Hello! I'm Enchie, a long time Lucky Islands player. Currently, I am frustrated at how the Shotgun Bow is pathetically weak comapred to its brethren. So, I am going to suggest some ways on how to change it so that it can hopefully be a bit more viable.
Let's start by discussing what it currently does: It fires 5 arrows in set directions at the same velocity across an x axis at once. This doesn't sound too bad? Here's a list on the problems it currently has making it the worst bow in the game, even behind the ordinary bow.
1. All arrows are fired across a set x axis.
This means that all the 5 arrows fired are fired at the same vertical velocity. So when I fire the bow, I see the arrows fired in this arrangement:
(• • • • •) The problem? This makes it EXTREMELY hard to hit more than one player per shot unless they happen to be parallel to the player you are aiming for. Being the only bow in the game to fire multiple arrows at once, you think that it would be capable of spreading damage, but apparently not.
2. Half damage, half fire distance at full charge.
It makes sense that crowd control attacks in general be balanced out in that they do less damage. 4.5 damage per arrow however, makes the actual attack power of this bow pathetically low. The half fire distance however is a bigger problem- the arrows can only travel in a tight arc making them hard to land, even at point blank range. And bearing in mind that you're likely to land one arrow at best, this is another reason why a regular bow is better than this piece of trash.
3. The spread of the arrows is too wide.
The leftmost and rightmost arrows stray about 60 degrees from the centre arrow in their respective directions, causing them to be extremely inaccurate. The other two arrows stray 30 degrees, which will also most likely be enough to miss those as well, unless the player is at a VERY close range to the target. For more than 1 arrow to hit, you must be, as stated above, extremely close to your target (say 0-3 blocks away.) And why exactly would you use a bow that close to someone? Surely at that distance you should switch to your melee weapon unless you're a bowsp- oh wait.
4. The recharge time is 10 seconds.
Being joint first for the slowest recharge of any custom bow, you can't even bowspam with this. You get one shot to most likely 1 player to deal half damage shooting at half range when fully charged every 10 seconds. That's 4.5 damage over 10 seconds. 0.45 dps. That's less than half of the dps of hitting the player with the bow! (1 hit per second for 1 damage- 1 dps.) You may as do that to the enemy and be more dangerous threat. And if you need to deal chip damage to a pursuer when running away, you have to stand still for a second to fully charge this, allowing them to cover a huge amount of ground and lose only a fraction of it IF the shot connects.
5. Not enough arrows.
5 arrows. That's it. Even is you were to miraculously land all five of this bow's shots on a player, dealing a total of 22.5 damage (4.5 * 5), that's still over 10 seconds (2.25 dps) compared to the diamond sword's 7 and the regular bow's 9. The arrows are innacurate as they are, and a lack of them really takes the 'shotgun' vibe out of this weapon.
So how is this Weapon therefore improved? My opinion is a revamp on how it handles, with an altered cooldown, fire spread etc. Here's a rough idea that I have:
Description: Charge the bow to increase the amount of arrows fired. Fires up to 9 arrows at once when fully charged (Starts at 3, gains one arrow per 0.16 seconds)
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Firing Damage and Range Modifier: X1
Firing spread: 1 arrow shoots straight like an arrow from other bows. Other arrows range from UP TO 30 degrees from that arrow across a random axis (e.g. If you were to shoot the bow directly upwards, this would be where they would land in a bird's eye view. * = straight shot arrow, • = other arrows.)
• •
•
• * •
• •
•
Thank you for reading. I apologise if this is not clear and I cannot stress enough that the idea I have printed is not final and is just a rough idea. My main message is that the Shotgun Bow needs a heavy buff so that it can compete with other custom bows. Thank you for reading and have a great day/night.
Let's start by discussing what it currently does: It fires 5 arrows in set directions at the same velocity across an x axis at once. This doesn't sound too bad? Here's a list on the problems it currently has making it the worst bow in the game, even behind the ordinary bow.
1. All arrows are fired across a set x axis.
This means that all the 5 arrows fired are fired at the same vertical velocity. So when I fire the bow, I see the arrows fired in this arrangement:
(• • • • •) The problem? This makes it EXTREMELY hard to hit more than one player per shot unless they happen to be parallel to the player you are aiming for. Being the only bow in the game to fire multiple arrows at once, you think that it would be capable of spreading damage, but apparently not.
2. Half damage, half fire distance at full charge.
It makes sense that crowd control attacks in general be balanced out in that they do less damage. 4.5 damage per arrow however, makes the actual attack power of this bow pathetically low. The half fire distance however is a bigger problem- the arrows can only travel in a tight arc making them hard to land, even at point blank range. And bearing in mind that you're likely to land one arrow at best, this is another reason why a regular bow is better than this piece of trash.
3. The spread of the arrows is too wide.
The leftmost and rightmost arrows stray about 60 degrees from the centre arrow in their respective directions, causing them to be extremely inaccurate. The other two arrows stray 30 degrees, which will also most likely be enough to miss those as well, unless the player is at a VERY close range to the target. For more than 1 arrow to hit, you must be, as stated above, extremely close to your target (say 0-3 blocks away.) And why exactly would you use a bow that close to someone? Surely at that distance you should switch to your melee weapon unless you're a bowsp- oh wait.
4. The recharge time is 10 seconds.
Being joint first for the slowest recharge of any custom bow, you can't even bowspam with this. You get one shot to most likely 1 player to deal half damage shooting at half range when fully charged every 10 seconds. That's 4.5 damage over 10 seconds. 0.45 dps. That's less than half of the dps of hitting the player with the bow! (1 hit per second for 1 damage- 1 dps.) You may as do that to the enemy and be more dangerous threat. And if you need to deal chip damage to a pursuer when running away, you have to stand still for a second to fully charge this, allowing them to cover a huge amount of ground and lose only a fraction of it IF the shot connects.
5. Not enough arrows.
5 arrows. That's it. Even is you were to miraculously land all five of this bow's shots on a player, dealing a total of 22.5 damage (4.5 * 5), that's still over 10 seconds (2.25 dps) compared to the diamond sword's 7 and the regular bow's 9. The arrows are innacurate as they are, and a lack of them really takes the 'shotgun' vibe out of this weapon.
So how is this Weapon therefore improved? My opinion is a revamp on how it handles, with an altered cooldown, fire spread etc. Here's a rough idea that I have:
Description: Charge the bow to increase the amount of arrows fired. Fires up to 9 arrows at once when fully charged (Starts at 3, gains one arrow per 0.16 seconds)
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Firing Damage and Range Modifier: X1
Firing spread: 1 arrow shoots straight like an arrow from other bows. Other arrows range from UP TO 30 degrees from that arrow across a random axis (e.g. If you were to shoot the bow directly upwards, this would be where they would land in a bird's eye view. * = straight shot arrow, • = other arrows.)
• •
•
• * •
• •
•
Thank you for reading. I apologise if this is not clear and I cannot stress enough that the idea I have printed is not final and is just a rough idea. My main message is that the Shotgun Bow needs a heavy buff so that it can compete with other custom bows. Thank you for reading and have a great day/night.
