Did they buff bow damage for npc’s?

[Darkzombie]

Back after a hiatus and straight out of the box I’m noticing that even noob river npc archers are doing some chunky damage now. I’ve had a look at patch notes (admittedly not a good look) and didn’t see anything relating to bow damage specifically. Is this just a kick on of damage buffs in general? I’m not really noticing much of a difference with melee based npc’s just archers. I tried to run early dregs quickly and didn’t even make it sprinting through skulkers end granted I only had a couple pieces of medium armour from one of the noob river 1 skulls but it just feels off.

[LostBrythunian]

Purely anecdotal on this one’s part, but npc arrow damage does seem a bit on the larger side.
Accursed Archer 2-3 chonking down more hp than a zerker hitting.

There may have been something (or something missed) when they did the full damage rebalancing awhile back, it was designed to basically increase player damage against NPCs while nerfing thrall damage, but it could have gone off rails.

[Taemien]

If NPCs are doing more damage its either because their ranged damage modifiers were increased to make them more viable as thrall archers. Or because the weapons (bow and/or arrows) they start with were changed to something heftier. Could be a bit of both.

@LostBrythunian

Purely anecdotal on this one’s part, but npc arrow damage does seem a bit on the larger side.
Accursed Archer 2-3 chonking down more hp than a zerker hitting.

Accursed Archers 2 gets ~20% damage bonus, 3 gets ~30%

Cimmerian Berserkers and Accursed Berserkers get 2.24x damage bonus.

NPCs before they are thralled get no bonuses from attributes like strength and agility. But they do get the bonuses listed above.

Looking at the tables and going back to what the OP was asking about, Exiled Archers DO get substantial bonuses. With ~15% for T1, ~30% for T2, and ~45% for T3, with Shemite Exiles getting ~60% added accross the board.

That means if you see a Shemite Exile Archer… remember the 5 D’s of Dodgeball. Dodge, Dip, Duck, Dive, and Dodge.

Also means they make incredible cheap archers if you can find them.

[Darkzombie]

Thank you for the info

@Taemien

That means if you see a Shemite Exile Archer… remember the 5 D’s of Dodgeball. Dodge, Dip, Duck, Dive, and Dodge.

I’ve decided that I’m going one step further and joining them. Spent last hour or so messing about trying to find the best setup to run bow as my main.

[stelagel]

I believe that the archers are making tremendous dmg when they hit you from behind while you try to avoid them or flee. It wouldn’t surprise me the npcs to “accidentally” use the agility perk we the players must “only” have.
You can notice that even some melee hits are giving you the hell of damage when they come on your back. I use to believe that the game has “critical damage”, yet after all these years i am now confident that it’s only “usual critical bugs” .