In Patch 2.4, the developers expanded Sword Mastery for the Barbarian to include daggers into his repertoire. For future Patch 2.5, I hope they take another step and expand Throwing Mastery to include bows and crossbows in addition to throwing weapons.
I understand Bow Barbs is a very niche build with no combat skills to support, but would still like to see this build somewhat viable to have a mastery help with attack rating, damage bonus, critical chance, etc…
Ranged Mastery
Throwing Mastery is renamed to Ranged Mastery and now affects bows and crossbows in addition to throwing weapons with different set of bonuses.
I’m with Vile on this one. We have a class that specializes in Bows, as well as a Mercenary that does all well. There is nothing that a Barbarian will bring to the table by having bows as a weapon outside of it’s mastery, which functions as Pierce+ Penetrate + Critical Strike combined with the added bonus of replenishing quantity. None of his skills would make use of it, as they are all built upon melee damage other than the Double Throw Skill.
The only really viable build that this would make, with the current rules, is a Widowmaker build with Guided Arrow, that won’t even gain the pierce effect. This change would really do nothing, go nowhere without many other heavy changes, and takes away from the distinction of having a bow/crossbow class.
Also, to add, the Blade Mastery allowing Dagger class weapons to fit in, made sense. Daggers were usable with all of the Skills, the Barb has daggers that specifically work for him, and it brings in more itemization that could be used, such as Ghostflame.
I don’t think it is a good thing to have a mastery for a weapon that has no active skill that can make a use of it. I understand the appeal of having your barbarian use a bow, and how it would make sense lore-wise, but the game is probably better for properly separating the barbarian throw fantasy from the amazon bow/crossbow one.
That being said, there’s nothing forbidding players from using bows and crossbows on non-amazon characters (I have a crossbow as a secondary weapon on my paladin), it’s just not going to benefit from most skills.
Every class gets benefits to using bows in some way or another, except barbarians (the ones who have weapon masteries for all weapons…except bows, lol). Especially with the new changes to throwing mastery, and blade mastery, it only makes sense and is natural for bows/xbows to be included as new “Ranged Mastery” replacing Throwing Mastery. All it would do is give barbs something to help with using bows/xbows. It wouldn’t invalidate anything for anyone. As someone who already uses a Xbow barb with upped Buriza and Hellrack, dont worry, getting a mastery for them won’t break anytning in any way. Just allows such a build to be slightly more viable and slightly more fun.
Agreed. You would think a Barbarian would be semi-competent using bow/crossbow. Plus, bow/crossbow would be a fun secondary weapon. Having the Barbarian being able to use a bow/crossbow somewhat effectively would not invalidate the Amazon in any way, as she has proper bow skills.
Just want bonus to attack rating, damage bonus to be somewhat viable. The Barbarian should be able to use normal attacks using bow/crossbow and actually hit stuff.
It seems to me that this would push barbarian players to forsake thrown weapons entirely in favor of bows, as it would be efficient for a lot less investment, even if double throw happened to compensate the difference in power between top-end bows/crossbows and top-end thrown weapons.
I really believe the game is better by not giving barbarians a mastery that applies to bows and crossbows.
I understand what you are saying, but if players want to play a Bow Barb, why not let them play a very niche build? A Throw Barb will still be a fun playstyle and it is a powerful build. This restriction just feels prohibitive and a Bow Barb is still medicore, albeit fun to play.
Usual stuff like in other masteries - attack rating, damage and critical hit chance, but in addition I’d add knockback and pierce chance, as these fit to a barbarian who is able to draw strongly even heaviest of bows/crossbows.
From my understanding, Throwing Mastery already has chance to pierce. If the developers renamed to Ranged Mastery, Barbarians could be flexible and use throwing weapons with double throw or bows/crossbows with normal attacks. Seems reasonable to me.