some feedback on the bow(s)

[WarspiteOUO]

While originally planned to post this alongside the SF feedback during the beta, I thought it was still a bit too early to speak on this weapon as I wanted to give it more time to sit and marinate with other players, myself included. After about a month of playing with the weapon, coming up with 4 builds that I feel is pretty decent and mutually exclusive to each other, as well as looking at some other player's opinions on this weapon, I would like to share some thoughts on how the weapon may be improved in its current state.

 

THE CONCEPT
I think the Bow conceptually, closely resembles a ranged Spear. A simplistic moveset that demands good spacing and predicting enemy movements, as well as a clear focus on the heavy attack as the main damage dealer. This is definitely a great and much needed addition to the game as the other 2 ranged options are both drastically different from the 2 melee weapons, each with many unique tricks and niches to consider when it comes to picking up and fully mastering them. However, even with this in mind, the moveset of Bow still leans more towards being "incomplete", with some glaring weaknesses that can make playing the Bow frustrating at times with your very limited moveset.

 

THE MOVESET
Comparing to the Spear, the main thing that is really begging to be added is a dodge attack for Bows. The spinning drill attack on Spear really compliments its otherwise pretty single target heavy moveset and makes Spear a lot more thought-provoking to use despite its simplistic moveset; In contrary, Bow feels quite one-dimensional to play with your light attacks being the only move you can fall back to if bullseyes are not feasible to achieve, a frequently encountered issue when facing off against larger enemies/bosses, where their large hitboxes could make getting a bullseye impossible depending on the room shape, size and their location; or they could just be rapidly closing in on you and make it really difficult to create space (e.g. Bullrogs, Shell Drake past 50% health), and Bows heavily rely on bullseyes to achieve good damage.

There are definitely a lot of ideas being thrown around for extra Bow moves, personally, I find the idea of a triple burst light attack to be quite a fitting dodge attack for Bows. A backwards dodge attack could be used to stagger an enemy in place as you create space for your heavy attack, doing up/down creates a strafing pattern that can be slightly modified by dodging diagonally, and the forward dodge could be a fan spread of 3 arrows? I also thought of the possibility of turning all arrows into Focus Hits upon perfect dodging, but possibilities are endless and I am only throwing out my own ideas. Another change I would also propose is to make uncharged light attack spam a bit faster on Bow, it would help with the hitstreak capabilities that Bow do struggle with at times.

 

THE SKILLS
Finally moving onto the individual weapons, so far I have found some success with the Windbreaker, Frostbite, Floracrane and Owlitzer bow. Frostbite is widely acknowledged to be the best bow with its extremely powerful long range piercing ricochet and CC/hitstreak ice fart skill, precisely addressing the 2 main weaknesses/limitations of the Bow. Some had suggested the ricochet hit maybe shouldn't be stronger than the much harder to achieve bullseye, to which I do agree. The Windbreaker is also extremely interesting with its teleporting property, I do wish the skill could be a spread of 16 halved-damage shots instead of 8, as it can be quite easy to miss enemies with the skill even if you are within close proximity.

For the hypershot Bow, I think it's safe to just make the bonus light attack damage apply to all light attacks rather than just in the ability, as the normal light attacks of Bow is not really strong enough to make a build/playstyle around it. The poison bow would be a lot more interesting if it had extra interactions with poison damage/poisoned enemies.

[A4FE]

I definitely have to get some more time on the bow before I can talk with much confidence, but I actually like being able to access the default light out of a dodge! I can't say much about how it affects the strength of the weapon, but it's very fun to slide around and keep momentum while charging. Maybe after a dodge you can "overcharge" a light to access an additional aoe/stun move for bow? Just thinking of where you could add a move to compliment the rest of bows kit, while (selfishly) keeping what I find really fun about it intact. 

[WarspiteOUO]

On 11/8/2024 at 1:26 AM, A4FE said:

I definitely have to get some more time on the bow before I can talk with much confidence, but I actually like being able to access the default light out of a dodge! I can't say much about how it affects the strength of the weapon, but it's very fun to slide around and keep momentum while charging. Maybe after a dodge you can "overcharge" a light to access an additional aoe/stun move for bow? Just thinking of where you could add a move to compliment the rest of bows kit, while (selfishly) keeping what I find really fun about it intact. 

I do think its a smooth implementation but it also kinda feels like the go-to spot for a new move, right now it would be like if spear just did a sliding light attack after dodging.

[Azamagon]

MOVESET:

Honestly, I don't mind that bows are rather simplistic. The "difficulty" with bows comes in regards to getting into the Focus shot tempo, or knowing when to use spam shots or even fullcharge shots. The fact that it requires you to focus (as a player) to get the timing right is actually very cool, as it feels similar to how shooting a bow IRL is; you need to focus! Sure, I wouldn't mind a slight bit more "spectacle" with dodge attacks and whatnot, but I'm personally really happy with how they feel to use at the moment.

If anything, I'd maybe say Dodge + Skill could do the default bow's "thwack" attack? Similar to how on Cannon's the  "Dodge" (Mortar) + Skill does a unique glide-along-the-ground attack.

