A lot of us have been complaining how inaccurate thrown weapons are compared to melee weapons since 3.1 was released. I decided to do a quick test with a small sample size of data to hopefully allow you, Kodius, to take a look at why it's so difficult to hit with.

First, here is the appraisal. Something that's appraising as "very easy"

You are certain that the adult wyvern is healthy.
Taking stock of its offensive abilities, and defending with a small diamond-hide shield sealed with protective wax and a polished throwing hammer with a conch-shaped head, you are certain that the adult wyvern is a less skilled opponent.
Taking stock of its defensive abilities, and attacking with a polished throwing hammer with a conch-shaped head, you are certain that the adult wyvern is a very easy opponent.
If you attacked with a polished throwing hammer with a conch-shaped head, you are certain that the enemy would train acceptably.

Agility: 115
Strength: 115

Test 1: 50 attacks with my throwing hammer.
Ranks: 935
Attack type: Lob
Hits: 12
Misses: 38
Accuracy: 24%

Test 2: 50 attacks with a maul
Ranks: 898
Attack Type: feint
Hits: 36
Misses: 14
Accuracy: 72%

Balance of Weapons:

You are certain that the hammer is fairly (5/14) balanced and is soundly (8/14) suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.
You are certain that the maul is fairly (5/14) balanced and is reasonably (7/14) suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

TL;DR: Why am I landing 24% of my attacks when I use thrown and hit with my melee weapons ~75% of the time with 40 less ranks? Something seems broken.

Difference in melee mastery and missile mastery perhaps?

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"I only automatically kill players when they're asking for it or it's funny. Or both." ~GM Raesh

>I think that there does need to be some way to balance out the instant-damage-from-range potential of thrown weapons. Accuracy seems a reasonable way to do that. Not sure if that's the thought behind it, or if any of that is intentional or whatever.

I know I've posted this [too?] many time already, but I'm a big fan of melee accuracy bonuses for ranged attack styles like throw.

Does hurl still have an accuracy bonus in exchange for lodging 100% of the time or is it just a damage bonus?

<<It might just be me. But I find frustration and lack of development for the guild for years rather discouraging. >>

It's not just you. I came back after nearly a decade gone and notice no real development for the guild at all. I know one of the GM's has mentioned that Paladins are slated for some major development, but I have no idea what that means.

--Just a Squire

I'd rather see a change that prevents immediately picking up a thrown weapon, especially while the enemy is still at "ranged" distance. Maybe after a throw, if you want to pick up your weapon again, you'll have to close to melee on the target first because that's where the weapon is assumed to be.

>throw
(attack description)
>get weapon
You can't reach that! You'll have to get closer first.

Obviously you could just keep multiple throwing weapons on your person, but that seems an acceptable trade-off to me. Possibly.

Well, I'd combine it with the notion that thrown weapons in general should do less damage than melee equivalents. It'd set up a situation where thrown would never really be an optimal choice at melee range, but it would give thrown (esp. heavy thrown) a somewhat unique role of being able to (possibly) disrupt spellcasters/archers before they can finish targeting/aiming. Essentially, thrown would become a great way to open up a fight, but not sustainable over longer periods of time. Sort of a mini-alpha strike whose damage per second drops off dramatically once your enemy either closes to melee or else starts getting off shots/spells at range.

The question posed by the OP (correct me if I'm wrong) seems to be more along the lines of, "Why should they be inherently less accurate?"

Honestly, it doesn't make a lot of sense as anything except for a band-aid fix. A good patch to temporarily bring them in line with other forms of attack, while we (someone? eventually?) works on a longer term solution that makes more sense.

I haven't been able to find a way or a reason to legitimately use thrown in a PVP situation with an at level opponent since probably 3.0.

---

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>Probably belongs in some other folder, but I am going to rant here since it is on my mind and I have to go soon. As long as I have played my Paladin I have run the range of disappointed to enraged by Paladin development/adjustments/whatever it is the GM's are doing. There have been a few bright spots, but all in all, I am having less and less fun playing him with each change that comes out. At first I was excited about 3.0, but I really have a hard time getting myself to log on anymore to push numbers or find something fun to do. It might just be me. But I find frustration and lack of development for the guild for years rather discouraging. I have no real alts.. might try that, I don't know.

This is a discussion I really want to have, so I've moved it over to the paladin forum for anyone who wants to join.

http://forums.play.net/forums/DragonRealms/The%20Paladins/Complaints/thread/1643069

>Difference in melee mastery and missile mastery perhaps?

Negative, 981 vs 978.

>With HURL you are almost guaranteed to lodge 1 thing while closing to melee. This is like an unlimited DoT for free.

Since you brought it up... could someone please look at this. I really don't think its causing any Damage over Time at all.

At least its certainly not enough to just be dwarfed by natural vitality regen rates.

