(PC) Bow Stat Changes Feedback

[[DE]Danielle]

This thread will be used to house your feedback on the latest Bow Stat Changes from Saint of Altra: Update 25.7.0. Expand the spoilers below for full list of changes! 

Spoiler

 

When tracking down a bug why Paris Bows were doing less Damage than their Arsenal stats indicated, internal stats were reporting all Bows doing more damage than they actually were. Below is a review of all Bows (with the exception of the Lenz) and increased stats where appropriate:

General Changes:

• Normalized quick shots to have the same critical chance/damage and status chance as charged shots.
• While reviewing Bow stats the team has also refreshed all their FX (including the Lenz)! 

    
Specific Changes:

Cernos

• Quick Shot increased from 110 to 190
• Charged Shot increased from 220 to 380
• Flight Speed increased from 85 to 90
• Aim Zoom decreased from 2.23x to 2x

    
Mutalist Cernos

• Quick Shot increased from 120 to 205
• Charged Shot increased from 225 to 410
• Aim Zoom decreased from 2.23x to 2x

    
Cernos Prime

• Quick Shot increased from 60 to 92
• Charged Shot increased from 120 to 184
• Flight Speed increased from 85 to 95
• Tightened the spread of the vertical fire mode and made the top arrow land on the reticle instead of the middle

    
Rakta Cernos

• Quick Shot increased from 150 to 235
• Charged Shot increased from 250 to 470

Daikyu

• Status Chance decreased from 50% to 46%
• Critical Chance increased from 20% to 34%
• Charged Shot increased from 460 to 700
• Flight Speed increased from 135 to 140

Dread

• Quick Shot increased from 130 to 168
• Charged Shot increased from 200 to 336

    
Paris

• Quick Shot increased from 120 to 160
• Charged Shot increased from 180 to 320

    
Mk-1 Paris

• Quick Shot increased from 100 to 115
• Charged Shot increased from 120 to 230

    
Paris Prime

• Quick Shot increased from 130 to 180
• Charged Shot increased from 260 to 360
• Flight Speed increased from 85 to 95

 

Before posting feedback on the Bow stat changes be sure to spend enough time with each affected Bow! Once you feel you have, and would like to share your thoughts, expand the spoilers below for a fast guide from a Dev side to write good, useful feedback. A well constructed and thought out post is the way to go! 

Spoiler

 

1. Keep it simple
Write simple, directed points about the topic you feel strongly about. Remember to be constructive and to the point.

2. Back it up
Support your points with concrete points. X has better stats than Y. This ability is less useful when considering X. Provide in-game situational evidence or a solid foundation for your argument to rest upon.

3. Be polite

The best feedback occurs when two people discuss opposing viewpoints to find a constructive middle ground. Discussion is a natural part of feedback! Ensuring that it is polite and without personal attacks is key. We’re far less inclined to listen to feedback filled with personal attacks and rude speech. We are all trying our best!

The Forums can be an amazing tool when used correctly. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the changes! 

 

Need to report a bug? Visit the Saint Of Altra Bug Reporting megathread.

[NovusKnight]

"So we made a few changes"

looks over changes

-BUFF

-BUFF

-HOLY MACARONI BUFF

-MORE BUFF

-MY DAIKYU IS THE DAIKYU THAT SHALL PIERCE THE HEAVENS

jesus christ I'm gonna spend aaaaaaall night in simulacrum due to this

 

jokes aside, I think it was about time some of these bows were buffed. they are, simply, inferior to snipers in their current "single-target-ERASE" role. there's no reason to use, say,  a Dread, over Rubico Prime with Hunter Munitions.

I look forward to trying out these delicious new changes.

