To no one's surprise - buffing bows did not make them more viable

[Uhkretor]

On 2019-10-05 at 9:44 AM, No_Quarter said:

Here is how to make people enjoy bows - make them a unique weapon class, make their own mods and let us fit them in ANY slot in loadout we want. Primary, Secondary,or Melee.

This is the only thing I get from the OP, even through the rest of the replies... The argument, by itself, contradicts itself... Specific bow mods would only bury them into a dark corner on the airlock somewhere aboard the Orbiter.

... if "viability" for you is having the ability to put bows wherever you see fit, you should probably learn what "viability" actually means...

 

... DE wasn't going to buff the bows to be rivals to sniper rifles... They, apparently, normalized the behavior on the bows, leaving the charge mechanic affecting Damage alone. As much as you (or anyone else that uses bows) want to, you're comparing 2 different types of weapons, each with its own specific power.

Bows can be used at long range, but they're not long range as snipers are... Or as powerful. Directly comparing bows with snipers is like comparing a stick with a broadsword... Both of them can kill, but you can only dismember with one of them. Bows will never be "rivals" to sniper rifles, but they can be alternatives... And the way they are now, they are alternatives. They don't need any kind of boost, as they will perform admirably up to around lvl200 (bow type and/or mod build dependent)... They are viable now, but they can never be compared to sniper rifles.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Uhkretor

[MonsterOfMyOwn]

I'd love bows to pierce throught eximus and nullifier bubbles. that would make them really useful.

[(PSN)AllOrNothinDays]

Introduce bows you can craft that have their own mods. You can add damage to the bows through the arrows and make them have whatever quirk like a tesla ish effect, poison cloud. It would steal away from bows that already have it but if you made it so mastering particular bows unlocks their arrow/quirk for all of them to be used, even if you ditch the bow afterwards it would introduce a level of collect ability to it that is only hampered by how you could lose access to the prime versions once they're cycled out but it was something I thought about when customizing an arrow many moons ago. Can also introduce a level of vanity to if if there are some bows that offer no real bonus but have a cool looking effect attached to it when fired.

[Mephane]

Imo the only thing bows need is to be allowed to use sniper rifle specific mods like Sharpshooter.

Edited October 6, 2019 by Mephane

[Teridax68]

I feel we're all kind of looking at the problem the wrong way here: we're never going to fix bows just by buffing their damage or firing speed, and sniper rifles are not a great standard of performance to set for them either, because sniper rifles themselves are incredibly niche weapons that only see major use in a couple of missions. The reason neither are popular isn't because they don't deal enough damage or don't fire fast enough (you can pretty much one-shot most enemies even at the 100 level range, and even bows can do so quickly), but because they're single-target weapons in a game where there are virtually no interesting individual targets. Even Heavy Gunners, Bombards, or Ancients fall pretty quickly to most weapons, and it doesn't help that some of the weapons with the best burst damage also have AoE capabilities, as is the case for the Tigris Prime and any Catchmoon kitgun.

Thus, if bows are to become interesting again, we need to have more enemies that require powerful single-shot weapons to be taken down effectively, whether it be in specific missions or across factions by default: the Nox is already one of those units, and there is probably potential for many more, including on existing enemies. One of the major problems with several enemies, for example, is that they have damage caps in place that particularly affect single-shot weapons, as is especially notable on Tusk Thumpers and Lephantis. If this damage cap were flipped so that low-damage-per-shot, high-RoF guns were instead blocked the hardest, and single-shot weapons like bows and sniper rifles were affected the least (or not at all), then suddenly those weapons would find several more situations in which they'd be useful. This wouldn't fix all of those weapons' problems, as much of Warframe's high-level content falls into horde mode territory, but it could at least be a push towards better viability.

[(XBOX)Rez090]

I wish people here would stop calling Warframe a HORDE shooter game. There are mobs of enemies sometimes but there are not hordes. World War Z, Left for Dead, Dead Rising are horde games, with actual hordes of enemies.

[Test-995]

13 hours ago, DatDarkOne said:

You have to be joking with this one.  The reload on bows is virtually instant.  Enough to the point that using Fast Hands mod or similar practically has no effect.  There is one exception to this and that is Artemis Bow (which is a unique case all by itself).  

