Point Blank Archer Keystone

Let's have a discussion about the specifics of this keystone. As it stands, it's description is fairly vague. I'd like to take this keystone on my bow ranger, but I'm somewhat reluctant, not knowing if I'd be harming my current playstyle or not.

First of all, does this keystone actively reduce your damage at long range, or does it merely provide no bonus to damage at longer distances? Also, if it does reduce your damage, how much of a penalty is it? It says +50% at very close range, and I assume it tapers off as distance increases, but how bad does the penalty get for an enemy that is off the screen or just barely selectable at the edge of the screen?

Second, how quickly does the damage bonus drop off? If I take this keystone, will I have to stay in melee range to see any significant benefit? Or will I be able to still see a healthy bonus of about +25% if I stay 2 or 3 body lengths away from my enemies?

And lastly, does the bonus/penalty apply to all damage that I do with a bow? Or only the physical damage? Does it apply to the damage over time effect caused by Poison Arrow? If it only affects physical damage, will it affect damage that ends up getting converted to elemental before hitting the enemy?

I'd appreciate any clarification that can be given. Also feel free to voice any other questions you may have about this keystone here.

^ Exactly what he said.

This keystone needs more specific information in the popup window on the passives screen.

It doesn't mention anything about a DPS nerf at long distance, so I don't see the point in discussing it.

The damage scales as a monster comes closer. At any range outside it's effective zone your DPS would remain the same as it was before you chose the passive.

The passive does not make any mention regarding particular types of damage, so it should apply +50% to any damage you may cause, provided you are at close enough range.

What exactly that range is, I am not sure, but I would assume the closer the better.

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Wittgenstein wrote:

It doesn't mention anything about a DPS nerf at long distance, so I don't see the point in discussing it.

"but deal less damage to further away targets" sounds like a damagemalus for far away targets to me ;)
and a keystone that's like "hey you want some extra damage?" would be odd when you compare it with the others, usually they have a downside ;)...and +50% sounds to much for something with no donside

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Btah wrote:

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Wittgenstein wrote:

It doesn't mention anything about a DPS nerf at long distance, so I don't see the point in discussing it.

"but deal less damage to further away targets" sounds like a damagemalus for far away targets to me ;)
and a keystone that's like "hey you want some extra damage?" would be odd when you compare it with the others, usually they have a downside ;)...and +50% sounds to much for something with no donside

Right, I just assumed that refered to the damage dropping off below the +50% when the mob is at range. It doesn't say that your overall dps is effected.

I think the "downside" is that you have to let the mob get close to you in the first place.

Maybe I am entirely wrong.

when you deal from 100% to 150% of your "without keystone"-damage, dealing those 100% here and there isn't a downside ;)

tl;dr: I took Point Blank Archer keystone. I tested it. I refunded my points and will not pick it up again until changes are made. Read on to find out why!

I asked GGG about the specifics on the damage dropoff, but got no reply. Being the impatient person, I did my own testing. I tested this on Plague Vomit, boss zombie in the Fetid Pool area, since he has a good amount of life and is slow enough to allow me to more or less control the distance that he is at. Essentially I just killed him one way, see how many hits he took, rinse, record, repeat. Here is what I found:

1) Rain of Arrows does NOT work with this keystone. At all. The damage remained the same up close or at the edge of the screen. Rain of Arrows is probably not flagged as a projectile, since Faster Projectiles support gem had to be specifically enabled for it AFAIK, so it might be a similar issue.

2) I am not sure if there is a smooth damage curve the father you are from the target, but for the purposes of testing, I divided up the distance into three zones:

- Melee range: at point blank (melee) range, the damage indeed seems to be roughly 50% more as advertised. Unfortunately, this zone seems to be quite small - it doesn't seem to be much bigger than melee range, hence the name.

- Half the distance to screen edge: this is a pretty large area, where you do normal (100%) damage. It doesn't seem to stretch out much further than half the distance from your character to the edge of the screen.

- Edge of the screen: anything that lies closer to the edges of your screen will take half of your normal damage (so 50% less).

So what is my opinion of this? With Maelstrom of Chaos being what it is right now, being in melee range of anything is just asking for a one way trip to town. Since ranged users pretty much have to keep the distance away from melee, this keystone is somewhat counter-productive, and most of the damage done will be either normal, or reduced to half by the keystone.


I suppose this is the part where I provide constructive criticism on how can it be made better... 1) Fix RoA bug 2) Reduce the far distance penalty to 33% or buff the point blank damage buff 3) Increase the area where damage increase buff takes effect - or just make it so that I can actually be in point blank range and not die in seconds.

Until then, my advice is to save those two points (or more) that you would have spend on this and put them into increased bow damage or something similar, that will get you a far more reliable damage increase.

I like it, great counter to fast melee enemies. Why run when you can kill them?
The risk vs reward of standing face to face with a rare zombie keeps me thinking.

Most of the time it seems like I'm just doing normal damage, but the up close bonus is worth more to me than the long-range malus takes away.

But I don't think my opinion counts for much on this one. Any accusations of bias would be hard to refute :)

I'm also wondering if explosive arrow charges will work with this passive. You could build charges as the enemy closes and let them go off or quickly close distance on ranged mobs (or lightning warp?) to get within melee range.

If I get curious enough, I may try it out with one of my rangers that haven't had passives reassigned yet... In fact, I might still have a legacy character that was already built for explosive arrow...