by Rifter7 Sat Aug 04, 2012 10:16 pmhello. i'm terrible with introductions, so i'm just going
to jump right into this
i want to talk a little bit about the use of bows in pvp, and the amount of
depth they can add to your tactics if you choose to incorporate them.
i'm going to start with the basics and edge my way in here..
but what are the basics? well..
-they need to be held with both hands but can be put in either slot to do so.
-starting the fire animation leaves your character immobile
-can be locked on and fired, unlocked and fired which is fairly difficult and
zoomed in with L1 and aimed to fire
-shooting a player or most humanoid npcs in the head staggers them and does
more damage
-shooting a player holding a shield up anywhere in front
of them will hit the shield
-access to multiple types of damage dealing arrows, as well as ones that build
basic poison. i'll go more into depth with this later as well.
okay, that's pretty basic.. and that's what most pvper's seem to utilize when
it comes to incorporating the bow into a duel. but... there's more to it than
that. a lot actually.
lets take a look at how a player getting shot at will react, because knowing
this allows us to plan ahead and react.
-when a player is getting shot at they will most likely
a. roll/move to the side at the end of the fire animation
b. defend themselves with their shield/weapon
c. roll/run in and try to hit you
d. roll/run in and try to backstab you
e. cast a spell and try to punish your shot
f. use a bow themselves and attempt to time their shots to be able to roll out
of yours.
obviously there's more, ie. you shooting them- preferably in the head, you're
opponent running around aimlessly, spamming "well, what is it
emotes?"- whatever etc. etc., i've just listed the common ones that'll
lead to you getting harmed/punished while using the bow.
well.. now that we've got a general idea of the opponents m.o. vs bows, we can
further plan around this.
a. free aim and aim ahead of their roll
b. use poison arrows if they'll have effect
c-e. time the shot and hope it hits them at the end of their roll.. right?
well.. that's where things start to get tricky.
f. deek them out and adjust your timing.. i'll get into this in a sec.
now... the cool thing with the bow, is that unlike other weapons, like say the
great scythe's R2, FR2 or run R1 you DON'T necessarily have to commit to the
shot once you've begun the animation for the attack. BECAUSE OF THIS a punish
to your attack can be used to YOUR ADVANTAGE. (yay caps)
what are you talking about? well when you pull the arrow, the second the sound
file kicks in (the *reeemp* noise of the arrow being drawn) you can either
press triangle/y or swap out either your left or right weapon/shield and cancel
the animation and swap immediately.
the way you swap out the bow matters too, due to the animations your character
does to pull out the new item. pressing triangle, while being the easiest
method is also the slowest as the character takes his hands off the bow and
readies the other item. swapping your left hand item while the bow is in your
right is somewhere in the middle and swapping your the bow in your left hand to
another item is the fastest. i haven't been able to time these but i did notice
very slight differences in all of them, and they all have their strengths and
weaknesses.
okay so i can cancel the animation.. and then? this is where the fun comes in,
and where designing exactly where each item goes in your item slots starts to
matter when using the bow. but i'll leave that part up to you. however i will
explain some uses with my preferred items.
my items in the left slot are grass crest shield/fist/catalyst/talisman and
pyromancy flame (i never leave home without my gcf/gc). in my right hand is
either a rapier/uchi/cblade and my composite bow which has now entirely
replaced my gscythe on every build.
so.. right off the bat you should be able to tell that i prefer having two left
handed items at all times, and because of that i'm using the medium (untested)
switch speed for all of my bow switches. if we look at that thru my opponents
eyes, they may also know that I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO A MELEE WEAPON when i have
my bow out. that should scream out at an attentive player the moment i switch..
but... well, i think this stuff through as you can see.
lets say that i'm shooting at my opponent and they run in at me with backstab
written in their eyes. i pull the arrow back, *ree-* and suddenly my katana is
in my hands and i have full control over the movement of my character. the
enemy player, still running at me just now starts to realize what happened and
before it's to late i've backpeddled to the left/right and swung around behind
them to counterstab them.
heres another example, lets say that my opponent is sitting just at the roll in
range to hit me with a roll r1, and is baiting my shots with side rolls. they
know that once the arrows stop flying towards their last known position that i
have now since unlocked and am free aiming at them, leaving me vulnerable to
being unlocked and disoriented to any kind of roll in attack. well.. since we know
their m.o. right now, lets punish them.. right now.
i break lock and draw the arrow back, but the opponent will never see that
arrow either whiff or fly towards them.. instead, i ramp up an unlocked gcf and
lob it towards the area they're rolling to. if it hits, excellent! i can now
run in with a weapon or try for a gc as well. if it misses, the fact that i'm
suddenly throwing fireballs at them is enough disorientation for the opponent
that i can now switch my tactics and jump in to capitalize with any means that
seems fit.
Note this works with wotg and many other spells very
well. With wotg if you punished them at the end of a roll or during a run you
can even backstab them! (yay backstabs!)
