Regarding Bowspam

Neat.

 

10/10

 

So how did the heavy get 6 blocks away from the Archer before getting headshotted???

 

Yay, i can bow spam!

 

Bowspam is incredibly inefficient. You have effectively 128 arrows to get kills with the bow. Every arrow has the potential to headshot an enemy and you're using several where a sword would be more efficient. Bow has knockback, but provided people strafe with some basic ability they should be able to overcome the knockback the bow receives given it's now only punch 1 not 2.

Damage wise: Looking up online the bows drawback time takes approximately 1200 milliseconds. Obviously you won't be using that much bowspamming, but to compensate the damage is going to be lower. Minecraft has a half second invincibility period after taking damage (when the person goes red) but using a sword means you could still get 2 hits within a second. The base damage of a stone sword is 5, meaning you'd hit for 10 half hearts worth of damage in a second. At full power (taking 1200ms, not the usual second) the bow is going to be doing 9 half hearts with a 20% chance of doing 10. This is more inefficient for lower power arrows because of that half second invincibility period. That time means that bowspam wise you'd be doing 2 half hearts a second + knockback (at maximum efficiency). That means damage wise you're better off using the sword in close range encounters than using a bow, as well as it not consuming your arrows to potentially use to headshot people later. It's pretty much a no brainer- for short range you're better off with the sword.

Bowspam knockback might keep you from dying sure, but it's gonna take you quite a bit of time to kill the enemy. In that time you could get multiple headshots, kill a flag carrier, move to a more useful position etc. Dying is part of the game, and it gives the opportunity to restock and move to a position in which you're useful. Bowspam delays that, wastes arrows so you may well have to respawn anyway and gives the opportunity for an enemy to run across the map and cap!

By the definition of archer, yeah you fire arrows. However, unless you're fighting a heavy running directly at you, it's really not an efficient use of your time. Oh, and it's also really really annoying.

 

Perfect.

 

If you're gonna be bowspamming for the knockback on the bow is pretty much the only thing you'd be using it for. Checking online again, 1 level of punch is going to provide about 5-6 blocks of knockback. Checking the minecraft sprinting speed works out to be 5.62 blocks a second (that's not factoring in sprint jumping, which actually goes faster). As I said before, it takes 1200 milliseconds to full draw a bow, or 1.2 seconds. Remember also you don't have to be right on top of the player. I checked online and reasonably you can hit an enemy within 3-5 blocks of them (depending on ping etc). You can't just literally spam as many arrows as possible, you do need some charge time, or the arrow won't even move past a single block. With all this information, realistically even if you were to bowspam, the chances are you'd have to hit every single arrow to reasonably bowspam them further than they could run (especially with better pvpers who's reactions will be better and they'll be able to resume running much more quickly). The chances are if you miss even a couple they're going to get some damage back off on you. Given the power of arrows is low, the damage from each individual shot is low (minimum 1 half heart). If you're bowspamming another archer you're gonna need about 5 arrows hit for every 1 sword slash on you.

Turning around to run away can potentially work, but you don't really gain anything by continuing to bowspam. Factoring in the reaction time to turn around and begin bowspamming again, the player chasing you will have likely already caught up most if not all of the distance you gained bowspamming the first time (given it's a 5-6 block knockback and sprint speed). Your argument would have held up if it were punch 2 because the knockback distance is 9 blocks. That would be farther than a player could run in 1.2 seconds allowing for consecutive hits to knock them out of range. Given it's punch 1 however, that 5-6 block range makes the knockback pretty negligible (they can cover that distance in less time than it takes you to fully draw the bow again, or turn around and half draw it).

Basically, it made sense to bowspam for the knockback when it was punch 2, but now that benefit is pretty negligible. You'd have to be perfectly accurate with every bowspam shot to see even any benefit. Other than it basically delays the inevitable death. I'll reiterate what I said before- unless you're fighting a straightlining walking heavy, you're not going to be benefiting at all from it. Oh and it's also really really annoying

 

Couldn't the archer just run away and save time+arrows?

 

Isn't 'you could just run away' the same counter to headshots that people hate?

Saying an archer shouldn't use its most effective weapon is like saying that a heavy should use its fists in combat, or that a mage should only attack with its hoe instead of its' spells. Why would you do that?

 

Oh so that's what Archer is? An annoying little dweeb with a bow and a collection of extra pointy wooden sticks? Yeah right. I can confirm that is definitely not what an Archer actually is:



#Truth #CanConfirm #StopTheBullsh*t #PreachTheTruth!

 

except as I've already shown earlier it's actually very inefficient to use a bow in this situation. You're better off using the sword for damage over time in short range encounters. Running away is the most inefficient way to deal damage in this situation given you're dealing none, but it doesn't make the bowspam the most efficient by any means

 

Yes it is, I hate it as well. Don't see what this has to do with bow spamming

I'm not saying you shouldn't use the bow in general here. If a heavy is charging at you, as @LordCh4os explained above, spamming the bow wastes valuable arrows and doesn't accomplish much of anything.

Why run away? Well you'd save time, arrows, your own life (which is kinda important). The real question is, why would you not? @Xaethros says

It's not very likely you'd run into enemies while running back to your own spawn (unless you're archer capping). I don't see how taking turns is dangerous, I think you probably implied something else. And, any player, regardless of ping, should only be able to hit you once before boosting you out of range. If he can hit you while you're running away, those are called hacks, not ping.

All this aside, my favorite method (@Brendoom ) is to run away and fire an arrow over my head, like a chemist throwing pots over their head to damage chasers. When pulled off, it works pretty well.

 

It's not out of the question thematically that an archer bowspams, it's more that it's a really bad idea because it's so wasteful and there's little to no benefit to doing it. Good archers wouldn't waste their time and arrows on it. How many times have you seen @BrandinoB bowspam!?

 

My response to archers who bowspam are equal amounts of damage spells to the face as well as "I can spam better than you", the only time I ever purposely spell spam is to kill bowspammers who like idiots bowspam a mage.

 

Well if bowspams an issue theres always removing punch entirely and compensating for it, i mean bowspam in general wont work but "tactical bow spam" which means bowshots that arent too shortly charged or to long to charge but inbetween, and usually thats quite effective since the halfway margin between full powered shots and spam shots is quite effective and punch makes it easy to get massive kb

And dont even say strafing counters this you and i all know its really easy to anticipate a strafe and movement in general the only class thats really good against archers is probably elf and maybe ninja

 

when someone suggests archer isnt op

 

Git gud