[NovusKnight]

so, after effectively doing sone tests, my conclusions are:

DAIKYU

3 forma; build includes amalgam headshot mod, and is built for viral+hunter munition hybrid crit build.

tested against 140lvl corrupt heavy gunners, crit slash headshots are dealing some astonishing 24000 bleed ticks. This happens very frequently.

a very interesting synergy is now possible, which might make Ivara one of the strongest single-target damagers.

daikyu includes a mod that multiplies headshot multiplier to 175%. This, along with Prowl, which also increases headshot damage, and finally, resorting to Navigator, which immensely increases the damage of a projectile. 

I had this instantly kill several of these obscenely tanky enemies in a single flyby. not much anything can do to deal with 244700 bleed ticks. 

 

DREAD: dread feels and plays exactly like before, nothing changed about it, except for the much shorter TTK, thanks to the hilariously high bleed DoT, usually going up to 12000 damage on crit headshots.

 

CERNOS PRIME: This has become one of my favorite bows. The now much tighter, narrower, more precise vertical mode makes it quite easy to plonk five or six arrows directly to someone's head at surprising ranges. This, on a bow that has high crit and high status chance. . It is very common to, in one trigger pull, inflict viral, several slash procs going for 6000 damage (sometimes 4, which actualy matches the freaking daikyu) impact, and sometimes also puncture, all in *one shot.* particularly good moments led to one-shotting 140 CHGs, when most arrows caused crit bleeds to the face. Cernos prime is deceptively powerful now, due to this unique attribute.

 

all the other bows felt more effective, but none matched these particular ones, though I must mention some are lacking in their builds. My Rekt Cernos, for instance, has no forma.

 

VERDICT:

Bows are now a desireable alternative to sniper rifles, particularly for close mid range. Sniper rifles remain the uncontested kings of long range, and still outclass bows due to the higher zoom, hitscan properties, zoom bonuses, faster firerate, and ease of handling.

however, bows are no longer behind them in kill power. They actualy kill just as fast, or more, at closer distances, where it is much easier to aim with the bow 3rd person zoom, along with having no reload pauses, no combo requiring trigger discipline, and in many, many cases, enough crit/firerate to not make argon scope a common choice that further slow down your pacing.

 

bows are probably going to be excelent for killing bosses now, most likely star chart ones.

bows are still sub par in neutral engagements. They are meh against crowds. Per shot, they can outclass most explosives in kills, due to their famous "train pierce" effect, where ut easily pierces and instakills the first target in a line, and this leads to hilarious 2,3,5,7 kills in extreme cases, near instantly. However, it is rare to pull this off, and most barely kill more than one enemy per second.

I believe this buff is excelent as is. Bows are now relevant once more, but in no way are they the best possible option every single time.

 

they were, however, put into S tier for stealth frames, and likely preferable to Baza for Ivara players.

 

good job.

[taiiat]

Daikyu will still need a Riven in order to use, to give it the Crit Chance necessary considering the Fire Rate.

if you don't want Daikyu to be themed as being the 'double-triple the everything' Bow, then fine. but let it actually be 'the Status Bow' instead of still not allowing it to be so (which will always necessitate converting it to an Elemental Weapon, due to the Fire Rate).

 

the rest, well they're all better in some way, not much to say about them.

[Test-995]

Stat buffs for all those are actually good, but i think rate and reload for bows could be merged (might as well remove 2x rate bonus for bows too)

Currently reloading time for those bows acts as hard cap of fire rate because of 1 arrow magazine (unless you use reload mod), maybe it's okay for balance wise, still feel little clunky.

Basically most of other guns has bigger than 10 magazine and usually increase their DPS by a lot with fire rate mods, but for bows you have to choose reload speed for trash killing (and this is not the case for daikyu) or overall DPS with fire rate, but either way one of those will be hindrance.

Edit; also arrow effect is REALLY great, it looks actually powerful now.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Test-995

[Gene_Freak]

The effects are gorgeous and the stat changes (especially for the Cernos P and Daikyu) are excellent. I've always loved my bows, and now I love them even more.

