Archer Improvement Thread.

[Sianist]

I really like the idea about splitting Archer into two related but different classes.

A Stealthy Assassin/sniper archetype, focusing on Poisons, stealth, prepping the battlefield with traps and the like and Cursed/Predator, but limited ability to deal AoE, this one could also get a limited amount of Wilder skills.

A more heavy 'machinegunner' which lacks the poisons and stealth that the assassin/sniper got, but is tilted towards better attackspeed with (relatively) higher damage, specially on AoE (more in the sense that their AoE is closer to the damage potential of their single target), with a pet defending them (thinking something like a War Hound but with no duration), but not with the tactical choices that the Assassin got (hence less 'oh crap' salvation buttons)

'Arcane Archery' could simply be set up by giving Arcane Blades a viable use of Ranged (say, giving them Technique/Archery-Bows), so they can be set up in that direction if so wished.

[Strongpoint]

I am something like 90% sure that wilder archer is planned by Darkgod as thaloren stone warden equivalent. It fits them


Also, pet and archer don't mix that well, it will block line of fire nearly always

[Sianist]

is it possible to let pets count as walls for targeting purposes, so a shot unless the pet is directly between you and the mob, always goes past it?

[Isotope-X]

I was thinking of a sustain (call it Called Shots or something less lame), with a Stamina cost and Accuracy debuff, which would give every shot fired a chance for either stun, daze, blind or confuse. I see this as something of the equivalent of Gloom, a steady source of debuffing, which could be added on top of the Crippling/Flare/Pinning that they already have.

[Sianist]

don't really think that they would need such isotope

[String]

I am something like 90% sure that wilder archer is planned by Darkgod as thaloren stone warden equivalent. It fits them

I guess that means archer isn't going to become hunter.

[Sianist]

I am something like 90% sure that wilder archer is planned by Darkgod as thaloren stone warden equivalent. It fits them

I guess that means archer isn't going to become hunter.

Which would mean that we're free to thinker with rebuilding the toolbox of the Archer into something more distinct ... as of what that rebuild would end out in is subject to specifics of the 'wilder archer'

[Doctornull]

'Arcane Archery' could simply be set up by giving Arcane Blades a viable use of Ranged (say, giving them Technique/Archery-Bows), so they can be set up in that direction if so wished.

Nah, the spells available for the Arcane Blade are the ones which make good ranged attacks.

An Arcane Archer wants spells which are NOT ranged attacks, but rather which are ranged debuffs, stuff like Pacification Hex.

[b0rsuk]

I find threads like this irresistible.

Issues with archers are primarily... Crowds and damage burst. They have no real crowd control, kiting ability, or some form of damage mitigation.

Keep in mind it's not required to make archers have kiting ability. Kiting could be one of possible builds. Why not just... let them fight reasonably well in melee ? They can already train Weapon Mastery. Typically archers in a fantasy game can kill 100% of enemies with bows, they even shoot in melee range. I think this is ridiculous. I would go as far as to say "archers should get off-balance effect each time they're attacked in melee, because they either get hit or need to dodge". A natural choice for archer melee weapons would be 2-handers (because they don't wear a shield) and possibly dual wield.

Alternatively, wear a shield, use Slings, and a Dagger.

In any case, archers do need diversification, merely improving power won't make them more interesting to play.

Arcing shots - (Sustain) Causes your standard arrows/stones/bolts from the shoot talent (not other talents) to 'arc' and target an enemy in the midst of a crowd, rather then hitting the first one on it's travel path.

I had similar idea independently, but I'm puzzled why you'd want to make it a sustain. Targetting an enemy in the middle is not something you have to do all the time - you just want to take out the most dangerous creatures. And I don't want to pay the price all the time ! Make it an activated ability with instant use, granting 5+ turns of crowd sniping. This would be one of archers' most unique features - ability to use any single-target special attack even if there are enemies in the way. If you want to be really nice to archers, make the status effect enable sniping with all single target abilities, not just bow/sling using ones. So Rod of Spydric Poison could be fired this way. The name may need to be changed - arcing with a rod sounds a bit silly. How about just "Crowd Sniping: your aiming practice lets you target an enemy in the middle of a crowd even if the window of opportunity is very short".

