Idea Archer Proposal

Adding on to this, it might be cool to see the hs range increased to 40 blocks instead of 30. most buildings are 20-30 blocks high, so getting to that range is pretty easy imo.

 

This particular idea has been passed around quite a few times, and personally this is my favorite. I wouldn't want the head shot range to go to 40, as it seems too long. I'd rather compromise between 30 and 40 and do 35 blocks. But yes, I do love this idea.

 

This is probably one of the better ideas regarding punishing archers. I could see the first idea being implemented, but for the second idea to be plausible the archer would probably need to have more than 10 arrows. This is because people can miss, and if someone gets in a long archer battle (where archers go through dozens of arrows to try and kill the other archer) both archers could run out of arrows. But since the point of archer isn't to 1v1, this isn't a major issue.

So, I could see the first idea being added, or the second one if it were to be slightly tweaked.

 

This suggestion counters bowspam since accuracy with your shots is a big deal with a low supply of arrows. That said, I think removing the punch from the bow is punishment enough. Bowspam is a dumb tactic unless it actually does something - repeatedly knocking enemies away through the punch (as you've said) - and without the cc the punch provides, no archer who's playing seriously is going to spam random arrows at any range. You don't need to severely limit Archer's no. of arrows to achieve that.

That's one issue I have with this idea. The other is that you haven't addressed the biggest problem with Archer, the long ranged instant kill. It is a completely broken mechanic which, depending on the class you're playing and how Archer friendly the map is, can be downright unfair. Making it so Archer can't get one shots quite as often as it currently does doesn't fix the problem. It's still there, you've just obfuscated it.

-1

 

I dislike any modification limiting Archer's arrows too much. Some of my favorite things to do as Archer is to duel 2 or 3 enemy archers at once, which tends to consume many arrows. Giving Archer 10 arrows that renew once every 8 seconds takes the wind out of these sorts of duels. Most of the time will become waiting for arrows to replenish instead of actually dueling.

That being said, the headshot needs to go. Instakilling players at full health is not fair or balanced. With that being said, here is my suggestion:
Archer starts with half a stack of arrows and regenerates one every three seconds up to the half stack. If the Archer is lining up and taking careful shots, this will never ever be an arrow limitation, but bowspammers will quickly run their arrows down.
Archer arrows do true damage equal to the distance traveled divided by 4, capped to a maximum of 8 hearts.
Same armor, same steak, same sword, no enchant on the bow (punch is asking for people to bowspam).

This puts headshots more on par with pyro: debilitating but not just dead. Most of the time Archer can still headshot people from about 30 blocks and kill them if they've been roughed up a bit, but if they are at full health they can just heal up (steak or medic or...) without it being game over. This means if you want to not die to an Archer, just keep your health high.

Hopefully we can get to a solution that everyone can be happy (or at least equally unhappy) with and we can move on to the more fun task of making a class relevant (I'm looking at you, necro).

 

Yes to the fact that this counters bowspam, no to the amount of arrows. I agree with munson that punch removal should be enough punishment already, no need to add an Arrow reduction (with regenerating arrows) to that.
Remove Punch I or Arrow reduction.

About the Arrow reduction, I don't like it just being 15 arrows, any archer is likely to miss long ranged shots in order to attempt headshots and 15 arrows would be a very minimal amount, I'd prefer seeing it be lowered to 20-30 arrows.

 

uhh haha the problem with archer is its unpreventable insta kill which this solution does not solve

 

In the current meta we need an instakill archer to actually do stuff. If the meta changes, we can start changing archer's instakill. I like this idea: it keeps instakill, but it actually punishes archers for missing.
There's no point in removing instakill rn, offense would have an even easier time getting out of flagrooms

 

But we keep missing the point which is that the randies will still play this class as long as headshot is there. Keep in mind that archer is one of the only 4 free classes that new people start out with and why do many randies use archer? Its to get more kills because of the hs, many of us when we were first randies ourselves tried to go after as many kills as possible because we wanted to feel good and we never played the objective. The reason archer is so annoying in casual games is because so many people use it to just get kills! If new players find another class that appeals to them, then the amount of people playing archer will die down significantly to maybe only archer mains. But I wouldn't want to nerf its headshot maybe bowspam but its headshot should stay. What we should focus on doing to make other classes more appealing to new players is to develop counters to archer for each class (exp elf can deflect arrows and hs archers with elf shield). Keep in mind I got this idea after a discussion with @LordCh4os

 

You listed three problems with Archer in this thread. How fast Archer gets kills, how easy it is to get those kills, and how there is no real counter to it. Your changes fix one of those problems, how fast Archer gets kills, and nothing else.

You never said that the point of this proposal was to keep instakill. You just assumed that a rework and replaced Archer's instakill was (more or less) a nonstarter. Because of that what you have is a rework that just makes Archer more annoying to play while being just about as annoying/unfair to play against.

What is the point of that?

 

What you have to consider is not just the average player in casual, but also the team scene. A nerf to headshot would mean the looming threat of a headshot in a stalemate, or just leaving the flag room, is significantly lower. Imo this would hurt the team scene, which should also be taken into consideration.