What do you suppose the feasability is of monster-delay bows?

[Vim Razz]

I'm wondering about the possibility of bows with delays in the 250+ range. The current trend in 24 or 25 delay bows may be great for rangers with Endless Quiver, but for the rest of us that easily chews through 3000-4000 arrows per hour. Since it's no longer possible to "footlocker" spare arrows on corpses, range melee damage of any kind has sort of ceased to be an option recently.

Bows with ratios in the 500dmg/250dly range wouldn't be of much use to rangers, but they would allow other melee classes to store enough arrows for a 2-3 hour gaming session in a single Fleeting Quiver.

It's just a thought.

[Yalum]

This could also be fixed on the arrow side, with an upgrade to the Bloody Ancille's Pouch. We've got several items that summon throwing weapons with decent dps, but I'm not aware of an equivalent for archery.

To keep it in the family, it could be based off the Throwing Knife Stamper, but with some beefy fletching subcombine in place of all those OoW drops.

[Zaltak]

If they ever make bow recipies with 250 delay stats.The rangers are gonna start a upriseing:-P

[Vymdraven]

Complaints by rangers for 4 other classes getting merely a pulling tool to save them on arrows doesn't strike me as valid complaint. And if the rangers could use the bows, would they even bother?

[Ngreth Thergn]

I'm wondering about the possibility of bows with delays in the 250+ range. The current trend in 24 or 25 delay bows may be great for rangers with Endless Quiver, but for the rest of us that easily chews through 3000-4000 arrows per hour. Since it's no longer possible to "footlocker" spare arrows on corpses, range melee damage of any kind has sort of ceased to be an option recently.

Bows with ratios in the 500dmg/250dly range wouldn't be of much use to rangers, but they would allow other melee classes to store enough arrows for a 2-3 hour gaming session in a single Fleeting Quiver.

It's just a thought.

But as you say... the damage is not important, it is a pulling tool. So why do we need high damage?

Oh. And arrow and bow range is at its max. period. Not going any farther. Any further and it "breaks" the game, and allows people to shoot outside the awareness range of NPC's

Larger awareness ranges increase server loads, which we do not need. Other than the monumental and dangerous task of changing that value on a few million NPC's

[gggrant]

Complaints by rangers for 4 other classes getting merely a pulling tool to save them on arrows doesn't strike me as valid complaint. And if the rangers could use the bows, would they even bother?

I am a ranger and you have my permission to badger Ngreth for a bow like this if you wish. But before you start your campaign of terror and make Ngreth's life miserable, there are a couple things to think about.

A bow with a 250 delay would truly suck for DPS, even in an ranger's hands. DPS favors the low delay bows. Here is why. You have two bows with the same dmg/dly ratio of 2.0. The first bow is a 40 dmg/20 dly and the second is a 400 dmg/200 dly. On the surface it would look like they would have the same DPS but the reality is that the low delay bow has better DPS because arrow damage is a part of the calculation. With a 10 damage arrow the first bow becomes a 50 dmg/20 dly (ratio: 2.5) and the second becomes a 410 dmg/200 dly (ratio: 2.05). As the damage of arrows increase the difference gets greater. With the highest damage arrow in game (Shadowspike), the first bow is 90 dmg/20 dly (ratio: 4.5) and the second bow is 450 dmg/200 dly (ratio: 2.25). In short you do more DPS with a 10 damage arrow and a 40/20 bow than you would with a 50 damage arrow and a 400/200 bow.

A 250 delay bow would not even be a good pulling tool. Unhasted we are talking 25 seconds between arrows. In most in game situations the actual figure would be somewhere around 11 to 12 seconds between arrows. Two ticks is a very long time to wait for your next shot if your first arrow misses and you do not get agro (which happens quite often). It is even common for someone to miss with their first two or three shots without gaining agro.


As I said, you have a ranger's blessing to get something like this implemented. Who knows, Ngreth may buckle and give it to you. If he does, I have a prediction. Within two months of such a bow entering the game, rangers won't be the only ones NOT using the bow.