[1239] Impracticalities of 'shotgun archer'

If you are above an archer with your shield facing down, and the archer hits you will all three of the arrows during a shotgun blast you go flying into the air as you would with a bomb jump. The jump very powerful, usually sending you into the map height.

Another less game breaking flaw is more of a nuisance. Before archers had to step outside of a door for at least 1 second to release all three of their arrows, now they can go in and out of the door in a split second leaving a knight with almost no change of catching them. This allows them to hit an advancing enemy for an almost guaranteed 2-3 heats and a low change of being killed in the process.

Rant courtesy of tru0067:

It was supposed to reduce camping
It does not achieve this in the least. Archers are now less likely to go onto the flat no mans land section, as in this area if they fire their triple shot at the enemy only the middle and upper shots will even matter, as the lower will go into the ground, this means the archer must fire upwards, and will still only get one arrow into the enemy they are aiming at; the others going behind them (potentially into other enemies albeit). This makes archers on flats extremely weak, being unable to punish an enemy that drops their shield with more than 1 heart of damage. Obviously this applies to archers at a medium to long distance, but don't start saying that it means archers just have to get closer. They're an ARCHER, they are supposed to be effective at LONG RANGE. Before an archer was extremely effective in this regard, as a triple shot fire parallel to the ground would cause all three arrows to hit the front most enemy (which would usually be a knight who HAS to drop his shield at some point if he wishes to kill other knights), encouraging the opposing knights to use shield walls (teamwork), and archers to come out of their towers to use this extremely effective method. As this has been nullified, I think that camping is now just as effective as going offensive, while affording greater protection.

It reduces skill
Archers now no longer need to aim their shots as much. Firing a spray into a group is now only slightly less effective than firing a well placed spray into the group. Before a triple shot had to be aimed at specific members of the group, such as other archers, builders or slash-charging knights. However, now no matter how hard you aim, you are still only likely to get one hit on that enemy. Making the triple shot more of an annoyance than a dangerous tool. In a similar way, archer vs archer fights are now less dependent on your aim over distance, but only your timing. Whereas before it required both good aim and timing, meaning that the required skill to play as a good archer is reduced. This was especially obvious to me when I was able to consistently tie with a friend of mine who mains archer, even though my skill level as an archer is much less than his. It also reduces the archer's ability to do good damage over range, as a triple shot is unlikely to get more than one hit in. This completely removes 'surprise' triple shots that would take out builders or archers, or even grievously wound a lax knight. This means that no matter how hard you try, an archer is unlikely to get a kill over a long range, before an enemy is able to scurry under cover, or take evasive action. Drastically reducing the archers ability to be a long range unit.

It is too effective at close range
Why I ask you is the ARCHER's best form of attack the complete inverse of what an archer should be good at. A shotgun triple shot at point blank does 3 hearts, usually killing a knight that has been able to get close to you. This means that injured knights are almost completely unable to approach archers. In other words, a close quarters specialist is unable to get close to a long range specialist, because the long range specialist has a perfect counter at close range. Moreover the instantaneous nature of the shotgun burst means that a knight who does get hit at close range is almost certain to get hit by all three arrows, whereas before the archer would require skill to equate the knock back and keep the second and third arrows in line with where their target would be pushed after the first shot. This means that the shotgun is now more of a short range murder weapon, rather than a tool used to reacquire distance between the knight and archer, allowing time to retreat or for back up to arrive.

 

With you on this bring Legolas back!

 

If you are getting three hearts taken off you by one archer that easily, it is not a game fault. Don't hang around in front of doors. Hang back and the triple shot will do nothing too you. If you are shielding you will only take two hearts. Hardly a guarantee.
This (less than) "game breaking flaw" only works with ground level doors, which suck badly. It's more of a disadvantage to the team using them. Just lob a bomb in when you are in front of the door. And if their corpse gets stuck it will hold the door open and will be the demise of their team.

