Nuro's harp needs to be buffed a bit

Nuro's Harp problem:

Attacks per Second: (1.32 to 1.38)

For comparison, some other bow attack speed:

Attacks per Second: (1.59 to 1.67)

This is 20% LESS added flat damage scaling, and this is what Elemental builds (which base of elemental weapons) want to do.

While its utility is nice, the Other Bow's utility is even better.

This thread again,

the issue with nuros harp is two fold.

1 its an elemental weapon
2 its an elemental weapon with a shit base speed.


for 1 elemental weapons are presently the weakest weapon type in the game. they dont get as many scalers as physical both in gems , passives and mods. and since it is so easy to convert 100% physical to elemental it makes more sense to just go physical


elemental cant really use melee physical or physical projectiles , or hatred /ash or abysus.. physical to elemental can use all of those and then easily use weapon elemental.


originally what made elemental weapons even half good was the fact that physical weapons could not be converted to elemental without either major restrictions or major loss in damage.

And what made the really good elemental weapons excellent was having a high base attack speed to scale all the flat added ele sources. your wraths , your flat ele mods on a 2.0 aps weapon were twice as effective than on a 1.0 aps weapon etc.


so in the end nuro's harp is quadruply scorned.

It has none of the bonuses of physical to elemental conversion
it lacks the few strengths of pure elemental (attack speed to scale flat damage)
it has all the draw backs of pure elemental (ie leech is hard to come by)
and to top it all off it is low base damage


nothing about that bow is good.

so if they want to buff it , it is simple give it an aps boost a significant one. 1.5 - 1.6 and the bow will be usable with flat damage mods

no need to have the 20% less damage . as i have pointed out before pure elemental weapons like nuro arent so amazing as to need such draw backs. their inherent nature already limits them just fine

The low attack speed is an intentional design decision that won't be buffed.

There are already plenty of unique bows with high attack speed if your goal is to min-max flat elemental damage modifiers; rare bows also cover this niche rather effectively. To make another bow that's just the same as existing options doesn't make sense to me. My unique's low attack speed and pure cold damage promotes using a very different tree and very different support choices.

I also went with low attack speed as it allows for higher flat damage on the weapon when being balanced, which is important for successfully freezing targets. If the DPS aspect of the item were to be buffed I'd rather see the flat cold damage increased.

That said I'm not really sure that a DPS increase is necessary. The item is designed with a defensive focus in mind and currently isn't cutting it for more support-oriented builds, so you should expect that aspect to be examined instead. This would also benefit survival for a DPS-oriented build, though.

@Grizzledmoe:

Yes I did indeed managed to put together a rather good one. Now it has a tooltip DPS of 6238.7 for the level 17 ice shot.
That is with a herald of ice and an ice golem.

The gems I use in order are: ice shot->increased crit damage support->Phys. proj. attack damage support->Weapon ele. damage support->Faster projectiles support.

I left in the phys. proj. attack damage support because that is the best choice for that place.
Also I didn't want to fuck up the color setup of my chest since last time it took me nearly 50 chroms to get the "perfect" setup.

Since I'm 5L "only" I use a single projectile, because an LMP would make my DPS even lower.

I decided to stick with the build even when I could have 7-8K damage with the Infractem if I were to go full physical ice shot.

@Nuro:

On the other hand I think I know what's this bow's real problem. It has no physical damage, at all. Now there's another "end game" unique that utilizes only ele. damage: Oro's Sacrifice. BUT it makes up for it by having a motherload of ele DPS. 475-600 on a perfect roll.
Your bow only has third of that damage. The only pro there is that it's a ranged weapon and curently GGG favors ranged builds over melee. But that could change any time. Not likely, but who knows. For example: Starforge is a great melee unique if someone is able to get it. It is obviously a bait for essence league and will be nerfed later like reach of the council, but that's not the point here.

So if you're willing to help out then make it's max flat ele damage 190- 310 instead of 140-210. Also your's id a level 68 bow, so it shouldn't be outclassed by the level 53 Infractem, even if it's for defensive builds. It's just my personal opinion.

"

Nuro wrote:

The low attack speed is an intentional design decision that won't be buffed.

I'm aware GGG likes/loves to troll their user-base, I get that and I live with it. This bow is shit, and is among the 2-3 worst items in the game. Litterally any other bow, e.g. a bow with 98 phys dmg will be better off for you.

"

There are already plenty of unique bows with high attack speed if your goal is to min-max flat elemental damage modifiers

This makes no sense- they didn't remove the other non-1.67as bows from the game when they added 1.67as bows to the game, so your point begs the question, "why?"

"

To make another bow that's just the same as existing options doesn't make sense to me.

As mentioned above this is a very very very bad item, litterally any other bow would be better able to do what bows are supposed to do which leads me to...

"

The item is designed with a defensive focus in mind...

