Warden Vs Master peltast

[Coconut]

Let's take a look at end game Warden vs End game MP

Warden items:

Spoiler

Tracker Hood:            1 Weight
Leviathans Guard:      12 Weight
Heavy Bear Gauntlets: 2 weight
Leviathan Boots:        1 weight

Typhoon + Zephyr : 60p, 82 speed, 2 Weight
Halogis:                                        4 Weight

22 Weight total

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Master Peltast items:

Spoiler

Barbutte:                    2 Weight
Tiger Scale:                 3 weight
Light Plated Gauntlets: 1 weight
Lionhide boots:           1 weight

Rupturers: 66p, 82 speed, 5 weight

12 Weight total (10 weight if you use twigs instead of rups)

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Wardens get only 8 athletics, and Master peltasts(+ all pikemen get 10).

This doesnt really make sense to me as Master Peltasts you would think are like a mix of melee+Ranged. All pike heroes require

Ranged XP: 40000
Melee XP:  260000

And archers you would think would be ALL RANGED, and only using melee when say an assassin spawns on them or emergencies.
All archers heroes require ONLY ranged XP

Ranged XP: 300000

Warden 8 athletics, 19 weight
Master peltast 10 athletics 12 weight

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Now you might be thinking, hey archers arent supposed to kite, they can stay behind barricades and shoot ranged.

I've personally used both rupturers and Typhoon with Zephyr, and I can say 100% Rups are way better. Rups are WAY more noticable. 
You can 1 shot wave 8 Valkeries in the head with rups, Tyhpoon with Zephyr sadly cannot, they cant even 1 shot Einherjars that spawn with tyr....

You might also think, hey archers are supposed to kill the nord ranged so it speeds up the run, Master peltast with Volcanics are pinpoint, and rups are really accurate as well so they dont even have the advantage in that.

Rups, Twigs, and DB all Penetrate shields as well so while an archer is shooting at Juggernauts and Followers and Queens hitting their shield 7/10 times, A pikeman is easily penetrating them.

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Lets sum this up.

A complete End game Warden can weigh up to 22 Weight!!! and has only 8 atheltics
An end game master peltast has only 10-12 Weight and 10 atheltics + Their armors stats are way better

Pikeman can penetrate shields
Wardens have a very hard time penetrating shields
Rups can 1 shot Valkeries( and other things as they do way more damage than tyhpoon+zephyr)
Wardens only have 4 power strike
Master Peletast has 7 power strike

It just doesnt make sense to me that the warden the class that is meant to be to 100% ranged is being outdone by the class that is supposed to be like 75% ranged 25% melee. outdone in both ability to run fast and ability to do damage.

Thoughts? Can anyone explain in what way end game warden is anywhere near end game pike?
What do you think should be changed?
I think tyhpoon+zephyr should be at least 66p, or give warden +1 power draw

[Bobo]

Makes sense to me. I'd support the buff in athletics for Wardens. The weight of gear is another story, one can dress light when in need for speed...

[Coconut]

Makes sense to me. I'd support the buff in athletics for Wardens. The weight of gear is another story, one can dress light when in need for speed...

not only they weigh less, they have way more armor

[Leandero]

The Archer and specifically Warden seems to get the short end of the stick in this comparison indeed. The redeeming factor is the pinpoint aim and increased attack frequency when standing still but if you add movement to the mix he ability to aim decreases drastically, the pikeman doesn't suffer as much in that regard. (And yes I know about the stagger/jump tactic for both classes but the warden suffers with kiting because of the lower athletics and higher weight of the armour in general.)

Regarding the damage: The +1 powerdraw sounds good, the damage of the Warden seems underwhelming compared with the Master Peltast. Personally I would love it if the Warden would shoot 2 arrows at once at roughly the same point. The first arrow hitting at the point where you aim and the other arrow flying a similar trajectory hitting the target slightly under the first arrow. (At the cost of 1 arrow otherwise ammo will become problematic) I think this would be fitting for the Warden. The full barrage like some Nords do would be overpowered but 2 arrows could be fine. The downside of this is that it might feel slightly less realistic but to be fair 40 Nords hitting a shielder and the shielder not budging or carrying a wall in the size of a log or carrying 3 shields on top of eachother isn't really realistic either.

Regarding the penetration: the bows could get a chance to pierce. Increasing with tier making the orange and red legendary bows the top 2 piercing bow tiers.