That said, the shotgun needs some tweaking especially with spam, but Geti said a new update was in the works which will make the other two arrows will disappear after a set distance.

Feedback is always good though. Mmm...delicious feedback.

@Galen This also needs to be in Class and Mechanics under Archer or in the new build thread in Announcements. There doesn't seem to be a suggestion made here.

 

Moved.

 

I agree completely with the "impractical" part.

WARNING: Long Rant/Post

It was supposed to reduce camping
It does not achieve this in the least. Archers are now less likely to go onto the flat no mans land section, as in this area if they fire their triple shot at the enemy only the middle and upper shots will even matter, as the lower will go into the ground, this means the archer must fire upwards, and will still only get one arrow into the enemy they are aiming at; the others going behind them (potentially into other enemies albeit). This makes archers on flats extremely weak, being unable to punish an enemy that drops their shield with more than 1 heart of damage. Obviously this applies to archers at a medium to long distance, but don't start saying that it means archers just have to get closer. They're an ARCHER, they are supposed to be effective at LONG RANGE. Before an archer was extremely effective in this regard, as a triple shot fire parallel to the ground would cause all three arrows to hit the front most enemy (which would usually be a knight who HAS to drop his shield at some point if he wishes to kill other knights), encouraging the opposing knights to use shield walls (teamwork), and archers to come out of their towers to use this extremely effective method. As this has been nullified, I think that camping is now just as effective as going offensive, while affording greater protection.

It reduces skill
Archers now no longer need to aim their shots as much. Firing a spray into a group is now only slightly less effective than firing a well placed spray into the group. Before a triple shot had to be aimed at specific members of the group, such as other archers, builders or slash-charging knights. However, now no matter how hard you aim, you are still only likely to get one hit on that enemy. Making the triple shot more of an annoyance than a dangerous tool. In a similar way, archer vs archer fights are now less dependent on your aim over distance, but only your timing. Whereas before it required both good aim and timing, meaning that the required skill to play as a good archer is reduced. This was especially obvious to me when I was able to consistently tie with a friend of mine who mains archer, even though my skill level as an archer is much less than his. It also reduces the archer's ability to do good damage over range, as a triple shot is unlikely to get more than one hit in. This completely removes 'surprise' triple shots that would take out builders or archers, or even grievously wound a lax knight. This means that no matter how hard you try, an archer is unlikely to get a kill over a long range, before an enemy is able to scurry under cover, or take evasive action. Drastically reducing the archers ability to be a long range unit.

It is too effective at close range
Why I ask you is the ARCHER's best form of attack the complete inverse of what an archer should be good at. A shotgun triple shot at point blank does 3 hearts, usually killing a knight that has been able to get close to you. This means that injured knights are almost completely unable to approach archers. In other words, a close quarters specialist is unable to get close to a long range specialist, because the long range specialist has a perfect counter at close range. Moreover the instantaneous nature of the shotgun burst means that a knight who does get hit at close range is almost certain to get hit by all three arrows, whereas before the archer would require skill to equate the knock back and keep the second and third arrows in line with where their target would be pushed after the first shot. This means that the shotgun is now more of a short range murder weapon, rather than a tool used to reacquire distance between the knight and archer, allowing time to retreat or for back up to arrive.

 

Whoa! Awesome stuff, want me to edit my comment up the top and add this so people see it, (ill credit you for it ofc)

 

At range single shots are more powerful than shotgun shots. Single shots are better than shotgun almost always. The best use of shotgun is when you got no enemy in range but if you jump around the corner than you have it in range. Load up you shot while running to that corner, jump and shoot. Shotgun is good when you have to wait, if you got knight vs knight battle a front of you, just feed the enemy with single shots for the most effectivity. Stop complaining about the shotgun, it is better than the legolas because the legolas was like single shooting but it took longer time and it was less accurate. I don't see any use of this thread, discuss this here https://forum.kag2d.com/threads/build-1233-builders-and-archers.21488/

 

Less accurate than a shotgun?