*in order to do this tactic, you must have your pyromancer flame in your left
hand ready to be swapped in and your spell ready. The start of this would have
my bow in the right slot and my grass crest shield in the left, with gcf in the
spell slot.
lets say that an opponent is very readable, and is constantly chasing you and
trying to run/roll r1 you when you roll out to fire. you can swap out the bow
with this tactic and then parry at the same time the bow would of been in the
air. you can also turn around 180 degrees and parry behind you if they're going
for a roll stab.
that's just some of the stuff. you can incorporate great combustion, wrath of
the gods to a backstab, a great chaos fireball at your feet... theres a lot you
can do, and i'd suggest that you switch it up and utilize it all. if all you do
is switch to a parry every time then you're going to get punished, so try to
use it as a wild card.
lets take a step back tho, lets say that you can live without an extra left
slot item, and you've decided to put it there. theres a cool glitch in the game
that works with resins. if you have a weapon that can be buffed in your right
hand while you're holding the bow in the left slot, as well as holding the bow
with both hands you can actually buff the bow. now if you have say a chaos
composite bow, 99 humanity and fire arrows, and then you buff your weapon with
a fire resin, all of that fire damage will stack, letting you punch holes thru
an opponents fire defense. swapping the bow out in this case still works, but
if you decide to swap out to your weapon you will have to use the slower
triangle/y swap. on the plus side you'll keep your buff on your weapon tho. swapping
back to the bow at any time removes this buff, tho, so be mindful of that
this applies to all of the resins.
Now.. yeah I know what a wall of words.. there’s MOAR
I want to bring up the bows uses in terms of punishing
players. Three things in particular, when an opponent casts a large aoe spell
like fire tempest you can basically get a free headshot on them. When an
opponent moves back to either heal or grass herb you can get a free shot on
them, a headshot if you’re good at aiming, and the bow is generally great at
punishing players that swap their weapons out through the start menu. Remember it
if you see them doing these things.
Also, remember that if an opponent is within roll in r1
range, a lot of the times they’ll stand up to hit you and take an arrow to the
chest before the attack can land. Learn to time this properly and you’ll win a
lot of fights doing that.
If you’re fighting another bow user and you’ve messed
your timing up.. don’t worry, unlock that player and immediately pull back on
the left analog stick. If you pull a 180 turn like that you’ll cancel the
firing animation and can refire to time it properly.
anyways, thanks for reading. i'm sorry if this got sloppy near the end i had
some things come up and i lost my pacing. i really believe that the bow is a great weapon, and i hope that this can bring to light the uses of it to some players! hope this helped!
to jump right into this
i want to talk a little bit about the use of bows in pvp, and the amount of
depth they can add to your tactics if you choose to incorporate them.
i'm going to start with the basics and edge my way in here..
but what are the basics? well..
-they need to be held with both hands but can be put in either slot to do so.
-starting the fire animation leaves your character immobile
-can be locked on and fired, unlocked and fired which is fairly difficult and
zoomed in with L1 and aimed to fire
-shooting a player or most humanoid npcs in the head staggers them and does
more damage
-shooting a player holding a shield up anywhere in front
of them will hit the shield
-access to multiple types of damage dealing arrows, as well as ones that build
basic poison. i'll go more into depth with this later as well.
okay, that's pretty basic.. and that's what most pvper's seem to utilize when
it comes to incorporating the bow into a duel. but... there's more to it than
that. a lot actually.
lets take a look at how a player getting shot at will react, because knowing
this allows us to plan ahead and react.
-when a player is getting shot at they will most likely
a. roll/move to the side at the end of the fire animation
b. defend themselves with their shield/weapon
c. roll/run in and try to hit you
d. roll/run in and try to backstab you
e. cast a spell and try to punish your shot
f. use a bow themselves and attempt to time their shots to be able to roll out
of yours.
obviously there's more, ie. you shooting them- preferably in the head, you're
opponent running around aimlessly, spamming "well, what is it
emotes?"- whatever etc. etc., i've just listed the common ones that'll
lead to you getting harmed/punished while using the bow.
well.. now that we've got a general idea of the opponents m.o. vs bows, we can
further plan around this.
a. free aim and aim ahead of their roll
b. use poison arrows if they'll have effect
c-e. time the shot and hope it hits them at the end of their roll.. right?
well.. that's where things start to get tricky.
f. deek them out and adjust your timing.. i'll get into this in a sec.
now... the cool thing with the bow, is that unlike other weapons, like say the
great scythe's R2, FR2 or run R1 you DON'T necessarily have to commit to the
shot once you've begun the animation for the attack. BECAUSE OF THIS a punish
to your attack can be used to YOUR ADVANTAGE. (yay caps)
what are you talking about? well when you pull the arrow, the second the sound
file kicks in (the *reeemp* noise of the arrow being drawn) you can either
press triangle/y or swap out either your left or right weapon/shield and cancel
the animation and swap immediately.