Lodged damage and bleeding damage need a serious over haul.

I know I'm probably singing to the choir but just wanted to show my interest in seeing stuff like multi-throwing blades and sliver weapons be useful for one thing in a game where they are currently useful for no thing.

>Bleeding damage changed last month to be 3x more potent. That resulted in dozens of "sky is falling" posts about how hard it was making the game

Did the bleeding change revert back by any chance? The last couple of dozen bleeding wounds I've gotten from boxes and sorcery mishaps haven't been nailing my vitality.

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I'm sorry guys but Shatter + Halt + Hurl = huge damage. The Paladin QQ party needs to relax a little, since as Samsaren aptly brought up 2.0 WAS THE WORST FOR PALADIN. 3.X going forward is sooo much better. Just be patient on some more development (I'm looking forward to endurance skill).

Also what are you fighting with Thrown that you are missing so much? Does it use a shield? is it a quadruped or biped? does it have spells? You showed info on your stats and what attack you are using; however what you are hunting makes a huge difference. I use "throw" while hunting Resus in the abbey and don't miss hardly at all.

>I'm sorry guys but Shatter + Halt + Hurl = huge damage.

This is accurate. Shatter + Halt + any attack is huge damage if someone's in a shield stance even sometimes with barriers up. My only complaint is about landing hits with any weapon outside that ~6 second window and inability to hit people with ranged weapons without shatter (unbuffed secondary skill < buffed tertiary skill at high skill ranges). I'm starting to think my troubles are simply too few debilitation options in this era of combat where debilitation is what wins fights and engagement time being too long for a melee heavy focus.

I don't care if I can't hit people who are more skilled than my paladin and I don't mind losing to people who have more skill ranks either. I play for competitive PvP. Close matches for me right now have been either too quick or agonizingly slow. I tend to prefer the former to the latter, no matter which way it goes.

<The Paladin QQ party needs to relax a little

<...this era of combat where debilitation is what wins fights and engagement time being too long for a melee heavy focus.

This is the suck part for a melee primary Paladin.

For my Paladin I just don't have the ranks/stats to disable reliably, nor the stats to resist disables. This is a personal problem though, not a 3.X problem.

~~~
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

Before the change, with 70 ranks less than LE (880), my HT (810) would tear up drakes. Something needed to be done, I suppose since you wanted to make sure thrown was not the goto attack.

~~~
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.

>Can people please post their appraise results of these critters? It might give some insight into how hard the combat system believes the challenge to be.

You have mine from the original post FWIW.

Why do my appraisals vs my critter matter at all? I'm fighting the exact same critter with the exact same ranks in LT, HT, Crossbow, TM (and on one character long bow). The DPS/kill rate is not even remotely close. LT and HT dominate with lob. I don't really care about the weapon output anymore, my main is where he is, but I noticed it because I was chasing kills for my ranger (for skinning) and my necro (for thano). In both cases, I go to HT spear to kill as fast as I can, all ranks being equal (which they are).

I don't have any basis to doubt the offensive thrown users' claim that thrown sucks in PvP (I claim myself that crossbow generally sucks in PvP for DPS). What I think is happening is that offense generally sucks at higher levels of PvP and people are generally complaining that whatever their "prime" pvp offense is, isn't working as well as they'd like.

Because none of them are.

If anyone with equal bow, crossbow, thrown, tm, at +800 ranks, wants to weigh in, that'd be helpful.

__________________
A spectacle on the public forums may be entertaining to all, but it is not a useful or productive channel for assessing potential issues with the GameMaster staff.

Death to all who oppose me, etc.
--Armifer

Right, but others did. Not trying to urinate in your complaint cereal, Seb, just saying I don't see anything remotely like your whine in my own newb thrown PvE. Sorry. I'd train HT or LT all over again in place of Crossbow if I had the choice now with Traim. Sorry it sucks for you.

__________________
A spectacle on the public forums may be entertaining to all, but it is not a useful or productive channel for assessing potential issues with the GameMaster staff.

Death to all who oppose me, etc.
--Armifer

No. no..not in Drakes. This is with my little barb with similar ranks (123) using throw.. LE vs. HT. The main advantage to HT isn't DPS for him, its fatigue management. Critters are unyns where HT is horrible (I suspect shield) and day bargs where LE is a little better.

The Drakes with Seb are because of a rank disparity. I definitely noticed the change in HT with them because I can no longer hit them with HT whereas before when I first started hunting them, with 70 less in HT than LE, I used HT as crowd control.

On the PvP side of things, with Seb, I only had success with HT when the opponent had no shield or I outclassed them before the change. I do not PvP a lot like some here, so I have absolutely no basis to comment on it. I would suspect, though, with the auto-stance thing, it would be useless for me.

Wait.. I just read back. You guys are talking LT vs. HT. I am talking melee vs. ranged - LE vs. HT.
~~~
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.