Archer feels slightly inadequate compared to the other classes (in singleplayer)

[Fancy Ketchup]

to start, I currently have six characters at time of writing; five of which are at lvl 24 and one of which is at 22. Basically a character for each of the classes ability archetypes currently in the game. So far, I have managed to build each one in a way that feels satisfying damage-wise, with the exception bandit's Archer skills.

part 1 - The basic attack feels not as good
Warriors, both the sword/shield and 2h variety, have basic attacks with good damage and AoE, as well as a particularly good jump attack on 2h weapons. Katars have probably the best charged attack in the game imo which can absolutely shred through mobs, and mystics have good enough(tm) damage and AoE on their bells which you can weave in between your fluxbolt casts.
The bow's damage per individual hit seems about on par, but with the downside that it has no AoE whatsoever. 45 damage on a single enemy vs 40 damage on a whole crowd at once is a very noticeable difference. The range on it is surprisingly skimpy too, forcing you to be just close enough to enemies that they can always get the drop on you. to top it off, the charged attack is lackluster and from what I tested doesn't provide a better DPS rate than just holding down m1.

Part 2 - The Skillset isn't as reliable
Warrior has a great selection of AoE attacks to choose from and can use them pretty interchangeably between the two archetypes. 2h's boomerang skill in particular is an excellent DPS tool that, importantly, provides knockback/hitstun to lock enemies within its area. Even without too much Damage speccing, their tankiness lets them stay in the fight enough to make it count.
Katar bandit's damage skills aren't quite as effective as warrior's, but they do a good enough job to set up for the Katar's charged attack; herd the enemies together, go invisible to make sure they don't mess up their positioning if necessary, stun them, and let it rip
Mystic's Fluxbolt is a fantastic bread and butter skill that's easy to build a gameplan around and is reliable to hit.

Archer's toolkit just doesn't have the same consistency. Venom Shot is easily the worst of the resistance reducing effects being only single target and not providing that much more DoT than the other classes equivalents.
bomb trap is just, serviceable. It's okay, and if the rest of the kit was good enough I wouldn't bat an eye

Now, archer does have a potential saving grace in the form of Volley. I'm pretty sure that if enemies stay in it long enough, it does *the* highest potential damage of any ability i have seen. The problem is a combination of the charge cast, the massive delay and the lack of hitstun makes it really hard to actually keep enemies in the area long enough. More importantly, the rest of the available toolkit doesn't provide ways to set up for an optimal volley. Even invisibility wouldn't help here because the windup on it means enemies could move out of the way in time once you break stealth and they lock onto you.

Part 3 - Mana
I'm actually totally on board with Archer skills costing mana for a different flavor compared to the other physical classes. But right now, mana does the class more harm than good. With warrior and melee bandit, Stamina is an infinitely easier resource to manage since it refills to full super quickly as long as you give it a second to breathe. Mana doesn't have that luxury; once you hit zero you're waiting ages to cast your skills.
Mystics have a passive skill that solves this issue for them while archer has no equivalent. It's the only class where I feel the need to use potions which feels bad because, why wouldn't I just play a class that isn't resource-starved all the time.

Part 4 - My personal suggestions on what could help Bows feel good
• Either make the basic attacks do piercing shots, or embrace the single target nature and make them do way more damage per hit than other classes. I'd be down for either of these
• Rework Venom Shot. I don't really know how, but this thing needs changes to make it stand out
• Give archer a lockdown effect of some kind, something to keep enemies in place while you set up the perfect volley. Maybe instead of the current bomb you could have a bear trap that roots enemies in place but still lets them attack if you're in range. Or maybe turn Venom shot into a single target stun or something
• Give Archer a way to regen mana reliably. Maybe a passive that lets them restore mana on-hit? heck, maybe have venom shot's debuff let you restore mana whenever you damage the target with anything.

in conclusion, I want to like this playstyle, and volley in particular. When that skill lands just right there's nothing else like it, but It's the class I enjoy playing the least because of just how outclassed it feels compared to the other options. I hope you enjoyed my unhinged rambling

[Dead Tired Poss]

Archer always seemed like a supportive class more than anything, something you'd play in a party. Outside of a party as a solo player the real boon to playing archer is just how safe it is. You are constantly running away from enemies and chipping away at their health. Not to mention if you time your dashes you can shoot off a double auto attack. I would agree that it would be nice to optimize archer for a solo playstyle but I guess the pure safety of it as a concept is what makes it hard to balance. I feel like if anything changing the charge attack to a stronger piercing shot would be a world of difference.

[[TMI]RastaMan]

Nguyên văn bởi Dead Tired Poss:

You are constantly running away from enemies and chipping away at their health.

It didn't helped me either in the "Hog Fortress" (where bastard with whole ass cannons are showed up to the party) neither in the "last eary access dungeon", where there were two big maws and two fast-ass shrooms that beat up my ass pretty quickly not to mention that maw's puddle (full of damage) is slicing up stamina (on block) pretty fast too.

