Arbalist Buff Ideas

[colninja]

So it's late, and my people and my other people are talking bout arbalist and how underwhelming it is... Whatever here's the ideas

- Reduce the cd on spectral arrows

- Give more spectral arrows

- Multishot enchant

- Increased damage from spectral arrows proc from all sources (40% to 50 or 60%?)

- extend spectral duration

- marked targets don't heal for the mark duration (suggestion made by @Woaxa )

Like half of these suggestions ain't even mine, so yeah, leave more stuff below and I'll post it up here.

No I don't expect everything to go through, just stuff that can be considered.

 

[Sappia]

2 crossbows? One with piercing the other with multishot or no enchants, just having the extra insta shot would make it much stronger in 1v1 but this may be too powerful?

 

[Woaxa]

I do believe arbalist is fairly weak rn but I also think the people using it are using it wrong. Prioritizing people your team is already fighting would probably prove to be more fruitful. I agree that the spectral effect doesn't last that long and should be extended due to the hefty cooldown between arrows, maybe like 12-14 seconds instead of 10? Something you didn't mention that I think would be really interesting is making marked targets unable to be healed by a medic, providing some counter play to medic which we dont really have right now.

 

[Triggs]

Something you didn't mention that I think would be really interesting is making marked targets unable to be healed by a medic, providing some counter play to medic which we dont really have right now.

Get this man a soda because he deserves a trophy, but we can't afford that right now.

 

[colninja]

I do believe arbalist is fairly weak rn but I also think the people using it are using it wrong. Prioritizing people your team is already fighting would probably prove to be more fruitful. I agree that the spectral effect doesn't last that long and should be extended due to the hefty cooldown between arrows, maybe like 12-14 seconds instead of 10? Something you didn't mention that I think would be really interesting is making marked targets unable to be healed by a medic, providing some counter play to medic which we dont really have right now.

Hell is there such a thing as using something "wrong" tho? That's pretty subjective. But I digress. I like the idea with the medic thing so ima add it up there if you don't mind

 

[Woaxa]

Hell is there such a thing as using something "wrong" tho? That's pretty subjective. But I digress. I like the idea with the medic thing so ima add it up there if you don't mind

well most of the time i see people just shooting anyone with the spectral arrow, if your team isnt there to act on it, you really just wasted a 20 second cooldown lol. most cases nah you cant really use things wrong but i believe this is an outlier. ive played a lot and i personally havent seen someone change to shooting people their team is engaging to really get use out of the %40 bonus damage

 

[Smalusion]

We've definitely notice that Arbalist feels underwhelming. When choosing between two similar kits, you have to ask yourself, "What does this kit do better than this other one?" In this case, the competitor is Shortbow. Why would you pick Arbalist over Shortbow? It just feels less impactful overall, especially if you fumble around with arrows or miss your shot...

But as to the exact way we'll change it, well, that's still up in the air. We'll be testing out a few different options, and these are definitely some good ideas. Thanks for the thread!

 

[Setery]

well most of the time i see people just shooting anyone with the spectral arrow, if your team isnt there to act on it, you really just wasted a 20 second cooldown lol. most cases nah you cant really use things wrong but i believe this is an outlier. ive played a lot and i personally havent seen someone change to shooting people their team is engaging to really get use out of the %40 bonus damage

Well you can't really avoid using the spectral arrow since it has arrow priority

 

[Woaxa]

Well you can't really avoid using the spectral arrow since it has arrow priority

You can change which the crossbow loads by moving the arrows around.

 

[Setery]

You can change which the crossbow loads by moving the arrows around.

That's not a smart idea tbh, if a ghost comes near you while Spectral isn't priority or if you're changing your inventory, you'll get clapped.

 

[Onett]

That's not a smart idea tbh, if a ghost comes near you while Spectral isn't priority or if you're changing your inventory, you'll get clapped.

This isn't well known but if you put the arrow in your offhand it will prioritize it. I think this part of arbalist could be improved, its annoying to have to go in inventory and move stuff around. I didn't know about this feature until I looked it up

It would be a nice quality of life buff if the arbalist arrow spawns in your offhand at the start of the game, and the regular arrow is in the hotbar. After that, the spectral arrow would spawn in offhand whenever the slot is unoccupied. Otherwise it will work the way it works right now, appear in the hotbar.

This would help players understand they can easily switch whatever arrow they want to fire into their offhand.

 

[Mythless]

It would be a nice quality of life buff if the arbalist arrow spawns in your offhand at the start of the game, and the regular arrow is in the hotbar. After that, the spectral arrow would spawn in offhand whenever the slot is unoccupied. Otherwise it will work the way it works right now, appear in the hotbar.

The offhand QoL would be helpful, but at the same time I think that would restrict kit layout customization for Arbalist.

Another take on it would be to place the Arbalist’s regular arrows in the first inventory slot by default, and have a fast innate timer where you obtain an arrow everytime you load up a regular arrow—to simulate as if the crossbow has an Infinity enchantment. This timer shouldn’t be slower than fully loading up the crossbow right after shooting an arrow.

If I’m remembering this right: Arrows in your hotbar take priority over arrows in your inventory, so if the Spectral Arrow is the only one that appears there, there wouldn’t have to be any arrow fumbling.

 

[Onett]

The offhand QoL would be helpful, but at the same time I think that would restrict kit layout customization for Arbalist.

Another take on it would be to place the Arbalist’s regular arrows in the first inventory slot by default, and have a fast innate timer where you obtain an arrow everytime you load up a regular arrow—to simulate as if the crossbow has an Infinity enchantment. This timer shouldn’t be slower than fully loading up the crossbow right after shooting an arrow.

If I’m remembering this right: Arrows in your hotbar take priority over arrows in your inventory, so if the Spectral Arrow is the only one that appears there, there wouldn’t have to be any arrow fumbling.

I'm pretty sure you already get 2 arrows as arbalist so the 1st issue you stated doesn't happen. You will always have an arrow to load right after you fire.

I think you might've misinterpreted the goal of my suggestion. The goal of my suggestion is to help the kit user learn that they can use the offhand to choose which arrow they want to fire. The issue isn't the fact that they get fumbled around but the fact that it is hard to fumble them around to get the type of arrow you wanna use

While the offhand mechanic already exists, its unknown to many and my suggestion would help people to learn said mechanic. Its faster to just put the arrow in the offhand so this is an intuitive way of teaching players how to make their lives easier.

Although the offhand suggestion could restrict offhand options for the kit, I don't see it as a huge issue as you can't use crossbow or bow in offhand. Of course this would just be the default preset, and can be changed.