I noticed that some animations don't seem to be working correctly when wall latching. For instance, I can see the string on the bow move when I charge, but I don't seem to be physically drawing it. It isn't impacting gameplay, but it does look odd.

[DatDarkOne]

I haven't gotten the chance to test out the changes just yet.  I'm planning to do that once I get home from work tonight. 

[Lone_Dude]

Mutalist Cernos is just nasty now. 410 damage + elemental cloud status procs, perfect for Nidus.

[MrForlin]

Hello all you wonderful Tenno!

I know Magazine Capacity does not affect bows, but I have an idea that might be awesome.

The Cernos Prime and Artemis Bow both have a "Multi Arrow" Mechanic, but it would be awesome if we had a universal way to apply this to all bows, especially in a game where we are space ninjas, and I feel like Magazine Capacity is the answer to bring this Legolass-like mechanic to life.

For this example, I will use the Daikyu as an example bow:

With Magazine Wrap+Wild Fire, we end up having a magazine capacity of 2 in the UI (which mathematically doesn't really work, unless it's rounded, but lets work with it. Bringing back the use of Tainted Mag on bows would make this mechanic more mathematically sound)

If that happens, have our frame noc 2 arrows and consume two ammo per shot.

But how would that work with Multishot?
Each arrow will be affected by Multishot chance. So if you have Split Chamber+Vigilante Armenants, you would end up firing 4 arrows at the cost of 2, with each arrow also having a 50% chance of having another fire, so a potential of 6.

How will this affect Cenros Prime and Artemis Bow?
3 shots for 1 Arrow: Cernos Prime.
7 shots for 1 Arrow: Artemis Bow.

This would essentially double:

6 shots for 2 Arrows: Cernos Prime.
14 shots for 2 Arrows: Artemis Bow.

How would this affect the Mutalist Cernos?
The Mutalist Cernos has a unique second projectile that produces lingering Toxin Damage. This would be affected the same way as it is with Multishot, producing more of the second projectile:
1 Arrow = 1 Spore Cloud.
2 Arrows = 2 Spore Clouds.

How does this help bows that can only use Multishot?
Bows are great for Single Target DPS (Mutalist Cenros, Cernos Prime, Artemis Bow and Lenz being acceptions to that). With this mechanic, this would allow us to bring a sudo-AOE aspect to other bows, such as Daikyu, Dread, Rakta Cenros, etc, and also bring them to a level where they could compete for Eidolon hunts as well, as it felt a little bit lackluster to me in terms of performance compared to the other weapons.

Anyway, thats just my thoughts and constructive feedback is always appreciated!

Edit: Whiskey_Cat asked me a cool question on stream: How would the spread work?
My idea is:
Verticle while standing.
Horizontal while crouching.
This way, it matches the positioning of your bow

Edited August 31, 2019 by MrForlin
Felt it was needed to state the spread would work. Credits to Whiskey_Cat on Twitch for making me think of this!

[DatDarkOne]

1 hour ago, MrForlin said:

But how would that work with Multishot?
Each arrow will be affected by Multishot chance. So if you have Split Chamber+Vigilante Armenants, you would end up firing 4 arrows at the cost of 2, with each arrow also having a 50% chance of having another fire, so a potential of 6.

How will this affect Cenros Prime and Artemis Bow?
3 shots for 1 Arrow: Cernos Prime.
7 shots for 1 Arrow: Artemis Bow.

This would essentially double:

6 shots for 2 Arrows: Cernos Prime.
14 shots for 2 Arrows: Artemis Bow.

i don't see this happening with Artemis Bow.  I already get a 21 arrow spread.  your change could potentially have Artemis getting over or close to 40 arrow spread.  That's just not going to happen due to the power of Artemis already.  Sorry.  😄 

[MrForlin]

1 hour ago, DatDarkOne said:

i don't see this happening with Artemis Bow.  I already get a 21 arrow spread.  your change could potentially have Artemis getting over or close to 40 arrow spread.  That's just not going to happen due to the power of Artemis already.  Sorry.  😄 

Hi @DatDarkOne

I am not just reffering to Artemis Bow, but I do see your point that having a potential 40 arrow spread could be overpowered. Valid as it may be, however, I do not agree with it. I don't see why an EXALTED WEAPON should be a reason to not include a mechanic for an ENTIRE CLASS of weaponry. That would be like saying Melee Weapons shouldn't be able to have Condition Overload because Exalted Blade becomes too overpowered.

