Archer Change Idea (Update)

You have the decency to read my 8 character message but not the message after it saying what you are saying right under it. How logical.

Anyways, I'm not talking about facing an archer in an open field 1v1 with some obstacles. No, I'm talking about archers that snipe you and you can't even see them. Zero weaknesses except common ones like other archers.

In the case of a 1v1, running is more effective than you make it seem. List of classes that can catch up/deal damage: Ninja, assassin, chemist, mage, other archers, engineers.
Just fight the ninja.
Just block the assassinate.
Just bowspam the chemist.
Just run from the mage. Might not work but who in their right mind chases you for 30 seconds to get a single kill when there are lots of other people on the server? I feel that mage has the best chance against archer in that situation and assuming there are no other people, the mage will most likely win BUT usually you would either run and hope the mage f***s off or corner it.
Fight back in the case of another archer.
Move back from the engy and snipe it.

I will re-iterate one of my suggestions. Make it unable to fire unless the bow is fully drawn. This prevents bowspamming, which is extremely annoying and makes the godly archers slightly less OP close range. Also slows down the rate of snipes because what people usually do is let go of the arrow with 3/4 or so charge.

This dodging thing you speak of works only when it's in a 1v1 and the archer doesn't run.

A class that can output insane damage to all classes at far range and can survive at close range isn't balanced at all.

 

Not going to get into a flame war about this.

This is hypocritical. Having zero weakness doesn't mean having common ones with other archers. I get what you're trying to say but an archer is an archer whether its camping or in the open. It will have the same weaknesses.

Running away is only a battle tactic when its a mock retreat. You didn't stipulate this so I'm just going to assume for the purposes of your previous posts this was not what you were implying. Running away isn't a battle tactic that deals damage, it allows you to potentially get to a safe spot, avoiding damage. Running away does not remove the problematic player, just it being a problem to you. That's bad because CTF is a team game and so it does not prevent the player from being a problem to someone else. It also fundamentally doesn't mean the class can beat the other in a 1v1, only that they can get away. If we are indeed talking about it is a battle tactic, sooner or later you'll turn around to fight and all the short range problems we've talked about earlier will come into effect, except the archer is more likely to get the first hit off.

This is wrong, every class can catch up to an archer so long as it has buffs and the other victim archer does not. If we're talking about no buffs, no other archers cannot catch up, they run at the same speed and have no ways of slowing the other player down.

Ninjas tend to take more than 1 attempt to kill an archer (regular situation, read @BrandinoB's post for more info on that) so likely the archer will win. Blocking the assassinate assumes the assassin doesn't understand the concept of blocking, and if they can fake the odds are stacked in the assassins favour because it can choose when to activate the ability. Bowspam applies to regular archers, and it gives weaker archers and advantage in that situation. For archers that do not bowspam, this becomes a battle of sword vs sword, where the chemist is going to win. If you're running away, those classes can catch up and deal damage to you before you turn around. That does not include the other classes thee, as the other 3 that you mentioned in this false statement could probably do more damage (assuming engi sets up a turret and cake mid fight etc). Every other class can outspeed if buffed and all of those could take an archer on short range.

Most mages, take it from the guy who's had to deal with them for years. People like free kills, even if they have to run to get them. Hell I see mages deliberately targeting archers just for kills because they know its an easy win.

Unless you miraculously manage to corner a mage an archer sword does not do enough damage in the time it takes for a heal spell to regenerate. Even if you're a terrible mage you can kill an archer short range, it's really not that hard. As for assuming there's no other people, I mean that can be said for every situation on CTF. It's a team game for a reason. What if there's more than 1 mage, all I can say is good luck to the archer because sure as hell that player needs a miracle.

50/50 chance assuming equal skill. This is irrelevant really cause you're taking the class difference out of the equation.

You can do that but the engineer will have probably dived for cover during that time. The engineer wont be able to kill you easily at that range, but if it's hiding it's not an easy shot. The archer will eventually come on top if it moves back, but if the engineer chases it becomes more who deals more damage first.

and what about the archers that can actually aim with low powered shots and don't bowspam? I use lower power arrows sometimes to get headshots. It's actually a really useful tactic and not counted as bowspam. Just because it's not full power doesn't mean you're spamming the thing.