I always thought that in ARPGs like this SP must be doable for each class w/o problems (not quite remember how it was in "Diablo 2", tbh) and addtional difficulty and challenge must be optional part (especially for MP (OG "the Diablo's gang became much stronger")).

[Escape_ParadoX]

I might not be super far into the game (I just got to the part where I'm fighting angry tree stumps and robot statue things), but I'm finding bow + some of the bandit skill sets to be not too bad so far. I use default attack nonstop, with bombs being my main aoe. When I need a quick moment I pop the vanish skill, which usually lets me get a nice bomb placement before dashing back out. Then repeat. I have the heal spell as a backup emergency.

Does the game get crazy with mobs later on?

[[TMI]RastaMan]

Nguyên văn bởi Escape_ParadoX:

I might not be super far into the game (I just got to the part where I'm fighting angry tree stumps and robot statue things), but I'm finding bow + some of the bandit skill sets to be not too bad so far. I use default attack nonstop, with bombs being my main aoe. When I need a quick moment I pop the vanish skill, which usually lets me get a nice bomb placement before dashing back out. Then repeat. I have the heal spell as a backup emergency.

Does the game get crazy with mobs later on?

In the two latest areas of this early access you gonna have:
1) Boars wtih cannons that deals a lot of damage and there is, at least, 3 waves of them and boars with long bloody spears gonna appear along them too.
2) Shrooms that is a lot more faster than any previous enemy (as I can tell). And remember that in dungeons there is a tons of enemies at once. And if you are lone archer in SP - then good luck with crowd control.

[Intra]

Bow Bandit has serious issues, DEFINITELY the mana one. Volley needs a larger radius, bows need at least +1 target pen, slight base damage increase. Make all bow skills use stamina instead of mana. Frostgeist Bow needs to be fixed because it does less than Serrated Bow for some reason.

I suggest Spread Shot to be the charged attack and the current charge attack to become an ability that does actual meaningful DPS with penetration. Venom Shot should make an AOE puddle like Maws.

Jump shot should also be a thing. Should be like a down arcing shot that makes you go backwards. (And make Bow Mastery 2 ranks, remove the attack speed and make the attack speed baseline, rank 1 charge shot, rank 2 jump attack like every other weapon)

Suggest another general skill that's like a Charged Shot that has infinite penetration, some larger width, pushback, and a good chunk of damage.

I'd also like to suggest some skills might be better off not being weapon-specific.

Pay Day, Shield Bash, stuns probably shouldn't be weapon specific. In return, because Bows have so many weapon specific skills, perhaps Bomb Trap could have an effect based on your current weapon (because knockback isn't ideal for melee), and Volley and Venom Shot could not be required to use a bow.

Or Volley becomes a general skill and is replaced with caltrops in the same radius.

I think the ideal balance for bow is that it should do like 90-95% of melee DPS based on uptime.

[SageVarq]

I played bow only bandit for my first character and it does feel a little underwhelming after trying the other classes but it still does a decent job. In my opinion, DPS should be intentionally lower then other classes since it's a ranged class and when on your own you can easily kite for long periods of time before needing to shield.

One thing that doesn't seemed to be mentioned is that Spread Shot is practically mandatory on a bow only character. Spread Shot massively mitigates the lack of crowd control ranged weapons have and the damage is pretty strong even against single targets.

When you have aggro, Volley can be easily be set up (at least in my experience) with lining up mobs to run toward you while charging Volley, then as they're almost in melee range, release Volley and then immediately jump and dash above the enemies.

You can get piercing at level 17 with Serated Bow.

Two major changes I would make to ranged bandit are:
- Add some form of crowd control, like a bind or slow. Could be added to Bomb Trap where targets hit will be slowed.
- Add piercing to Ranged Mastery at some level so we're not forced to use Serated Bow.

I feel a ranged only bandit is in a somewhat okay place right now and only needs to few changes to feel more in line with the other play styles.

[Verbose Mode]

I'd agree on all points even early on. Even giving the arrows a tiny AoE on hit to make them deal damage to clumped up enemies could be good, and Volley being a charge-and-release skill especially feels awful.

I think the Charged Attack in particular needs to be swapped from a rapid-fire to a single piercing shot with high damage.

[Kaoshi[San]™]

I thought charge attack did have piercing or was that in the demo? I remember hitting both training dummies with charge shots and damage was like halved for the next target.

Edit: After some testing I just realized it was Serrated Bow that has piercing.

[Fancy Ketchup]

some good discussion going on. A few points to add based on what people have brought up

• I do think that Agile technique provides more than enough mobility to survive in the late game, better than blink and anything Warriors have access to. Overall I don't really struggle with staying alive in general on any class, which I think is a testament to Atlyss's systems currently. Really my only issue with archer here is that less damage equals enemies stay alive longer, and enemies staying alive longer means more chances of messing up your kiting. and not having enough range to hit enemies from the other side of the arena doesn't help, though it's understandable why they wouldn't do that
Plus, Melee bandit also has access to agile technique so might as well play that instead.

