Tiered Bow Rework

#1

This is probably gonna be the most controversial post I’ve ever written, but here goes.

It’s often said in the game that you canNOT make a bow class without having a dbow, cbow, lbow, etc. And that’s true. The tiered bows, while offering more area denial, have lackluster damage and are significantly more dangerous to hit all shots for true damage, and even THEN it gets overshadowed.

Therefore, in order to make tiered bows actually relevant, I think the game should make all tiered bows do armor piercing damage.

You’re probably thinking what?! But hear me out.

Obviously, this would need a bit of change in damage, etc. But this would solve two things:

  • Being able to defeat high defense enemies and making it effective as a swapout, if not a primary bow.

  • More consistent damage.

Obviously, if needed, damage would have to be lowered in order to make sure that armor piercing isn’t too overpowered. I mean, 300+ damage armor piercing is a little high with berserk buffs. But after the damage rework, tiered bows should hopefully have more relevance again.

TL;DR-Make tiered bows armor piercing to make them relevant once more instead of just a glorified pbag.

#2

dbow, absolutely. cbow? hell no. I actually never use cbow because covert is just better. the lack of a projectile going straight forward combined with the only slight increase in true range, as well as cbow actually just doing less damage than covert, I find no reason to use cbow.

if we’re really being honest here, it’s not that tiered bows are bad, it’s that dbow is incredibly overpowered. and it certainly doesn’t help that dbow drops form a common glands dungeon instead of a once-per-realm kind of thing like woodlab.

though I must say that giving tiered bows armor piercing is not the way to go about solving this, one of the things that makes dbow so powerful is that the damage per shot is so high it practically has armor piercing already. if you give actual armor piercing to tiered bows then one of two things will happen depending on how you adjust damage: 1) tiered bows do more damage than dbow so there’s no reason to use dbow or 2) dbow does more damage than tiered bows so there’s no reason to use tiered bows whatsoever. at least with the current system tiered bows are genuinely more powerful than dbow at low defense targets.

short version

tiered bows don’t actually suck, even right now. the only reason people say that they do is that dbow is OP

#3

have you actually tried this on a DPS calculator or did you just make a thread because you thought it sounded cool?

#4

I feel that reducing the arc gap to around around 5 degrees, which would increase the true range to about 5.72 tiles, would bring the tiered bows back into usability. While this would increase the true range significantly, I feel that it would be enough to make it much safer to use the tiered bows while still keeping other bows the same. Tiered bows would still be more of a risk since you would have to get closer than any other bow (except cbow), but they wouldn’t be as much of a death sentence to use.

#5

What? No

Why would you even need any of those, yes the damage is low but it still works just fine as is, if you really need the dps quiver and trap do more than enough damage while bow still has higher dps than wand and wand classes are entirely viable

#6

Why not make cbow and t11,12 13 switch properties

#7

TLDR; Nerf dbow

#8

400–>500 should be nerfed to 250-400

#9

They’re fairly balanced, actually. Tiered bows outdamage most untiered options at very low defense. There are quite a few situations where a tiered bow is better than a DBow (e.g: taking on ambushes in abysses, where missing a shot with a DBow could have serious consequences). As for CBow, its utility is high because of its superior range, but that’s counteracted by the fact that Covert can outdamage it until about 45 defense, and by then the DBow outdamages both of them by a large margin. As for the other bows, Leaf has high DPS but doesn’t pierce, Nectar has high DPS and high spread but is affected horribly by defense, TShot has a high RoF single shot and isn’t as affected by enemy defense as the CBow, and the VBow has serious DPS but tiered dagger range. There’s a lot of positive and drawback to call on between tiered bows and untiered, but I’d say the tiered ones hold up just fine. I wouldn’t mind having to deal with it, even though I will admit the DBow is perhaps one of the best to use against high DEF enemies like Oryx. Why complain at this moment when the drop rate for Morning Star is as high as it is (I’m sure it’s double the chance for the rest of this month and I’ve gotten probably three Morning Stars already).

