Rapid-fire bow horde-clear Kerillian

[UltraEmailMan]

Why. Just why. Is it so overwhelmingly effective that it's worth making any other melee person unable to fight the horde? Every single time I have encountered someone using this build, I have to stand behind them and watch them shoot into a horde. If I don't, I take 30 or more damage in friendly fire. I asked a person why they were shooting me in the back the entire time I was clearing a horde. They told me it was my fault and I should stay behind them and watch their back. Now, that sounds a lot like they're telling me not to play the game or else they're going to shoot me.

In the average match (from what I've seen) people never exceed 20 points in friendly fire damage. Last round was old haunts. I took 25 friendly fire damage before I got to the well in the very first area because Kerillian decided to shoot through me for every single trash mob she could find. I turned around, unloaded all my ammo into her, and then left. Screw going through a whole game of that.

Don't get me wrong, I love when people can use very effective builds that just melt through hordes or bosses. However, if your build requires telling me to stand back and do nothing or get shot in the back, I don't see any value in that whatsoever. I don't care if it's somehow more effective than 3-4 people using melee weapons. This is a co-op game. I expect to be able to play without getting murdered by my allies because "it's the best at horde clear, you should learn how to play the game lol."

So basically I guess what I'm saying in this is: If you use this build and expect melee people to hide behind you while you do your thing, you are a selfish a-hole. It doesn't matter if it's "the optimum build." You are threatening people to not play the game or get shot in the back. Shame on you. Use the longbow like everyone else.

[Ghoul Hunter]

This problem exists for anyone over-leveled for their difficulty. They can solo a horde in a few seconds.

Maybe you could play with bots, because bots are reliable up until Cata.

[UltraEmailMan]

I mostly play on champion because I don't quite feel comfortable on legend yet. It also doesn't matter how quickly they can solo a horde. I'm playing the game to have fun. Standing behind someone and letting them do all the work I built my character around is not fun.

Also, playing with bots on champ+ requires the bots to have good loadouts, which I am unable to get for them so far.

[Ghoul Hunter]

The internet is full of selfish a-holes. That is their freedom and decision to act that way, which we cannot change.

The only way to solve this problem is to play in private with friends or play with bots. This guide works for Cata, it should work easily for Champion, even if the bots are incomplete.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1836809978

[Baron]

The bots work on champion and legend, but one thing worth mentioning here is that a good player can use those builds without damaging their team. I absolutely love fireball staff battle wizard. The projectile arc actually allows you to aim hits over the shoulder of your allies, and further back into the horde. You get more damage out of it, and having melee attacking is actually useful because it bottlenecks/slows down the enemy.

Also, hagbane bow is better at clearing hordes, and much more ammo efficient, than swift bow. And its the same thing, over the shoulder, further into hordes, gets more effect out of the weapon. Same goes for conflag because the ground targeting makes it easy to avoid teammates. Flamestorm/drakegun gets way more effect and damage when approaching a horde from the side, because the melee up front will have staggered them and this compounds your damage, which is especially important for overheating based weapons.

So those people who are team damaging you? They're garbage players. And even if they think their build is good, they don't know how to use it.

Only scenario where I'd say don't stand directly in front is a bounty hunter about to use his ult on a chaos warrior, wargor banner carrier, or monster. And even then, a shade would try to get behind that target, an ironbreaker or slayer is short and the bounty hunter should be aiming high for a headshot, and handmaiden/footknight using a shield should be using basic tank mechanics where you turn enemies moving at you to their side, so you're slightly off center from the horde direction and can turn it away from your allies / push smaller enemies into piles that are staggered directly in line of fine for your ranged allies. And if you are a shield user who is bottlenecking a chokepoint with your shield, you crouch in place while pushing. So it should still be easy to aim over you.

[Sticky Mick]

This is a common problem with horde-clearing ranged weapons (Swiftbow, Hagbane, drakefire gun, flamestorm staff, fireball staff). It's a co-op game and both the melee builds and ranged build players need to learn to work with each other. That's less likely to happen on lower difficulties because noobs tend to be more clueless and more selfish, especially in quick play matches. You either just have to leave games where this happens or kick the offender, graduate to Legend where players are better and more co-operative, or play in a pre-made team or with bots in a private game.

[UltraEmailMan]

Originally posted by Bathrobe Rat:

The only way to solve this problem is to play in private with friends or play with bots. This guide works for Cata, it should work easily for Champion, even if the bots are incomplete.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1836809978

That's a good guide for completing the mission. My issue is that I need books. Bots are terrible at surviving on higher difficulties (except for ironbreaker) and are even worse at being able to pick up books. Last time I was bots-only, I waited around for 5 minutes and went through 2 hordes waiting on BardinBot to pick up a grimoire that he kept trying to path to. People are far more effective (for the most part) at picking up books and keeping them. I made this thread in hopes that at least SOME of the friendly-firing uberbow people would read it and realize that they need to learn how to use it WITH teammates rather than instead of them.

Originally posted by Sticky Mick:

This is a common problem with horde-clearing ranged weapons (Swiftbow, Hagbane, drakefire gun, flamestorm staff, fireball staff). It's a co-op game and both the melee builds and ranged build players need to learn to work with each other. That's less likely to happen on lower difficulties because noobs tend to be more clueless and more selfish, especially in quick play matches. You either just have to leave games where this happens or kick the offender, graduate to Legend where players are better and more co-operative, or play in a pre-made team or with bots in a private game.