Don't be sorry,  I expected that kind of a response when I said constructive feedback is always appreciated. And I do appreciate your input and I thank you for it! I just don't see it as a reason to exclude an entire class of weapons from one mechanic change that could bring other weapons of that class to a potential higher level, in my opinion.

[(PSN)Black-Cat-Jinx]

A lot of this is good.... None of it will allow bows to challenge other weapon types.

You really need to just accept that it's time you tweak some mechanics. Having bows and semi auto rifles effected by combo counters would be a good start, and also tweaking thunderbolt so that it actually causes a portion of total damage to be delivered as area of effect instead of it being a fixed damage amount.

You can buff bows all you want but people are still going to mostly use the ignis wraith or other meta weapons because they are more rewarding in damage but require less skill. This isn't going to be enough to get people using any bow outside the lens.

Also. Seeing as this is obviously a preparation for Ivara prime to be coming out in another month or two when wukong slides down his monkey pole, what are you doing to Artemis?

[DatDarkOne]

8 hours ago, (PS4)Black-Cat-Jinx said:

what are you doing to Artemis?

Simple, NOTHING needs to be done or changed on Artemis.  It's perfectly fine as it is.  

[Test-995]

1 hour ago, DatDarkOne said:

Simple, NOTHING needs to be done or changed on Artemis.  It's perfectly fine as it is.  

...But honestly i'd want to see same arrow effect as other bows for artemis bow, more shiny = more fun for me.

Well yeah i know it's different topic.

[Innosin]

Daiykyu is still a problematic bow to use in game even though I love its design.

Lenz, another weapon that needs to be fully charged to fire, is useful/popular because it's an aoe weapon. the Daikyu isn't.

it has the clunkyness of charged weapons in game, but does not have the usefulness of it.

IPS stat makes it a unreliable status weapon, projectile type, making it even harder to hit enemies on top of the required charge time, etc.

 

Look, I understand DE wants to make the Daikyu feel like an authentic Japan long bow... or just long bow/traditional recurve bow in general, but the current full charge required system just puts too much restriction to make it useful.

Here's a suggestion, take it with a grain of salt if you want, coming from someone that has been practicing both compound and traditional bow archery for years, it is possible for the Daikyu to get a damage per percent charged system like Opticor. (the bow damage gets higher as you hold down the charge longer) but at the same time, making the bow becomes more accurate as you follow through the charging/drawing animation?

 

Bows, especially none-pulley bows, can be fire at any time at any draw length...  How ever, the bows draw weight (also the power of the shot) increases exponentially near the end of the bow's draw cycle so perhaps there can be an exponential damage system?

20% charge time, 10% shot damage,

40% charge time, 20% shot damage,

60% charge time, 50% shot damage,

80% charge time, 90% shot damage,

100% charge time.. 100% shot damage.  (the last small increase can be see as bow stacking? maybe?)

 

and as we charge, the accuracy gets better too (a circle reticle gets small). This can be seem as an archer slowly settles into his form, hence the the shot becomes more accurate.

if you want to... the arrow speed can be affectted by charge time/draw time too...

 

This shouldn't make Daikyu into a monster or something... but the ability to use quick shots as quality of life change can make Daikyu at least a decent choice compare to the rest of its peers.

[Krayshin]

O there where changes, I didn't notice...

Krayshin

[(PSN)Lei-Lei_23]

Can someone on PC test to see Bow crit interaction with Hunter Synergy on Venari? Last I checked on consoles the arsenal UI looked bugged. Unsure how it is on PC with these Bow changes.