• I agree on Spread shot being mandatory currently, and I do run it in my current build, but it's very much a case of I run it because I have to and not really because I want to. It absolutely carries archer's early-mid game, but I do wish I had something to compliment Volley that I could replace it with.

• I agree 100% that multiplayer helps the class a lot. Having a tank pulling aggro and keeping enemies occupied is the best use case for Volley atm, I just wish there was a slightly safer way to set it up yourself in solo

• I think Mana is the right call for archer on paper. With warriors being all stamina and mystics being all mana, it makes sense that Bandits would split 50/50. Plus, it allows both bandit subclasses to use their less necessary resource more freely. Melee bandit can use mana for buffs, while Archer can essentially have permanently optimal mobility and charged shots (in a world where the charged shot was good). I think i'd rather keep mana as the main resource and give them a fun way to play around it than switch them to stamina.

also to be clear, the class still plays *fine*, and as SageVarq mentioned there are ways to set up volleys for good damage while kiting, I just think archer could use a little nudge to give it the same 'oomph' that other classes have.

[Fancy Ketchup]

Nguyên văn bởi KaoshiSan™:

I thought charge attack did have piercing or was that in the demo? I remember hitting both training dummies with charge shots and damage was like halved for the next target.

tested it just now, currently Bow Charged attacks do not pierce. that would definitely make me use them if they did.

[Kaoshi[San]™]

Nguyên văn bởi Fancy Ketchup:

tested it just now, currently Bow Charged attacks do not pierce. that would definitely make me use them if they did.

I just edited my first post, did some testing and I was using Serrated bow at the time.

[Fancy Ketchup]

hmm, I guess my issue is that I don't run serrated bow then, I assumed Coldgeist would be better considering it's a boss drop. in any case i'd consider that another downside to archer; relying on specific weapon drops to get the same functionality other classes just have universally.

[Intra]

Nguyên văn bởi Fancy Ketchup:

• I think Mana is the right call for archer on paper.

Bandit isn't "archer", it's Bandit. Melee Bandits have zero mana issues yet using a bow makes you unable to play without a mana potion IV? I don't think it's fair.

If we want to copy other game systems and make Fighters use Rage and Bandits use Energy or something, that's fine. But the current system is not fair to Bandits at all.

[Fancy Ketchup]

Nguyên văn bởi Intra:

Nguyên văn bởi Fancy Ketchup:

• I think Mana is the right call for archer on paper.

Bandit isn't "archer", it's Bandit. Melee Bandits have zero mana issues yet using a bow makes you unable to play without a mana potion IV? I don't think it's fair.

If we want to copy other game systems and make Fighters use Rage and Bandits use Energy or something, that's fine. But the current system is not fair to Bandits at all.

yeah, in the current build you're right, it doesn't feel fair. However imo it only doesn't feel fair because bows don't feel 'designed' around mana the same way Mystics are, thanks to their mana regen passive. The basic attacks and charged shots are slightlly lacking, so you need to use your mana for both your damage output AND your utility.

the way I see it, converting bow skills to cost stamina would be the easy but safe/boring option. there are plenty of other stamina-based playstyles to work with if I want to play around stamina, I would rather bows stay mana-based but actually lean into mana and have fun/engaging ways to regen it back quickly, that way their stamina can be dedicated to survivability (perma-dodging, or blocking if you're really in a bind).

[Drowsy]

After playing all the classes to max and trying both a melee and range bandit I think my own personal issue with bandit is that volley should be a bit bigger. I found the best way to use it is by activating it while walking backwards so enemies walk straight into it. It takes some practice but it works, its just too small in bigger arenas.

Besides that I think I'm fine with how it plays. In single player you're doing a lot of dashing around and kiting while using spread shot, bomb trap, and mist veil. Leading a group of enemies into a bomb trap and then using spread shot (especially if you use inner focus first) goes crazy. Then you just mist veil so your abilities can go back on cool down and you do it all over again.

Sure your main attack is stuck to shooting one enemy at a time but you're doing damage at range where its easier and safer to get in and out than a full melee class like the fighter can. In multiplayer, if there's one fighter, you'll be getting a lot less agro and will most likely be chasing the enemies instead. You also have a lot more mobility and escape options than the fighter does.

I also think it makes sense that the archer skills use mana over stamina. Basically, if all of the bandit's skills were stamina then you could be both close and far range with your skills all the time, as oppose to if its split, you have to choose between two play styles. If you can do both you're kind of outdoing what the fighter class whose only range option is using a two handed weapon that temporarily leaves your hands or throwing rocks.

Besides, since both the mystic and bandit both have better ways to heal themselves than the fighter does who I feel like needs to constantly spam health pots, it make sense for the bandit to have to spend more on mana pots if they wanna attack from a distance. The consumables are there for a reason after all.