Definitely not joking since bows only have an arrow in magazine, so your rate is hard capped 1.6666/sec with 0.6sec reload unless you use fast hand, and even then reload mods can't really fix it due to their low percentage increase.

[000l000]

My Dread is killing a bunch of heavily armoured lvl 100+ enemies twice as fast as a Catchmoon but hey, bows suck so bad !

[DatDarkOne]

7 hours ago, Test-995 said:

Definitely not joking since bows only have an arrow in magazine, so your rate is hard capped 1.6666/sec with 0.6sec reload unless you use fast hand, and even then reload mods can't really fix it due to their low percentage increase.

I want you to seriously look at that 0.6 sec reload stat you posted.  I say this because realistically just fast can you press the button or pull the trigger without using macro or something similar.  

I actually tested both with and without fasthands using the Dread for the test and each time I was able to fire about as fast as I could pull the trigger.  Anything faster than that and it wouldn't be a bow but a semi-auto or auto.  

edit: I'm not trying to be an arse.  Just speaking of practicality.  

Edited October 7, 2019 by DatDarkOne

[(PSN)Black-Cat-Jinx]

They really just need to have a sniper counter and thunderbolt needs to divide a portion of total damage across area of effect instead of a fixed amount of damage. That by its self will largely fix then. 

[DatDarkOne]

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

They really just need to have a sniper counter and thunderbolt needs to divide a portion of total damage across area of effect instead of a fixed amount of damage. That by its self will largely fix then. 

I can totally get behind this suggestion.  

[Tyreaus]

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

They really just need to have a sniper counter and thunderbolt needs to divide a portion of total damage across area of effect instead of a fixed amount of damage. That by its self will largely fix then. 

Stares at Cernos Prime.

Explosions, you say?

Punts Lenz out the airlock.

---

To be real for a moment: I don't think bows really need both of those. I think the Thunderbolt update covers it fine enough, and lets snipers keep their niche (even if they might need an update of their own).

[No_Quarter]

On 2019-10-07 at 10:40 PM, (PS4)Black-Cat-Jinx said:

They really just need to have a sniper counter and thunderbolt needs to divide a portion of total damage across area of effect instead of a fixed amount of damage. That by its self will largely fix then. 

then after bows outdamage snipers this suggestion creates another problem.

not to mention that you are basically asking for every bow to be Lenz with combo.... Which solves nothing imho but agree to disagree.

On 2019-10-07 at 9:45 AM, 000l000 said:

My Dread is killing a bunch of heavily armoured lvl 100+ enemies twice as fast as a Catchmoon but hey, bows suck so bad !

Not once it was claimed bows suck, they are just not a primary choice if you want to be able to carry a game. Yes, it can kill, but from all primary weapon classes is is overall the least used one because... of some reasons, probably for being bad as a primary weapon.

 

On 2019-10-07 at 4:16 AM, (XB1)Rez090 said:

I wish people here would stop calling Warframe a HORDE shooter game. There are mobs of enemies sometimes but there are not hordes. World War Z, Left for Dead, Dead Rising are horde games, with actual hordes of enemies.

*looking at mission result, 20 minutes, 6000 kills between 2 dps*

You are right man, it's a dancing game, no horde was seen there.

Now for real, when player(s) are massively outnumbered by enemies and each individual enemy is as good as your average potato - it is a horde shooter. If in 5 minutes you kill hundred to couple hundreds of enemies - it is not  a mucking dance class, it's a horde shooter. A clue, most popular meta weapons are ones who deal with multiple enemies at once, a perfect sign that game is not a horde shooter.....

[DatDarkOne]

31 minutes ago, No_Quarter said:

the least used one because... of some reasons, probably for being bad as a primary weapon.

This should really say, "Least used because it requires the player to AIM."  That's really the most honest answer and reason right there.  

[(PSN)Black-Cat-Jinx]

1 hour ago, No_Quarter said:

then after bows outdamage snipers this suggestion creates another problem.

 

As usual people defending inaction by use of non real examples.

