Playing with nerfed archery, missile rebalance

[Atarlost]

The rogue is a warrior with utilities, not a warrior-mage. A proper warrior-mage would have to have most of the offensive magic and skimp, if anything, on detect and evade.

[Derakon]

The rogue is already serving as a warrior-mage, just as the paladin serves as a warrior-priest. I don't think there's really room for a fourth mage-type caster class with the current setup, nor do I think that a nonmagical class that has great shooting would be strongly differentiated from the warrior, who's quite good at ranged combat already.

[ekolis]

I like that idea... though while Warrior-Mage is used in a number of variants, the name seems a bit contrived... what about calling such a class a Spellblade, or a Wizard, or... hmm, what's the fantasy equivalent of an Engineer? :P

[Wisp]

Just a thought, have you thought about splitting the Ranger class? I"ve thought for a while now that he seems quite unbalanced, with his proficiency in everything. Perhaps he could be split into a real Archer class and a Warrior-Mage class a la Zang.

The way I'd conceptualize it would be that the theoretical archer would have the ranger's fantastic shooting, but would have a low str modifier and so on to prevent him from being able to squeeze out all those melee blows and forcing him to keep his difference. I suppose he could keep some magic, but I'd envision it like how a rogue gets magic; Strictly for utility.

The WM I'm thinking of would be self-explanatory, just maybe give him a bit better fighting and SP cost/fail rates to make him worth using.

I think that a jack of all trades class like the ranger should be much more gimped, or should be split.

Anyways, just my two cents.

[ewert]

If the +2 might is proper...did anyone even stop to consider the complete imbalance implied by the +2 shots, before this? If that wasn't *ridiculous* from day one, then the +20% damage IS 'no big deal'.

The fact that ranger ranged damage has been way insane and overpowered for soooo long is easy to find in old forum posts or newsgroups. But as this is a single player game, and maintainers are volunteers, and so forth, there have of course been changes that have seemed "cool" but have indeed been way way way nuts in balance.

So yes, +2 shots is insane. +2 might is proper. On the whole, archery is overpowered even without extra shots, TBH, compared to melee and magic.

Warriors get a bit better melee and +20% dmg (6th hit), few HP and not much else compared to paladins, who get, oh, spells. +20% ranged is IMHO easily enough for rangers, since rangers already have huge utility and other aspects in the class that are good in themselves.

[nullfame]

Don't forget he is only second to rogue in stealth.

[PowerDiver]

The ranger still does more damage, assuming launcher multipliers and shots and plusses are equal. That is because the ranger gets a better hit roll with missile attacks. This could be exaggerated with a change in criticals to depend upon hit roll rather than weight, as discussed elsewhere.

[Derakon]

The ranger is really good at shooting, but he's no slouch at melee or spellcasting either. Thus an outright nerf is not out of the question.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

But that's the ranger's major advantage; he's really, really good at shooting. Right now, barring extra shots, the ranger is *200%* more powerful, 100% more powerful with +1 shot.

Note, too, that the shot-power increases only count with bows, if it's implemented the way extra shots are. A warrior with Umbar is equal to a ranger with Bard; each is getting x7 from his launcher. Against dragons, Bard will beat Slay Dragon ammo, but in any other case they're equal.

If the +2 might is proper...did anyone even stop to consider the complete imbalance implied by the +2 shots, before this? If that wasn't *ridiculous* from day one, then the +20% damage IS 'no big deal'.

On ewert's randart: Extra shots needs to be rarer than speed bonuses.

[ewert]

Nono, the +might instead of +shots is MY change. Joking aside, I agree with Derakon that +2 might is plenty enough, even if one has additive multipliers instead of multiplive. 5 hits paladin vs 6 hits warrior, oh lookie, 20%. Nobody complains that the warrior extra 6th hit is wussy.

Btw, my new rogue char just got first randart: short bow (darn) +9 +9 (darn) +3 shots LOL, pre stat-gain 4 hits melee (brawn potion id-by-use =P) or 4 shots archery, hahaha =P

[Derakon]

I wouldn't call a 20% increase in power "not that big a deal". It's just not as gobstoppingly powerful as a 100% increase.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Cool.

But note that, with the change to multipliers adding, the scale for extra might changes considerably. Given that (in the later stages) typical shots will have x7 power, with a typical range of x4 to a high of about x10 (Bard vs. dragons, with nothing else adding to power), +2 extra might only takes that x10 to x12. Not that big a deal.

[fizzix]

Made a post about a change to archery for rangers, over in the whole "make the game tougher" thread. Whole post can be found here:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=3355&page=15

Executive summary: instead of extra shots, how about giving rangers extra shooting power? Something like +1 at 12th, 24th, 36th, 48th...but I'm far from wedded to those levels.

The advantage is that the ranger's 25% to 50% better than anyone else...not 50% to 200%.

Changing extra shots to extra might for rangers was one of my changes.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Made a post about a change to archery for rangers, over in the whole "make the game tougher" thread. Whole post can be found here:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=3355&page=15

Executive summary: instead of extra shots, how about giving rangers extra shooting power? Something like +1 at 12th, 24th, 36th, 48th...but I'm far from wedded to those levels.

The advantage is that the ranger's 25% to 50% better than anyone else...not 50% to 200%.

[d_m]

I figured you would know without me having to look. I was trying to be lazy. But since you ask, I will take a look when I feel alert.

Yeah, I tried to test it by hand, but it's entirely possible I made a mistake. Very few changes I've made to the codebase have been error-free...