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2019-08-29 at 2:34 PM, [DE]Danielle said:

Daikyu

• Status Chance decreased from 50% to 46%
• Critical Chance increased from 20% to 34%
• Charged Shot increased from 460 to 700
• Flight Speed increased from 135 to 140

Excellent buff, I look forward to it on X1!

However, I have a crit+damage riven for the Daikyu that already gives me something like this, and it doesn't fix the weapon...

On 2019-08-29 at 10:52 PM, NovusKnight said:

MY DAIKYU IS THE DAIKYU THAT SHALL PIERCE THE HEAVENS

...

They are, simply, inferior to snipers in their current "single-target-ERASE" role. there's no reason to use, say, a Dread, over Rubico Prime with Hunter Munitions

I love the Gurren Lagaan quote!

But this point is also key: the problem with bows is snipers - less cumbersome to use, mostly hit scan, combo counter and mostly no charge mechanic. The Daikyu just doesn't do as much damage as, say, a Rubico (as 3x crit really makes a difference), while being harder to use and not having a combo mechanic (and not really being quick enough to use one anyway). 

I'd also add an aside that status bows in general aren't much use unless very high, and even then not very useful. When only shooting 1 arrow every second or two you aren't going to get many chances at procs, and less than 100% means they just feel unreliable. When you proc viral great, they're dead, when you don't you have to shoot them again while they shoot back.

Bows need to offer something else - more damage, sure, they need to be very high compared to easier to use weapons, but to be slow and cumbersome and still compete with snipers they need their own mechanic.

Maybe a bows combo counter that adds 5% affinity, and 100% base damage every successive headshot, up to 25% affinity and 500% damage after 5 headshots in a row. Miss a headshot and it resets. Multishot bows count as a headshot if any hit a head. No timeout. Bows become the focus farming weapon of choice with crazy high damage for those with the skill to use them.

 

 

[Skyfire151]

4 hours ago, (XB1)KayAitch said:

Bows need to offer something else - more damage, sure, they need to be very high compared to easier to use weapons, but to be slow and cumbersome and still compete with snipers they need their own mechanic.

In my opinion, that 'something else' that bows give should be the fact that they're silent - they should be the premier stealth weapons. Unfortunately, there are two main problems with that.

1) Hush/Suppress/Silent Battery are a thing, so there's not really much room for bows to shine here. If a silenced weapon is desirable, you don't need a Daikyu; you can just silence a Rubico or an Arca Plasmor.

2) For a game allegedly about (space-) ninjas, stealth is not particularly useful. Something like half of our mission types are functionally impossible to do stealthily, and for the rest doing so is both slower and less rewarding than just going full-Rambo with an Ignis Wraith.

The ideal solution to that would be an in-depth update to stealth mechanics, but I don't really think that's likely given the state of Warframe at present. There are still changes that could help, though: make a max-rank Hush cost 30 mod points instead of 5 and raise the maximum stealth-kill bonus to 1000% (or more) instead of 500%, and I expect bows would start looking more attractive. They still wouldn't be direct competitors to the other weapons, but they would allow a slower, more surgical playstyle.

[(NSW)zook-pl]

On 2019-09-02 at 1:07 AM, Skyfire151 said:

In my opinion, that 'something else' that bows give should be the fact that they're silent

Maybe combo counter witch last until you keep stealthy (plus mayby smal amount of decay time to re-stealth).

Or 'killstreak' combo counter for example after 5 'stealth kills' your boss start to shoot 3 arrows instead of 1 or get massive + to status chance. Of course witch 2-3 'killstrak abilities' per bow.

Edited September 3, 2019 by (NSW)zook-pl

[(XBOX)KayAitch]

On 2019-09-02 at 12:07 AM, Skyfire151 said:

In my opinion, that 'something else' that bows give should be the fact that they're silent - they should be the premier stealth weapons. Unfortunately, there are two main problems with that

I'd settle for them getting the melee unaware stealth kill bonus.