1. No one is calling for bows to out damage snipers.
2. Even if bows do out damage snipers, they are harder to use because of range limitations, projectile speed, draw time, etc.
3. No one weapon needs to worry about out damaging any other one weapon. Single shot slow firing weapons should do well against non damage capped large hit box targets, like eidolons for example. Nobody is going to use a slow firing precision weapon against mops, they're going to use something with a high rate of fire. You don't have to care about what out damages what as long as everything is serving it's correct role in the application you intend for it.

In 99% of all missions, people are not going to use a sniper because you'll get swarmed before you can handle individual targets. Making bows work as well as snipers in the few missions where you don't need to mass slaughter the enemy just means bows have a reason to exist. Because if you don't do something like what I suggested, they don't. Have a reason to exist. Right now DE is doing the laziest possible of all things which is just having a few weapons of each mechanic be good so they don't have to fix the rest of them. They don't have to fix automatic rifles because of the supra vandal, beam weapons because of things like amprex or ignis wraith, single shot weapons because of snipers, thrown weapons because of staticore or more importantly pox, and bows are okay sucking because the lenz exists.... so as long as there is something in each category that's not trash, it's okay for everything else to be trash, and that's not okay. It's damn lazy.

[George_PPS]

Bows simply have inferior mechanics imo. They need some mechanical buffs in addition to stats buffs and more buffs. 

[Miyabi-sama]

8 часов назад, DatDarkOne сказал:

This should really say, "Least used because it requires the player to AIM."  That's really the most honest answer and reason right there.  

Why they should aim if there are Plasmor and Catchmoon nonsense?

[supernils]

On 2019-10-05 at 10:50 AM, Jiminez_Burial said:

My dreams of a Dread, Paris Prime and Rakta Cernos loadout will be a reality.  I'm gonna up vote this thread simply because of that idea.

Dual wield bow, wouldn't that be bad ass? 😉

[DoomFruit]

5 hours ago, supernils said:

Dual wield bow, wouldn't that be bad ass? 😉

I'd be more impressed with a quad wield bow.

http://www.nuklearpower.com/2009/01/27/episode-1087-exalted-feat

[000l000]

Il y a 15 heures, No_Quarter a dit :

Not once it was claimed bows suck

You're right, not being viable means they don't suck at all. 😓

[Xzorn]

Bow simply server a very specific window that mostly no longer exist in Warframe.

DE can buff whatever they want and that won't change. The only reasons snipers see much use are Eidolons and the bad idea of a combo meter. There's simply no longer places in the game which make good use of weapons like Bows / Snipers otherwise. The damage is overkill for "typical content", they require aim and they're single target.

I remember back around 2014 using Dread as the Heavy Unit killer along with two friends using Ogris for fodder. Those kinda group roles aren't in the game anymore because you have to spend hours in a mission to get to a point Warframe actually requires team coordination and no one is gunna do that anymore.

Long as Snipers have a combo multiplier I don't see bows outside Lenz as more than fun / style and even then be prepared to spend 3 hours in a mission if you want to make good use of that Sniper because yes they're obscenely powerful but not worth it until you're shooting at lvl 2,000+ enemies. Game design just won't let those weapons be good.

[DatDarkOne]

1 hour ago, Xzorn said:

as more than fun / style

Thank you for mentioning this as that hits me 100%.  😄   For those who might not know, but my motto has always been Style Above All. 

[AzureTerra]

19 hours ago, Miyabi-sama said:

Why they should aim if there are Plasmor and Catchmoon nonsense?

then they should use that nonsense if they cant be bothered to play a weapon where you take your time and aim ~ playing a bow rewards the type of player who isn't interested in bouncing off the walls like a loon

[Miyabi-sama]

11 часов назад, AzureTerra сказал:

playing a bow rewards the type of player who isn't interested in bouncing off the walls like a loon

W... wha?

[Klokwerkaos]

bows are too slow for speed murder, hence they will never be viable.  single target damage is garbage in a horde shooter.

this is why the only bow riven I  give a crap about is the zhuge since it is basically gun, not a bow, but counts as a bow, so i can bring it for bow only sorties.

all other bows are trash in comparison to all the other stuff I might slot  in for my primary.