3.0 ruined Archery

Conan Exiles PC Discussion Public Beta Client
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Accuracy and the old version of Agility were rolled up into on single attribute being the NEW Agility. And this was a downgrade overall. To explain why let’s go over the old attributes.

ACCURACY: +2% ranged and thrown damage per point.

  1. Eye for Injury - Crippling shots are more severe.
  2. Trick Shot - Shots fired from your bow will ricochet if you miss your target.
  3. Steady Hands - All ranged and thrown weapons do 10% more damage
  4. Flattening Shot - Heavy shots fired from your bow can push back and knock down enemies
  5. Shafted - Every headshot deals 50% more damage.

AGILITY: +4 armor per point.

  1. Iron Endurance - Sprinting drains (25%) less stamina.
  2. Cat-like reflexes - Falling damage is halved.
  3. Effortless Leap - Jumping no longer costs stamina.
  4. Nimble Tumbler - When dodging, your armor counts as double.
  5. Extended Leap - Jump while in the air to do a second jump.

Now let’s look at the NEW and “improved” Agility.

3.0 AGILITY: Effect damage with agility based weapons and how fast you act after dodging. Small increase to Stamina.

  1. Backstab - 15% extra damage when attacking from behind (a MELEE perk)
    2A. Deadshot - ranged weapons travel twice as quickly and do 15% extra damage to DISTANCE (not all ranges or close) targets.
    2B. Precision Strike - 10% more penetration when in medium or lighter encumbrance. (anothermelee perk and limited to an encumbrance)
  2. Quickfooted - Jogging, sprinting, jumping and swimming cost less stamina and is faster. (the speed was not even noticeable)
    4A. Extended Leap - double jump.
    4B. Rolling Thrust - After dodging you get one attack at 25% penetration. (another melee perk)

So I used to be an archer before. I wasn’t maxed out but I had up to 4 perks. I slowed my target with crippling effect and they traveled to me very slowly, arrows bounced (which was garbage and can be ignored), I did 10% extra damage (on top of the 2% per point) in ALL situations with my bow, I pushed back and sometimes knocked my enemies to the ground.

Now let’s look at what I got with the new ACCURACY for ranged. I do 15% damage extra ONLY from far away whereas before I did a flat 10% at any range. And…that’s it. That’s all you get for ranged or archery. That’s it. BUT I got a lot of new melee perks. But I don’t NEEEED melee perks, I’m an archer. If I wanted to go melee I would have put points into STR and VIT in the first place. But if you say AGILITY is the new melee then why take away the armor bonus it used to have? And you no longer take half damage from falling. Arguable one of the best perks from Accuracy was taking half damage from falls and the bonus to armor. And Quickfooted is hardly noticeable to mean anything in any significant way to consider an advantage, it’s ignorable really it’s so minor. The only good perks in the new Agility is the new melee perks, which is redundant because I was an archer, I didn’t get into melee.

It’s easy to see that archery, or ranged combat in general, has had a net reduction of quality and replaced by more melee perks, which is odd since we already have STRENGTH and GRIT. You know the devs said they were trying to make more play styles than before but what they ended up doing is REMOVING one and making another melee build, which is redundant since the STR build is arguably better or at least the same making AGI redundant. In fact Agility doesn’t offer anything better than what ACC alone offered or the old AGI alone added, it is a watered down version of bothe AGI, ACC and now STR.

The reason I gave this a down vote is because they killed Archer build and it is now more of a side note, or a half build and no longer a main build. Again, devs wanted to get rid of the same old stale metas, but they just artificially introduced another melee meta by making “agility weapons” when the old STR worked with ALL melee weapons. In other words, if STR worked for all weapons before and now AGI works on certain weapons what is it that AGI offers that STR didn’t before? Not archery, it’s less that is was before, not armor, you don’t get armor from AGI anymore. My archer spec was gutted for THIS?

I guess I am forced to make another clone melee build like everyone else now. I wanted to look forward to 3.0 but I’ve no more faith that I will be anything other than whatever the new meta is now going to be. Boring, this is so boring.

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Hi, Hawk

As per our last correspondence;

A bow is not meant to be a close quarters weapon. It is a ranged weapon, and ergo a build relying solely on it is only effective at a range.

It’s a little known secret, but you can actually use several weapon types, and switch between them. There’s this cool function called a “hotbar” that you can put multiple things into. For example, a bow and a shortsword; maybe a dagger or katana if you’re feeling adventurous.

Bow damage has been increased at a distance, putting an emphasis on the distance part of using a distance weapon. Another word for this is “ranged”. A weapon that is ranged performs better at a longer range than a short range.

If you combine these two aspects together, one could theoretically use a bow against long range targets, and then switch to a different weapon for close range.

:exploding_head:
It’s crazy, I know; but bear with me.

