Why The Az Nerf Was Too Much, And How To Fix It.

Recently Az was nerfed from 40-120 neutral and 1-500 thunder to 40-80 and 1-350. In addition it only has 1 powder slot. Let me explain why this makes the weapon pretty garbage, and compare it to other weapons.

If we take the average damage of the Az of what it was previously it goes down from 80/251 to 60/176 (or 236 total), for a total of a 95 dmg average difference. Assuming you don't use an auto-clicker and just hold down the mouse button, you can get 2.5 basic attacks a second, meaning that the az's damage was nerfed to 590 dmg/sec. On top of all this, it only has 1 powder slot, meaning you can't even use the special powder ability on this bow, which is a shame. Finally, it's IDs are garbage, with a max of only 9% xp, 5 dex, and 10% fire/water/thunder damage. This would be fine if the weapon wasn't so weak now.

Let's compare it to Maelstrom, a level 70 legendary bow. Dealing 50-90 water, 40-100 air and 60-110 thunder damage for an average of 70/70/90 damage, or 250 damage total. This actually exceeds the average damage of an Az. Fast hits 1.9 times a second, leading to 475 dmg/sec. This is indeed 115 dmg/second lower than the az, but has its own upsides. To start, you can buff the damage using armor pieces to make it far better than the az. On top of that, it has a bunch of useful IDs, such as a bonus percentage of water/air/thunder damage, high amounts of a bonus percentage for melee/spell damage, mana steal, walk speed, and stats. Since the update the values have changed so until item api comes out I will not be considering IDs in my calculations. Finally, it has 3 powder slots, enough for a special ability and an extra. Or you can choose to put a thunder/air/water powder to boost the stats.

So let's compare the two in a simple list and see which is the winner in which category:
-Basic Attack DPS - Az
-IDs - Maelstrom
-Base Damage - Maelstrom
-Obtainability - Maelstrom

So it seems that an easy-to-get bow is on-par or even better than the Az. The Az was far too strong previously, but now it is too weak, so a middle-ground is needed. Here are my solutions:

-Increase the Powder Slots to 2. This allows the Az to have a special ability. I know typically it is 1 powder per element, but an exception should be made for this weapon as it has for others. This allows a Shift+Click ability and expands its elemental coverage.

-Make the attack speed time for Super Fast speed weapons accurate. As of now you must spam-click at the speed of light to take advantage of the Super Fast right-click speed; when holding right-click it only shoots as fast as the previous tier, Very Fast. It should be changed so that when holding right-click the weapon attacks as fast as it possibly can.

-Increase the base damage from 1-350 to 1-400. This keeps the weapon's gimmick of randomized damage to synergize with the Dexterity crit, but allows the payoff to be a bit more powerful and buffs the base damage per second.

That's all, feel free to comment below and open a discussion. This will be a bit more of a controversial topic so I added a poll above. Don't just comment "no lol" or "thats op", explain why you think that please.

-Not a shitpost 101

EDIT: I was wrong about a few things, such as Mael's powder slots (was also nerfed to 1) and the attack speed magic dmg modifier. Just want to admit that I was not correct here. As of now, this is what I believe Az's stats should be.

Az
Super Fast
(now works if you hold down right-click)
Lv. 74 Min Dex 80
(same)
30-120 neutral damage
(brings same maximum as before but lower minimum)
1-400 thunder damage
(middle-ground between pre and post nerf)
2 powder slots
(the main reason it is garbage atm.)​

 

I think it's balanced, because compare it to fatal

Fatal is slower than az, and has no neutral when az has 40 more minimum damage and only 70 less maximum damage.

Az is a lvl 74 bow, fatal is a lvl 99 wand.

 

archers are supposed to deal more damage than fatal. fatal is fucking good because you can buff the shit out of your melee damage and attack speed to make it a beast. like look at any set fo 4 weapons (eg bobs mythic, hive cluster) and you'll find bows always deal the most damage.

 

My life was a lie all along.

 

It still does a bunch of damage, but it sucks it cant do specials

 

A Lv 74 Legendary bow with Super Fast attack speed should, on average, deal 138 damage per shot. Az still deals a hefty amount more than that.

 

maelstrom is fast and deals far more than that.

 

Key word; Maelstrom is FAST. I was measuring SUPER FAST. Plus, I don't think you factored in the boost you get from the high dexterity cost that Az has got, while you get much more minor boosts to your damages from Maelstrom as well as it having no neutral damage which makes powders less effective.

I went over with Salted these changes, and he approved of them just fine.

 

ok then, i can understand no damage buff but can we at least fix attack speed and give it another slot?

 

Powders are already much more effective on faster weapons, since due to the fact that the powders give a flat damage buff in addition to a percentage, faster weapons get a larger overall buff than slower ones. On a super fast weapon like Az, the buff you get is rather massive, and you've got a choice of three elements to choose from if you want a boost.

The bow's attack speed thing, though, you'd have to take up with Jumla.

 

Simple, give it a small -% in other elements. For example (average IDs)
-3% fire damage
-10% earth damage
-5% air damage
-3% water damage

Just small nerfs. Earth is the opposite of thunder which is why it is the biggest, and fire and water go well with it which is why they are the smallest. This means the player can either double thunder powder it and have trouble with mobs resistant to thunder, spread their elements more but be slightly weaker, or put 2 in a complimentary element and get a cool ability.

 

It already has very high power, so having it not get a powder special is a very much intentional limiting factor. again, Salted has seen these changes and approves of them; this is the one and only time I have ever edited a Mythic, so I wouldn't take that approval lightly.

 

I think we should just raise the level minimum to somewhere around 95, then put it back the way it was before the update and call it a day.

 

Being one of the only legend/mythic weapons past Lv. 70 that can't use 2 powders seems kind of weak. At the very least give it a second slot but nerf the other elements; I already explained why. I could also see a level maximum raise to around 84 instead of 74 so you can't just grind until you get one at ToL like I did.

 

Is this the next gen "Buff assassin" thread ?

 

ill like a 2nd powder slot
but, the nerf was fine, i shredded bob with a mage and killed him in 30 seconds, twice in 50 seconds i think

 

Bob isn't exactly a challenge

 

true

 

A boss of his quest's level should deal approximately 800 damage and should have approximately 37500 health.

Bob deals 800-3800 damage, has 160000 health, and has strong minions as well as resisting all elements by a fairly significant degree.

 

For higher levels? Of course it isn't a challenge. But for level 74's, it is an challenge.