Archery feedback (and proposal)

Like a few others on this forum, I really want archery to reach a balance with the rest of the weapons and schools of magic.

And first off, yes, it's obviously quite early to make judgements about archery, but I just thought the general design could be discussed, as we do know what skills are gonna make it in the archery tree for now.

So, what do I mean ? I think archery in its design is supposed to be a support role, and here's why :




- Blinding Shot: Attack that has chance to lower target's accuracy values for X seconds
- Disabling Shot: Attack that has chance to slow target for X seconds

Disabling Shot should help the archer kite away those pesky melees, wether to protect himself or let's say another squishy target (a mage trying to stay on the edge of the battle).

Blinding Shot is more directed towards helping the melees on your team (yes, it prevents you from getting hit as well, but the goal of the archer should probably be to avoid melee at all cost) by reducing the dps of weapon users.




- Multi Shot: Attack that can hit multiple targets (up to 3) in front of caster
- Rapid Fire: Stream of arrows for X seconds or until ammo runs out. Can hit multiple targets

I think those two aoe's also show archers are supposed to be overall group enhancers ; you stand on the side of the fight and hit small groups without total control of whom you're hitting.

- Aimed Shot: Attack that if used as first move in combat gets large accuracy and damage increase
- Piercing Shot: Attack that tends to ignore Armor

Now these two are more along the lines of what I'd want archery to be, ie more single target damage that roots you to the ground.




What I envision is for archery to be an unreliable source of good single target damages, like having good base damage on the weapon and good chances of crit while having the worst accuracy of all weapons.

The idea is that archers, instead of just being a "group dps booster", are a threat to the enemies' squishy damage dealers (other archers and mages, or even full dps melees).
That way the goal of the archer is to try and find the position from which he'll be able to stand still for 2-3 sec (possibly even more) in order to use an aimed shot that could result in a powerful hit, while trying to avoid getting pinned down by the enemies' cc.

Basically, swapping Rapid Fire (which, I'll acknowledge, could very well already be a strong single target spell) with something along the lines of "Aim Vital Point" : aim for 3 sec before releasing an arrow with added damage and chance/damage of critical hit.




Last idea that came to my mind while writing this post, there could be 2 types of archery (yeah you guessed) : bow and crossbow.
Bow being what it is now, and crossbow filling more the role of "single target assassin" that I'm rooting for.
Sole problem would be, every ranged ability should be doubled, one for bow, one for crossbow (since the abilities define the role more than the raw stats of a weapon). Which would end up kinda like this :

Aimed Shot(bow)/Double Shot(Xbow) :
- Bow : Attack that if used as first move in combat gets large accuracy and damage increase (the current one).
- Crossbow : Attack that fires two bolts at once for twice the damage.

Armor Gap(bow)/Piercing Shot(Xbow) :
- Bow : Disable a random piece of armor for 5 sec (or reduce physical resistance by X%).
- Crossbow : Attack that tends to ignore Armor.

Disabling Shot(bow)/Weighed Bolt(Xbow) :
- Bow : Attack that has chance to slow target for X seconds
- Crossbow : Attack that has a chance to knockback (I believe every weapon has at least one kind of cc).

Rapid Fire(bow)/Aim Vital Point(Xbow) :
- Bow : Stream of arrows for X seconds or until ammo runs out. Can hit multiple targets
- Crossbow : Aim for 3 sec before releasing a bolt with added damage and chance/damage of critical hit.




Okay, so for those of you actually interested enough in archery to read all this, please tell me what you think : tell me you like it or hate it, tear it apart or praise it, tell me I'm nothing but an archery lobbyist or send me $3000 bucks over paypal because my idea turned your life upside down.

tl;dr : I'm hoping being an archer in the final game will look less like of a mosquito trying to get into your eye to make you miss your swing and more like the wasp you're trying to kill quick before it really hurts you.