There’s this idea that not one specific weapon will always be the best in every possible scenario. The game wants you to improvise and adjust your methods, depending on the circumstance. I know it’s a daunting concept, but I would urge you to try it out first.

Regarding the switch from Agility to Grit for armor value, this is a balance change meant for grit to be more useful for all builds. It’s extra stamina and protection for all. Warriors, rogues, arrowphiliacs, all sorts. It’s a supplementary skill, like vitality giving HP. As a tradeoff, agility now gives bonus weapon damage to multiple weapon types meaning you don’t need to spend your points on two different attributes to use more than one weapon.

Crazy idea I know, but again try using more than literally just one weapon for everything. You might be surprised to find out you enjoy it.

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I can see your point regarding the perks specifically, but they arent just for melee weapons either.

Backstab;
For sneak attacks. Bows will still benefit from that, arguably easier than melee due to the range advantage. It should also still proc if someone else has an enemies attention and faces them away from you.

Deadshot; no explanation needed
Precision Strike; Armour Pen still benefits bows, arguably more than damage in many cases

Quickfooted; I cant say for sure, but this should help with backing up, and increased roll speed is still helpful all around. Consider that while locked on now you move at full speed come 3.0

Extended leap; was meh before, will still be meh now
Rolling Thrust; again, armour pen is still useful even for bows.

Lastly, there is one thing that agility does lack for bows, the actual accuracy bonus/the spread while moving. I hear of this in another forum post.

Edit. Forgot to mention, 20 Agility in 3.0 will give MORE bonus damage than 50 does right now. I dont have numbers, but someone else surely does.

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“A bow is not meant to be a close quarters weapon. It is a ranged weapon, and ergo a build relying solely on it is only effective at a range.”

“Bow damage has been increased at a distance, putting an emphasis on the distance part of using a distance weapon. Another word for this is “ranged”. A weapon that is ranged performs better at a longer range than a short range”

This is a net downgrade from the previous iteration as it was used close, medium and long range. Funny thing it, bows are actually like this in REAL LIFE. If you shot a bow at a target 30 feet away it wouldn’t do LESS damage. And news just is, it was ALWAYS a ranged weapon. It never wasn’t. At any rate, this first fact is a downgrade since it used to not be limited to far away.

"It’s a little known secret, but you can actually use several weapon types, and switch between them. There’s this cool function called a “hotbar” that you can put multiple things into. For example, a bow and a shortsword; maybe a dagger or katana if you’re feeling adventurous.

If you combine these two aspects together, one could theoretically use a bow against long range targets, and then switch to a different weapon for close range."

Sarcasm not appreciated. This was always known. But, prior to 3.0 tou could KITE them. You didn’t HAVE to use a melee weapon. Now you are saying it is MANDATED that you only use bows for pulls. Interesting. So much for “diverse play styles” the devs were going for eh?

"It’s crazy, I know; but bear with me.

There’s this idea that not one specific weapon will always be the best in every possible scenario. The game wants you to improvise and adjust your methods, depending on the circumstance. I know it’s a daunting concept, but I would urge you to try it out first."

What’s interesting is prior to 3.0 it was already like this. But you could ALSO have MORE ( more is good) options to play with. But NOW it seems, as you’ve stated, it’s just melee all the way and bows are just for pulling. Whereas before bows were a unique spec, much like the STR/VIT spec. Again, narrowing of the meta, once again. Again, sarcasm, very classy. Try to watch it though, could get you in trouble. Wouldn’t want that.

“Regarding the switch from Agility to Grit for armor value, this is a balance change meant for grit to be more useful for all builds. It’s extra stamina and protection for all. Warriors, rogues, arrowphiliacs, all sorts. It’s a supplementary skill, like vitality giving HP. As a tradeoff, agility now gives bonus weapon damage to multiple weapon types meaning you don’t need to spend your points on two different attributes to use more than one weapon.”

This just maens AGI more redundant as it has nothing unique to offer any longer that STR doesn’t already and old ACC didn’t do better. You also now have another mandated attribute. There has to be tradeoffs, without them if there is a one size fits all then everyone just uses that one, as they surely will now. Which leads to more stale metas. I made an archer to stand apart from the melee builds, looks like that’s no longer possible without being 5 miles away from the target. Keeping armor bonus in AGI would AT LEAST give it something.

You lost me man, no matter how you spin it or how you do mental gymnastics the hard fact is that archery has been nerfed. You completely FAILED to address the loss of the ACC perks and what the game gives you to compensate for their loss that wasn’t there before or what STR didn’t already have. Going from kiting with bows, slowing and knocking back targets (YES at a distance) to simply pulling them so you can pull out your daggers and do the same thing your STR/VIT guildmate can do even better.

Makes you wonder why they removed ACC? It wasn’t broken, like daggers are. It wasn’t over utilized either, like STR/VIT builds were. Why reinvent the wheel into a more crude form? Bows weren’t even an issue in PvP.

