Javelin vs Pre-Nerf Moonfire Bow

[Kreddi]

I never got to experience the Pre-Nerf Moonfire bow, so I'm curious how it compares to the current iteration of Javelin.

[radz74]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

I never got to experience the Pre-Nerf Moonfire bow, so I'm curious how it compares to the current iteration of Javelin.

A little more annoying but not much.

[VernonKun]

More powerful and less problems for teammates

[Chizakura]

I have screenshots of me going 0 ff on the old mfb, I miss it, lol. But, mostly b/c I'm not the biggest fan of jav, but as someone who isn't good with headshots, it's my best option. I would like to take any other bow over it, but making any bow that doesn't require headshots, ie longbow (and mfb now at legend and cata+), is basically not happening unless you're ws.

Even with bloodfletcher (which is only a shade option, though hm has a ammo boosting talent), if you're not good with headshots, your only option is, basically, jav. Hagbane and, especially, swiftbow is night impossible to make work with their poor ammo sustain. At least with sister, you have the option for the staff.

Guess that kinda got off on a tangent, but yeah. Mfb had an explosive component (a little like hagbane) so you could take an angle from above or side, aim for the middle or rear of the pack and avoid ff. The problem with jav is that it's basically a point to point weapon except in long lines/corridors and, then, you have to be on the level and head on to make it worth your while with its awesome cleave.

The problem with the jav is that above legend, at cata+ levels, you can only 1sbs 3 things. Everything else requires 2+... but, you only have 3 javs per magazine which means that you can only kill 1 thing that can't be 1sbs with a margin of 1 shot so the amount of micromanaging you have to do becomes engineer gatling gun-esque. To kill 3 specials via body shots requires 6 javelins with a full 3 jav recharge in between kill #1 and kill #2 and that's assuming you go 6 for 6 on your shots. If you get pressed and have to use a jav after a single reload, the number of times you have to reload your 'magazine' increases.

Anyway, looks like I've gone off on two tangents in a single post.

[uzze]

Think of it like this, it stood out so much that peoples attention focused more on the moon bow as a weapon rather than the javelin. The only reason the moonbow got nerfed was because people called out the devs for being simps to the elf (still are).

You would have the elf players getting away with all kinds of bs that still continues. Except more often with the moonbow AOE shots to allies faces for a pleb rat kill and the like. I can't really remember the average FF you would take from being hit by the moonbow, I want to say 10-20 health multiple times in every wave.

The elf is much like a twitch thot with the devs being the admins.

[Blur]

It was much better than javelin, obviously it was op cuz its a dlc weapon, but now its so dull its not even worth the money.

[Emilia Tempest]

Moonbow pre-nerf was pretty much hagbane if it was good and had infinite ammo.

In terms of anti-special, it outclassed even the longbow. Unless you had a 100% headshotrate there was no point picking the longbow over the moonbow (it oneshot ALL specials on cata on a body shot, dot included in the damage).
Jav always takes 2 body shots, at least on cata. (can be less on legend due to handmaiden)

In terms of anti-horde, it could do decently and you could even spam the charged shot (waiting for the forced wait took less time than letting it charge fully to get enough juice, which is hilarious).
However, while it did do great damage and great stagger. It was limited to about 4 shots and then 1 shot every 10 or so seconds. Nowhere near as strong as jav can be here.

In terms of anti-elite, the moonbow took more shots for that. But due to infinte ammo it didnt really matter. It did amazing over-time work and even could go past shields with the AOE. So if you triggered an SV patrol you could kite it and just beat it that way.
Jav always takes 2 bodyshots, while with the moonbow it was possible to body-oneshot most elites (except chaos warriors and bestigors). You had to choose however, you couldnt oneshot both monks and berzerkers if you wanted to oneshot stormvermin. Only 2 of those 3 were possible. (Unless you played Handmaiden with the 15% extra power talent, then you didnt need to invest much to do the same thing).

In terms of anti-boss, it was great for keeping up barrage and thats it. the low amount of shots made it not worth it to keep using on the boss. And it didnt exactly do amazing damage. Javelin melee did way more.

I'm not taking into account how broken it was on Sott with crits, because you could do the same insane stuff with the Javelin on Sott. (and I'd say Jav was way stronger than moonbow on old Sott, because you oneshot everything barring bosses and chaos warriors with a javlin crit throw. and the melee pretty much alt-delete bosses on cata in about 20-40 seconds solo, less if you have a WHC or bomb.)


Overall, Jav is a more solid weapon. But not taking away niches like the Moonbow did.
with jav, you still have a reason to pick the longbow on cata. However on legend you can build it in a way to body-oneshot the armored specials and with Handmaiden even oneshot SV and the infantry specials.
Moonbow can do that too still (dot included), but ofc a oneshot with instant damage beats an oneshot over time.

Swiftbow still has a place in legend, it works similar as javelin and even can body-oneshot all specials on waystalker (with the poison talent).
This build still can be used in cata, if you dont feel like using jav or are great at headshotting. (Yes I know its on the same row as Bloodshot.)
But it has no place in cata outside of waystalker.

Hagbane, lets be real this is a waystalker only weapon.
Its still decent, but there's a reason why noone uses this. Because the other options are just, better. Due to the incredibly low ammo.

