It would be great if we could get some of the dev’s current thoughts on how they might implement bows & flat damage affixes for ranged attacks. Will they be adding a new class of skill damage modifiers (eg, “ranged attacks”, to separate it from the current “throwing attack damage” to avoid giving the red-headed step… cough Sentinel too much damage for Shield/Hammer Throw) or will bows have “throwing attack damage” as an implicit (like melee weapons) with flat added throwing attack damage prefixes craftable. The latter would be nice, but may end up with Hammer/Shield Throw Sentinels using bows for the increased damage which would look a bit odd, unless the affixes are craftable onto melee weapons.
Alternatively you could give us a couple of new weapon types for non-bow throwing attacks (spears, hammers, etc) & possibly give other classes some throwing attacks as well. I imagine the Primalist could use a throwing attack fitting with the beastmaster/hunter theme. Though that would either require amending some of the existing passives to support a throwing attack, or adding new passives (or converting all the existing “throwing” to “melee” attacks & tweaking the added damage effectiveness of the skills to account for the increased flat added damage).
Edit: And that should probably have been a lot more paragraphs…
I’ll have to admit as a main rogue/bow/range arpg player i’m really interested in this topic aswell! Even though the topic is a bit older now, but i would really like to hear some news about the current state of rogue.
Totally agree. I already hate to see minion builds or essence drain SPELLcasters in PoE using +gem level bows. Doesn’t make sense to me and i hope LE is not going this direction aswell. Yes, you take some build variety away by restricting certain weapon types to skills or classes. But let’s be honest, running around with a bow and quiver, not shooting one single arrow with your build just doesn’t make sense to me
Yeah, having no weapon restrictions for casting spells in PoE is kinda weird. It was also a similar case a few years back with dual-wielding, where only your main-hand accounted for the damage your melee attack would do, so the off-hand was always a stat-stick scepter, quite silly.
Also my guess is that they will stick to what they’ve been doing so far, create completely different classes of skills and stats, which would clearly affect only bow/ranged skills. Essentially forming another archetype.
They’ve already got a “throwing attack” skill type, I think they should probably rename it “ranged attack” & stick with that. Though that would lead to the Sentinel’s thowing attack skills being buffed by bows.
We’ll definitely get more clarification on this the closer we get to rogue release, but I would prefer it if “Throwing Attacks” stays as it is, that way we would have two unique ranged playstyles.
But why do we have to have 2 types of ranged attack?
One thing I thought of is that they could restrict the Sentinel’s throwing attacks to using a shield (for Shield Throw) or melee weapon (for Hammer Throw) but change it to “ranged attack” then you’d still be able to use the same affixes as the Rogue’s bow skills, but not the bow.
Realistically, what you’re saying is more likely to happen. Regardless, I think it would be cool if they would expand on the “Throwing Attacks” concept by creating more skills to support it and keeping it separate from “Bow Attacks”.
True, glad they nerfed that.
Yep in the current state it kinda makes sense to change throwing attack to range attack because there are not that many skills benefiting from that. But maybe they add new throwing dagger type skills for bladedancer? You remember the d3 Impale skill? Also some new axe throwing skills for primalist like @Llama8 said would completely make sense. Interesting how they will balance around that and what is coming for us.
I disagree with you. I don’t like the current throwing attack system. To buff your damage you need to have certain affixes on your rings, amulets, gloves and relics. Affixes you could use for other purposes. Makes good throwing attack gear hard to find.
I’d asume they introduce bows with flat damage implicits. Needing to wear a bow for max stats on a shield throw build is counterintuitive.
As I stated before, I’d like to see flat throwing attack damage on soecial throwing weapons. Weapons actually do not that much for your throwing attack build.
I don’t see any benefit in merging throwing attacks with ranged attacks.
But what’s the benefit of having more different types of skill (eg, melee, spell, throwing attack, etc)? A few people have said that they don’t think it’s a good idea why the current throwing attacks should be of the same type as the forth coming Rogue bow-skills without actually saying why (unless I’ve not been paying attention).
If more types of skill is better, why not differentiate the current skills we have even more? Instead of Acolyte, Mage & Primalist spells all being a single type of skill (spell) & benefiting from a single set of affixes (increased spell damage, in addition to the element-specific affixes like increased physical damage), why not split them out into Acolyte spells, Mage spells & Primalist spells, effectively get rid of the general “increased spell damage” & add 3 class-specific ones, “increased Acolyte spell damage” “increased Mage spell damage” and “increased Primalist spell damage”, as well as the global spell crit?
My revised suggestion was to
rename “throwing attack” to “ranged attack”
make Hammer Throw require a melee weapon & Shield Throw to require either a shield or a melee weapon
add a couple of melee weapons with flat added throwing damage affixes (probably 3, low lvl, medium lvl & high lvl)
add some ranged attack affixes that can spawn on weapons & shields
reduce the “added damage co-efficient” on Shield/Hammer Throw to take into account the increased flat added damage (or, you know, not, I’m good with that too)
I never said “more = better”. Just because I would not like to see ranged attacks and throwing attacks merged together does not mean I suggest to split the current damage types even more.
But what benefit is there for not merging throwing attacks & a putative ranged attack skill type? To me, they’re both the same thing, a “weapon-based” skill type (as against a spell) that does damage at range. I just don’t get the benefit for adding more skill types where the functionality is the same. Adding a “curse” skill type I get & that’s thematically different to “spells”. I just don’t get it with ranged/throwing attacks as separate skill types.
I think you’re slightly missing @Llama8’s argument, they are saying that both “Throwing Attacks” and the upcoming “Bow Attacks” should simply be classified as “Ranged Attacks” and not be two separate skill tags. This said, they also mention that the weapon requirement should remain as it currently is, e.g. Should Throw requires a shield to be used.
Yeah, I’m of the opinion that there should only be a single “ranged attack” skill tag like there’s only one “melee” skill tag & only one “spell” skill tag.
@XLVI_carpo, did you miss all of this, in particular #2?
Job done! No bow-wielding Sentinels throwing shields/hammers, but the Sentinel’s throwing attacks get support from items & affixes.
ION: He, not they.
Edit: Also, Shield Throw doesn’t currently require a shield, though it probably should, or at least a melee weapon, or non-bow weapon if they add one-handed throwing weapons.
but it is not currently the case. My Cpt America Sentinel doesn’t use a shield but uses an Oracle Staff to buff shield throw speell damage. Really silly way to build a paladin / shield throw but that the way it is.
First time i have to disagree with my alter ego @RawSuicide… is that even possible?
I think those are really good suggestions. I once heared in a stream about exactly the shield throw example, that you just also be able to use shield throw without having a shield equipped because the shield is ‘‘magical’’ as he said…well then let acolyts, primalists and so on also use that skill…but thats not what i want and what also doesn’t make any sense to me.
I would rather like to see a unique shield with the mod: trigger level 20 shield throw with x% chance while attacking with y skill, then another class could use that skill aswell.
If you want to go with a defensive set up, then yes, you’d use a shield, otherwise you’ll use a staff ('cause if you’re not using a shield, you might as well use a staff for the spell damage & bigger “increased” damage prefixes they can get).