Actually most of the time archers are fighting longer range so they're firing full power. It will have a limited effect on slowing down the rate of snipes because lower powered arrows have a different arc and so are hard to time correctly for newer archers. You need to be experienced to pull it off consistently. Relatively there aren't that many experienced archers and whilst yes it will lower their success rate, its not going to lower those newer players. Camping archers don't tend to use lower power arrows because they are camping, they're off centre, sometimes far out gaining the time to fully draw the bow without risk. Either way I don't see this as quite the positive thing you seem to.

You can dodge archers when you're not 1v1ing them, you just have to be aware of your surroundings.

You know what? I totally agree, archer is unbalanced at the moment. It's supposed to be powerful long range, but short range it is too strong at the moment. With that said the way a lot of your arguments have been made about the class so far are wrong. You might have played archer in the past, but it's clearly showing you haven't played it for a while since then

 

Aight so let me compromise this with a small idea. Bowspamming is annoying. But it is a legitimate tactic. HOWEVER, you should not be able to do it for an infinite amount of time (limited by number of arrows, of course). This I can agree on. Cause let's be honest, your idea of making the arrows fire if and only if the bow is fully charged.

The problem with this idea is that it really has 0 affect on the godly archers whom are the ACTUAL problem with archer. People have simply gotten too skilled with the class. They miss one shot, they'll just hit the next 2-5 they shoot. Mr. @GalaThundR has been a long time advocate of giving a sort of punishment for missing a shot, and I have to agree with him.

Fully charged or not, archers can spam arrows wherever they want. I am no stranger to this. So, I would like to visit an idea that has been mentioned a good amount in the past, which is giving archer a small amount regenerating arrows.
I suggest a regeneration time of 1 arrow per 3 seconds or so. This will be paired with a starting amount of 5 arrows, and a maximum of maayybbbee 5-8 arrows. So no matter what, an archer will not have more than 8 arrows at a time.
My reasoning for this is:
1. It takes me about 1-1.5 seconds to aim and shoot at a target. This will force me to be careful with my shots, and punish me if I miss.
2. This greatly reduces bowspam ability, while still keeping it in the game. You can do it, but only for a short amount of time.

I personally like this idea, but I don't like that archer would then be almost self sufficient. So, I suggest we reinstate the bow durability. In survival mode, a bow can be used 385 times before it breaks. That basically means you can shoot 385 arrows. Obviously, that's a bit much; I suggest we knock it down about a quarter of the health, so we'll get about 96 shots per bow "life." If you want/can be more exact, we could do 1/3.85 times full health, which would give you 100 shots. Once your bow breaks, either respawn or go find a medic to give you a new one.

This can obviously be tweaked a bit based upon gameplay, but that's my two cents if we must nerf bowspam.

 

I remember when durability was a thing and it both increased the need for teamwork (need a medic to restore your broken sh*t) and made it easier to take out high armor/tanky classes like Heavy or the Medic support by breaking their armor. I miss the dynamic that brought to the meta. +1

 

Doesnt the bow durability kinda work the same as arrows??

 

From a limitation standpoint, yes. This is just so that archer isn't virtually self sustainable, so it still has a need for medic other than steak. Isn't really needed but I would prefer it tbh

 

This is a topic that deserves serious and heated debating over the course of multiple days because...?

 

It's a point of interest for a good amount of people, so usually they'll want to talk about it. Idk why it's heated tho.

 

Take punch off the f*cking bow and put knock back on the f*cking sword

I mean I never played any class except Archer and I would completely forget I had a sword sometimes because it's f*ucking useless when you can just right click uncharged arrows, push someone back 8 blocks, and repeat until they're within headshot range or off the map.

And you can't say it's more efficient to use the sword. Arrows and lives are two commodities that Archers effectively have infinite amounts of, meaning that switching to the weapon that deals less damage more slowly and enables you to get hit more is infinitely less efficient than spamming arrows that push back the enemy so you can't even get hit in the first place using your 128 arrows per life (w/o medics or cake), with infinite lives.

Nobody has anything better to do lmao