Currently, bows have an arrow rune that consumes 15 focus. Unfortunately, it’s completely pointless to use because it competes for focus with any of the other special runes that all bows have. Either the arrow is more efficient or the alternate rune is. Having both compete for focus is pointless.
One solution is to give arrow focus-free charges (I’d suggest 20) that let you shoot arrows and build a small amount of focus per hit. The arrow charges would recover every 2-3 seconds so you wouldn’t be able to just use arrows non-stop, but would be able to use here and there.
Another solution is to make bows a main weapon instead of an offhand weapon so that you could just primary ranged attack instead of being forced to only melee.
Also, staves shouldn’t consume health for channel rune. Instead, they should just allow you to channel focus continuously, but somewhat slowly, when held since it’s not really viable in combat. This would let you top off your focus and use a rune at the beginning of combat and basically have to use attacks to build it during combat after that since it’s too slow to channel during combat.
Basically, I feel it’s a waste that bows compete for focus with weapons and don’t have a focus-free ranged attack and staves seem the same way. There’s a forced mechanics system that prevents any ranged combat, yet there are ranged weapons, but they only allow you to attack by consuming focus, which is shared with melee weapon runes… it’s a waste to not have any ranged basic attacks.
Fully agree, there should be weapons options that allow full ranged combat, like adding to current bows and staves ranged basic attack instead of melee, or adding new weapons that are fully ranged.
If adding new wepon types would be an option something like this could work as a base:
Short bow - offhand wih focus ranged
Scepter - main or offhand focus ranged
I like hearing other people agree with the idea. It’s wasted potential as is.
The issue with ranged focus runes is that they aren’t special. There are melee runes with throw that are just as good or better than the bow ranged focus runes.
Bows (and staves) need to bring something different (and viable) to the table, such as ranged basic attacks (with or without charges). Otherwise, I don’t see the value in bothering with a bow when I could just equip a shield and use throw runes on melee weapons.
The only reason I would think to use a bow is if I had a unique main weapon that didn’t have any ranged focus runes so bow or another melee weapon (basically same thing) would be needed if you wanted a ranged attack.
I can think of a bunch of situations where I can’t use my melee focus runes because they are too slow (so basically useless) to use on bosses. When I use, I get hit and interrupted and the focus is wasted. It would be nice if I could at least hit with melee and build up focus and then get distance to use ranged focus runes and not worry about getting hit. It’s not sustainable since you have to melee to build focus, but it’s better than not using focus at all.
I would also like rune attacks to offer momentum which would prevent stagger/interruption so while you might get hit during a rune skill, you won’t get interrupted and waste your focus.
All two-handed weapons should have momentum and rune skills. Two-handed weapons are too slow (and need to be able to dodge out of attacks) to be interrupted since attacks that start after them still land before they do. Tougher enemies and bosses use two-handed weapons, but they seem to be stupidly fast and long-reaching so two-handed weapons are like a massive handicap if they don’t offer something different than faster one-handed weapons.
The only benefit is that if you had a one-handed weapon with bow, you wouldn’t have to toggle to use ranged focus rune, whereas if you had a two-handed weapon, you’d have to swap to use bow, so you might as well just have another weapon (probably paired with shield) that has throw rune. Not to mention that if you’re using a one-handed main weapon, you should really have a shield with it standard. That’s one main reason to use a one-handed weapon (other than much faster attack speed).
Bows already recover more Focus on the basic shot than they cost to fire if you just build into Recover Focus on Damage Dealt like you should be doing. It’s currently a Focus building attack, not a spender.
I hadn’t considered that, but I still feel that 15 focus per hit would require an entire build of bonuses to support.
When you have to allocate attribute points to even use a weapon and then more to increase the damage bonus, this seems like a trade-off not worth the expenditure.
Well are you planning to get past level 10 or not?
Without needing any lucky Enchant rolls and using only the gems you can slot into white gear:
Gain 3% Focus on Damage Dealt in Bow
Gain 3% Focus on Damage Dealt in Mainhand (This counts)
Gain 7 Focus when using a Focus Attack in Legs
200 base Focus and the ring which gives +100 Focus
That’s (0.03*300)*2 + 7 = 25 Focus back per shot WITHOUT any Increased Focus Gain% rolls. You can push it higher but even with just those rolls and assuming bad rolls it is still Focus neutral at worst.