The athletics is an other story, decreasing the weight of the archers armour and giving + 1 athletics would get the archer more in line with the pikemen with kiting. The archers would still be more squishy (except maybe the Rangers) but at least the mobility might save you when you have lighter armour. I do get why the pikemen need more armour as they are more likely to melee. In general the archers armour weighs more and gives less armour value.

The sentinel feels a bit out of place as it is now, you can hit well as long as there is 1 enemy but with more you aren't quick enough to do hit and run attacks with melee. The other Archers don't do much damage and with the Aurora Blade equip option removed the Warden and Ranger are almost better off spawning without melee weapons. Extra power strike might help defend themselves vs assassins a bit better but I would rather see the archers do more ranged damage.

The hard part is balancing these changes in a way that the archer doesn't become the "flavour of the update" hero. Making others demand buffs etcetera.

[Bobo]

Well, archers are supposed to have lighter armour than pikemen, agreed.
When it comes to shield penetration for arrows: I'm against it. Arrows are light, how could they penetrate strongly?
2 arrows fire seems to me, yes, unrealistic. Also that would make archers OP way too much, that would simply lead to 1 shot kill most of the times. I can imagine those runs with only archers in server...

[Winter]

I think tyhpoon+zephyr should be at least 66p, or give warden +1 power draw

Buffing the highest end of items that hardly anyone has won't fix any of the issues with the classes you claim, especially when over half of the volume of your argument relates to weight/run speed and kiting, in which I do agree you have a point.

Adding power draw to archer would only increase the amount of time you can hold your aim closed at this point.  This also would have no effect on the issues you claim.

I am not sure that Warden does outdo Master Peltast in ranged.  In my experience, it was always skilled Wardens like Tsuki and Nka at the top, followed by well-geared Master Peltasts like Sargeant Q.  I wonder if top-tier ranged players and kiters could weigh in on this.

I would love it if the Warden would shoot 2 arrows at once at roughly the same point.

Regarding the penetration: the  bows could get a chance to pierce. Increasing with tier making the orange and red legendary bows the top 2 piercing bow tiers. 

The athletics is an other story, decreasing the weight of the archers armour and giving + 1 athletics would get the archer more in line with the pikemen with kiting. The archers would still be more squishy (except maybe the Rangers) but at least the mobility might save you when you have lighter armour. I do get why the pikemen need more armour as they are more likely to melee. In general the archers armour weighs more and gives less armour value.

The hard part is balancing these changes in a way that the archer doesn't become the "flavour of the update" hero. Making others demand buffs etcetera.

Kip has stated very firmly that Swadians will never shoot multiple arrows and Hypernoma has stated archers will never have "true" shield penetration (as opposed to shooting over the top at the head, even though it is visually covered by the model).  I doubt either of these decisions will change.

The athletics and weight arguments are agreeable.

Flavor of the month -> power creep confirmed.

[Coconut]

Wardens compared to MP have

Less Damage
Same Speed (82)
More weight
Less Athletics
Less armor value
Less melee ability (4 compared to 7 power strike)
Can't jump throw
Can't shoot while running (uesful for pikeman to jiggle peak throw to maintain a constant stream of throwables without delay)
Cant pen shields
Can't heal fast(healing/toming takes throwing skill)

At least 1-2 of these values should be increased for the ranged class and the 100% ranged Hero
Warden is kinda dissapointing, needs more of a class identity

[Winter]

Wardens compared to MP have

Less Damage
Same Speed (82)
More weight
Less Athletics
Less armor value
Less melee ability (4 compared to 7 power strike)
Can't jump throw
Can't shoot while running (uesful for pikeman to jiggle peak throw to maintain a constant stream of throwables without delay)
Cant pen shields
Can't heal fast(healing/toming takes throwing skill)

At least 1-2 of these values should be increased for the ranged class and the 100% ranged Hero
Warden is kinda dissapointing, needs more of a class identity

Warden is pogchamp confirmed.

Boring Weight Stuff

It is also worth mentioning that you didn't count the throwing weapon 4 times (once for each slot), used the very lightest (and fairly rare) Master Peltast armor which is locked to the class (it is reasonable to assume that any Warden locked armor would also be fairly light), and used Halogi's Torch, an overly heavy item most archers probably don't have. Correcting for this, we would have a Warden with 20 weight (19 with EK) and a Master Peltast with 27. It could also be argued that if someone really wanted to be as light as possible and was willing to sacrifice armor for it, the Warden could reach 6 weight and a Master Peltast 20 with the items you listed.

