With the bow buffs combined with the stamina Regen delay, it becomes extremely difficult to close the gap for closer ranged weapons. With the arrow hit box adjustment, you almost certainly have to use stamina to iframe or dodge arrows meanwhile, the bow user will either keep dodging backwards as you dodge forwards, (using less stamina than you because you are also using your stamina to avoid damage as well as gap closing) or they will pull out the rapier and fleche through you.
This might be controversial but Most close range weapons donāt have very good gap closer abilities some of them seem good but are actually only so if they connect. Charge for example is really good but the recovery frames on the back end of it if you donāt connect will probably cost you almost the same amount of distance that you just gained. Baby āgap closersā have this problemā¦high recovery frames. Leaping strike is probably the only gap closer thatās actually worth a damn vs ranged really, and we see how much thatās complained about.
Anyway back to the point. The bow has all of these great changes coming and letās say that youāre a close range weapon user who is really good at stamina management and is good with their gap closers. You do all of this work getting close to that guy shooting arrows at you ā¦ only to see a riposte which you may or may not activate, the result is the same (even if you donāt get stunned, they will be completely safe for that entire animation (why is riposte immune to damage during the āelbowā part?)) And then they will fleche through you, dodge, evade, dodge and weāre back at square one. This is a 1v1 situation mind you, not to be balanced around, but nonetheless frustrating. The more consistent options vs people with rapiers are to outrange them or one shot combo them.
Super unpopular opinion: The description for Riposte says āYou are briefly invulnerable upon a successful riposteā. I think they they should make the stun happen faster so that the chances of hitting it are better, but also for the immunity to not kick in unless it actually connects.
I assume thatās what they are talking about when they say double shot, but thatās not new. They talk about it like its something new. Iāve been doing that forever on live. I have always been able to do light into special super fast. Can actually do poison into pen shot super fast too.
Im going to have to check this later. I can do this on live and have done it forever. Lately it bugs out a lot but I can do it. I thought it was normal.
Heavy Shot into Pen/Poison. You can time it in a way that you just see one arrow going off, while 2 damage numbers pop up (similiar to grav well double burst, etc.). Easy to reproduce and obviously busted.
Have mixed opinions on this. In general I agree that ranged counters melee (as intended) but it can get frustrating as melee, especially vs bow. But then again, weāre talking about 1v1s and as you said, canāt balance around it. Also, the rock-paper-scissor thought kinda implies, that melees counter everything except ranged and maybe itās intended. But then again, I made a lot of bruisers frustrated cuz if you dodge everything right, youāre basically untouchable.
Itās a difficult topic imo, since I do believe if melees get more help/buffs vs ranged, weāre back to melee world and them being the most powerful, countering every build ever. Also, I personally know plenty melees who rarely struggle vs ranged, except maybe 3-4 ranged mains on the entire server.
The invulnerability window of the riposte has been a longer topic and I agree that its too long, but at the same time Idk if shortening would be the way (especially since its STILL very easy to bait and then dodge/block).
Lastly, all your points are from melee POV which makes it a bit weird for me. Whatās the counter-balancing part for ranged once melees cought up? I feel like if melees get more gap close mechanics, ranged need something in exchange. Otherwise ranged get CC chained into oblivion without any counter OR ranged playstyle becomes even more toxic by kiting even harder (basically running only), which Iām sure would be even more annoying.
Right now Iām realizing weāre both kinda have a 1v1 take on this right now, which again, is not the point. Weāll see how the patch feels on live I guess.
Oh. Sounds great. After the bugs I have on live of skills not releasing half the time, to me its just a desync and catching up all the times a skill never went off or 2.50 just vanished into thin air haha. Yeah thatās a little busted though.
Stop aiming poison arrow at the ground bro. You are losing soooo much damage doing that. Who cares about that 120 tick when you could chest shot that for sometimes more than Pen shot if it crits.
Didnāt see your link till now, idk how to say this without being rude - but thatās a good example of slow bow play that mainly relies on spear CC/dmg.
Just as a comparison, donāt mean to plug scuffed 720p footage, but you get the idea
Youāre not playing bow at its full possible speed/capabilities (yet)
That you use your own music for these vids is pretty cool, tho
I used to play bow/rapier aswell, then I went with the spear. I felt like bow, in its actual state, and especially the rapier, werenāt enought to manage some opponents. Especially with those opponents that require to be interrupted or simply stoppes at will. Rapier is reaally fun, but it canāt do that, and bow well, we know how many cc it has. You canāt really reliably kill a geared healer or a VG/LF with bow alone, I mean you can but you have to be pretty lucky with your shots, or the guy is gonna be full health in 1 sec. Oh and good luck trying to manage those pesky aggressive spear/rapier or spear/shield with the rapier. The spear on the other hand can be used both as an aggressive or defensive tool (the way I use it). I admit that there are times where instead of backing up to take some more distance and to keep using the bow Iāll go in with the spear, but just because, as I said, I think bow alone canāt do everything (probably next patch it will). This is just my opinion of course, but it still comes after months of fights. Not that Iām claiming to be better than anyone else here of course. I can be really good at times, but Iām not very consistent.
Just my thoughts.
All valid points, donāt get me wrong. In terms of lethality the bow has been in a near useless state since january so itās understandable most bows went spear instead of rapier since, as you said, the bow alone was just tickling adequately geared enemies (especially LS, heavies).
In terms of overall dex build, spear/bow is still the best choice if you wanna fulfill your role (damage dealer) so Iām not saying itās bad or people are bad for playing it - itās the natural thing to do.
But considering the bow is gonna be more easy to dish out consistent damage I just felt like a lot of spear/bow mains forgot where their main damge/control came from the last few months, thatās all.
I for myself am even considering going spear/bow for arenas because of said reasons, but then again: PTR testing is not really doing it for me (randomg gear/perks and EU ping), so itās all speculation.
Still, looking forward to the new builds people gonna try out and especially curious about how AGS gonna use 3v3 to balance their combat.
