History repeats itself: Time for the Great Archer Nerf of 2011

[Joe_Cool]

difference is most of those abilities are available to any class

Yes but when used on another job/class, it is a degraded use of it.
BTW, Speed Surge can only be used on LNC

[Nahaara]

Peregrine's just jealous, I can tell.

[Xzen]

difference is most of those abilities are available to any class, what makes archer unique is two things

Ranged attacks
and archer only abilities which are:
any special arrows, (at this point i dont know if any exist)
Multishot trifurcate close shot and farshot and various archer only weaponskills

comrade isnt unique to lnc, the only unique to pug WS are seismic shock and Simian thrash i believe.
Its the weapons innate abilities, and the 1 discipline only skills that make you better. There is no real reason for Archer to have more damage, unless having less defense is actually a factor in combat. So either it should be a factor, or other DDs need more offense or archer needs less offense.

This is all supposing they actually do have more offense, which regardless what he says will be show with parsers and whatnot, as well by eyeballing it. If its true its going to keep coming up.

If it is true, i hope they have already accounted for it in the new battle system, but since we dont know that yet, its a valid point.

They should buff caster dmg a bit. Take away most of their heals. Reduce ARC defense that way all the range classes can be 1 shot. Then reduce the range so they have to stand within the mobs aoe range. bam the ranged classes are balanced. Better yet why dont we take all the utility and support skills/magic and split them between all the jobs. Buff arc, thm, and con defense and hp. Take away their range. Now everything is balanced. Oh wait WoW is over this way if I want to play a game like that.

[Peregrine]

Yes but when used on another job/class, it is a degraded use of it.
BTW, Speed Surge can only be used on LNC

No one cares about speed surge in the party giving them piddle amounts of HP, and speed surge's effects on that lancer don't make the lancer competitive with archer. You're not even arguing relevant things. Your'e just blurting out facts and hoping they land on something.

Comrade in arms is no reason to invite a lancer over an archer to a tough fight. Sorry. Your argument barely flies on paper, and doesn't fly in the game.

[Joe_Cool]

Stop making excuses by literally interpreting the skill descriptions, open your eyes, and see the FACT that no marauder is being used or invited to "clear the room." Period. So stop arguing that stupid idea. In fights that matter, meleers do not. Period.

Buddy, I'm not making excuses and I'm not "literally interpreting the skill descriptions". It comes from my experience with the game. Almost all of my DoM and DoW classes are ATLEAST rank 30+. With 1 of them being 50 and another 49. Shield is at 50 too but I don't really count that.

[Radaghast]

Lancer abilties are a joke right now, mobs don't last long enough in parties for them to even matter. NM's you're lucky to have them even land, and are you supposed to get excited over 33-44 hp/tp per hit? Something like short duration group haste or the like would have been better.

Doomspike II is their one saving grace.

[Joe_Cool]

No one cares about speed surge in the party giving them piddle amounts of HP, and speed surge's effects on that lancer don't make the lancer competitive with archer. You're not even arguing relevant things. Your'e just blurting out facts and hoping they land on something.

Comrade in arms is no reason to invite a lancer over an archer to a tough fight. Sorry. Your argument barely flies on paper, and doesn't fly in the game.

Comrade in arms is just one ability that came to mind on LNC that increases DPS on all DD. No one would invite LNC if that was the only useful thing LNC would bring to that party. If you include that with the dmg that LNC does do (LNC is a pretty good DD) and the some other useful traits, LNC can hold its own in a party.

[Peregrine]

Oh wait WoW is over this way if I want to play a game like that.

This is the sticky situation MMORPG makers face. There is a horde of players who know that MMORPGs tend to favor ranged classes and overpower them, and constantly let them run the endgame show. Any MMORPG who takes a stand against them, they ragequit and threaten to stop playing.

They're like senior citizens and self-entitled baby boomers. They block every change that needs to change by threatening to vote whoever does it out of office.

They threaten and threaten, and no one calls them on it until the status gets so bad that action HAS to be taken. So many rangers quit final fantasy XI after the nerf. Sad part is those players caused the quitting of three times as many players, so square enix lost on all fronts.

That's why it's important to nerf archers now. Not later. Nerfing them later does two things. A. It drives other players to quit before archer is balanced. And it causes archers to ragequit when archer is balanced.

Do it now. Do it soon.

[Physic]

They should buff caster dmg a bit. Take away most of their heals. Reduce ARC defense that way all the range classes can be 1 shot. Then reduce the range so they have to stand within the mobs aoe range. bam the ranged classes are balanced. Better yet why dont we take all the utility and support skills/magic and split them between all the jobs. Buff arc, thm, and con defense and hp. Take away their range. Now everything is balanced. Oh wait WoW is over this way if I want to play a game that.

Im fine with archers having more damage and range honestly, the best and most entertaining solutions lie with the monsters, have mobs that excel at fighting ranged characters mixed with those that do not. Have monsters grouped in parties more often. They should have mobs that can attack from range WITH THIER WS and powerful attacks. More group combat allows different jobs abilities to shine, Throw good NMs in dungeons, or areas where you actually have to fight things to get to it, and it wont be just about who can attack one guy for the most damage.

Also id say archer is one of the more unique classes, They should add more to other classes like this, so even if they have similar damage, the over all playstyle and feel of the class is different. And i really dont mean just more damage, make a mechanic that a class takes advantage of to get damage, if thats what the class is about.

[Peregrine]

Comrade in arms is just one ability that came to mind on LNC that increases DPS on all DD. No one would invite LNC if that was the only useful thing LNC would bring to that party. If you include that with the dmg that LNC does do (LNC is a pretty good DD) and the some other useful traits, LNC can hold its own in a party.

You're not a novel act here. You can argue that dragoon in 2005 "brought things to the table" It just wasn't so. Sorry. You're wrong. Lancer can't hold itself in a party. Archer is 33% better than it is, so lancer becomes an inefficient party slot. End of argument.

It's the same failed mechanics as in XI. In 2005, Thieves bring nothing to the table. Dark knights bring nothing to the table. Dragoons bring nothing to the table. You can argue they do like an obvlivious wishful thinker, or you can open your eyes and see for a fact that the world does not agree with you.