Improve Arrow Blow to match Double Shot

It's a very minor thing, but almost no one ever chooses Arrow Blow over Double Shot for 2 reasons:
- Unstable damage
- Overall lower damage when Critical Shot is factored in


Current Skill Effects
Double Shot
Level 20: MP -16; Damage 130% x 2 Hits

Arrow Blow
Level 20: MP -14; Damage 260%

Average damage output of Double Shot (w/ Crit.)
= 2 shots * [ (130% + 100%) * 40% chance + (130%) * 60% chance ]
= 340% damage

Average damage output of Arrow Blow (w/ Crit.)
= (260% + 100%) * 40% chance + (260%) * 60% chance
= 320% damage


1) What causes this?
Critical attacks favor skills with multiple lines of lesser damage over single lines with high damage due to the nature of how it works (critical damage % is added to skill damage %).

2) Why do I think this should be changed?
Other than being able to see larger damage numbers in a single line, there is almost no incentive to max out Arrow Blow due to its unstable damage and lower overall damage.
I think it will be nice to see a greater variety of main attack skills for early Archers. Makes the game more interesting!

Also, it is a very simple change of increasing the Damage % modifier, and the change can be made with little effort by the devs.

3) What changes do I think should be made?
Raise the damage of Level 20 Arrow Blow to 300% Damage. This will result in an average damage of 340% when Critical Shot is taken into account (basically, same average damage as Double Shot w/Crit).

Spoiler: The Math

New Average damage output of Arrow Blow (w/ Crit.)
= (300% + 100%) * 40% chance + (300%) * 60% chance
= 340% damage

4) Possible Considerations
- Adjust Arrow Blow's damage to be slightly below 300% to compensate for being more powerful than Double Shot when Critical Shot is not maxed out yet (level 10~30 character)
- Adjust Arrow Blow's damage to be slightly above 300% to compensate for more unstable damage compared to Double Shot
- Or a balance between both points above

5) End Result
- People who choose Arrow Blow will benefit early from higher damage (without Crit.), but have less stable damage
- People who choose Double Shot will have lower damage early on (without Crit.), but more stable damage
- When Crit. is maxed out, average damage is around the same

To summarize, it would be nice to see a buff to Arrow Blow so that Archers will even consider maxing out Arrow Blow, making for more diverse skill builds among Archer characters.

 

Not sure if this is a joke post or a legit one.

Have you ever seen any Archer use either double shot or arrow blow after 70?

Hell, I'm not even including the guys who level by leech or orbis etc in that question cos those dudes probably won't even attack at all until 120.

 

@Kur0Kishi is right on the part about post Lv70.
Lv10-70 for Archers have a relatively insignificant game time compared to 71-200. Therefore what you're asking is for a change that does improve overall gameplay but to such a minute extent that it's probably not worth the effort to make changes here. My guess is that you're making this feedback based on what you're experiencing right now. Wait out a little more, level up and once you are beyond 70, you probably won't be looking back at this thread anymore.

 

You can level Arrow Blow if you want and it won't really matter much since even a level 1 strafe is better than both of these skills.
Also doing 1 shot instead of 2 can have some advantages like higher knock back and that you'd lose less damage from the monsters def (more significant if you have weak range)

 

I'm quite disappointed that you think this is a joke, I took the effort to even post this. Just because people don't use those skills after 70 means it's not an important part of their pre-3rd job gameplay experience?

I'd like to remind you that you can't just assume that every player's way of leveling is 10~30 at Orbis, and then leeching all the way to 120. How do you think new players to the server or unfunded characters level up? Obviously the slow way of mob grinding, doing PQ, making friends along the way to grind with, explore the Maplestory world doing quests and searching for mini-bosses. It took me, as an unfunded archer, almost a month or more leveling to 3rd job the normal way and heck was it painful. Unless you don't think this was the way the game was meant to be played?

Also, I'd like to inform you that your guess is unfortunately wrong, I've already been a Bowmaster for 3 months , but this is one of those things that was at the back of my mind for years, so it's time to get it out here. I understand that you and many others who may consider themselves to be veteran players have an established wealth and spent a long duration on this server, but I do hope you didn't forget about new and unfunded players.

And as for it being "not worth the effort", I don't think it takes them much to change a single damage modifier in the code.

I understand the Arrow Blow may already have certain advantages as you have mentioned, but when there is a disparity so great that 90+% off archers would choose Double Shot over Arrow Blow, then there is a clear bias between the 2 skills. I'm not arguing that Arrow Blow is so weak or game-breaking that it needs this change, but rather there is an opportunity for more interesting gameplay and character builds with a simple change of equalizing the benefits of using Arrow Blow with Double Shot.


Being a small improvement to the game doesn't make it unworthy of change.

 

New players can pick the path of either skill, I dont see what the problem is here.
Do people feedback saying magic bolt needs a buff?

