Crossbows and the blinding speed nerf

[redoubt]

Bows are getting lots of bonuses to make up for the 7% loss in attack speed.

Are you doing anything to cover that gap for crossbows or is this intended to be yet another nerf to crossbows?

[Steelstar]

We covered this specifically in the Preview thread:

• 
  
  • We do understand that this affects other Ranged builds that do not use Bows, and are comfortable with that change; if they need buffing after this, we'll do it in ways that are better than having them rely on a single misaligned ability

[Drwaz99]

We covered this specifically in the Preview thread:

The problem with this is: If it does need adjusting, it will take a decade for you to get around to it.

[Satyriasys]

We covered this specifically in the Preview thread:

It seems the community is against your "combat upgrade". Does this concern you in the slightest bit?

[unbongwah]

Isn't there also a hard cap on animation speed for crossbows just like there is with bows and thrown weapons? I thought that was the issue behind why Inquisitives & Mechanics lag behind throwers at endgame; xbow DPS caps out while throwers keep improving from stat creep boosting STWE procs etc.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

It seems the community is against your "combat upgrade". Does this concern you in the slightest bit?

Who of the community, exactly ? Not me, at least, since I don't care much about end game affecting nerfs, since I don't play end game.

[Satyriasys]

Who of the community, exactly ? Not me, at least, since I don't care much about end game affecting nerfs, since I don't play end game.

Many people, not all. There will always be those who embrace any change regardless of how horrible for the game it is.

[HuneyMunster]

Blinding Speed was usually only a must have for ranged builds due to abundance of speed items. The feat is now a 2% movement speed, +1 to hit, dodge, reflex save unless your unable to fit speed item or augment.

Maybe add immunity to most slow effects will at least make it more appealing to take. Alternatively increase movement speed to 35%.

[Xgya]

We covered this specifically in the Preview thread:

If I remember correctly, the initial reason Haste worked better on ranged characters than melee is because ranged animations are split and only part of them are affected by any kind of alacrity.

Can all of a bow or repeating crossbow's animation sequence benefit from Haste now?

[Jerevth]

Right... don't get your panties in a twist there Steelstoodge, I think I can speak for the rest of the community when I say, that we are sure you will find a way to mess it up even worse once the *****ing about it gets so bad that you are forced to try and fix it and find out that your brilliant* bow pass solution has messed everything up enough that that crew of D-list coders you lead* can't figure a way out except breaking something else. Chin up Matey, you suck but so does your boss.


*sarcasm

Yeah... no. You don't speak for the community. Certainly not like that. Certainly not with a spare account because you don't dare say it with your primary account.

[RTN]

Right... don't get your panties in a twist there Steelstoodge, I think I can speak for the rest of the community when I say, that we are sure you will find a way to mess it up even worse once the *****ing about it gets so bad that you are forced to try and fix it and find out that your brilliant* bow pass solution has messed everything up enough that that crew of D-list coders you lead* can't figure a way out except breaking something else. Chin up Matey, you suck but so does your boss.


*sarcasm

I'm not happy with this change or how useless that an epic feat is now, but you certainly don't speak for me. Bows need buffing. I just don't like the collateral damage and am trying to convince them that they shouldn't be comfortable with it, even in the short term (especially given how long the development cycle on these fixes tends to be). Your approach isn't useful.

[Smokewolf]

Ranged combat has been handicapped from day one and here we are 15 years later playing on what amounts to legacy code. Thus we have one of the following situations...

1) Code that’s untouchable because none of the existing Dev’s really understands it and thus we’re stuck with limited options. (None of them good)

2) The game-engine is limited to what the server hardware was capable back in 2006. Everything we have today was just added on top of that limited system. Making it very difficult to change major functions without rewriting significant parts of the engine that directly support ranged combat. Which if you think about it, 100% explains the increasing amounts of lag after every new expansion.

3) Over-monetization has left the Dev’s with very little wiggle room to change things, without endangering their means.

4) Code that’s band-aids upon band-aids of short sighted fixes, that collectively unravel once touched.

For the mean time, I won’t be playing a ranged built until this has been sorted and confirmed.

[LrdSlvrhnd]

Many people, not all. There will always be those who embrace any change regardless of how horrible for the game it is.

And there will always be those who oppose any change regardless of how good for the game it is. So I guess it cuts both ways, eh?

[Steelstar]

If I remember correctly, the initial reason Haste worked better on ranged characters than melee is because ranged animations are split and only part of them are affected by any kind of alacrity.

Can all of a bow or repeating crossbow's animation sequence benefit from Haste now?

- Haste/Alacrity works on the entire new bow animation.
- Haste/Alacrity currently works on the entire Thrown attack and reload (assuming you're not hitting the animation cap, a separate problem).
- Haste/Alacrity do not work on the Reload portion of Crossbow attacks (all flavors) - That's driven off of Rapid Reload instead, which (if you have the Rapid Reload feat) is usually faster than Haste/Alacrity can get you on a stable basis (tl;dr if we swapped that to work on haste/alacrity it'd be a nerf).

[droid327]

- Haste/Alacrity works on the entire new bow animation.
- Haste/Alacrity currently works on the entire Thrown attack and reload (assuming you're not hitting the animation cap, a separate problem).
- Haste/Alacrity do not work on the Reload portion of Crossbow attacks (all flavors) - That's driven off of Rapid Reload instead, which (if you have the Rapid Reload feat) is usually faster than Haste/Alacrity can get you on a stable basis (tl;dr if we swapped that to work on haste/alacrity it'd be a nerf).

That seems sliiiiightly disingenuous, because Rapid Reload is the xbow analogue to Rapid Shot, not Haste/Alacrity, and bow users benefit from both the feat and the affix, while you're suggesting xbows have to choose

And then of course rxb have a third animation so they're, as usual, completely boned anyway

[Steelstar]

That seems sliiiiightly disingenuous, because Rapid Reload is the xbow analogue to Rapid Shot, not Haste/Alacrity, and bow users benefit from both the feat and the affix, while you're suggesting xbows have to choose

And then of course rxb have a third animation so they're, as usual, completely boned anyway

Crossbows (both the attack AND reload portion) benefit from Rapid Shot as well!

I'm not suggesting they have to choose, I'm just saying that the current layout benefits Crossbow users a lot more than if we changed both the reload and the shot to scale exclusively off of Haste/Alacrity like the other ranged styles do.

[Xgya]

That seems sliiiiightly disingenuous, because Rapid Reload is the xbow analogue to Rapid Shot, not Haste/Alacrity, and bow users benefit from both the feat and the affix, while you're suggesting xbows have to choose

And then of course rxb have a third animation so they're, as usual, completely boned anyway

Rapid Shot is NOT Rapid Reload.
If you were using crossbows before and weren't taking Rapid Shot, you're nerfing yourself.

The closest equivalent would be Quick Draw for throwing builds - a feat unique to the build that can make or break it - though in this case Quick Draw gives a bonus to attack speed directly.