the way you swap out the bow matters too, due to the animations your character
does to pull out the new item. pressing triangle, while being the easiest
method is also the slowest as the character takes his hands off the bow and
readies the other item. swapping your left hand item while the bow is in your
right is somewhere in the middle and swapping your the bow in your left hand to
another item is the fastest. i haven't been able to time these but i did notice
very slight differences in all of them, and they all have their strengths and
weaknesses.
okay so i can cancel the animation.. and then? this is where the fun comes in,
and where designing exactly where each item goes in your item slots starts to
matter when using the bow. but i'll leave that part up to you. however i will
explain some uses with my preferred items.
my items in the left slot are grass crest shield/fist/catalyst/talisman and
pyromancy flame (i never leave home without my gcf/gc). in my right hand is
either a rapier/uchi/cblade and my composite bow which has now entirely
replaced my gscythe on every build.
so.. right off the bat you should be able to tell that i prefer having two left
handed items at all times, and because of that i'm using the medium (untested)
switch speed for all of my bow switches. if we look at that thru my opponents
eyes, they may also know that I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO A MELEE WEAPON when i have
my bow out. that should scream out at an attentive player the moment i switch..
but... well, i think this stuff through as you can see.
lets say that i'm shooting at my opponent and they run in at me with backstab
written in their eyes. i pull the arrow back, *ree-* and suddenly my katana is
in my hands and i have full control over the movement of my character. the
enemy player, still running at me just now starts to realize what happened and
before it's to late i've backpeddled to the left/right and swung around behind
them to counterstab them.
heres another example, lets say that my opponent is sitting just at the roll in
range to hit me with a roll r1, and is baiting my shots with side rolls. they
know that once the arrows stop flying towards their last known position that i
have now since unlocked and am free aiming at them, leaving me vulnerable to
being unlocked and disoriented to any kind of roll in attack. well.. since we know
their m.o. right now, lets punish them.. right now.
i break lock and draw the arrow back, but the opponent will never see that
arrow either whiff or fly towards them.. instead, i ramp up an unlocked gcf and
lob it towards the area they're rolling to. if it hits, excellent! i can now
run in with a weapon or try for a gc as well. if it misses, the fact that i'm
suddenly throwing fireballs at them is enough disorientation for the opponent
that i can now switch my tactics and jump in to capitalize with any means that
seems fit.
Note this works with wotg and many other spells very
well. With wotg if you punished them at the end of a roll or during a run you
can even backstab them! (yay backstabs!)
*in order to do this tactic, you must have your pyromancer flame in your left
hand ready to be swapped in and your spell ready. The start of this would have
my bow in the right slot and my grass crest shield in the left, with gcf in the
spell slot.
lets say that an opponent is very readable, and is constantly chasing you and
trying to run/roll r1 you when you roll out to fire. you can swap out the bow
with this tactic and then parry at the same time the bow would of been in the
air. you can also turn around 180 degrees and parry behind you if they're going
for a roll stab.
that's just some of the stuff. you can incorporate great combustion, wrath of
the gods to a backstab, a great chaos fireball at your feet... theres a lot you
can do, and i'd suggest that you switch it up and utilize it all. if all you do
is switch to a parry every time then you're going to get punished, so try to
use it as a wild card.
lets take a step back tho, lets say that you can live without an extra left
slot item, and you've decided to put it there. theres a cool glitch in the game
that works with resins. if you have a weapon that can be buffed in your right
hand while you're holding the bow in the left slot, as well as holding the bow
with both hands you can actually buff the bow. now if you have say a chaos
composite bow, 99 humanity and fire arrows, and then you buff your weapon with
a fire resin, all of that fire damage will stack, letting you punch holes thru
an opponents fire defense. swapping the bow out in this case still works, but
if you decide to swap out to your weapon you will have to use the slower
triangle/y swap. on the plus side you'll keep your buff on your weapon tho. swapping
back to the bow at any time removes this buff, tho, so be mindful of that
this applies to all of the resins.
Now.. yeah I know what a wall of words.. there’s MOAR
I want to bring up the bows uses in terms of punishing
players. Three things in particular, when an opponent casts a large aoe spell
like fire tempest you can basically get a free headshot on them. When an
opponent moves back to either heal or grass herb you can get a free shot on
them, a headshot if you’re good at aiming, and the bow is generally great at
punishing players that swap their weapons out through the start menu. Remember it
if you see them doing these things.
Also, remember that if an opponent is within roll in r1
range, a lot of the times they’ll stand up to hit you and take an arrow to the
chest before the attack can land. Learn to time this properly and you’ll win a
lot of fights doing that.
If you’re fighting another bow user and you’ve messed
your timing up.. don’t worry, unlock that player and immediately pull back on
the left analog stick. If you pull a 180 turn like that you’ll cancel the
firing animation and can refire to time it properly.
anyways, thanks for reading. i'm sorry if this got sloppy near the end i had
some things come up and i lost my pacing. i really believe that the bow is a great weapon, and i hope that this can bring to light the uses of it to some players! hope this helped!