Boring Class Comparison Stuff

Pikeman may have a higher damage per shot, but given the higher propensity for headshots due to higher accuracy and higher rate of fire, Wardens actually have higher DPS depending on the Nord. The accuracy you are citing only occurs with the very best weapons in the game and is not indicative of innate class imbalance. However, this argument is entirely based on Nord HP threshholds. As you stated, some of the stronger Nords like Valkyries die in one headshot instead of two for Master Peltasts. This is only because the damage you are putting out just so happens to barely pass over the threshhold for the spears and is just barely under for the bow, and I would again argue that this only occurs with the very best items.

The game handles speed differently between weapon types. Having the same value for rate of fire between bows and throwing does not mean they fire at an equal rate. The Heavy War Hammer has a speed of 82, is it also just as fast?

Weight is debated above.

Lower athletics is factually correct.

More melee ability (and less armor value) makes sense given that Warden is, as you said, the "100% ranged Hero"

Jump throwing isn't particularly accurate and usually has very low damage output because of it. Its strategic significance is minimal.

I'm not quite sure what jiggle peaking is, but I'm guessing it is when you pre-cock your arm to throw before peaking. Wardens can do this to a small extent by beginning the draw before peaking, but you are correct that Master Peltasts do it better. However, one could argue that Wardens have higher accuracy (again, other than at the top of the weapon chain) and that more than makes up for it in the world of peaking.

Piercing shields can be useful, but it does significantly reduced damage to the point where, due to threshholds, many Nords will still take the same number of hits to kill after the shield is broken (1 or 2 lol). In this case, you could spend an extra four spears breaking a shield before doing the normal two hits to kill him. With Warden, however, you could have already done two headshots and be on to the next one. I would greatly prefer killing Juggernauts, Followers of X, and Queensguard with a bow than with throwing spears, as the accuracy (and projectile speed, something that has yet to be mentioned but makes a massive difference on overall accuracy) makes popping their heads much easier and quicker than trying to brute force your way through shields.

The increased speed of using medic boxes and other deployables is one small advantage Master Peltasts hold over other classes.

I am not sure that as a whole these differences make Master Peltast better than Warden. I'm also not sure if you are arguing for team based play, kiting, or in general. It also isn't clear if you mean in general or only at the highest level of play, as you only cite the rarest, strongest weapons. However, most importantly, you have yet to cite one thing you specifically want fixed in conjunction with a proper way to fix it. The athletics could be argued The two suggestions that were made were both shown to not be effective (increasing damage on Typhoon and Zephyr only helps the 3ish people that have them, adding a power draw to Warden won't actually increase damage as they have already crossed the Power Draw/Difficulty threshhold). It is hard to argue about subjective things like "which class is better" and time would be better spent on arguing numbers, problems, and solutions.

TL;DR - What specifically are you proposing be changed? This seems like a large opinion piece that only discusses the experience of using the very best weapons and armor in the game, but somehow uses that anecdotal evidence to support the claim that Wardens are overpowered by Master Peltasts altogether, prefaced by the weight and athletics comparison that is the only source of credibility the argument has, and yet those still only account for the best items and only argues on one part of what makes these classes different. The easiest (least experience, least costly) class to kite and get far on is archer. Even at top-tier items, Wardens tend to get significantly higher scores both in team play and in kiting. In what way should we quantify which class is better, and what steps should be taken to make them all equal?

[Nka19]

Well don't forget the fact archers shoots faster and further and more accurate. So double headshot on some nords isn't a huge deal. Can 1 shot most of the nords anyways. Tho there was a time i felt some shots were being too weak, but in general I don't mind it. Also I think tyr's einherjars do fall by 1 headshot. Maybe not those with sheilds, but those with only axes should as far as i remember.

I do agree on weight as well, it feels like gear is slowing me down more then it should sometimes but in most cases i can still outrun almost all nords so it's probably fair enough (i do own heavy bear set tho).

In general, I don't really mind how it is at the moment. I do miss old bow speeds a bit, but i kinda got used to it, or maybe it's cause i own faster bow now and it finally feels correct.

[Stillicho]

The not piercing shields isn't that big a deal on a warden tbh, get withing 10 feet, take one step with bow drawn, they drop shield, headshot. Dead nord. Skilled archers that kite know this already. 
Also, with warden you get 2x the ammo a pikeman does, so there's that. They each have their pro's and cons tbh. I always thought of archer as a skill class with making the nords drop shields and pikeman as a spear chucker if I wanna be lazy for the night  .