Archer Rebalancing - A Continuing Evolution

Well another round of much needed Archer Rebalancing has come and I'm truly grateful for the changes.  While none of the changes are what you would consider game-changers, their subtle improvements are a help to the Archer class.

So what did we see? 

Aimed Shot Changes

The skill Aimed Shot's Power Empowerment effect has been increased - This was definitely a nice addition.  While on paper it looks like a significant increase, in practice, it wasn't too much.  Aimed Shot basically got buffed up to the old Power Shot, but with a faster Cool Down and Cast Time.  I still would like to see the complete elimination of cast times on these two skills for those of us that go SharpShooter.  Overall increase in damage is an estimated 11%.  Again, not great, but it's something.

Power Shot Changes

The skill Power Shot's Power Empowerment effect has been increased - This along with Aimed Shot was, in theory, another nice change, but, just as in Aimed Shot, what we got wasn't that dramatic.  All told, we saw an increase of only about 9% in raw damage.

Blindshot Animation - I think it changed at some point..

Blindshot skill now reduces target's hit rate. SP consumption changed - Since I couldn't test this on mobs, I headed down to FBZ1 today to see what this was exactly.  I ended up testing on several different players, a capped Gladiator, a capped full DEX Knight, a level 65 Archer and a level 41 Cleric. 

In test #1, the Gladiator went from 1601 Aim down to 859 a drop of 742 points. 
The full DEX Knight went from 1941 down to 1241 a drop of 700 points.
The Archer went from 650 Aim to -65, a difference of 715 points.
The Cleric wend from 316 Aim down to -384, a drop of 700 points.

So while those numbers are great, unfortunately, they only last for the duration of the debuff, so about 5 seconds.  As far as SP consumption goes, if it's not a skill I'm able to spam, it just doesn't matter much.

Success rate for Poison Shot skill increased - I didn't see a noticeable difference in this, didn't really pay attention to Stick Rates on my single-target DOTs.  More times than not, they work unless against Boss mobs.

Bleeding (DOT) for Piercing Shot skill increased - This was a nice change.  DOT damage went from 96 or so up to 218 every 3 seconds.  Too bad it's not per second huh?  *wink*

 

The poison, bleed, and disease damage over time (DoT) skills now act independently - FINALLY!!!!  We can now stick all three kitable AOE DOTs!  They all work independently of each other!  There's also a new icon for the Multi Blood Shot DOT, kinda looks like the HP Regen Pot icon.  Oddly, this DOT only does about 69 damage every second.  Low compared to the 96 that a similar Nature's Mist provides per second.  But still, a nice, long-awaited, fix.

So is there more?  Well we can only continue to hope.  Archers are slowly moving back into respectability thanks to changes like those mentioned above.  While none of them were game-changers, they do help round us out a bit more and give us hope that there is still more just over the horizon.

Special thanks to [GM]Kobal for his continued efforts to level the playing field for the Archer class.  Without his help, we'd be much worse off.  Thanks again.