[Ranylyn]

Disclaimer: Digging up info from the Wiki, since my comp sucks and I can't SL2 + forums at the same time. As such, I'm not factoring in skills from recent updates, like Heavy Tackle. I know they exist, but I don't have numbers to work with since the Wiki has not been updated, and as such, they are being left out of this discussion.



List of Strength gain classes, from highest to lowest:

40%: Arbalest
30%: Kensei, Void Assassin, Black Knight
25%: Verglas, Tactician
20%: Monk, Ghost, Engineer
10%: Lantern Bearer, Grand Summoner
0%: Magic Gunner, Evoker


There's really no choice in the matter. If you want high Str, you need to at least SUB Arbalest. Even a something like a Kensei/VA is prone to fairly low strength gains. And, of course, if you either want Vit or Cel, maining Arbalest is not an option.


So, let's look at what arbalest skills are able to do -ANYTHING- for a non-bow user, shall we?

- Special Armament: It could be used to let a Kensei still use Couloir? Otherwise, pointless.
- Deadly Aim: Could be useful, against evasive foes, but too rarely worth the FP cost and/or skill slot.
- Whoo, a + skill innate. Further making Deadly Aim a waste of FP and skill slots.

... and... that's basically it. Unless you count Fortune Wind from Archer.

Compare to virtually anything else... Non dagger users at least get Absorb Veil/ Veil Off/ Blotch/ etc, for example, or many classes having access to very good passives (Such as all the duelists.) a lot of the time.

Heck, even magic gunners, whose skills are almost entirely gun based, still get Stand off (+1 Def per 4 will? That's VERY nice to have on a high will character) and Recklessness, to Negate and even become immune to Fear/Hesitation/Charm, often quoted as the most aburd PVP ailments. By comparison, subbing an Arbalest without a bow seems even worse than before.


What am I proposing?

- Chained boomerang's skill description says "SWING" your sub weapon at your opponent. I always imagined this as a thrown skill, rather than a bow skill. Make it usable without a bow in the main hand. It already counts as a melee attack, from what I understand.

- Let Oil Chain, and related skills, apply to Chained Boomerang at reduced efficiency. Full power Violent Reaction Oil Chained Boomerang would be too powerful, since it can be reused with near-impunity, unlike a cannon's reload time. I'm thinking half power as a decent starting point, for a trial run?

This would give someone subbing Arbalest a few more options while still giving them a bit more Strength.

[Ryu-Kazuki]

I just want to say. You have to consider why Arbalests' strength is so high. They are field artillery archers, after all; "canon" fodder. Hehe I made a funny. But really, you have to shoot axes from your bow, that makes a little sense.

I can see the thought behind Chained Boomerang, but not so much behind the thought of Oil Chain applying to it.

[Rendar]

I think Dev stated at one point that Arbalests use .actual. cannons for their skills.

[Mivereous]

That's kinda like back to the thing about only Verglas people knowing how to kick rapidly, though..

I could see a very strong person being able to throw an axe or some other weapon attached to a chain.

[LadyLightning]

Let's clarify quickly: An 'Arbalest' is a word for a type of
heavy crossbow. The word for a soldier who wields an
Arbalest in a unit is 'Arbalist.'

In any case, I've always had a problem with this class.
Conceptually, the idea of shooting anything other than
a crossbow bolt out of a crossbow is not only ridiculous,
but the laws of physics actively work against the idea.

Axes are bad projectiles. They're not aerodynamic,
and while they're heavy, they lack the small, piercing
surface that allows a bolt to inflict lethal damage. The
arbalest (remember, that's the crossbow, not the man!)
always flings every projectile with the same amount of
force. But when that force is applied to a wide-bladed
axe, it loses its piercing power because that force is
spread out evenly among the entire cutting edge, and
that's assuming that it even lands edge-first. More often
than not, an axe's shape will cause it to wobble in the
air, since a crossbow has no way to apply spin on an
axe the way your throwing arm might.

Swords, daggers? Even worse. Spears ~could~ be
feasible, but even then, they don't have fletching, so
they'd probably suffer from reduced effectiveness at
long range. Crossbow bolts work without fletching
because they're small and light, so gravity doesn't
tug away at their velocity as quickly.

I realize this'll never happen, but personally, what I
would like to see from Arbalist is to have the reliance
on a subweapon completely removed. It's silly and I
refuse to believe that nothing else could be thought up
to explain why Arbalists shoot better than Archers.

[Neus]

Really? Do I really have to respond to this? I guess I could just ignore it, but honestly, the entire post is too silly to ignore.

Why do Arbalests (the name of the class and the person who uses it) shoot other weapons? Because it's cool. There's no other reasoning behind it, and there's certainly not a lot of scientific research done into considering if it's possible. Because I don't need to do that; it just works. I reject your reality and substitute my own, and all that.

One other thing; do you need to post
like this? Do you type it all in notepad
forget to turn off word wrap? Because
typing like this makes your post longer
than it probably should be. It honestly
looks like song lyrics or a poem. Just
a minor complaint on my part.

[Lolzytripd]

omg dev....why u kill me with funniness