 

Again this "wahhh archer SHOULD be long range epic 360 sniper" argument. Getting so sick of it. Do you honestly think that it's good or fun gameplay? Sitting 2 screens away from the battle taking potshots at people?

Mind you, good archers are more offensive than ever right now. Bad ones have always just spammed shots from towers and will always continue to do so.

The class is fucking fine. Class balance hasn't been this good at any point in KAG's build history.

 

Archers are supposed to be long range, 2 screens away. That's like using a sniper 5 meters away in a real battle, it doesn't make sense.

 

Come back when u have fought a team of 7 archers spraying you with arrows from a tower, throwing bombs only gets rebounded back at you, lift your shield up for a seconds and you'll die, go in close and you'll get stomped and have your shield stance broken, the rate of fire for 3 arrows is just to dam high

 

Try walking across the top lane flat lants when there are three archers and a knight.

 

7v1, what do you expect and a team with seven archers is a bad team so your will win anyways! Archers can be annoying, but annoying and overpowered isn't the same.

 

Come back when you have faced 7 knights as one archer.

 

I love this comment. Just wanted to say that. "Liking" it was not enough.

 

This is not the argument at all.

We are saying that the Shotgun is a terrible thing.
I personally hate camper archers (and I play all three classes, mainly Knight and ARcher), and Shotgunning encourages it. Think about it this way:
Shotgun at close-range - 1 arrow always misses, and you MIGHT do one heart of dmg to a Knight

Shotgun at mid-range - ~1.5 arrows hit, does minimal dmg, can easily be avoided

Shotgun at long-range - The spread usually gets ~2.25 arrows hitting, as Knights and others don't just put their shield up, and they usually fight.

The only way that it actually isn't that bad is at long-range, AKA camping in a tower.

Now, the old Overcharge:
Overcharge at close-range - Gets 2-3 arrows most of the time, as the small distance leaves little room for error

Overcharge at mid-range - Can semi-snipe people, especially if knights are in combat, can usually get at least 2 arrows in, or at least 1 at a critical time, as you can use them sparingly

Overcharge at long-range - Not as accurate, as the random spread's RNG is annoying and never cooperates, thus camping in towers or going long-range isn't as good since you can't be as accurate.

So, shotgun is nowhere near as superior as overcharge in most situations.

Also, as I see it, last update was the most balanced that KAG ever was.
Archers were useful, especially for arrow ladders, and they could shoot into the knight battle and get some kills. They also were more on the ground than camping.
Builders were able to be supported by something other than Knights as Archers could turn the tide easily.
And Knights weren't able to dominate EVERYTHING anymore, and thus the other classes were useful.

This most recent build upset the balance, and I truly think that Geti should just leave the game like it was, add in some bug-fixes, and stop trying to screw with the fundamental things that made the game into KAG. After all, I was talking with a couple of people in-game, and they also say that the update is very screwed up, and that it was a terrible idea to change stuff like what had been changed.

I agree wholeheartedly with everything said here.
I appreciate you taking the time to make such good points, even if the post was long.

 

Stop theorycraft lol. Can't be arsed to read your post throughoughly anyway, first few sentences were a clear indication that you didn't even bother to read the patch notes. Btw shotgun was worthless at long range anyway, terrible rate of fire.

 

I didn't see anything wrong with archer how it was before their arrow velocity and range was increased

 

Geti has made some modifications.

 

Still terrible. The shotgun was terrible in concept, terrible in use, and now he's gonna make it a bit MORE useless.

I would go for a petition to switch EVERYTHING back to Builder 2xxx (the Knight-Nerf one) as that was the only time that the game WAS balanced, or at least close to it, and that was only there for, like, 2-3 weeks.

I just don't understand why he had to take out one of the fundamental things in game, so meh.
Testers must be biased for them to let it get to an official one, or they just didn't think of other people playing it.