Idea Archer Rework: Keeps Instant Kill, Nerfs Bow Spam

I'm gonna say straight off the bat that this is based off of an old post I made before I quit CTF. It didn't get a lot of attention though because it was a comment in a thread rather than a whole post by itself.

When designing this, I thought to myself: what type is Archer supposed to fill? What I figured was "Archer is meant to be a primarily defensive class, stopping enemies from entering certain areas of the map by using its scary Instant Kill as a threat. It's also meant to assassinate targets from afar, whether it's to kill a Medic, the enemy's flag carrier, or someone chasing your own flag carrier." However, the Archer is also great at mowing down large crowds with its hail of arrows, and is quite annoying to get spammed out by it. I figured, this is because the Bow and Instant Kill mechanic is so easy to spam. So I based this rework off of removing the bow spam but maintaining Archer's mean Instant Kill reputation. I took the idea from TF2's Sniper, because CTF honestly draws a lot of inspiration from that game and I'm absolutely biased towards it as well. However, I'm biased because I love the game, and I love the game because I think it's extremely well made and has (for the most part) fun, balanced mechanics.

Anyway here's the rework:

- Firing the bow will disable it for 1 second
- Snipes only deal True Damage instead of Instant Kills

+ Bow has new charge mechanic
+ When the bow is fully drawn back, your exp bar fills up over the course of 3 seconds. Firing the bow, putting the bow away (to pull out your sword or whatever), or dying will deplete the bar completely.
+ The bow gets bonus damage as the bar fills up. When the bar is empty (I.e. the bow just finished being drawn back), the bow deals 10 damage (5 hearts). For every 1/10 of the bar being filled (takes .3 seconds), the bow deals an extra half heart of damage.

What this rework does is prevents Archer from being able to bow spam. Let's take a look at the EXP Bow charge system. Half a heart for every 1/10 filled. That means with 1/10 of the bar (.3 seconds), the bow deals 5.5 Hearts. With the bar half full (1.5 seconds), it deals 7.5 hearts. At full charge (3 seconds), it deals a whopping 10 Hearts, enough to kill a Ninja or Chemist instantly. This, combined with the true damage of a snipe, will effectively cause the Archer to Instant Kill any class with a full charged bow shot at snipe range.

However, the Archer has to draw the bow back for a full 4 seconds (1 second to draw the bow, 3 seconds to charge it) in order to Instant Kill now. When you take into account the bow being disabled for a second after firing, it takes Archer 5 seconds to prepare and fire an Instant Kill arrow. Which may not seem like a lot of time, but believe me, it's enough to move from far away from an Archer to close enough that Snipe stops working.

And the bow disable stops bow spam from being a thing. You have to make every shot count now. This makes Archer very vulnerable at close range, like it's supposed to be.

However, this rework isn't all bad for Archer. As I said, a full charged Bow shot will kill a Ninja or Chemist instantly, even at close range. This sounds ridiculously OP, but do consider that in order to fully charge a bow, you have to stand still for 4 seconds without being able to move or Steak. It only really works if the Archer was already charging and aiming their bow and got ambushed.

I also want to reiterate this because it confused @Admiral_Munson last time we discussed the idea: The bow charge is not something you can store. If you start charging the bow, you have to shoot it or else you lose all of the EXP charge. You can't switch away to a different item and save the charge for later. It is absolutely a use-it-or-lose-it situation. Don't think of the EXP charge as an EXP charge like Dwarf's or Chemist's. Think of it like being able to draw the bow back for even more power.

So yeah, you'll see there's a poll up above. They're pretty self-explanatory. "Love it" means you love the entire idea and you want it in the game right now. "Hate it" means you think the entire thing is trash and that at its core, the rework is terrible. Or you think Archer is perfectly fine the way it is. "It shows promise" means there are certain parts you like but the entire idea overall has flaws. Maybe you disagree with the numbers (remember, numbers are easy to change, it's the concept itself that matters), or a certain part of the rework is bad (for example, I'm very iffy about having extra damage even at close range), or whatever.

I know this rework is going to be controversial. People who dislike Instant Kills are going to hate it because it has Instant Kills. People who play a lot of Archer are going to think this will lower the skill ceiling of Archer, and to an extent, I agree. Quickdrawing will no longer be effective, and Archer battles will be stale now that the Archers have to sit for almost 5 seconds in order to kill each other. Maybe I could change my rework to accommodate that. But nothing is perfect, and you can't hate on something because of a small flaw. Look at what's good, and take that. If you think parts of this rework are good and parts are bad, comment what those good and bad parts are! The first thing to improving something is getting feedback, and that's what I need from you guys.

 

If my post needs a TLR, here's a better summary of the changes

- Firing the bow will disable it for 1 second
- Snipes only deal True Damage instead of Instant Kills

+ Bow has new charge mechanic
+ When the bow is fully drawn back, your exp bar fills up over the course of 3 seconds. Firing the bow, putting the bow away (to pull out your sword or whatever), or dying will deplete the bar completely.
+ The bow gets bonus damage as the bar fills up. When the bar is empty (I.e. the bow just finished being drawn back), the bow deals 10 damage (5 hearts). For every 1/10 of the bar being filled (takes .3 seconds), the bow deals an extra half heart of damage. At max charge (3 seconds) it deals 10 hearts. Since, snipes deal true damage, if you hit someone at snipe range with a max charged arrow, you'll get an Instant Kill

Firstly, I want to clarify you don't get true damage at close range. It's only with a snipe. The only buff Archer gets at close range is the double damage if you charge your bow for 4 seconds. When you combine the max charge 4 second charge shot with the true damage of snipe, then you can deal Instant Kills.

The rework doesn't keep Archer strong at close range. It essentially lets you double your damage if you charge for 4 seconds. Let me point out that you can shoot non exp but fully drawn arrows once every 2.2 seconds, while you can only shoot the full charged arrows once every 5.2 seconds. This means you can shoot 2 full drawn arrows in less time than it takes to shoot one full EXP charged arrow. So you actually get more damage output by going for non EXP Arrows. The only benefit that EXP arrows give at close range is if you have a full charged shot before the fight (maybe you were aiming at someone and you got ambushed, and you 180 and land an arrow in their face), or you're being chased and charge a shot at a corner to hit the enemy with a full charge shot and fight them as a last resort.

I think having to draw the bow back for longer (4.2 seconds may be extreme though) is fine. You can still get regular full charged arrows with the old charge time. If you want the double damage for Instant Kills though, you'll have to wait longer. It's simply to stop arrow spam.

Btw the cacti thing was just so I could add a vote to the poll so I can view results without having to affect the votes. I don't know why the poll creator doesn't get to see the results.