Hey everyone,

so the weak performance of ranged heroes/lords is kinda a ongoing topic. With exceptions like Empire Engineers and the Sisters of Twilight, most ranged characters are just underperforming.

But that is not the topic I wanted to talk about today. I wanted to talk about Hybrid Characters. And how they kinda feel like melee characters with a ranged afterthought.

Examples:

Gate Maters (Cathay) are hybrid characters, but actually can only upgrade their melee and defence stats. The only ranged stat they can upgrade is ammunition. That's it.

Handmaidens (HE) can upgrade their ranged stats a bit more - but only in an exclusive tree that locks you out of others. The normal combat tree exclusively buffs their melee combat.

This leads to the situation that their ranged attacks really fall off during a campaign. A level 1 character might be almost equally strong in both, but soon enough their ranged is still the same strength but their melee is way stronger.

So why is that? And should it be changed/reworked?

Thankfully those characters only buff their melee skills, as they would otherwise become even more un-usable.

The Empire Engineer is totally overtuned and need some balancing.

But the base stats of all other ranged characters should be improved in some way, as some ranged skill points cannot remedy it when a character has bad base stats.

+1 for ranged buffs to ranged lords/heroes with the exception of Empire Engineers, certain LLs, and possibly chaos dwarf lords/heroes.

I think that the solution is to stop making these characters; especially the ones that are designed to operate independently of their army. 

If CA makes them good at shooting their enemies, then people will protest like they did back when Witch Hunters could kill that Greenskin character. 

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buggy_environment#6687 wrote:

Thankfully those characters only buff their melee skills, as they would otherwise become even more un-usable.

The Empire Engineer is totally overtuned and need some balancing.

But the base stats of all other ranged characters should be improved in some way, as some ranged skill points cannot remedy it when a character has bad base stats.

In what way is the engineer over-tuned?

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buggy_environment#6687 wrote:

Thankfully those characters only buff their melee skills, as they would otherwise become even more un-usable.

The Empire Engineer is totally overtuned and need some balancing.

But the base stats of all other ranged characters should be improved in some way, as some ranged skill points cannot remedy it when a character has bad base stats.

How would they become more un-usable if you could also buff their ranged stats through skills?

How can anything ever become worse (less usable) by getting more skill options?

They're fine. Ranged characters can very easily become toxic to play against. Simply having a ranged attack to begin wkth is a massive advantage in itself. They're supposed to be stronger up close as otherwise they'd be a pain to deal with

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GreenColoured#3418 wrote:

They're fine. Ranged characters can very easily become toxic to play against. Simply having a ranged attack to begin wkth is a massive advantage in itself. They're supposed to be stronger up close as otherwise they'd be a pain to deal with

That doesn't sound to me like an opinion someone with strong familiarity with ranged characters in this game would hold.

The player consensus (as I understand it) is and has been pretty strong that low model counts are generally bad for ranged units, and ones which manage to be good in spite of having low model count tend to have something very unfair going for them.

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Data5#9904 wrote:

For gate master it kind off make sense. You become a better duelist but a crossbow isn't something that scale well with skill. 

But it could also be seen as getting better equipment or something. Does the dwarf engineer hero not get the ability to pick a shot-gun like style of attack eventually? I would assume that comes about from a different gun, not simply skill?

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Aneerah#2767 wrote:

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Data5#9904 wrote:

For gate master it kind off make sense. You become a better duelist but a crossbow isn't something that scale well with skill. 

But it could also be seen as getting better equipment or something. Does the dwarf engineer hero not get the ability to pick a shot-gun like style of attack eventually? I would assume that comes about from a different gun, not simply skill?

I mean, we quite litterally have skills that give different ammunition - that obviously is not a "skill" but rather change in equipment. So yeah, you are right. Skills do not reflect only "skill" stuff, but also other changes. Mounts are also in the skills tab and while riding a horse is a skill, getting a better horse later on isn't.

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Aneerah#2767 wrote:

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Data5#9904 wrote:

For gate master it kind off make sense. You become a better duelist but a crossbow isn't something that scale well with skill. 

But it could also be seen as getting better equipment or something. Does the dwarf engineer hero not get the ability to pick a shot-gun like style of attack eventually? I would assume that comes about from a different gun, not simply skill?

He start with the repeating crossbow from celestial dragon guard so it's already best crossbow in game. 

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Data5#9904 wrote:

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Aneerah#2767 wrote:

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Data5#9904 wrote:

For gate master it kind off make sense. You become a better duelist but a crossbow isn't something that scale well with skill. 

But it could also be seen as getting better equipment or something. Does the dwarf engineer hero not get the ability to pick a shot-gun like style of attack eventually? I would assume that comes about from a different gun, not simply skill?

He start with the repeating crossbow from celestial dragon guard so it's already best crossbow in game. 

Exactly. What you describe as the "best crossbow in the game" isn't enough to lift this guys impact out of sheer mediocrity. That's the entirety of the point. There's something fundamentally weak about a character using a ranged attack. It's especially true of arcing projectiles like crossbows. 

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Data5#9904 wrote:

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Aneerah#2767 wrote:

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Data5#9904 wrote:

For gate master it kind off make sense. You become a better duelist but a crossbow isn't something that scale well with skill. 

But it could also be seen as getting better equipment or something. Does the dwarf engineer hero not get the ability to pick a shot-gun like style of attack eventually? I would assume that comes about from a different gun, not simply skill?

He start with the repeating crossbow from celestial dragon guard so it's already best crossbow in game. 

Okay, but you see how I wasn't talking just about the Gate Master when I mentioned a dwarf hero, but leveling up characters in general :D