THE UNIQUE BOW WEAPONS / SKILLS:

Frostbite: Definitely the top bow at the moment. Nice internal synergies with its skill, the skillshot is interesting in its own right (and harmless to yourself and allies as far as I can tell) and the distance-rewarding mechanic feels nice (albeit maybe a tiny smudge too strong?).

Groundskeeper's Bow: Sadly underwhelming. I love the hypershot idea, but the "spammy" attacks is still not as useable as regular light Focus shots, and the buff is only marginally helpful to speed up your light Focus attacks. The passive isn't really a passive either, that's just a part of the skill. So I agreed with you, the passive should simply be a plain boost to ALL light shots (or at least its light Focus + Hypershots?). To really make it shine, maybe the hypershot buff makes the spammed light attacks become automatic Focus attacks (or at the very least gives the spamshots some pierce)? That would give it both much needed damage / some piercing capabilities. Increase the cooldown duration a smudge to compensate if need be.

Stinger: Yeah, as much as I like it, I also have a lot of problems with this bow, and poison stuff in general. First the bow though: The passive (bullseye generates poison pool) and the skill (heavy attack hitting ground generates poison pool) are right now kind of redundant in design, since stacking them is pointless, as the pools don't stack in any way! I don't think one or the other of the poison effects needs to go though, but there needs to be something else to it too. Like If there was an additional passive bonus, such as dealing more direct non-poison damage to enemies who are affected by poison, I'd have less issues with their reduncies. And even better, if the redundancy was removed, by for examples making the different pools stack their effects somehow. (One way to do that could be by adding an additional source of damage to the pools, untied from the poison mechanic, and this added damage can stack with other pools).
Secondly, poison in itself is not rewarding enough - Sure its pool is slightly bigger and more damaging than the Frostbite's cloud, but the Frostbite's cloud slows enemies, can outright freeze them, can damage anything (whereas poison is kind of useless in the poison zone), and most importantly CAN BUILD COMBO! Wholesale, I think poison in general needs 5 changes:

1) If the poison is player-generated, let it build combo for the player. (As mentioned above, if the player-generated pools had an additional source of damage, this damage could be the combo-generating source, rather than the normal poison effect).

2) If the poison is player-generated, make the self/ally damage it deals be absolutely minimal (like single-digit damage).

3) Let poison have a negative effect too, like say, the poisoned enemy is weakened, and thus deals less damage. If the poison is player-generated, this debuff does NOT nerf self/ally damage dealt, just enemies' damage. (Again, as mentioned above, if the player-generated pools had an additional source of damage, this damage could be the source of what applies the damage reduction debuff on enemies).

4) Poison-immune enemies could still take minimal damage from player-generated poisons. (Again, as mentioned above, if the player-generated pools had an additional source of damage, this damage could be the what pierces poison immunity, while the basic poison status and its damage could still be ignored by poison immune enemies).

5) If (sorry, again) the player layer-generated pools had an additional source of damage, this source of damage could stack with itself (unlike the general poison status).

Windbreaker: Agreed, the garlic fan is just too limitted in its angles - and I also feel the skill should have some (lmitted?) enemy piercing effect. I also feel that it could need more charges to the skill, like 2 or 3? So you don't feel you are "wasting" kills in between uses. Love the bow otherwise though.

[A4FE]

no qualms about having no love in my heart and poisoning my friends, but do wish it either

1) kept combo

2) scaled with player damage

if it scales already let me know 

 

[cybers2001]

On 11/7/2024 at 1:34 AM, WarspiteOUO said:

Bow feels quite one-dimensional to play with your light attacks being the only move you can fall back to if bullseyes are not feasible to achieve, a frequently encountered issue when facing off against larger enemies/bosses, where their large hitboxes could make getting a bullseye impossible depending on the room shape, size and their location; or they could just be rapidly closing in on you and make it really difficult to create space (e.g. Bullrogs, Shell Drake past 50% health), and Bows heavily rely on bullseyes to achieve good damage.

Wait... you all just spam heavy attacks? I almost exclusively use focused light attacks and pretty consistently do the most damage by a large margin.

[WarspiteOUO]

On 11/15/2024 at 11:04 AM, cybers2001 said:

Wait... you all just spam heavy attacks? I almost exclusively use focused light attacks and pretty consistently do the most damage by a large margin.

its good against hordes but doing like 300~400 roughly every second is definitely not breaking any records, and its definitely the intended way to heavy attack bosses instead of focus light attacking them, which is more geared towards hordes with its minimal damage increase.

[cybers2001]

2 hours ago, WarspiteOUO said:

its good against hordes but doing like 300~400 roughly every second is definitely not breaking any records, and its definitely the intended way to heavy attack bosses instead of focus light attacking them, which is more geared towards hordes with its minimal damage increase.

Would be nice to have a DPS tracker with dummies or something. Heavy attacks are definitely worth it if you are bullseyeing every time, but you can also ramp up hitstreak perks faster and land more crits with the higher attack speed and penetration of light focus attacks.