Archer is annoying

nerd

 

Just remove the punch II. boom

 

you're just ez <3

 

I appreciate the effort you put into this, but I've had a much simpler solution in mind for a while that could be better for everyone. Make the bow Punch 0.5 or something (even Punch I is a little much), or get rid of it entirely and give the archer's sword Knockback I.

Your little rework seems to encourage running away (I think you said something about that), but cowardly archers are almost as annoying as Punch-spamming archers. However taking the ranged aspect out of knocking back a player (putting it in the sword instead of in the bow) not only encourages getting your hands dirty but makes it inevitable. Removing archer's ability to push away close-range attackers entirely will only encourage long-range camping even more, but only being able to knock people back at point-blank range should be a good compromise to both allow archers to get people away and allow PvPers to get in close enough to deal some damage and/or even get a combo. The archer always has the chance to flee and then turn around and deal damage with the bow.

 

My idea has been to disable the bow for a second or so (We can always work out exact numbers later) after shooting.

And have the Snipe/Headshot mechanic work different. Basically, when your bow is fully charged, your exp bar fills up over around 3 seconds (again, numbers, we can change these). Any shots at 30m or more while this exp bar is filling up will Snipe. If you shoot or switch away from your bow, your exp bar depletes.

Now here's a change to Snipe itself: As I said, the Snipe only works when your bow is fully charged. Snipes deal true damage. And, as your exp bar fills up, your arrows get a damage multiplier. When the bar just starts filling up, you deal 10 damage/5 ( hearts on Snipes. At 50% charge, you deal around 15 damage/7.5 hearts. At a full exp bar, you deal 20 damage/10 hearts, which is an instant kill. Basically, after fully charging a bow, you can charge your bow even further with your exp bar to deal true damage on snipes and even instant kills (depending on how long you charge).

This fixes bowspam, and instant kill spam. With the 1 second delay, Archers can no longer spam uncharged bow shots. This makes it much easier to approach and kill them. Secondly, they can now only shoot instant kills once every 5 seconds (1 second for bow cooldown, 1 second for bow charge, 4 seconds for exp charge), which prevents them from raining death and getting unfair kills. They still have the aspect of area denial, but now they really serve as a long range recovery, pick class rather than a destroy everyone class. The main downside to this is that Archer battles are going to be really stale without quickdraws.

This is just my idea though. I think @Chap wants to remove instant kills from CTF for good (which I don't approve of), so my idea will probably never be implemented.

 

haaaaahhhaaaahhaaa

 

What other long range class?

 

Mage is mid-range, Pyro is a melee class that happens to have an explosive bow, and Elf is really more of a mid-ranged class. Also easily killed? Archer is the only and best long-ranged class.

 

any "headshot" by archer should bring enemies down to half a heart no matter what health they were on before, then deal that extra half heart about a second later. archer would still get plenty of kills but there's a way to counter it now

 

So you're saying that since Archer can sometimes be killed or 'knocked off whatever' by some ranged class that it is not OP? That's like saying that invisible capturing (which used to be a thing) by Ninja's isn't OP but just a little irritating because sometimes the Ninja might die, or drop the flag somehow!

Point being, you have no argument here. Archer relies on an insanely broken instant kill and just because the class may not always get a massive killstreak or is 'mildly annoying' instead of 'utterly infuriating to fight against' does not make it not in need of a serious rework.

@1337Noooob there is no reason for Archer instant kills to stay in the game. Trying to balance them, which is impossible, is naturally a pointless venture since it would require a lot of nerfs (like your snowball instant kill rework) which renders the instant kill almost useless. That makes a non instant kill solution, such as dot damage, not only more reasonable, less contrived, and more fair.

And my god @pookeythekid is imitating me with extremely long and thoughtful posts. What is going on?!

@iMuffles big fan of that rework but with one tweak: 9 hearts of true damage with 1 heart total over the next 2 seconds.

 

I didn't do my research on Minecraft mechanics, but my general idea still stands. Reduce archer's ability to knock back players, and make that knockback apply to close-quarters combat. Archer is supposed to take damage at short range because it's a long ranged class; having Punch II was a bad call by MCPVP because it made a long-ranged class more of a class that can convert mid-range into long-range, and with some skill that can effectively amount to mid- to long-range domination and high kill streaks. I actually don't believe it's all that easy to knock a player back from 10 to 30 blocks then achieve a final snipe shot (it pretty much requires twice the skill of an average successful elf), but it's still possible, and even if it fails you can run away from the attacker.