However, like you said, the Hush mod means anything can be silent, and a dedicated silent sniper wouldn't be a crazy idea. Silent should be the defining characteristic of a weapon class.

10 hours ago, (NSW)zook-pl said:

Maybe combo counter witch last until you keep stealthy (plus mayby smal amount of decay time to re-stealth).

Yeah, like melee weapons.

10 hours ago, (NSW)zook-pl said:

your boss start to shoot 3 arrows instead of 1 or get massive + to status chance. Of course witch 2-3 'killstrak abilities' per bow

I'm less keen on this one. If I want a bow-shotgun that's a Cernos, and several bows can get 100% status but it doesn't help. You aren't going to strip armour with one proc. Viral would work with a crit build though.

 

For me, bows feel like they should be massive single target damage, if you have skills, so I'd just make it all about successive headshots.

[Maxim_M_Payne]

The buffs to stats were nice, but I think some of the bows are bugged and Aim Zoom was reduced to lower than x2. Some seem to barely zoom in at all, and it's harder to land those all-important shots to enemy weak-points now. 

Additionally, and with all due respect, the visual changes snuck in alongside the Bow buffs are actually pretty irritating and flashy. They feel like needless glitter thrown onto something that was already pretty all by itself. Now, even though bows are stronger, they're too visually off-putting for me to use as frequently as I did prior. The flashes and weird pixel-sparks hurt my eyes.

A simple, lightless arrow impact indicated only by satisfying sounds was much preferable to seeing this every shot:

I was also more than capable of knowing that my shots were charged with only the ring around the reticule filling up with red, and nothing else jammed in my HUD; these puffs and rings of energy shown below are both unnecessary and add more visual clutter without really making anything pretty.

Edited September 6, 2019 by Maxim_M_Payne

[Maxim_M_Payne]

Also, can we please get horizontal spread decreased on Cernos Prime, not just vertical? Shooting five arrows on average is fun, but not when only two actually hit the cluster of guys I shot at; even with higher base damage.

Edited September 6, 2019 by Maxim_M_Payne

[Skyfire151]

On 2019-09-06 at 12:48 PM, Maxim_M_Payne said:

Additionally, and with all due respect, the visual changes snuck in alongside the Bow buffs are actually pretty irritating and flashy. They feel like needless glitter thrown onto something that was already pretty all by itself. Now, even though bows are stronger, they're too visually off-putting for me to use as frequently as I did prior. The flashes and weird pixel-sparks hurt my eyes.

A simple, lightless arrow impact indicated only by satisfying sounds was much preferable to seeing this every shot:

I've been... ambivalent about the visual changes.

The Dread is the only bow I currently use, so I can't comment on the others, but in isolation I can see the appeal of the new effects on it. There's something cinematic about them - it's a perfect fit for a scene like Excalibur shooting down the dropship in that recent trailer. Not necessarily going to appeal to everyone, but I don't think anything could - visuals are fundamentally subjective things.

Thing is, I bring the Dread as a stealth weapon - and now every shot I fire literally draws a line in the air between me and my target. That's pretty much the exact opposite of 'stealthy'...

[Peter]

On 2019-09-05 at 9:54 PM, Maxim_M_Payne said:

Also, can we please get horizontal spread decreased on Cernos Prime, not just vertical? Shooting five arrows on average is fun, but not when only two actually hit the cluster of guys I shot at; even with higher base damage.

Please no, the horizontal spread is what makes this bow different from the others, we got bows enough with that accuracy.

 

About the feedback, I think the reload of the bows could be halved, today we have a lot of fast weapons that do massive area damage or delete buttons (snipers), It would be very good to give agility to the bows.

 

And please, review the Thunderbolt mod.

Edited September 8, 2019 by Peter