This game is pushing melee REALLY hard now, strange as they said they wanted more diverse builds.

To Funcom I would suggest making the effects of Quickfooted a passive to AGI in general (as it is a really weak perk in its current iteration) and replacing the perk with Flattening Shot or at least Eye for Injury. There doesn’t seem to be much going for archery other than a glorified pull mechanic to do your inevitable melee. This is a net loss for bow mains simply looking at the perks lost and the perks “gained” for ranged.

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“Backstab;
For sneak attacks. Bows will still benefit from that, arguably easier than melee due to the range advantage. It should also still proc if someone else has an enemies attention and faces them away from you.”

Nah, half the time thralls and allies are in the way and you can’t even hit them in the back. And I’m not entirely sure it works with ranged anyways.

“Deadshot; no explanation needed”

Well this actually weaker as the 10% bonus from prior build applied in ALL situations not just a mile away. I’m using a BOW not a sniper rifle.

“Precision Strike; Armour Pen still benefits bows, arguably more than damage in many cases.”

This isn’t really a perk since the condition is so stringent. Medium load or less? Really Funcom? If they took away the condition it would be good, otherwise it’s not equal to STR melee builds as they have no limit on carrying capacity in order to use the ability. Just roll STR/VIT build instead if you want melee.

“Rolling Thrust; again, armour pen is still useful even for bows.”

They made it so you only get the other bonus as “distance” meaning you would never be close up with tour bow in the first place because apparently is sucks now at close range. Rolling and then firing the bow was never a thing anyways. You could kite enemies before and never needed this. To be honest the removal of the kiting and somehow making the bow user get a perk with his bow for melee while also nerfing the bow for close and medium range seems kind of counterintuitive. If I am going to have to get into melee in order to use this perk with my bow then one would think just to go melee build to begin with. But why go AGI melee when you could just go STR melee instead? Well, for dagger spam of course. And this is the rub…

We effectively have removed an archer build for a new dagger build. AGI is just a melee attribute, it has one single WEEAAAK perk for bows, especially compared to what we used to have. So I’m not too enthusiastic about 3.0.

I seriously hope Funcom considers changing this or restoring some of the viability of bows in the future. This is disgraceful.

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The agility tree looks fine and doesn’t need any changes.

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While I don’t think the agility tree is entirely bad, I agree with you it needs more ranged love.

More ranged damage, removing the distance bit from the Dead Shot perk would already help. Alternatively, slightly more AGI weapon damage overall and replace Dead Shot with a combination of Eye for Injury and Flattening Shot.

As of now, Dead Shot is a dead perk (geddit). Precision Strike is flat out better (I’m okay with the load prerequisite however. If you’re out fighting, you’re not out harvesting. Pick and choose! We can always alter encumberance later on private servers, but I think it’s reasonable in vanilla.) but even then, Precision Strike could use additional damage or combined pen and damage? Then again, we’re not game designers for a reason, I’m sure Funcom crunched the numbers on this.

The other perks I’m okay with.
-Backstab is a fun little bit, and (requires testing if it indeed works with ranged) not that limited to melee as you imply.
-Quickfooted could be stronger but conceptually it’s perfectly fine
-Extended Leap may be “meh” but it’s actually major when trying to climb around defenses and other tomfoolery, don’t knock it! And it being a choice with Rolling Thrust is quite interesting imo
-Rolling Thrust is awesome. One of my fave new perks. True, it’s more of a melee thing (where you can swing a heavy weapon for the cost of a dodge, especially on very limited stamina with corruption up the wazoo, this is great) but the pen is still quite incredible. Also it pairs really well with the backstab perk. All in all, this perk alone changes your optimal combat style a lot, and it’s great.

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I could see eye for injury just being integrated as a “passive” for bows, meaning literally all bows would cause a stronger cripple.

Similarly the headshot bonus could be done this way.

As I mentioned before, Agility doesnt affect shot accuracy, but that should get patched back.

Knock back/down could replace double jump. Double jump is admittedly ass.

Edit: the 10% damage youre missing is already back as extra agility weapon damage

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Double jump is hella useful though.

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Btw, you can heavy shot and then roll for Rolling Thrust it will apply and it is very good at close/long distance combat, cripple still here, shoot at legs for it. Old bows was not useful on distance more than 10 meters(if you play against players, not some pve stupid mob), cause they could avoid on reaction, but it was very good at close combat if they are near you, they have zero chance to survive, Lol. In 3.0 bows heavy shot at close distance with NOT MAX damage oriented equipment does something like 500 damage on players with 1000+ armor. And what is more enjoyable, arrows now flying, we could shoot, not thrust with arrow like we did before

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Agreed but if there isn’t a noticable difference with level 15 perk, that is an issue.

