[LLD] any bow-balancing before tournaments?

Since we have only a few days left before the pvp season starts and seeing that the new damage formula messes with quite a few builds and pigeonholes characters, I really want to know:

Will we see any balance changes before the race season starts?

I am not talking about HLD obviously because imbalance was to be expected there, but LLD seems to be at a worse spot than pre-patch in terms of diversity in bow builds.

Explanation


The new damage formula essentially buffs every shotgunning skill in the game, as more damage per hit is not making much difference. In terms of bow skills, there is only one such skill. I don't need to mention it here, because it's the Skill that you will see in every 1vs1 if your opponent uses a bow. As you can probably already guess, I was one of the few people trying to avoid using that skill, because i don't like the play-style associated with it. I ran a burning arrow build (was doing alright, much worse then TS but it worked pre-patch). Now my hopes are gone of ever making that build viable.

Yesterday i switched my burning arrow gem with tornado shot (I literally just switched one gem, no supports, no gear) and suddenly my damage went up by a lot, almost one-shotting some people. This is despite the fact that my burning arrow tooltip dps was like almost 3 times higher. To me it seems like in those past months of balancing they either havent looked at LLD bow meta at all, or they just looked at the tooltip dps to consider if a skill is strong or not. They obviously didnt account for the shotgun-effect, which would have to be another variable in the equation. if i shoot 3 arrows (which is possible with corrupted gear alone, no need for supports!) i already have a 200% more damage multiplier that bypasses the damage reduction. You can easily get a lot more arrows going.. do you really think a 20% less damage penalty takes care of that?

What i find especially saddening is, that of all bow skills Tornado Shot is the only one, that doesnt even need proper aiming, has free pierce (ignores frostwall) and can shoot around corners. I just don't see any reason to consider other bow skills (That is skills, that scale from bow damage in a conventional way, not talking about puncture or EA, as they are functionally very different and have to be balanced differently).



If we don't see some changes, will we see them in the middle of the season?
I think it would be odd to mess around with people's builds while events are running.

I want to know this because I'm feeling forced to play one particular build right now and I'm not sure if it's even worth crafting/buying gear for it right now because it's just seems so obviously broken.

Sorry for my english, i hope there aren't too many mistakes .





Last edited by Xorim on Dec 15, 2014, 11:55:05 AM
Yeah, bows should be cut in damage by half. Also ek traps. And elreon crafted multiple mods items prohibited from low lvl pvp.
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SidleJinks wrote:
Yeah, bows should be cut in damage by half. Also ek traps. And elreon crafted multiple mods items prohibited from low lvl pvp.


Cutting bow damage in half would totally ruin any bow build. And disabling elreon multi mod would make being rich enough to be able to et/ex your item an insane advantage.

Tornado shot probably need a pvp dmg nerf (cant nerf all bow dmg if you want other bow skills to be viable). Also better map (the current ones are small with perfect desync pillars all over the place making traps op and bow just happpens to be the best trappers)
How is poison arrow in LLD? With increased duration?
Seems in HLD its pretty viable, except against CI(but is that even possible in LLD?)
They can spam the whole arena full with poison that lingers long, killing almost everybody, and high runspeed to stay out of harms way.

If you hope for balanced PVP in this game, that even has low level legacy items: don't make me laugh.
This game is about time investment (or RMT money) and not about skill.
While the build diversity is a big plus in PvE it seems to be not the case in PvP, making it pure pay or play to win and only a very small amount of skill-based (assuming a decent APM)
IGN: Artimunor
Poison Arrow is an entirely different thing, it doesn't scale with your bow damage (more like EA). And yes I don't like the mechanic of Poison Arrow either, as it requires no aiming at all. It seems to be very popular in HLD because many people don't have max chaos resist. But i would hardly call it viable because we also have CI builds.

I am just pointing out the fact that the "normal" bow skills are just overshadowed by Tornado Shot, because it is so ridiculous effective while not requiring much skill.


If your using "normal" Bow Skills and your opponent casts a frost wall, you have to react, step aside, use Blink Arrow or Mine ect (or use pierce gem, but it's use is questionable in LLD because your not getting to 100%). With Tornado Shot, you just continue to shoot, as it ignores frost wall.

If your using "normal" Bow Skills and your opponent hides behind a wall, you have to move your ass. With Tornado Shot, you just hold that right mouse button a bit longer, until your opponent dies, it only depends on RNG how long it will take for that.

How is it that with all this, Tornado Shot still does more damage than anything else? I think it would be apropriate to scale the damage down for this Skill, for other bow skills an increase of damage certainly wouldn't hurt, because you actually have to do something to get an hit in with those skills.(again: not EA or PA, they don't scale with bow damage!)



I think this is something that GGG has to decide very fast, if they don't do something now, they probably won't for the whole season, when people have already commited to their builds.

Agreed with everyone who's talking about TS nerf.

No other bow skill can shoot around corners, attack huge AOE, and have an autopiercing first arrow. It destroys squishy builds: it's the ultimate crowd control skill.

Bows are fine as they are. Just nerf THIS skill via PvP formula adjustment. Hell, nerf it through the PvE aspect, if you want the TS exploiters QQing about it on the forums for days.
IGN: ArborealTeapot [Standard]
~Your Happy Hugfriend~ (Not Hugfiend...)

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