The Mana World Forums

At first ranging was much more powerful than melee, but with the contributions of recent updates, the scales have tipped. I understand the dev team had the goal of balancing the two fighting systems, but now melee is far superior to ranged. Ranged and melee need to be equal, not one constantly better than the other.

Here are some points as to why ranged is so bad now:

• Meleers can withstand many more hits than rangers
• Meleers can level up without spending much money, rangers spend a plethora of money of food and arrows.
• Meleers barely need food due to healing over time, rangers constantly get hit due to bugs allowing monsters to attack 3 spaces away.
• Meleers can get up to a +20 defense bonus
• Meleers get lots of extra cash due to this, rangers are stuck with subsistence cash making, only making enough money for new arrows and never enough for new armor/items.
• Meleers can form an effective group of just meleers quickly.
• A mixed group of group of only rangers is extremely ineffective.
• Rangers get ambushed by a ton of monsters upon entering locations and die upon entry, while meleers waltz on through.
• Groups are nearly impossible to form since almost everyone is AFK in TMW.

Just make your archer AGI/LUK so practically nothing hits you and you hit everything a lot with a critical?

AGI doesn't do crap with a bow. No speed difference at all. And lowering DEX greatly hurts a ranger, unlike warriors since some of their accuracy derives from STR.

Grant,

kr0n05931 wrote:AGI doesn't do crap with a bow.

Are you sure about that? My measurements from a few months back showed that agi 99 makes bow attacks almost twice as fast as they are with agi 5 (which is the same ratio as for any other weapon). (Plus, it greatly increases your dodge probability.)

-- fate

fate wrote: My measurements from a few months back showed that agi 99 makes bow attacks almost twice as fast as they are with agi 5 (which is the same ratio as for any other weapon). (Plus, it greatly increases your dodge probability.)

-- fate

agreed agi work for faster atack speed( not messured the increase on speed but i see very diference )

fate wrote:Grant,

kr0n05931 wrote:AGI doesn't do crap with a bow.

Are you sure about that? My measurements from a few months back showed that agi 99 makes bow attacks almost twice as fast as they are with agi 5 (which is the same ratio as for any other weapon). (Plus, it greatly increases your dodge probability.)

-- fate

Actually, making it twice as fast with 99 agility isn't a good idea, as meleers can hit 4x as fast at 99 agility.

Due to this spread-out agility, it seems as if it does nothing.

Either way, meleers have much too big of an advantage now.

Well first of all, all of these benefits are only for tanked-warriors not just any warrior. I know many archers who are tanked (high vitality).

Secondly, STR does not substitute DEX. STR does not increase your accuracy for hits. So warriors do need high dex. The only alternative is high luck, where the critical hits will make sure you don't miss. But if you make a character with high luck, you'll still need some basic dex, and agi and str. So you won't be able to max out your vit anymore. Meaning that a warrior with high luck doesn't have all of the benefits you listed, or at least only in a limited form.

Also, even if tank up an archer, they still have less stats to worry about as opposed to warriors, because warriors will also have to add points to strength. In fact balancing warriors has become increasingly difficult, as now they seem to need 5 out of 6 stats.

Warriors need:
str: for high attacks
agi: for speed or it will take ages to level
vit: for defence, since they use close combat
dex: otherwise they are unable to hit many monsters
luck: to avoid critical hits especially from grass snakes

Archers need:
agi: for speed or it will take ages to level
vit: for defence, but they don't need to rely on it that much as warriors
dex: du-uh :p

Of course, I do grant that from an economical point of view, warriors are better. But Archers are still easier to level than warriors

Just tossing out a random idea: could we make it so that when you hit an enemy with an arrow, there's a chance (perhaps 25-50%) that the enemy "eats" the arrow a la slimes, and when it dies you'll get that arrow back?

There isn't much room to reduce the price of arrows downward, but a scheme like that could partially alleviate the money strain they impose.