Gais, I'm gonna make a toon that keeps y'all alive by being defensive- how you ask? By equipping a bow that does no phys dmg! <You have been kicked from the guild by xXKrongmeisterXx>

"

Nuro wrote:

I also went with low attack speed as it allows for higher flat damage on the weapon when being balanced, which is important for successfully freezing targets. If the DPS aspect of the item were to be buffed I'd rather see the flat cold damage increased.

That would be good, a successful elemental weapon can be slow but it must have really high base then - case in point: Oro.

"

Nuro wrote:

The low attack speed is an intentional design decision that won't be buffed.

The problem is - bow doesnt provide any serious benefits to justify its low attack speed.
It could have huge base crit chance (something like 10%, or even more) or multiplier. Does it have that? No!
It could have high base damage (like Oro's Sacrifice). But its damage isnt high! We're talking about ~180 cold damage without any physical damage, and ~250 elemental DPS... Pathetic.
It could have some cool unique bonuses. Well, it creates Chilling Ground. But every archer can do this with Ice Shot! It also creates Consecrated Grounds, but it's just a bit of life regen, and it spawns under an enemy as far as i remember. Another fail..
It requires 68 level, so it isnt a "leveling" unique (like Doomfletch or something)

So, tell me, what's the actual benefit of using such a bow? I see none!
Oh, and if low attack speed is intetional, why it has an attack speed mod?

"

Saranghaeyo_ wrote:

But there's a good reason this weapon sells for 5 alts or less now.

I vendor it for 5 chance recipe (it's easy to collect). A pathetic fate for "would-be-endgame" unique.

"

Nuro wrote:

The low attack speed is an intentional design decision that won't be buffed.

There are already plenty of unique bows with high attack speed if your goal is to min-max flat elemental damage modifiers; rare bows also cover this niche rather effectively. To make another bow that's just the same as existing options doesn't make sense to me. My unique's low attack speed and pure cold damage promotes using a very different tree and very different support choices.

I also went with low attack speed as it allows for higher flat damage on the weapon when being balanced, which is important for successfully freezing targets. If the DPS aspect of the item were to be buffed I'd rather see the flat cold damage increased.

That said I'm not really sure that a DPS increase is necessary. The item is designed with a defensive focus in mind and currently isn't cutting it for more support-oriented builds, so you should expect that aspect to be examined instead. This would also benefit survival for a DPS-oriented build, though.

well.. idea is neat. but this game does not work this way.

the only and i mean only thing that works in this game is direct damage. DoTs have immunities, status aliments have immunities and thresholds.

what works great in Tier 2 map falls apart in Tier 10 and is straight irrelevant in Tier 15 - and one of such things are freezes

ive made probably the most expensive cold snapper in existence - he also relies on freezes for safety and shatter. and it works great in yellow maps. but red maps have tough mobs (and freezes simply cannot be relied upon) and this beautiful mod 'enemies cannot be affected by status aliments'.

same fate with this bow - it is a low-map item. and as such is pretty much relegated to skin transfer (nice one btw) or 5 chance recipe. i wouldnt mind that if that bow was req lvl52 or something (like Infractem that is perfectly fine as an endgame weapon when built around) but it is lvl68! at that time even self found guys have comparable bows at their disposal

as for the support utility - Ice Shot provides the same chilling ground regardless of your cold damage. so - to be frank - it is a missed shot.



im affraid that Doomfletch Prism might do better at this freezing business..

"

Nuro wrote:

The low attack speed is an intentional design decision that won't be buffed.

There are already plenty of unique bows with high attack speed if your goal is to min-max flat elemental damage modifiers; rare bows also cover this niche rather effectively. To make another bow that's just the same as existing options doesn't make sense to me. My unique's low attack speed and pure cold damage promotes using a very different tree and very different support choices.

I also went with low attack speed as it allows for higher flat damage on the weapon when being balanced, which is important for successfully freezing targets. If the DPS aspect of the item were to be buffed I'd rather see the flat cold damage increased.

That said I'm not really sure that a DPS increase is necessary. The item is designed with a defensive focus in mind and currently isn't cutting it for more support-oriented builds, so you should expect that aspect to be examined instead. This would also benefit survival for a DPS-oriented build, though.

And this is the problem. If you are to be freeze oriented with added chilled ground, you may as well just use rare bow, Hatred, use Ice Shot and end up doing FAR more damage (and thus freezes) than with this bow. Not to mention physical damage part.

It simply doesn't have enough options to scale its base damage - all you can do is add WED, and hope for the best with the freeze, while with physical->cold rare conversion bow, you can use variety of bonuses. While I see where you are going with this bow, freezing requires you to do damage. And quite simply this bow will never do enough of it to be useful as a freeze weapon.

If I were to fix this bow, I'd add Increased Freeze/Chill duration on it (probably something around 50%-100%), so that it can actually do what it was designed for, without being too OP in damage department. But I'm still not sure if that would be enough. :c