Melee, Ranged, and Magic are the 3 fundamental damage types in this game. Close combat skills work with tons of weapons like knuckles, lances, chainblades, dual guns, shurikens, etc. Magic bolts can be used with anything as well as healing, the magic shields, and mana shield. Archery is a lonely skillset that can only be used with bows and crossbows.
I think that there should be a skill called [Aiming] and at Rank 1 it should add 10% damage to ranged attacks (20% for Elves) when equipped with ammo (javelins, arrows, bullets), 50% bonus aim speed and allow Archery Skills to be usable for Dual Guns, Shurikens, and Atlatls. These skills would use the ammo of the weapon or in the case of the shuriken, no ammo.
Humans and Elves would be able to use Atlatls. To use the archery skills you would still need to aim like with Bows but now you have access to a Support Shot, stun, a possible Dan 3 Magnum Shot, Mirage Missle, and other skills while using Dual Guns, Shurikens, and Atlatls.
This skill would be only for Humans and Elves. This skill would do so much for the Elves and ranged attacks. Giants have benefits with Smash, Counter, Defense, Windmill, and Charge. Not to forget, Combo Mastery, the use of Lances, and the ability to use 2-handed swords in one hand and access to the only large shields in the game. While they don't have the use of Archery, since their release they can use Dual Guns, Shurikens, their exclusive Atlatls, and now Chainblades. Elves get bonuses in none of these weapons. Meanwhile, Smash, Counter, Defense, and Windmill are used for everything including Control Bars, Shurikens, Transformation Mastery, Instruments, Scythes, Bolt magic-counter combos, the list could go on forever.
What this skill would do is allow Archery to have more of an impact in other ranged weapons in the same way that Close Combat affects things like Knuckles and Dreamcatchers while at the same time, give Elves a perk in ranged damage that they don't have with anything but archery.
Comments
I like it. Too bad giants don't get atlatl crash shot.
I don't know if it's still a bug, but we can get Magnum shot. However, as soon as you log or CC it goes away. I had it for about half an hour. It was nice going back and forth between throwing attack and magnum shot; use one while the other cools down!
Yeah similar to combat mastery, it'd be a skill that would shift elves from being "good at archery" to "good at physical ranged combat". I just tested it today and it's kind of sad but Dual Guns, Shurikens, and Chainblades increase in max damage with Combat Mastery and not Ranged attack. You can sort of make a case for Shurikens and Chainblades but at least Dual Guns should be increased by Ranged Attack.
It's a shame about Crash Shot but Stomp>Windmill is pretty nice.
I agree that "ranged mastery" is practically the character's mastery over ballistics. We could even call it the Ballistics skill.
Lore-wise I 100% get what you mean but mechanics-wise I'd be worried about Shuriken and Chainblade having damage from both masteries and having a weapon mastery. I figure this is why Dual Guns, Atlatls, Shurikens, and Puppetry scale from strength. They all require force from the player. (Dual Gun skills needing a lot because of the movement from the acrobatics.)
You could derive all to-hit and damage calculations for any discipline from strength and dexterity alone. This would be more in-line with folks who are "natural athletes" and so on. The skills reflect the specific training and muscle memory required to perform any such actions. You could say then that combat mastery is the skill of combining strength and dexterity to direct that force via your limbs in a very controlled specific way.
As for duel guns, although acrobatical, the actual part of the action involved in specifically inflicting damage does not depend on that directly. In the case of shooting rush where you hit multiple enemies at once, since the geometry of each attack is unique (enemy placement vis-avis ones self) this would then have to rely on instincts more than specific skill training, in terms moving from target to target, which would be properly handled by dexterity. Of course since this is a video game, you just push a button and it plays a movie for you so it doesn't really rely on that.