Crossbow, never really was good. And due to two infinite ammo weapons, no reason to pick it on shade. Its too ammo hungry while doing the exact same job as moonbow and jav.


In the end.
Javelin is strong. But not as strong as Moonbow, since it does not replace literally every option.
Even if old moonbow existed now, it would replace javelin. Because the only thing it has going over moonbow, is that it can do way more boss damage and deal better with funnled hordes. and that is fixed by just playing Shade and having a melee that does well against hordes (sword and dagger solves both).


And here a bit about the moonbow we have now.
It still is pretty good if you cant hit headshots often (could be cuz you play with controller, or like me genuienly suck at hitting heads. Dont mind my hour count. ) or if you simply want a more reliable way to shoot specials since hitting the body is 10 times easier than a headshot.
Still can body-oneshot all legend specials (however investment is needed, or handmaiden power talent).
And can body-oneshot the assassin, and armored specials. The rest of the specials need two shots (mostly two tap-charged, but also investment needed). Keep in mind the dot, it changes the damage depending on the weapon you wield (so if you got power VS skaven + armor on your bow but power VS chaos on your melee, you lose 20% power when switching to your melee. So keep this in mind when getting your own breakpoints as this CAN mess them up from working properly!)
Its not as broken good, but still a decent choice for non-waystalker to special snipe.

[Khal'cynee]

jav is not that great, 3 ammo, even 6 on WS is sometimes not enought with unlucky special spawn
and the fall off is hard to compensate, its almost impossible to hit a blightstomer at longe range, same problem with torpedo
pre nerf MB was just a better hagbane, best burst damage, infinite ammo, a bit less efficient on monster because you cant spam 10 arrow in 10 second but that was the only one counter part you have to deal with

[Ghoul Hunter]

I'm not sure it was *that* strong. It was her best ranged choice, for sure, but there are more broken things in the game. I don't remember snapping Vermintide's neck with it.

Dwarf pistol is totally broken by comparison. Equip it on ranger, so you have infinite ammo, faster reload, stupidly high damage during ult. You can delete bosses and patrols on Cata with it. It's good enough for sniping. There's no downside to it. That's a gun that you can snap Vermintide's neck with.

I hear Sienna's got some broken stuff, too. I'm not experienced enough with her to specify, though. The fire-geyser staff is supposed to be broken if used a certain way. It's been a while since anyone spoke up about it.

Hating on elf is a meme in the Warhammer community. If there's anything broken, people will talk about the elf's broken thing, but ignore all the other characters' broken thing. They are very animated about it, too. I'm not sure if they're ignorant zealots who actually believe it, or if they are self-proclaimed jesters who find it hilarious to screw with the devs.

I've always been for balance, but Warhammer community doesn't want balance. Broke stuff is going to stay broke.

[RNG_Wizard]

Similar. Infinite ammo, killing specials and elites alike with little issue, strong horde clear.

The Moonfire had an explosion so it favored clustered enemies. The Javelin pierces so it favors lined up enemies.

The Moonfire's damage takes a few seconds to kick in. The Javelin has heavy drop off and a slower projectile requiring shots to be led more, especially against moving targets.

[Mosey]

I never thought that Moonbow was OP, especially compared to some other weapons you can buy with actual cash. Did it make some weapons irrelevant? Maybe, but so do a lot of other weapons that are also super powerful that they've never touched.

There are also a lot of weapons nobody ever uses too, so I guess that says something about Fatshark.

Javelin is probably my favorite ranged weapon in the game and even I'd admit it's hard to see how it could be that if Moonfire was really that broken how Javelin is not.

Keep in mind, this isn't my opinion. I thought it was fine, but it doesn't make much logical sense to me either.

[Lucien Lachance]

Old moonfire bow had some aoe and it did good damage. Now it has no aoe and slightly less damage. I wish they never did it so all the javelin chuckers would piss off lol

[Mira]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

I never got to experience the Pre-Nerf Moonfire bow, so I'm curious how it compares to the current iteration of Javelin.

Javelin Slight nerf (Cleave and Reload Speed)
Most popular Elf weapon

Moonbow buff (Increased Damage over Time) Shoulded be even more stronger on Handmaiden.

Would love to :)))

[BIG E.]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

I never got to experience the Pre-Nerf Moonfire bow, so I'm curious how it compares to the current iteration of Javelin.

It was basicly giga-hagbane with infinite ammo and still had armor damage unlike hagbane.

Think about it like this, you shoot few times and kite, shoot kite and you could kill an entire CW patrol like that in a really short time.

[Dixu]

Originally posted by Kreddi:

I never got to experience the Pre-Nerf Moonfire bow, so I'm curious how it compares to the current iteration of Javelin.

it was like hagbane in the sense that it had aoe, but also its DoT lasted like 10 seconds so every special would eventually die from just one arrow even on cata
it was pretty much the go-to if you hated reloading and wanted to "oneshot" anything with bodyshots
jav has not been changed at all as far as I remember so there's no "current iteration" of it, but it was definitely better at horde clear even back then because you could spam it with the correct weapon trait unlike moonbow which had a cooldown no matter what

[Dixu]

Originally posted by Emilia Tempest:

Moonbow can do that too still (dot included)

no it can't