#10

I agree with everything here, I just feel that the tiered bows need a higher effective range. The fact that you have to stand at melee range to hit all shots on the tiered bows feels odd when you can use most any other bow (except nectar) for a higher true range with the main trade off being lower damage at lower defense ratings.

#11

They just buffed the bows not too long ago, and it made covert comparable to the cbow in usefulness. Tiered bows are perfectly balanced right now and don’t need to be changed at all.

#12

want to feel old? that patch was made over a year ago.

#13

Armor piercing damage on tiered bows is bad because dbow is specifically designed against enemies of high defense.

@Xaklor Actually, dbow would still be useful even if tiered bows do more damage, because it has a higher true range.

#14

Idk dude, I’m pretty sure there are many people, including myself, who use CBow way more than DBow… It’s generally a much more versatile weapon suitable for pretty much any occasion and with the dropped soulbound requirements, it’s not a problem even on high-def bosses. Besides, it’s even easier to obtain as you keep running OTs even late in end-game compared to UDLs, which you hardly ever visit since you don’t really need wis pots for anything.

#15

see, the thing is: you can take that argument and apply it directly to using covert all the time instead of cbow except that covert does all of those things even better. covert is easier to hit the target with, does more damage, and is worth basically nothing. I may be of the opinion that dbow is crazy overpowered for the difficulty required to obtain it, but I am also of the opinion that cbow is 100% pointless in every situation other than suiciding for the fame bonus. but that’s another story.

I’m not saying that dbow is so bloody op that there’s no reason to use other bows, personally I use covert and leaf bow most of the time to be honest. what I am saying is that dbow can be used effectively against anything and everything that matters. that can only be said about the dbow and the void bow (definitely making some assumptions here, I’ve never used one), and that probably shouldn’t be true of something that drops from a midgame dungeon that can be rushed with 30 defense. heck, just comparing being able to compare it like that to a bow that drops from the hardest (or second hardest) dungeon in the game really ought to be sending some red flags.

#16

lmao How is any of that even remotely true? Covert is an absolutely useless bow with the sole exception of dungeon chests, and even there CBow is still probably better. You can never land all shots with Covert, so its DPS is low af in practical situations. Having a high RoF weapon rather than a burst-damage weapon is always preferable because it’s automatically easier to aim. Plus, having two shots at a slight angle rather than having a single shot is a huge advantage to aiming as well, especially when fighting fast-moving enemies. Yes, you only land one of those shots half of the time, but that’s completely okay because unlike tiered bows it actually deals damage. Also, DBow is difficult to obtain as hell, but ok. Even when I have one, I never use it, it’s utterly useless for just about anything except still bosses.

#17

so what you want to do is make dbow completely useless in almost all situations

#18

You must have a lot of patience and a very good aim, because I never use doom bow besides on static bosses and enemies with a really high defense. It requires a lot more effort to aim and if you’re being chased it’s just not safe enough to protect you in time (i.e from a fast-moving godwall). Coral bow does the job a lot better 99% of the time. Covert got a decent buff but it’s still a slower and harder to hit coral bow, basically. It can’t even compete because cbow has higher damage per shot making it better at higher def, higher range, and higher fire rate.

#19

Uploading a graph comparing the DPS of all tiered and untiered bows because that should have been done from the beginning of this thread.

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You can see that Covert (in blue) compares fairly decently. The Mystical compares even better.
Given the CBow’s placement, does that make it useless? Absolutely not! As I’ve said before, there’s more to it than damage. Tiered bows have a wide spread which allows for attacking a large group in an arc, but suffers from defense. Doom Bow is slow but can hit to its true range and is one of the best bows against high defense bosses (namely Oryx), CBow sacrifices better DPS for superior utility, Leaf bow has high DPS but no pierce, etc. It all really comes down to personal preference as to what one player prefers based on their playstyle. Given how generally close the numbers are against each other (spare the VBow, LBow, and DBow), it shows that the bows are fairly balanced as they are. I said that before already, though.

#20

I would say Vbow has the same situations as Cbow, and the other bows have more advantages, so it seems pretty useless