Little effort, I wonder. But is it Justifiable?
With that being said...

We're not saying it's not. Compared to the the time spend at 1-70 against 71-200, it really is inconsequential. Moreover this is a single target skill, we all know mobbing skills come into an even bigger play once acquired...
That being said, this is assuming players even train up themselves and not buy leech
Don't feel offended by the feedback other players are giving you, what their trying to say is Gm's and devs have bigger fish to fry like the upcoming Christmas events, dojo maps etc etc.
It's all about having perspective which you gain as you play.
Cheers

Spoiler

fwiw I maxed arrow blow over double shot Knowingly. This game isn't only about damage

 

The arrowblow/Double Shot thing has been around since forever. You do better with def with arrow blow, but you have greater potential damage with double shot.

No one is saying 10-70 doesn't matter, they're saying it's... well yeah it doesn't matter. You'd never notice the difference in leveling between the two, especially when you get to 30+ when you get your next set of attacking skills (I don't know if BM actually grind with their fire thing, but MM do with iron arrow), and arrowblow/doubleshot is usually just used to finish off singular enemies.

The largest difference I think that can be argued is with knockback- but really isn't a huge issue with power knockback anyways.

If anything was changed, the damage-knockback and defense bonus of arrow blow would need to be addressed as well to bring them down to what arrow blow is capable of if arrow blow got more damage to make it closer to double shot. (IMO at least)

 

Sorry guys if this was too minor of a thing, but It really was one of those things that was at the back of my mind for years (like since the start of official maple) and I just had to get it out. There are many other minor things like this that I can think of (I'm sure there are other people who have such thoughts, but don't feel it being worth to voice out).

Like I said, I'm not asking it to be changed because it's so weak or bad that it will affect archers, but that there are many small opportunities like this to make the game more interesting and diverse. It's also about "wasted" game assets, like these skills that are there but have no real significance because they don't really have much benefits (also some other skills like Final Attack, Magic Armour, Iron Body).

I may seem to be over-thinking stuff to many of you guys, I apologize for that. But I'm glad to know your thoughts on this.

Cheers!

 

The feedback isn't bad!

And, I think personally, those "wasted" things are the cool things. They may have very little purpose, but I felt Maple... lost a lot when they trimmed all those useless skills. That said, there aren't many opportunities to give classes 2 equally good options (aka one isn't completely meta) that don't make one obsolete (also making one completely meta). It's not like warriors in Ragnorok what could go str or dex (I'm probably butchering that analogy but my brother used to talk about it all the time) and how down the road it made for massive changes in how you played the class but both were equally good but came down to flavour preference... I think as it is now, theres a good amount of flavour preference.

Small differences that can make an impact, but not so much so that one is mathematically so superior that it's like stapling your hand to a wall if you choose the sub-par skill.

 

make arrow blow great again
add a chance to cause a powerknockback
king slimes are too stonk

 

I don't think it will help that much, say you buff it a little and people will level Arrow Blow instead, you'd still have 1 useless skill that you won't level since there isn't much point to level both of them.
Honestly I think a better idea would be to make Arrow Blow a mob skill of some sort, maybe make it something like 180% damage so it will be stronger than Arrow Bomb/Iron Arrow but in exchange either make it only hit 2-3 mobs at max or have short range or something. This way people will actually level both of them, kinda like how warriors use both slash blast and power strike

 

Yeah, they will still only max out 1 of the skills. The idea was to buff Arrow Blow to the point where the distribution of players maxing out either skills become more or less equal (like ideally, 50% of archers picking Arrow Blow, 50% picking Double Shot), and that would be because there is little to no disparity between the benefits both skill brings. Kind of like how 2H sword users are being compared to 1H sword + shield (not really a good example, but I hope I get the point across). Like can you imagine 2H sword was clearly way better than any other weapon, to the point that 2H sword is the only way to go, if not you lose out significantly on damage. Then what would be the point of 1H swords, 2H and 1H axes existing at that point? I'd like more diversity in this game.

 

I appreciate the effort you've made behind this thread but like others said, there are bigger things to be worked on that will affect the whole community. Nevertheless, i hope this does not discourage you from posting your opinions in the future.

 

Hmm I guess it could work, but even if you level arrow blow you don't lose that much damage. I'd say it's actually the mage class that has a big disparity, magic claw is just so much better than energy bolt (it's like 50% stronger and it can hit through walls too) that there is like 0 reason to level energy bolt instead.

 

I guess you have a point about the energy bolt thing . But unlike magic claw/bolt which will be used probably up to lvl 30+ish (until they get decent levels in Heal, Fire Arrow, Lightning), Arrow Blow and Double shot will be used till lvl 70, so I think the archer skills are more important somewhat.

 

arrow blow has its niche in that its easier to knock back monsters with it. I don't think any change is required.