Anyway, having whatever form of knockback (0.25-0.5?) attached to the sword is meant to force archers to get in close in order to then push players farther away, but not too far away, because too far results in two things: 1. the archer can't possibly get the kill anyway, and 2. too far would be more effective and more annoying than Punch 2 spam, and it could easily be abused as a Get Out of Death Free card (except you have an infinite stack! Welcome to Pookey's Monopoly!) k sorry about that.

Although archer is actually an okay pvp class, no archer wants to fight a heavy or a medic or a mage or a soldier or very many things at all with a stone sword. Why? Because spamming Punch 2 is much more convenient and really cheats the idea of archer being weaker at short range. A knockback sword would still allow enemies to have a chance at proving the class's range definition while still allowing the archer to not get squished. Also, I know well from using the Pure Element: one shot from an arrow is enough to stop them coming toward you; a shot with an arrow accompanied by a hit with a knockback sword should be plenty effective.

See below.

This reminds me of @Admiral_Munson's rework, except this is much closer to instakill while still not being so. But if @1337Noooob's idea were to be implemented, I think the final damage of instakill should be replaced with exactly this idea (if not Munson's "critical wounds", but this is closer to instant kills if Brawl decides to keep it as close to that as possible).

And finally for Noooob: I like pretty much every part of your idea, although perhaps the charge time could be knocked down to 3 seconds (I think you said 3 and 4 in different parts, but I'm thinking you meant 4). Also, I'd like to keep archer fights interesting, so perhaps archers do the full amount of damage on any 30+ block shot? If Muffles' idea is implemented, if an archer is struck while having their bow loaded, there's a good chance they won't react and steak fast enough to avoid death; the reaction time may be even slower at the moment the archer has stopped strafing and started loading their bow. It's still much like an instakill, though slightly less punishing, and landing just one or two more shots on your opponent should kill them.

(@LordChaos_92 @LordChaos_93 @BrandinoB @WirefireHD @wintergreen3 [all mah archer frends <3] thoughts??)

edit: Also,

Mage may or may not be successful by using lightning to do this; pyro has no form of real knockback and fire damage is quite a slow way to kill people; elf... please, don't make that kind of a mean joke about elf's weak abilities (don't argue for wind element, it's useless); and any and every of these classes will most often be shooting toward the front side of the archer, which, if they succeed in knocking them back, will probably knock them back onto some kind of flat surface rather than send them flying off of a 1x1-block pole.

 

Mage's Damage Spell only travels 15m, while are Archers often 30 or more away. Unless you expect them to land the fire spell, they can't do anything to a long range Archer.

Pyro's arrows might annoy the Archer at best. Archers often have high ground, and it's much harder to land explosive shots against enemies with high ground. If the Archer is really in trouble they can just run away because they're so far away from the actual action.

The only reasonable counter to Archer at long range is Elf, and that's only if the Archer is REALLY bad. If you can get a reflect Headshot, then cool, but good Archers should dodge them easily since the trajectory is literally what they just shot, but backwards. The Elf probably won't die to the Archer, but neither will it be able to kill the Archer unless the Archer doesn't know how to WASD (or IJKL, or whatever you guys use)

 

learned from the best

aayy at least tag me in small font! ;-; </3 jk i forgive you brandino friend <33

If any new abilities are added to a ranged class, it should go to elf first. And elf is deserving of an array of new abilities; archer is indeed supposed to be simple, as you said.

My idea of the best solution for a headshot nerf that you might be okay with:

(actually I think it should be over the next 1.5 seconds, 0.75 seconds per health loss)

Probably last edit to this post: It's great how most (experienced and rational) archer mains are finding ways to nerf/rework the class. Speaks volumes about its power.

 

Well, like it or not this idea is. . . confusing. While this may do the trick, I feel like they could make it much simpler. And rework the whole class. That's really what it needs.

Honestly I just thought they should put the kb 1-2 on the sword and take the punch off the bow, and then later when they (hopefully) come up with a rework for it, find a way to make it still effective while fairly easy to play.

Getting a bit off topic to the archer headshots:
While I'm all for simplicity, I kind of like the idea of archer getting different kinds of arrows, a bit like elf. Explosive, maybe like a triple shot (if that's able to be coded), a shot thatll give a player slowness and poison or whatever (hopefully available in vanilla with 1.9 update), with the bow having power II or something, power I or nothing with the more special arrows. But again, this makes the class complicated, more difficult to be effective and just eh.

