The Act I cold rogue has a very short range for their cold arrow. When they shoot within their normal attack range, their cold arrows simply disappear midways.
I thought that was an original game bug, but it seems like it’s the same in D2R.
Is this intentional? Or is there a fix already?
Sorry if this is already brought up. Somehow I haven’t seen anyone mentioning this anywhere (forums, Arreat Summit and youtube included).
Probably because no one else is experiencing this.
I can’t speak for other players, but I haven’t experienced this in 21 years of playing D2:LoD or D2:R. And that includes the D2:R PTR now that henchmen have 3 Skills. (For me that means: Inner Sight, Cold Arrow and Freezing Arrow).
I’m sorry that you are experiencing this issue. Now that you’ve reported it, I’m sure Blizzard’s QA Team will look into it.
Thank you for replying.
This is very strange. I just tried the cold rogue again (and a new bowazon), and the same happened. The cold arrow reaches about 5/6 distance to the corners, while the fire arrow and normal arrow would go beyond eye sight.
This would be okay for the player as most targets will be in that range. But the cold rogue often stand far behind me, and her cold arrows won’t reach the targets. She will still shoot because the target is within her normal attack range, only to have the cold arrows disappear before the hit.
I tried a level 50 cold rogue too, still the same range.
I have played this game consistently in the past 20+ years too, on multiple computers. While I can’t remember how it was in the beginning, for patch 1.14 and the current D2R, this feature is still there.
Thank you for reading.
Just want to give an update on this issue.
In 2.4 the reduced range on cold arrow persists, for both Amazon and Act 1 cold rogue.
I found this discussion from 7 years ago, talking about this same issue.
GameFAQs, “When did they nerf the Cold Arrow Rogue?”
I hope this can get fixed.
Cold Arrow having a short range is very likely intended, this isn’t new to D2R.
https://www.theamazonbasin.com/wiki/index.php/Cold_Arrow
Cold Arrow has the same velocity as a normal arrow but half the range (20 vs 40 frames), so it only travels 50% of the distance and can only hit targets off-screen when they are directly to the left, right and bottom of the screen. Targets must be within a ~14 2/3 yard radius.
Having said that, it’s a seemingly arbitrary design choice. I would like to see the range increased to be the same as Fire Arrow.
You are right. This issue has been around for a years. It was one of the reasons I never used a cold rogue despite being an archer fan.
Now with the general improvement on all non-Act 2 mercs, I am giving them another try, and found out it’s still the same. For me, the main reason to use Act 1 cold rogue is for the freezing arrows. That fortunately is not affected by this short range. In fact, no other Amazon bow skills suffer from this issue. It seems to be a very unnecessary hindrance on a already weak skill.
I am currently playing as a melee. So the short range isn’t too much a problem, as the rogue generally stand close enough. But if the character is ranged already, like a bowazon, you will just have to accept that your rogue won’t hit a thing whenever she uses cold arrows.
I’d still like for cold arrow to share the same range as fire arrow (and most other bow skills), it’s likely not a bug but some strange arbitrary design decision.
It’s a big issue for the A1 mercs because they keep their distance from enemies meaning cold arrows often disappear before they can hit. It’s a needless disadvantage to the cold spec over the fire spec and should have the range increased as a sort of QoL improvement.
This can be done in missiles.txt by changing coldarrow’s “Range” column to 40 (it’s currently 20), thus giving it equal range as most of the other bow skills (fire arrow, ice arrow, etc.).