Scaling with talents:
+1 turn duration
+1 enemy passed (on level1, you can target 2nd enemy in a line, on level2 - 3rd enemy in a line...)

Shoot'N'Scoot - Active. If the name doesn't give it away, Move in a direction of choice, and fire an arrow at enemy of choice simultaneously. A sort of Hack'N'Back for archers. Would help well with kiting, but it's logically sensible for an archer to fire a few passing shots at an enemy as they run away. Ideally, an accuracy penalty for this 'running shot' would be applied, although exact amount seems to be in question. Probably a flat penalty, but then a cooldown that lowers with increased investment.

I think quite the opposite - an accuracy penalty would push archers further into the "whipping enemies with perfumed shoestrings" territory. I want to make each arrow count and hurt as much as possible, not the opposite. To an extent, relying on kiting also promotes numerous weak attacks. I'd love archers to be playable with relatively little kiting.

Ambush - Sustain. Definitely the biggest gimmick, I'm eyeing the possibility of a stealth-like sustain. Something that would run off dex (with the rest of the tree), but doesn't really apply any damage bonuses. (We don't want to turn them into rogues). The idea is for them to be able to choose positioning before a fight, or use it to help avoid an enemy. Again, helps with control over the battlefield by allowing you to run and kite a bit more effectively.

Why not just give them Stealth tree, even unlocked ? Only 1 ability might not be usable by archers (Shadowstrike). By the way, why don't archers have the Poisons tree ? The idea of poisoned arrows is nothing new or particularly rogueish.

I think Field Control talent tree is underwhelming and should be improved first.
I frequently play Marauders. They have two extremely similar skills: Hack&Back and Disengage. One adds a weak attack for extra stamina. Both are hard to use, often impossible because they work only in cardinal directions. Both are of questionable use for non-archers, as most monsters in the game have ranged attacks.
- 1) Move Hack&Back to Field Control tree, replacing Disengage. Make it 100% weapon damage, not scaling with talent level. Make it fire a ranged weapon, if equipped. And most importantly - change Hack&Back so that it has cone-like targetting for target square. First, you select an adjacent enemy. Second, you choose a square in an arc projected from the enemy in your direction. You jump to that square. If it turns out to be an interface nuisance due to 2 clicks, make it so Hack&Back automatically targets a random adjacent enemy, saving you trouble. To save stamina, it could be made so level1 Hack&Back has no attack and no extra stamina cost. At level3-4, you get 100% damage attack, but with extra stamina cost.
- 2) Circle Strafe replaces Hack&Back in Mobility tree. The way it would work is you'd get "step-up-like" movement for purposes of moving around an enemy. This would be useful for repositioning, especially using enemies as living shields. First, you execute a 100% attack (doesn't scale with levels). Second, you get X movement points for moving around the targeted enemy. 1 at level1, enough to keep fighting and avoid that spellshocking Congeal Time flying at you. At level2, you get 2 points movement "points", again, only for going around the enemy (it stops prematurely if you perform an illegal move). At level3, you get 3 movement "points" and can circle 1 extra enemy. So if you are adjacent to orc A, orc B is adjacent to A but not to you, you can strike A then move on to the orc . Level4: +1 point. Level 5: +1 point, +1 extra enemy to circle.

Why does it take less time to notch, aim, and fire an arrow than it does to swing a sword? Why is it that one of the best uses for slings is as a melee weapon?

Because game designers like to disguise extra damage as higher rate of fire. That way, they can make bows or daggers attack faster than swords, and pretend daggers are still weaker. The end result tends to be "bows have less armour penetration, because armour is applied more often". Why not just do that from the start ???? Faster attack speed is tactically interesting when it enables you to kill a few weak enemies faster, whereas a huge 2-hander would have to make a slow swing at each tiny enemy. In vast majority of cases, faster attacks are simple damage buffs at the cost of worse interface (more insignificant clicking).

Again, my personal preferences may be distorting my judgment here. I don't like fantasy settings much, and bows have always been one of the things I like least about them. To me, the idea of firing bits of wood in a world with magic swords, firey fireballs of fire, sentient blobs of sludge and dwarves that turn into rock giants just seems ... outclassed.

And I want an ordinary, mighty archer very much for this reason. Sometimes I like conquering enemies with pure physical might. Temporal Wardens look girly by comparison.

