons only) are supposed to be offset properly by the fact that you can hit from range. However, in practice, it just doesn't work out.

I agree that archery should have a special attack just because all other melee skills do. I don't think that the lack of a special attack has anything to do with the imbalance of regular combat. If you took out special attacks for all weapons, you'd still have the same issue in regular combat. They're two separate problems. I think first, regular plain-old archery needs a buff of some sort and then it needs a special attack.

Well, technically it got the 'moving shot' added, but honestly, they should just drop the 1-tick to shoot timer also. A melee fighter doesn't have to stop to run past on the adjacent tile and take a swing, why should an archer? Perhaps scale it so that it's 1/4s for sub-GM, and 0 delay to shoot on the run with GM skill.

If they removed the stop to shoot entirely, a special hit may not be needed at all to bring Archery into the same combat level as other combat skills.

If you could shoot while running it would be the most effective at races, I mean pvp. :lol: I really like the idea of supporting skills with benefits (not just for archery). Renaissance started to implement these unique builds and we could carry on that path, they would require a lot of testing, probably start pvm only.

Even with no delay I don't think an archer can stand up to any other weapon class in a 1v1 fight unless they are constantly running away. Let get this tested somehow!

I like this idea, but I think it would need to be done with all the other weapons as well. Gives more of a use for the skills and gives warriors something more than what they have now. As it is a lone warrior is very unlikely to win against a mage, I know this cause i tried against Liberation and all he did was walk and cast mini heal while I tried to hit him with a spear.

If something like this is done though I would say be careful, when pallys came into the picture I could kill a dragon in 3-4 shots with a dragon slaying bow, and my uncle could kill a mob with a halberd without loosing any health because of vampire form with his necro. I know most of you know that, I'm just tryin to say that its a slippery slope if we aren't careful.

But as it is I really like the shard and how everyone is trying to make it better and not make everything over-powered

Bump for Archery, already got 1 GM working my second now.

I'm just dead set against anything that aims in the direction of AOS.

Archery being adjusted to be a viable primary combat skill is not 'in the direction of AoS'.
I understand the concern and I assure you, no one here wants AoS. Most everyone here wants things to work perfectly.

At present, Archery is still not up to par with all other combat skills. If it were, you would see people actually fielding archers outside of groups or special events.