5t3v3 wrote: Secondly, STR does not substitute DEX.

Revisions have been made to the game where STR does infact give a little more accuracy.

Also, even if tank up an archer, they still have less stats to worry about as opposed to warriors, because warriors will also have to add points to strength. In fact balancing warriors has become increasingly difficult, as now they seem to need 5 out of 6 stats.

And warriors still have massive defense bonuses leaving us poor rangers massacred when we walk into monster populated areas. Archers don't have the nice shiny +20 defense bonuses that warriors get with their steel shields and a ranged tank does not hit nearly as high as a warrior tank.

agi: for speed or it will take ages to level

As I said before, warriors hit 4x as fast at 99 while archers only hit x2 as fast. And it takes even longer to level because sometimes monsters barely drop and you are left with 1/2 of the arrows you originally had and eventually end up with none killing fire gobs with a dagger till you raise 5k for more iron arrows...

vit: for defence, but they don't need to rely on it that much as warriors
dex: du-uh :p

And where shall I get all of these stat points? Warriors have no problems hitting high and maintaining high defense.

Of course, I do grant that from an economical point of view, warriors are better. But Archers are still easier to level than warriors

Archers aren't very easy to level when you can't even get into the new mines, old mines, or snake pit without dying 2 seconds after entering, and have to resort to killing giant maggots all day.

radiant wrote: Just tossing out a random idea: could we make it so that when you hit an enemy with an arrow, there's a chance (perhaps 25-50%) that the enemy "eats" the arrow a la slimes, and when it dies you'll get that arrow back?

It would help, but the immense strains on archers are still pretty high.

Most MMOs give melee fighters the role of the meat shield (or "tank" in mmo jargon) while the archers have the damage dealer role. Fighters attract the attacks of enemies while archers kill them.

You already gave fighters a higher damage resistance by introducing shields. Now you should give archers a higher damage per second rating so that they can accomplish their side of teamplay.

Crush wrote:You already gave fighters a higher damage resistance by introducing shields. Now you should give archers a higher damage per second rating so that they can accomplish their side of teamplay.

Exactly, if the defense aspects can't be fixed, then atleast make us stronger.

kr0n05931 wrote: And warriors still have massive defense bonuses leaving us poor rangers massacred when we walk into monster populated areas. Archers don't have the nice shiny +20 defense bonuses that warriors get with their steel shields and a ranged tank does not hit nearly as high as a warrior tank.

Archers aren't very easy to level when you can't even get into the new mines, old mines, or snake pit without dying 2 seconds after entering, and have to resort to killing giant maggots all day.

Let's look at map design as well as class stats. After level 45 or so an archer, I did well in the old mines, because it's possible to kill monsters while they're still advancing towards you (although a bit tricky).

I now have a level 59 archer with a bit of duel-classing. The new mines have a high enough spawn rate on long corridors that killing a path through isn't an option - the monsters respawn and chase you before you reach the other end. The map design requires taking hits there. Worse is spawning in a room surrounded by monsters, where my character has a good chance of survival if using the steel shield, but little hope when using the bow.

I would also like to add the warriors are the same speed as archers at walking, and are faster at attacking. Does anyone else see a logical error here? Warriors should walk slower due to heavier armor and should attack slower as well while archers should do the opposite.

kr0n05931 wrote:I would also like to add the warriors are the same speed as archers at walking, and are faster at attacking. Does anyone else see a logical error here? Warriors should walk slower due to heavier armor and should attack slower as well while archers should do the opposite.

Yeah, warrior needs to move sword from left to right to attack - its very hard and slow. And archer only needs to take arrow from inventory, put it on bow, aim, and shoot arrow. I totally agree that archer is faster shooting..... very realistic....

But about movement speed I agree. Archer's should have bigger attack, but not defence. I am archer too, i only look from realistic side.

Please, let's not bring realism into this. If games were all super-realistic they would also be super-boring. Realism is inversely proportional to fun.