I really want to go to legend, but every time I have tried, it ends with a wipe. I've only successfully completed a legend run once, and that was because of incredibly skilled teammates in combination with godlike RNG. I think I need to just keep throwing myself into it until I get to the point where I can be the one carrying the team.

[Alistair MacBain]

Yes legend hurts at first. But its also the only place to learn legend. You wont get used to it by playing champion tbh.

And swiftbow waystalker is far from meta on higher difficulties. There are ways of using it gainst hordes without forcing your allies to stay back. Its just that people (especially in champ) dont know how to position.

[Sticky Mick]

Originally posted by UltraEmailMan:

I really want to go to legend, but every time I have tried, it ends with a wipe. I've only successfully completed a legend run once, and that was because of incredibly skilled teammates in combination with godlike RNG. I think I need to just keep throwing myself into it until I get to the point where I can be the one carrying the team.

The leap from Champion to Legend is always gonna be painful, even if you can boss Champion. When you start it's probably better to begin playing a tank and focus your build around survival rather than DPS. Once you get used to the difficulty and have lost some bad habits then try the more fragile classes.

[Skeeter]

1: the only way to get good enough to play legend is to wipe on legend enough, ditto for cata
2: google some discords, quickplay in this game is hell and it will be very hard to learn good team positioning/coordination if you only play with drunk muppets.
3: when you get into a discord, be open about being bad at the game, there will be good players willing to show you the ways

[Warhämmer |D.w.D|]

sure some peeps who play range (specialy a lot of elves on lower diff) dont know what they do and just spamming arrows, but you should always clean up in front of your own door first ;)
maybe you have to adjust your movement specialy if you have one ore more range in the team who stay in the back!
you can move like a crstal meth monkey only if you have a 4melee team! avoid zigzaging and dont spam left-right dodge when fighting a hord are your first little steps you have to do

[Rebel]

Originally posted by ⛧Abradolf Lincler⛧:

sure some peeps who play range (specialy a lot of elves on lower diff) dont know what they do and just spamming arrows, but you should always clean up in front of your own door first ;)
maybe you have to adjust your movement specialy if you have one ore more range in the team who stay in the back! you can move like a monkey on crytal meth only if you have a 4melee team! avoid zigzaging and dont spam left-right dodge when fighting a hord are your first little steps you have to do

Well I think in this case he's more complaining how swiftbow just kills everything before he even gets a chance to move into melee. He doesn't even get to play the game, and is instead told to watch and sit back. Best thing to do is to jsut not play with those type of people.

[Warhämmer |D.w.D|]

Originally posted by Rebel:

Originally posted by ⛧Abradolf Lincler⛧:

sure some peeps who play range (specialy a lot of elves on lower diff) dont know what they do and just spamming arrows, but you should always clean up in front of your own door first ;)
maybe you have to adjust your movement specialy if you have one ore more range in the team who stay in the back! you can move like a monkey on crytal meth only if you have a 4melee team! avoid zigzaging and dont spam left-right dodge when fighting a hord are your first little steps you have to do

Well I think in this case he's more complaining how swiftbow just kills everything before he even gets a chance to move into melee. He doesn't even get to play the game, and is instead told to watch and sit back. Best thing to do is to jsut not play with those type of people.

if the swiftbow melt the horde you have to take care about the elites (specialy sv or cw or mixed horde on higher diff)
there is always more than enough to melee kill and satisfy your bloodlust ;)

[Rebel]

Originally posted by ⛧Abradolf Lincler⛧:

Originally posted by Rebel:

Well I think in this case he's more complaining how swiftbow just kills everything before he even gets a chance to move into melee. He doesn't even get to play the game, and is instead told to watch and sit back. Best thing to do is to jsut not play with those type of people.

if the swiftbow melt the horde you have to take care about the elites (specialy sv or cw or mixed horde on higher diff)
there is always more than enough to melee kill and satisfy your bloodlust ;)
:vt2:

Not on Champion I don't think.

[Warhämmer |D.w.D|]

Originally posted by Rebel:

Originally posted by ⛧Abradolf Lincler⛧:

if the swiftbow melt the horde you have to take care about the elites (specialy sv or cw or mixed horde on higher diff)
there is always more than enough to melee kill and satisfy your bloodlust ;)

Not on Champion I don't think.

yep not on champ i mean higher diff^^ my bad! i dont even know if on champ mixed hordes spawns at all xD
but the movement is the key even on champ.. on the other side who cares about 20arrows in your back it dont rly hurt a mustache seriously^^ just turn off the annoying ff indicator ;)

[cstkl1]

i personally love overeager waystalkers..... i just let them do their thing.. and chill out..
just chasing the quest ..

https://youtu.be/QjNGbX-0JlI

although yeah some are bad and cant melee.. or dont know how to handle everything.. but when u get somebody who can and wants it all.. just let them...sure sure pride gets hurt thinking of somebody just carried ya.. but does it really matter.. better the alternative dude that dies and wasted your time to finish a daily quest.