The idea @iMuffles talked about seems to be the most. . . idk, kind of balanced arrangement?? But even then, it can either still be to OP or UP. Yes I know that's 9 hearts or whatever of damage, but any regular could probably do that in enough time to make it almost ineffective. The chances of the archer getting another shot on them are fairly low after that, if they begin to take evasive maneuvers. But on the other hand, if they don't have any health then they're basically dead.

Idk, maybe we just need to do away with the class and find a suitable replacement. Yes, that is coming from an archer "main." Buuutttt I'm also more of an all around player now, not just archer. So I know what it's like :I

That being said, it's a huge hit to the players, so it will most likely not happen. But I really don't see a way to nerf the headshot w/o making archer very ineffective and difficult to play.

 

Instant Kills do have a use in games, and they could be really valuable to the CTF meta game if implemented CORRECTLY.

Here's my thoughts on Instant Kills, which you may or may not have heard about before: Despite being so powerful at killing, Instant Killers should not be focused around killing.

The reason an Instant Kill is so powerful is because it's Instant! Take one wrong step, and it may be Instant Death. Because of this, Instant Killers can play an extremely strong mind game. A Ranged Instant Kill class like Archer COULD be designed around area denial, dissuading people from traversing areas where an Archer may patrol. A vulnerable melee Instant Killer like Assassin COULD be designed around paranoia and key pick kills on targets like Flag Carriers, Engineers, Medics, and Dwarves.

The problem is, in CTF the Instant Killers are so strong that not only can they play strong mental games, but they can also just kill a ton of people! Archer can spam arrows, quickdraw, and basically be an untouchable god of death at 30m. Assassin can just run into a crowd and almost guarantee being able to take out 1-2 people.

Instant Killers should be extremely strong at killing players who slip up, but overall be easy to avoid/kill. They should be punished heavily for missing their Instant Kills. You've kinda got that with Assassin, who you can block and then kill in one hit, but Archer is a whole different story. They can keep shooting arrows. It doesn't matter if they miss, because they can just shoot another a second later, either to get extra tries at killing the same person, or to mow down a crowd from range. And if an enemy gets close? Punch 2 Bows to spam them away. That doesn't sound fitting of the role Archer is supposed to be.

The point of my rework was to make Archer more punishing to make mistakes as. If you miss at long range, you'll have to charge another shot up again, and it you miss in CQC, your bow will be disabled for a short amount of time.

My rework isn't a snowball, and it certainly isn't making Archer "useless". A snowball is a thing that gains momentum the longer it is in play until it becomes super overpowered. Like Dwarf. Survive for a few minutes while crouching and you'll start to kill things in one hit. My Archer rework is like this: charge your bow longer to deal more damage, lose all of your charge when you shoot. It's almost as if it was like you could draw your bow back even further. In fact, I was originally going to suggest "make the bow take longer to draw back" but figured the charging mechanic would make it easier to apply existing bow skills to Archer.

The Archer simply can't spam anymore. You can't spam Punch 2 arrows, and you certainly can't just Instant Kill everything anymore. This could actually improve teamwork, believe it or not. If you know your teammate's damaged a player, you might be able to sit m shoot arrows with less exp charge and still kill them. But if you really want to take out the big targets that Medics are healing 24/7, you're going to have to charge, aim, and take your shot.

The problem about anything that isn't Instant Kill is that it's not Instant. I feel no fear of Pyros at long range. Even if they take me down to low health, I can easily Steak and leave before burning.

If a player knows an Archer is around with DoT Snipes, they might just run right past them while holding Steak. A bit of an exaggeration, but you know what I mean.

With Instant Kills, you know an Archer's waiting for you, so you actually have to think it through. "Should I take the longer route to get around the Archer, or should I risk dying Instantly so I can get there faster?" This adds a lot of depth and strategy to the game. Maybe you have everyone rush the Archer at once. He'll kill maybe one of you, but then will get swarmed. Since they can't spam that Instant Death/Punch anymore, they might actually have to retreat or die. Or maybe your send in a Ninja to distract them while you have other people sneak by. There are so many possibilities!

There are so many ways a game can play with Instant Kills. The problem with CTF isn't that Instant Kills can't work. The problem is that MCPvP was just really bad at balancing classes properly. I'm excited to see what Brawl does. Unfortunately, it's basically been confirmed that Instant Kills will be removed entirely at some point, so I'm basically arguing over a lost cause, but I just need to rant out my thoughts and feelings.