old/new archer abilities

I'll have to agree with DerFalke on this one. Mind you, I do enjoy the grappling hook, it's a fun little toy but I'd rather see the archer actually be good at ranged combat and make a difference in a fight just as much as a knight or a battle-builder.

I'm a bit surprised to say it but I've probably had more fun playing as an alpha archer than as a beta archer. Despite the alpha archer lacking any special ammo or a kick-ass grappling hook, it did have something that made it a fun class to play (at least in my case).

It had the range and precise arrow flight to make ranged combat rewarding, especially if you could manage to hit that pesky builder a screen away. That was probably the most fun I've had in KAG as an archer, no silly ammo, no grappling hook but the ability to shoot accurately from a fairly long distance.

Maybe this might not be the answer for the current beta archer but I'd honestly trade sap, traps and any other such abilities for the alpha archer's distance, flight arrow path and speed (no stun from charged shot mind you).

 

I honestly don't care about the grapple hook.
I can't use it the way that the devs intended if I can't reasonably survive on the field.
[Seriously, it was supposed to help with mobility, and the knight-archer dance we know and love]

I don't know about alpha-beta archer range/proj. speed, but pre-update would be p nice.

 

How about archer can headshot knight and does 3 heart dmg? also archer should be faster than knight but slower when charging bow.

 

Set aside headshots, it's because of the 7 things you can do with a shield and sword that makes the Knights run faster than Archers, the Grapple Hook was supposed to fix that.

My issue is that archers have no reason to use it for transportation because they are so squishy.

As for headshots, no, that would encourage more archers to spend time on a tower spamming arrows.
And it would call for pretty dirty coding, since hit detection is based on "x" collision sphere hitting "y" collision sphere.

 

The problem with the archer is that it's lost and confused, without a satisfying or meaningful role to play. I think this could be best done by either making them a "saboteur" class, or a "support" class.

Talking more about the support class, it would be awesome if arrows stuck in enemies would make them move/attack slower, and then friendly archers could remove the arrows.

 

I want them to be a Ranged Combatant so that they can reasonably define themselves in TTH, and RDM.
Much like the prior updates, they could deal with Knights.

I'd be fine with Knight as Offense-Defense, Archers as Offense-Support, and Builders as Support-Defense.

Anyways, the issue with that suggestion is that arrows are destroyed by time, water, explosions, and whenever melee damage is caused nearby the stuck arrows.

 

I believe you can still go to the download section on the site and click on the "Classic Download" (the one with the two zombies on it) button to download KAG classic and get an idea how shooting with an alpha archer felt back then.

 

Yeah, I agree the range is pretty good FOR ALPHA ARCHERS, but the charge time is pretty slow FOR ALPHA ARCHERS. [TALKING ABOUT ALPHA ARCHERS]

 

you think? in the new build the legolas takes much less then before to load

 

I think the edits should clarify what I mean.

Anyways, I don't know anything about the range of Pre-B866 Archers to Post-B866 Archers, it feels strange though, to say the least.

 

Just bring back the 2 heart full charged shot, that would change alot.
I do also agree that archers should run/swim faster than armored knights. They also should jump highter and climb better better on walls.
That would have been the better way for combat movement (instead of the grapple hook).

 

i agree derfalke with that archermovement,... but if you ask me.. with that the legolas shot does not need so long anymore to load, i think thats good balanced.. dont know but if you ask me to replace a power shot for the legolas.. you would need to learn how far he shoots and then you dont need the full loaded shot like it was in the beta before..

 

I didn't say remove the LegolasShot (it is fun), keep both. Now a fulled charged arrow deals 1 heart and thats mostly useless.
The LegolasShot is nice for ranged spam but for close combat too predictable, so there is no surprice and they can shield up or hide in time.

 

Geti said no deal on the power shot anyways.
The Multi Shot, still pretty useless against anything with a shield since it is only viable at a distance.

Anyways, I don't like, and don't want Combat to be Dominated by Knights.

 

After spending a good deal of my day playing around with the archer I feel like my previous suggestions would be perfect for the archers and I shall post my reasons as to why:

Upgrade from 2 hearts to 3 hearts - right now, archers are squishy to the point that even a lucky power slash can end their run and random jabbing can take him out pretty fast and despite the grappling hook adding some extra mobility it is still difficult to escape since you constantly get dropped up and down or require your archer to 'sling shot' himself over something in order to escape.

Charged shot doing 2 damage instead of 1 point of damage - at the moment almost everyone is using Legolas shot (multi draw) simply because it is that good, even more-so due to the quicker charge time, but what about the normal charged shot? There's really no point in using it unless you need to do that 1 extra heart of damage to kill that knight/archer/builder before he escapes or kills you in turn. By bringing the charged shot damage from 1 to 2 hearts of damage, archers have a reason to launch a quicker yet less powerful shot than the multi draw.