I don't think entirely ditching them is the right answer, though; While they're sorta boring, there is potential there to make them an entirely offense-oriented ranged fighter, even more extreme than Corruptor in this regard-they already do comparable damage long-term.

I tentatively like this idea. Archers should be more like glass cannons (or learn some melee combat - different build).

Early chinese fireworks? Gunpowder (or some magic freezing/acidic/light/dark/whatever powder) and a fuse attached to an arrow, it explodes on contact? Could work.

This sounds like ammo property, not generic skill. There's already ammunition that does that. But the thing that worries me is that it risks making Archers too similar to spellcasters.

NEW TALENT IDEA:
Shoot Down Projectile
The idea is that archers, unlike mages, have great reflexes and aiming practice, which enables them to shoot projectiles down. If you see Congeal Time or other not very fast missile in a corridor, your best option may be to shoot it down. If you see Fireflash or Inferno, you may want to detonate it so it explodes in the caster's face.

I really like the idea about splitting Archer into two related but different classes.

I really DISLIKE the idea. We're trying to improve variety of archers, which implies there isn't enough variety in the class to warrant splitting. Besides, this kind of thing can be accomplished with (locked) talent trees. Stealth, Poisons, Traps.

[HousePet]

To be fair, I pooled Rogue and Archer together and made two different classes.
End result was still two classes.

Archer needs more pure physical power.
Anyone gets to close, and I want to make them feel sorry for doing it...

[Parcae2]

I like the idea of a stealthy, assassin-style archer for both gameplay and fluff reasons. I really, really don't like the idea of a machine gun style archer, just because it is severely counterintuitive for it to be faster to notch and fire an arrow than it is to swing a sword.

Note, by the way, that actual real-life machine guns were invented around the same time as steel, which is already in the game. Again, the steampunk Orc campaign seems to be a better place to experiment with a super-fast ranged class, fluff-wise - not to mention that machine-gun archers will always be at a disadvantage compared to Temporal Wardens. The idea of a dual-wielding archer also seems to tread too much on TW territory. Why not just allow archers to thwack people with their bows in melee range, using it as a two-handed weapon?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Bows as quarterstaves perhaps? (which is somewhat similar to what an unstrung bow would be... but only somewhat.) Does this make enough logical sense? I can think of a number of special effects that could be appended to unstrung artifact bows used to thwack enemies...

Of course, if we introduce bow melee, that means any bow-wielder gets the abilitiy, which buffs new options for temporal warden as well. (And anything else that picks up a bow, not that much else does.)

[Doctornull]

NEW TALENT IDEA:
Shoot Down Projectile
The idea is that archers, unlike mages, have great reflexes and aiming practice, which enables them to shoot projectiles down. If you see Congeal Time or other not very fast missile in a corridor, your best option may be to shoot it down. If you see Fireflash or Inferno, you may want to detonate it so it explodes in the caster's face.

This idea owns. It would add immensely to fun gameplay. Imagine detonating some jerk wizard's Fireflash right next to him.

I really DISLIKE the idea. We're trying to improve variety of archers, which implies there isn't enough variety in the class to warrant splitting. Besides, this kind of thing can be accomplished with (locked) talent trees. Stealth, Poisons, Traps.

We're trying to IMPROVE the Archery niche, which implies Archery sucks. The specific ways in which Archery sucks can be patched by adding non-Archery talents (like Stealth and Traps), but that's not actually fixing Archery -- it's giving you some non-Archery talents to compensate for the ways in which Archery sucks.

MAKING ARCHERY NOT SUCK is another option, which might involve splitting the class.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Archery doesn't suck, it's just bland and a bit underpowered to use as the absolute basis of what a class does, when hybrids like temporal warden seem to be getting the best of all worlds, leaving archer behind. Not every class needs to be epic, but archer needs a bit more interesting material to work with. And splitting the class involves coding multiple new talent trees and adding new trees here, taking away here, and then going through the arduous process of balancing all these new classes.

Besides, as was mentioned, we're already getting a new archer (supposedly) as a thaloren-only. No need to make 3 new ones.

[HousePet]

I like making new ones.

But anyway, my main complaint with current layout is that the rogue and archer classes are not themed in any way.
They are themed, uses generic rogue abilities and uses a ranged weapon.
This is why I rearranged them into sneaky poisonous assassin and badass hunter.