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What is ironic here is that according to this topic 3.0 Ruined Archery while according to this video archery is the new meta :smiley:

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It is a noticeable difference with the level 15 perk.
It’s so noticeable that even melee str builds may roll 15 agility just to have it.

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i don’t know what game you are playing…
currently, bow is ridiculous OP. you can kill anyone with 2 shots and you don’t even need the best bow and arrow to do so.

In 3.0 archery will be more powerful.

1- horses are weaker, you can kill them with 6-8 shot. so you can kill the horse before the rider hit you.

2- you can aimlock heavy attack now. (i know that the best pvpers don’t use target lock, but you being able to do it, lowers skill ceilling a lot).

3- you can still kill people with 2-3 shots.

4- you have a powerful bow that costs almost nothing and have infinite arrows* (the one you can summon) and when you die, people can’t get it.
*these arrows are the best ones after hollow bone arrows.

5- Agility 2nd perk is RIDICULOUs OP. arrows flies as fast as a rifle bullet.

6- Agility 3rd perk will be almost mandatory for every build, and for an archer, they are already there.

7- with 3.0 as it its atm, pvp meta will be: bow + spear or dagger.
str 20/agi 15/vit 20/grit 5 or agi 20/vit 20/grit 20, something like this

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Dark Cat makes some pretty solid videos for Conan Exiles, so his info seems pretty thought out and well explained. I’d love a dedicated archery tree, but the set up he has seems pretty good.

:herb: Hakeem of The Sapphire Shores :herb:

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agility 15 makes a huge difference.
you can run away from your opponent, heal yourself and go back to the fight for example.

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Have you tried it with vagabond armor?

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Unfortunately He Mistook “Damage Mitigation” (read Reduction) as Damage. So his premise on that perk is incorrect.

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With just some agg armour and right perks you can do 4-500 damage with khari bow and obsidian arrows in 1 heavy shot. So yes indeed they ruined it.

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Not to be rude, but the hotbar is kinda garbage with a controller.
You have to hold down LB/L1 and use the R-stick to select something.
In itself it’s not bad. I’ve used similar design in Monster Hunter.

Where it is a bad design is if you get into combat and need to switch. Because you have a shield on LT/L2, and you have to get a finger to LB to pop up to switch. Encountered this a lot with swapping Weapon and Truncheon.

I don’t commonly hold a controller with two fingers on the shoulders and thumbs on the sticks. I don’t think I ever have. It’s uncomfortable, to say the least. (Ideally, controllers should have been designed with LB/L1/RB/R1 where the Trigger/L2/R2 buttons are for you index fingers, while the triggers and lower shoulder buttons should have been on the underside of the controller, where my middle fingers naturally curl and rest. But that’s an industry design flaw.)

Personally, I’d rather see more perk options than the limited doubles we have now.

Agility could be split more into two lines of four options.
One line for melee weapons, one for archery.
You pick and choose at each step what you want to use.

It offers more versatility in building and designing your character.

I mean, as it is now, you have backstab, a melee/archery option, quickfooted, and a useless double jump and rolling thrust, which seems better.

But rolling thrust really seems designed for melee weapons, over archery. If you have to dodge (and not simply roll) then you have to be in melee range, and that can hamper a bow.

Ideally I see Backstab getting coupled with a Headshot option.
Deadshot and Precision Strike are perfectly fine.
Quickfooted feels like it could be ranged or melee, easily enough. Call it ranged, and have a longer dodge roll option for the melee.
Extended Leap just needs to be gone, and instead an archery based one instead.

Since it’s a 20 point perk, why not a Doubleshot ? Two arrows fired, one arrow consumed. Separate them by 0.5 to 1s so it’s harder on a moving target as the second arrow might miss. Set their damage to like 0.7 normal, maybe 0.8.

You could then mix and match them. You could go heavy on the melee side of agility. You could go heavy on the archery side of things. You could pick back and forth for a unique style.

Such as Backstab/Extended Roll for melee, Deadshot/Doubleshot for ranged.

The same could be done with Strength.
You could have one line focus on 1H and Shields, one line on 2H.

Heavy Blows: 10% more damage from Heavy fits a 2H design
So add a counter that Light Blows from a 1H weapon are executed a little bit faster than they normally are. Common thing with lighter weapons being faster and heavy weapons hitting harder.

Combo Master - combos deal more damage, fits either, but say it goes on the 1H weapon light
Second Skin would naturally adhere more to heavy 2H weapons and armor.

Berserker could go either way. But with Blood-Mad at 20, let’s say 2H, since it increases your armor.
So a 1H could be a Shield related skill, to make Shields more effective at blocking damage.

Blood-Mad as 2H finale, Crushing Swings could still be there.

The overall point is that you can better mix-match and have more options for a playstyle, if you had 8 perks for attributes.

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