Think of it as such; if you're fighting an enemy archer (with 3 hearts) and only one of your legolas shot arrows hit him, you would know that the archer has 2 hearts left. Correct? At that point it can be more efficient to simply aim carefully and release a charged shot (2 points of damage) to finish him off before he even manages to charge his own multi draw to kill you. This way people won't spawn legolas shots every time and actually use the less powerful charged shot for when the situation is required. Of course legolas shot (or multi draw) should only do 1 point of damage per arrow, so basically it would look like this:

Charged shot - 2 points of damage
Multi draw (legolas shot) - 1 point of damage per arrow hit (max of 3 if all arrows hit)

Stun when stomping - At the moment, this is probably the only way I see archers being able to get through a knight's shield without having to resort to the 'horrid' stun from the charged shot upgrade. This alone could offer the possibility to stun a knight in hopes of doing some damage (or even killing a wounded knight) with a charged shot or be used as a decent ability for escaping (stun him then grapple and run).

The best part is that using the stomp stun to the archer's advantage would require a certain degree of risk since the archer needs to get close, reason why the extra heart and damage suggestions were posted before-hand; the application of a stomp stun followed by a charged shot (or legolas draw) needs to be risky but at the same time worth performing. This ability won't help archer be able to stun a knight from a distance in a 1v1 but it can be done if two archers coordinate properly. Ex: one stuns while the other shoots the knight from a safe distance etc.

Suggestions? Opinions? Ideas?

 

I heard the archer has backstabbing knife, how about we make it so the knife will stun enemy if they don't have shield up for 2 seconds, this will allow for ambushing with knife and finishing off with arrow. this is probably a bad suggestion but meh...

 

The backstabbing was nerfed into oblivion, so it was only reliable at getting you exposed for a knight to spam jab at you.
And yes, that suggestion is pretty bad.

1. What button would you put the knife on, if RMB is now the grapple hook
2. If it works like the knife used to, then there is the problem of the large delay between clicking and hitting.
3. When you do get a hit to actually land, a stun is about two seconds, so you can cause about 1h damage without a buff to arrows, but at the risk of almost dying each time you try to go for a stab.
4. If the knife still has the power to back stab, then there is a possibility that the backstab damage will stack with the stun effect, and you can chain backstabs + stuns, or simply just chains knife stuns.

The knife would be incredibly high risk and high reward, but would give the archers an unreasonable power over knights.

It is at this point that I think stuns are stupid, outside of water ammo, for archers, since they could still deal damage, and go toe to toe with knights, pre866.
[I don't know about ministuns, though, but they don't give you much time to do anything, other than run a tile or two further from a knight and continue your little stabby-shooty dance]

 

yea,.. if those 2 things should be releasd, they should be realised together, as if you see, one charged shot would kill an archer... but the idea with the 2 hearths damage is really good, because i agree you that the legolas shot is much usefuller than the normal...

but in my opinion, i played now archer for quite a long time ...
i think i got now out how to play them right...
so some of my tipps are..

-if an enemy knight comes =RUN FOR YOUR FREAKIN LIFE (grapple!)
-if an enemy builder or an enemy archer comes = load your legolas and shoot them a third eye or a second asshohle : D
-movement =grapple ( grapple is much faster than running and if you are fast it makes the enemy archers harder to get you..
-special arrows = dont waste water arrows, they are usefull! if a knight comes to you, shoot him with the water arrow, grapple over him and run to his base! maybe you have luck and you have a chance to cap the hall, if you are in the hall go knight to defend it.
-if enemy unpacks a catapult or a ballista =shoot it, maybe its a possibility to it to fall down or that you make it useless for example if it falls in a pit

those were not all, my ideas just dont go farer yet ^^

so the general thing i want to tell you if you go archer

-stay in distence
-use grapple for like 80 percent! (everytime you can)[if you can use it ofc :I]
-run away from enemy knights
-always shoot them with legolas from distence
-try to get on the top of their base to troll them :3 (if your pro at grapple ofc...)
-if a builder is under you and you dont get him with arrows, jump on him from 5 blocks or so and do some fall damage ( if he is alone ofcourse... )
- if enemys are more than 2 i would run for my life and not try to kill them, i would run to our next tower back, go on the top of it and shoot down, so you can kill enemy for enemy :3

so those are some of my tipps,
i think the archers are quite good balanced right now, knight has a bit higher chances to kill the archer, but if the acher goes near the knight, its his own fault

 

So, what does this mean for archers in RDM, then?

 

Well, from what Landoo typed and from what I've noticed so far archers are quite alright with mobility at the moment. The grappling hook can help escape fairly quickly on flat maps and it can be so chaotic in swinging around that I found myself swinging back and fourth like crazy while two knights tried to kill me. Surprisingly enough not only did I manage to survive long enough to escape but a fellow knight managed to kill the other two knights while they were focused on killing me. ^^

So I think what Landoo was saying is that archers finally have the mobility they need and be on par with a knight's bomb jumping, gliding, slash jump and shield sliding.

At this point I'd be against adding a speed bonus for archers since they really don't need it, the extra health and damage (for charged shot) would still be nice in my oppinion.